Page 119 of Mr. Swoony

“I’m sure you like Monopoly too.” Tweetie raises his eyebrows at me.

Another knock sounds on the door. It has to be Henry, which means Jade is at my place downstairs. Rowan answers the door, and Henry walks in while Rowan screams something to Kyleigh below.

“Why would you ever listen to Tweetie?” Henry smacks the back of Tweetie’s head when he passes and sits in the chair next to me. “Monopoly?”

“According to Rowan, you play Monopoly when you get bored with sex,” I say. “You probably only have a couple months left before you’ll be having game nights.”

“That’s not what I said, jackass.” Rowan comes over with four beers, handing one to each of us. “Where’s Bodhi?”

“He’s at Reed and Victoria’s.”

“So, who won your Monopoly game?” Tweetie asks, and the three of us laugh.

Rowan takes a long pull of his beer. “I hate you assholes.”

“I’m still confused as to why we’re all here,” Tweetie says.

“To talk to Conor and figure out a way to get Eloise to forgive him.” Henry opens his beer and downs a swig.

I give Tweetie a quick rundown of everything that happened.

“I told Jade this could be done over FaceTime,” Henry says. “I guess since we’re a little short of a year, we haven’t hit the Monopoly stage yet, and I had other plans tonight.”

“I’m not sure Eloise is going to forgive me. She thinks I don’t think she can handle things. That I’m trying to take charge of her life. I just didn’t want her to have to deal with my problem.”

Henry pats me on the back. “Like I told you, it’s both of your problem.”

“Yeah, I see that now,” I grumble.

“Hindsight is twenty-twenty,” Tweetie says, and we all stare at him.

“Apparently not for you, asshole,” Rowan says, clearly still upset about the Monopoly jokes.

“Just because I haven’t acted doesn’t mean I don’t know what went wrong.” Tweetie sits up, putting his beer at his feet and resting his forearms on his knees. “I know you probably think I can’t offer any good advice because you guys have never seen me in a relationship, but I’m gonna tell you something, Pinkie. If you want her, you shouldn’t be up here wallowing. You should be on your knees, begging and pleading for her to give you a second chance.”

“She said she wants space.”

“‘She said she wants space.’” He mimics me, and I scrunch my eyebrows, not appreciating him mocking me. “Fuck, man, how quick did you get your ass up here after she said she needed space?”

I shrug. “I don’t know, like five minutes.”

He blows out a breath and looks at each of us. “I know you shitheads want to know what happened between Tedi and me, but it doesn’t matter, our time has passed. Regardless, I still have one huge regret from the end of that relationship.”

We all share a look since we’ve all been waiting for any information about the breakup that seems to have broken Tweetie.

“I didn’t fight. I sat back and convinced myself that she needed space. That things would turn out okay. That was the wrong fucking decision. So if you really have this instant connection like you keep bragging to everyone about, you should be on your knees, fighting to keep it alive.”

Rowan raises his eyebrows, and Henry nods.

“There you all go.” Tweetie takes a pull from his beer and points at each one of us. “Anyone else have a problem? Psychologist Tweetie is in.”

We all shake our heads and chuckle. Henry flicks his beer bottle cap at Tweetie, and he catches it.

“Why are you still here?” Tweetie asks me. “Go fix it because your personal problems cannot ruin our season.”

I stand and hand Henry my beer, then pat Tweetie on the back. “Thanks, man.”

He shrugs his shoulder to get my hand off him. “Just don’t let me find you playing Monopoly with her in a few months.”

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