By the time the band finishes and the DJ begins, I am drenched in sweat, laughing my ass off at Mandy, Steve’s girlfriend, and her antics. She’s a howl, traipsing around pretending to be a supermodel and flirting with everyone she sees. I like her—and everyone else here, for that matter. They are unpretentious and uninhibited.
About an hour later, I decide to have a seat on a bar stool a few feet away from David. He is busy talking with John. I can’t tell what the topic is, but it must be light because they occasionally crack up between drags on their cigarettes. As I am watching the pair of them and drinking a gin and tonic of my own, Saz sits down next to me and starts talking. He is overly animated, telling me about how much he likes my shirt and how he thinks the DJ looks like a young Hugh Jackman.
Suddenly, he stops blabbering and starts smiling at me like a silly little boy. “Emma,” he says, dragging my name out slowly.
“Saz,” I say. “You all right?”
“Shit, girl, I’m more than all right. I’m thrilled to fucking death.” I think he might be a little drunk. He leans over into me as if he is going to tell me a secret. “You, girl. You and David. Things are tightening up again for that man.” Uh, okay. What does that mean?
“Tightening up?” I say, forcing a cautious smile on my face. He is smiling, too, and his eyes are lit.
“Yeah, yeah. It’s a good thing. A really good thing. He hasn’t had a girl around since Lucia fucked him over, man. That was some tough shit to witness right there.” Who the hell is Lucia?
“Oh,” I say. “Lucia, huh? What happened there?”
“He never mentioned her?” I shake my head cautiously. “Aww, man. I’m not surprised. It was bad. The whole time the two of them were together, she was fucking some other cocksucker. The dude even lived in David’s building. It was a really fucking bad scene. The guy lived two floors down from David. They were friends, man. Nothing worse than finding out your woman is screwing one of your mates. She was just a rotten fucking whore.” This is news. Holy fuck. Two floors down. That’s my apartment. I’m not sure I want to hear any more about this, but I can’t help myself.
Screw it. I’m going to take advantage of Saz’s candor.
“Wow. How long ago did all this happen?” I ask, trying to act casual but choking on a wad of apprehension.
He thinks for a moment, then says, “Must be a year or so ago. That Lucia, man, she was trouble right from the start. David, he’s got a good heart, man, and she fucking threw that shit right to the floor.” Saz balls his hand up into a fist and starts tapping it on his chest. His face suddenly looks emotional, as if he hurts for David. “He went a little crazy after Lucia fucked him over. He was doing some wacked-out shit. Skydiving, motor-cross racing, jumping off of fucking cliffs—crazy shit like that,” he stresses. “Ever since I’ve known him, David’s always been in control, man, he’s always got a grip. He’s always...I don’t know...tight. But what that whore did...she put a dent in all that. All the crazy-ass shit he was doing was completely against his grain. It wasn’t like him to take those kinds of risks. It was total insanity. But apparently, it was temporary. Because he’s back, man, he’s tight again. It’s like he buckled his ass back down and got a grip. Once he met you, all that shit stopped.” His eyebrows go up and he shrugs. I’m silent because I don’t know what to say. A few seconds later, Saz starts talking again.
“Just so you know, Emma, he was never like this before,” he continues. When he says the word “this,” he opens his arms up toward me and then gestures back and forth from me to David. I cannot believe what I am hearing.
“What happened to her?” I ask as casually as I can. She can’t possibly still be part of David’s life? Surely he would have mentioned her.
“Don’t know. He put the guy in the hospital, though. He beat the living shit out of the dude. Then he got Carl to evict the guy for selling stolen merchandise out of his apartment, which apparently David had known about for a long time. The day the guy got out of the hospital, David put all the dude’s furniture and shit out in the parking lot and changed all the locks. David even had the cops there to make sure it was a clean eviction. The dude never said a word to anyone about David being the one that beat the living shit out of him. I think he was afraid that David would tell the cops about all the stolen shit he was selling. And, as far as I know, David told Lucia to go fuck herself. We never saw her after that. Maybe she’s with the other guy, I don’t know.”