Page 68 of We Could Be Heroes

Up-front? the other Will parried. From the man who, as far as the entire world is aware, dates women?

Touché.

This battle of Wills continued throughout the night, in which he desperately clawed at sleep in fitful ten-minute spells before snapping awake again, and into the morning, so that by the time he arrived at Gilroy’s for his shift, anxiety and exhaustion had teamed up to turn his stomach into a roiling, intricate Celtic knot.

He went through the motions of opening the shop, pulling up the shutters that covered the window display, turning on the till, things he had done hundreds of times before but which felt distant and alien today, performed by somebody else’s hands.

He sold a clothbound edition of Emma to somebody who thought it was a real find and didn’t have the heart to explain that it was actually a reprint that came out three years ago. He took three messages for Yvonne over the phone and then afterward couldn’t make sense of what he had written down. When April arrived at ten a.m. with their usual coffee order, his tasted both bitter and sickly sweet. Three sips were enough to give him painful indigestion, and he poured it down the sink when April wasn’t looking.

Jordan dropped in at noon as he did semi-frequently, at a loss for lunch plans, and the three of them ordered gyros from the Greek place next to the train station. Will stared into space, picking at a stray piece of onion, until finally Jordan and April ceased their conversation and Jordan asked, “What the hell is wrong with you today?”

“Nothing,” Will said instantly.

“Bollocks.” Jordan delicately dabbed tzatziki from the corners of his mouth with a serviette. “You are never this quiet. Ninjas are never this quiet.”

“I’m just tired,” said Will. “I didn’t sleep very well.”

“Oh,” said April. “I see. You didn’t sleep well, because…” She winked.

“Because you were getting dicked down!” Jordan said. “Dicked all the way down to Chinatown!”

“Yeah,” said Will, weakly. “I was. I mean, we did.”

“You don’t look happy about that,” said April. “It has been a while for me. I don’t know whether it’s different for us straights, but I would be happy.”

“I am,” said Will, even less convincingly. “I mean, that part was good. Great. Top-notch. I mean, fucking hell, you have no idea.”

“Then why the long face?” Jordan’s eyebrows contracted slightly, doing their best to furrow despite the paralyzing agent between them.

“It’s nothing.”

“It seems like something.” Jordan leaned closer, as if he might be able to sniff the truth above the onions. “Was it chem sex?”

“Pardon?”

“Did you two take a load of drugs and shag until dawn and now you’re dealing with friction burns and the existential dread of a comedown?”

“Fucking hell, Jordan, no! Patrick doesn’t even vape.”

“Then what?” Jordan looked to April, then back at Will. “Something’s up. Our bestie senses are tingling. It’s a real thing, it’s basically a superpower all of its own, don’t question me on that, April knows what I’m talking about. Now spill.”

Will was too tired to protest, and so he told them both what had happened the night before, eliding the more graphic details and focusing on the way it had ended.

“He’s under a lot of pressure at work,” he said. “And maybe I’m being overly sensitive, but…it’s not on, is it?”

Neither April nor Jordan spoke for a moment.

“Oh god. Am I making a big deal over nothing?” Will asked.

April reached out and touched his hand.

“We’ve all been involved with someone who makes us feel like we’re overreacting, like we’re imagining problems where there are none,” she said. “It’s one of the many downsides of dating men.”

“I hear that,” Will said glumly.

“I like Patrick, you know I do,” she continued. “But I know what I’m talking about when I say: He is acting like a wasteman.”

“Really?”

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