“That is not a politically correct response.”
“I give a shit?”
I exhaled sharply. “What’re you doing now?”
“Why? You actually got time for me?”
“I saw you Sunday,” I replied defensively.
“No, I know. It’s just different now, right?”
And it was.
We used to be partners.We used to ride around in a car together all day, every day, unless we were writing up reports. We used to eat all our meals together, even dinner, and I knew everything that was going on with him and vice versa. But four years ago, Kage had promoted a lot of us, and Jer and I were set on different paths, him to the first floor of our building in Judicial Support, and me out to stand in front of crowds of reporters to smile and wave. We had to make time to see each other, which was strange, and we were navigating that, and then the pandemic hit, and somewhere in there, he met Anna Bannon.
I liked Anna, I did. It was simply that—as I saw it in the beginning—she infringed on the little time we had, and I resented her a bit. I wasn’t great with change, and our first get-togethers had been strained and awkward.
“If you alienate her,”Cel warned me as he sat beside me on my couch, binge-watchingStranger Things, which he had never seen,“you run the risk of losing your friend.”
I didn’t say a word.
“Perhaps,”he said sagely,“instead of looking at her like an obstacle, you should find out what she’s about and see if she’s someone you could likeapartfrom Jer. Determine if she’s friend material.”
I did a slow pan to him.
“Don’t be selfish,”Cel said.“Learn to share your friends.”
“I don’t share you,”I reminded him.
“That’s because I’m not involved with anyone at the moment.”
I scoffed.“Like there’d ever be anyone more important than me.”
“You’re exhausting,”he assured me.
“So you’ve said,”I teased him.
Jer was in love with Anna, so if I wanted to keep him in my life, I had to put forth real effort. Interestingly, once I did, I found I liked her quite a bit. She was a fourth-grade teacher, and unlike Jer, who was not good with kids at all, I was fantastic with them. Anna had gushed to her boyfriend about how wonderful I was.
“Eli didn’t scare anybody,”she told Jer, pinning him with her stare.“There was no mention of hunting criminals or long, boring, overly technical discussions of how the justice system worked,”she finished sharply.“Or anything about prison.”
Jer shot me a look.
“What?”
“Even Ian was better with the kids than you, Jer,”she apprised him,“and he was showing them quick self-defense moves. I was answering emails about it for days!”
Jer crossed his arms and stopped talking.
Anna and I had a million things to talk about, because it turned out we both loved science fiction and followed soccer and cheered on Arsenal F.C. Jer, who somehow could not keep the rules straight in his head, was shushed the entire game.
“Explain offsides again,”he’d demanded, and Anna had turned to me with a whimper.
We were friends by then.
When people could go out again, and could prove they were vaccinated, Jer and Anna got married. Miro and the rest of the guys paid special attention to the vows because they got to hear that Jer’s real name was Jerzy.
“No shit,”Ian had said a bit too loudly, and everyone laughed.