Cadin frowned and said, "Well, I still think the asshole was too aggressive, and I'm glad I set him straight."
Evan knew his friends cared about him and he didn't want to upset them. "Thanks for watching out for me." He held Michele's hand tighter and said, "I don't know what I'd do without my friends. You are always there for me."
Michele glanced at her watch and stood up. "Well, you're going to find out soon because I have to leave for an appointment. I'm having Botox this afternoon and I want to get uptown early in case there's traffic."
Cadin blinked. "More Botox?"
Evan sent his friend a smile. She'd been getting Botox injections for the past year and there were days her face took on such a stark, expressionless look he couldn't figure out what kind of mood she was in.
Michele grabbed her purse and said, "We're not getting any younger. Don't judge me."
"Can you give me a ride uptown?" Cadin asked. "We're working on a job on East 72nd Street and I left the truck up there. I won't have to take the subway back up there if you take me."
Michele kissed Evan on the cheek and said, "Sure I can. You can drive."
Then Evan reached for her arm and asked, "Did anyone let Jeffery know I was coming home today?" He knew Jeffery had ways of finding out information he wanted without anyone's help. But Evan was curious about whether or not Jeffery had been in touch with anyone while he'd been at Havilland.
"I left a message with Jeffery's assistant," Michele said. "I couldn't get through to him."
"The Werewolf?" Evan asked. Jeffery's assistant was an ambitious young man with tons of facial hair, and thick wiry hair on his forearms. Evan always joked that he probably had hair on his back, and all over his ass, too. This personal assistant always seemed to be flirting with Jeffery, and he couldn't wait to get involved in his personal business. Evan would have preferred him not knowing he'd been discharged from Havilland that day.
Michele shrugged. "What else could I do? The Werewolf manages Jeffery's entire life these days."
Evan ignored that remark and walked them to the door. He knew Jeffery better than anyone and he knew Jeffery would never be attracted to the pushy, aggressive werewolf. Jeffery only used him as a minion.
He hugged them both and thanked them for being there for him again. Cadin offered to stop by and check in on him on his way back to Brooklyn later that afternoon but Evan told him he would be fine. He loved them both dearly, but he wanted them to leave. It was his first day back and he needed time to be alone with his thoughts and to sort out his feelings. Although he loved his apartment, he still had to face a few demons he knew would never disappear. Most of them were in his bedroom, in a cabinet where he used to stash all his booze, next to a window with a view of a solid brick wall.
Chapter Three
When he was finally alone, Evan locked the door, leaned back against it, and took a deep breath. He'd worked hard to show his friends his spirits were good and he was happy to be home. Smiling for long periods of time tended to hurt his face, especially when he didn't feel like smiling. It had been work, not fun. He needed to be alone for a while now and think about what he was going to do next. Being in an isolated environment like Havilland where no one had expected him to smile or pretend to be happy tended to distort reality. There had been times when he'd thought about never leaving.
As he crossed to the dining table where Michele had left his bags, he glanced around the living room and smiled. It was evident Cadin had tried to spruce things up in his own haphazard, clumsy way. He'd tossed pillows on the cream sofa upside down, he'd opened the blinds in the front window crooked so that the one on the left was higher than the one on the right, and he'd rearranged a few side chairs that only made the room look smaller.
Evan's collection of furniture wasn't spectacular, but everything in his apartment reminded him of an event that had happened in his life over the past ten years. The modern cream-colored sofa had been a gift from Jeffery the first month they'd met. Evan had just graduated from college and he'd signed a lease for his first real-life adult apartment. Though Jeffery hadn't been a billionaire at the time, he'd been doing well on Wall Street with tech stocks and he'd purchased the sofa as a gift for Evan. Evan could even remember it had arrived on a Friday afternoon. They'd made love on that sofa that same Friday night. About a week later, Jeffery moved in with him and remained there until they both moved out a few years later when Jeffery could afford to buy a townhouse uptown.
Evan smiled and lifted his bags from the table. He crossed through the dining area to a small hallway that led to two bedrooms. This was another reason he didn't want to move. It had become impossible to find an apartment this large, with two full bedrooms, anywhere in Manhattan without paying a small fortune in rent. He had a separate bedroom for Kenny when he spent the weekend there. This building was one of the last rent controlled buildings in his neighborhood. He knew he could never get a deal like this again, and that was the reason he'd sub-leased the apartment and held on to it when he'd moved into the townhouse uptown. This apartment gave him independence, a sense of security, and he could afford it without Jeffery if he had to. In hindsight he often wondered if he'd ever believed he and Jeffery would live happily ever after.