13. Billy
THIRTEEN
Billy
IT’S THE WICKED GREAT PUMPKIN ALE, BILLY BOSTON
Manhattan: Hey, Boston. Come meet us for lunch. We’re going to Harvard Yard Sale for apps over in Worcesterboroham. Then we’re gonna hit up Manwich for some brisket over in Lagerdale. I know a guy who owns an ale house called Party for Your Gullet down by Foxenchester by the Sea. You in?
Manhattan: PS it made my thumbs itch just typing those words.
Fucking Nolan: Come join us for lunch, fuckface.
I stare at my phone. This text chain is totally normal. For us. No Hey we’re in town . No explanation on how they were able to get away from their families to visit Boston. Just Come meet us . Only usually I’m the one who does the inviting. And implicit in a simple lunch invitation is the promise of absolute fucking debauchery.
What is not normal is my reaction.
I’m not sure I want to go. Because going would mean I’d have to exit my apartment. And if I time that wrong, I might run into Donna. And if I run into Donna, we might have to unpack what happened at her house the other day, and I don’t want to scare her.
Because as I was reading Lars’s words in what I imagine might have been Lars’s voice, they didn’t feel like just his words to Lara. They felt like my words to Donna.
To paraphrase Robert Downey Jr. in one of the greatest films of all time— Tropic Thunder —I know who I am! I’m the dude playing a dude, disguised as another dude who’s reading a letter to a dudette who’s possessed by another dudette, and they’re pretending to be in love with each other!
Except I think it might be the opposite of that. I think Donna and I might be pretending not to be in love with each other. At least I know that’s what I’m pretending. And I want to believe that she feels the same way—about only pretending to not be in love with me, I mean. But if I’m wrong, I ruin everything and it’s all over.
Knock, knock, knock.
I put my phone away. Maybe it’s her? Maybe she’s being braver than I’m willing to be. I suck it up and open the door.
“Hiya, fuckhead.” Instead of Donna, I find Nolan staring at me, with his evil blue eyes.
“Too busy to respond to texts from your favorite cousins?” Declan asks.
“I was getting to it. Why are you so impatient that you showed up at my home?”
They share a look. A look I don’t trust.
“We’re husbands and fathers now. We’re just excited to go out.”
“Yeah, that’s all it is,” Nolan adds, completely unconvincingly.
I narrow my eyes. “What else?”
They look at each other again, then back at me. “What do you mean ‘what else’?” Nolan, that Irish demon, asks, all innocent-like.
“I know you’re husbands and fathers now. Softer. Fat and happy from marriage. However. You may leave the game, but the game never leaves you. I know you hear glasses clink on a warm, dark night and think about our epic nights of debauchery. The Blue Moon calling to you like a werewolf.”
“I don’t drink Blue Moon, ya gobshite.”
“I was being poetic, fuckface. The point is you are caged animals who’ve been recently released. Tired and broken down dads that you are, you’re coursing with adrenaline. If you wanted the kind of night you know only I can provide, I’d already be kidnapped and have half a bottle of Jack Daniels poured down my throat by now.”
They look at each other again. Then back at me.
“Piper told us there was a girl, and our wives told us we have to help you with her,” Declan says.
And there it is.
“And how, pray tell, do you plan to help me with her?”
“We just want to meet her,” Nolan says. But he doesn’t say it like a concerned family member. He says it like an Irish gangster.
“No,” I say simply.
“Whaddya mean, no?” Nolan says.
“I said no.”
I see Nolan gearing up for a fight. The man doesn’t have a lot of experience hearing no. I don’t have a lot of experience saying it, so we’re both in uncharted territory.
Declan holds up a hand to stop Nolan. “Wait. Why don’t you want us to meet her?”
I open my mouth. Close. Open it. Close it again. The opening feels right. The closing, like me saying no, feels brand new to me.
How can I explain that I don’t want them to meet her because it suddenly feels very complicated with Donna?
“She’s at work,” I say. “Probably,” I add quickly .
“Well, let’s just see.” A real casual fuck you shrug from Nolan. “No big deal.” He saunters over to Donna’s apartment.
“How do you know that’s her apartment?”
“Piper told me she lives next door—it’s either this one or the other.”
Nolan’s feckin’ Irish luck led him to pick right on the first try. I step out into the hallway but am then completely frozen in place as he knocks on her door. She opens it.
“Oh, hello,” Donna says in surprise.
“Hello, lass. My name is Nolan.” He offers his hand, and she shakes it tentatively. It’s then she notices me and Declan standing in the hall. “I’m this eejit ’s far more handsome and intelligent cousin. And this tall pint of Guinness in an oxford shirt is our cousin Declan.”
Declan walks over and offers his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Very nice to meet you,” Donna says. Her voice sounds confident, but her eyes keep checking in with mine.
“We were wondering if you would like to join us for some libations. Our dear young relative, Piper, has had the pleasure and simply raved, and we would like the same opportunity. Drinks are on us, of course.”
Donna looks at me through my cousins. We’re both considering a million conversations we should have had that now we can’t. “That sounds amazing. Let me get my purse.”
Nolan calmly chalks his pool cue as he finishes his story. “So Billy wakes up somewhere dark. He’s hearing loud music, the stompin’ of feet. He reaches up and opens the lid of whatever he was in.”
“What were you sleeping in?” Donna asks me.
I squint one eye, trying to remember. “Some sort of weaved chest or basket thing?”
Donna turns her rapt attention back to Nolan, who continues the story. “So he pops out, and he’s on a stage with dozens of Indian wedding guests doing a choreographed dance to a Bollywood song.”
“Oh my God. What happened?”
“Well, this is where Dec, Eddie, and I found him. We were at the entrance to the ballroom, and the whole wedding party kind of stopped and stared at him. And without missing a beat—right on beat, in fact—Billy starts doing the “Night Fever” dance from Saturday Night Fever he learned in high school gym class. The DJ quickly changed the music, and they all just sort of went along with it.”
“I can’t imagine. I mean, I can actually.” Donna laughs and grins at me.
I give her a wink. “I just happened to be wearing a gold chain and a sick three-piece bell-bottom suit…” I say with a shrug and then take a pull of my beer. “But they taught me the Bollywood dance after that.”
Donna laughs her beautiful, full laugh. But I know what she’s thinking. She’s thinking she wants to see me do that dance in that suit, and she will one day get her wish. This has been more fun than it had any right to be. I don’t know what I was worried about. Donna’s not interested in making things heavy or dramatic. It’s one of the many things that makes her so amazing.
“If you’ll excuse me, boys, I have to go to the bathroom,” Donna says. “Don’t touch your balls while I’m gone.” She points at the pool table, and we all laugh.
“She’s really fun,” Declan says.
“And gorgeous,” Nolan says.
“Yeah, she’s amazing,” I say.
“So why is she not your girlfriend?” Declan asks like a reasonable human being.
I sigh. If I can’t be honest with her, I can at least be honest with them. I tell them about our arrangement. That it’s a no-strings thing and it’s just fun. I leave the role-play stuff out. But I tell them that she’s also been teaching me about dating like a normal human being.
I cast a furtive glance at the bathroom doors, making sure Donna is still in there. “And I’m getting a little confused. I mean, I like her. But I like her because it’s fun. But if we make it serious, I’ll ruin it for both of us.”
“I don’t think you’re confused at all. It sounds like you more than like her, Billy. I mean, you’re a millionaire and you’re still living in the same apartment you had before you had all that money. Why? Because she lives next door. And it’s not just the sex. You’re dating her.”
“She’s teaching me how to date.”
“Yes. By dating you,” Nolan says, plainly. And then he adds, “Ya fuckin’ moron.”
Of course, that’s it, isn’t it? We haven’t been role-playing as people dating. We’ve been role-playing as people who are pretending not to date while actually dating. Like I’ve been role-playing as a guy who’s not in love with Donna. When in reality, I’ve completely fallen for her.
And then I say something that I am one thousand percent sure I have never said before in my entire life—certainly not to these guys: “I don’t know what to do.”
“You tell her how you feel,” Declan says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.
“But what if she doesn’t feel the same way and I ruin it?”
“I say we stop playing footsie with getting drunk and get absolutely hammered. She needs to see the real Billy Boston.”
I look suspiciously at Nolan. There’s been something about him all evening that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “You’ve been pushing us to go hard since we got here. Why is that?”
“Billy boy, this is what we do. We get wasted and go on adventures. It’s why we’re here.”
I finally put it together. “Wait a minute. You’re hoping she’ll see how crazy I can get and run!”
“What? Is that true?” Declan asks Nolan. At least Dec is good enough not to be in on it.
Nolan gets a dark look on his face. He’s fun, but even Fun Nolan can be fucking terrifying. “Billy’s half right. I didn’t come all this way for a couple of pints and a nice chat. I love bein’ a dad more than anythin’, but I came to pay tribute to the old Nolan. The one where I was the one who needed to be put down for a nap. Where I put things into my mouth I shouldn’t. Where I made the mess instead of cleaning it up. But yeah, if she so happens to be put off by that and Billy doesn’t have a date for Granny’s birthday shindig, then that would be a double win in my book.”
“You piece of shit. You’d fuck up my chance at happiness to win a bet?!”
“If showing her your true form ruins the relationship, there was no happiness to be had, boyo.”
I turn to Declan, who has his palms up facing me, claiming innocence. He has to talk sense into this degenerate .
“While I’m not a fan of his motives”—Declan side-eyes Nolan before turning back to me—“he’s right. You need to be honest about what you want. And you need to be honest about who you are. And I didn’t secure all this childcare and come all this way for a couple of beers. Nolan’s right. I live for Maddie and Ciara. They own my soul. And it’s exhausting. It’s problematic. And wonderful. But this wolf needs to hunt.”
“That’s the spirit!” Nolan pats Declan on the back.
Donna returns. Her smile drops as I see her clock the strange energy she just entered into.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say quickly.
But the Irish devil speaks up. “We were just discussing what the rest of this evening might look like. A nice calm, pleasant, boring, average, run-of-the-mill evening like we’re having. Or a Billy Boston Special. A tale you can half remember and believe even less.”
“I’ve already had a lot to drink. I thought this was you guys going out?” Donna says.
There’s a lot of scoffing and laughing. You poor, innocent thing . “Oh, no. This is nothing,” Declan says, his jaw set. I can see in his eyes that this domesticated cat is ready to go feral again.
“You’ve never seen Billy’s true form. I suppose you’ve only met William O’Sullivan. You’ve never seen the true face of Billy Boston,” Nolan says, like I’m the Loch Ness monster or the friggin’ Babadook.
Donna looks up at me. Her eyes are deep and open like there’s something important she wants to ask me. Instead she says in a soft, serious tone, “I’d like to see that.”
I look nervously at the guys and then back at her. “I don’t know. It can get pretty crazy.”
Donna shrugs. “I’m up for crazy. We’re good at crazy. Right?”
My face is hard with indecision. I’m not sure I want crazy with Donna anymore. Not just crazy or fun anyway. I want real. But Declan, and even fucking Nolan, are right. If she doesn’t know all of me, then it can never be real.
“Okay,” I say in defeat. This was too good to last anyway. I rub Donna’s back, thinking silently, It was nice knowing you.
“Shots!” Nolan calls out into the night in the same exact tone that a general would yell Charge!
And that word usually ends up being the last one I remember of the night.