He couldn’t remember agreeing to let Tyler drive, but then he couldn’t remember arguing with him about it either. He sank into the seat and licked his lips to see if he still tasted Darcy’s lip gloss.
“Pizza rolls at my house?” Tyler said.
“Sure.”
“Pepperoni? Or no, wait, I noticed you’re going vegetarian?” Tyler smirked and slapped the steering wheel. “Nice moves, man!”
Ben shrugged his shoulders, but he was grinning too. “Shut up,” he said easily. “And you better not be lying about those pizza rolls.”
“You get her number?”
“Yeah.”
“Ahhhhhh!!!!” Tyler yelled and laid into the horn, sending a blast of stale-sounding air into the darkened neighborhood.
“Cut it out!” Ben yelled. “We’re going to get pulled over. Besides, it was just a hookup.”
“But you got her number,” Tyler said. “She gave it to you. Which means it could happen again. She wants it to happen again. That is not just a hookup.”
Ben didn’t really want him to shut up. That was exactly the kind of information Tyler was good for. And he didn’t have to ask and risk looking like an inexperienced idiot. He could count on his uninjured hand the number of times he’d hooked up with a girl in high school, and this was by far the most promising in terms of potential for a repeat performance.
When they got to Tyler’s house, they were locked out.
“Shit,” Tyler said as he grappled for the key that was hidden underneath the back porch. “It’s not there. Jer’s dead. How many times do I have to tell him to put the damn thing back after he lets himself in?” Ben jumped up and down, trying to stay warm. They threw rocks at Jeremiah’s window for a few minutes, but his bed was on the other side of the room and the kid was a notoriously sound sleeper. They tried the windows, but everything was locked down for winter. “Shit,” Tyler said. “I do not want to wake the professor. Can we go to your house?”
“Hell no! Not like this. My parents would give us a breathalyzer. What about the apartment?” The Manny’s apartment had a separate entrance back by the pool.
“No one’s been in there in forever.”
“So? Maybe it’s open.”
Tyler shrugged, so they walked around to try it. They found a sliding glass door that had been left unlatched and walked quickly into the spare, unheated space. There was a futon frame against one wall with a navy blue comforter pulled up over a bare mattress. A large flat-screen TV sat on a dresser of drawers, and a Ferrari poster featuring girls who were definitely not race car drivers hung slightly off-center on one wall.
“It’s gross in here,” Tyler muttered.
Ben followed behind him through the apartment and through the den into the main part of the Nusons’ house. They went into the kitchen and concocted a disgusting booze-fueled feast of previously frozen potato products and pizza rolls. When Ben was on his fifteenth pizza roll, he pushed back from the counter, clutched his stomach, and groaned.
“Let’s crash,” he said.
They tiptoed through the too-big house to Tyler’s room, which had a second bed always made up and pretty much reserved for Ben. Ben kicked off his shoes, threw his jeans and his jacket on the floor, and crawled underneath the covers. When he woke up a few hours later, the room was flooded with a pale light. It was still night, but it was snowing lightly and the sky was quilted with thick clouds. Tyler’s bed was empty. Ben found his hearing aids stuffed into his jeans pocket—he didn’t even remember taking them off—and walked down the long hallway to the bathroom, took a leak, and gulped water straight from the faucet. When he came back into the hallway, he thought he heard someone crying downstairs. Sometimes their neighbor’s cat made a sound that was just like a baby crying, but this was different. It wasn’t a high whine. There were distinct sobs. He stood poised at the top of the stairs, wondering if he should just go back to bed, but instead he followed the sound.
He went downstairs and the sound got louder. Ben passed through the den and saw that the door to The Manny’s apartment was open a crack. He walked over to it and pressed his face into the opening. He could see Tyler hunched over on the edge of the futon. His head was against his knees, and his shoulders were shaking. Suddenly he stood up, reached back, and punched the wall. Grabbing his hand, he twisted around and pressed himself against the sliding door. Then Ben saw Tyler slide down to the floor and collapse against the glass. There was a look on his face Ben didn’t recognize, even after all their years of friendship. If anything, he reminded Ben of Jeremiah: softer, younger, like when they told Jeremiah to get lost or shut him out of Tyler’s room so they could pre-party with some stolen booze. Scared, vulnerable, sad, hurt. Why didn’t he walk in and find out what was wrong? Ben couldn’t move his feet forward. He didn’t feel he had the right to. He didn’t know this person weeping on the floor.
Outside, the most beautiful oversized flakes of snow were slowly drifting downward, each one with its perfect arrangement of geometric patterns. Ben watched them float down so close to Tyler, where he lay. Slowly Ben backed away from the door. He walked quietly back up the stairs and got into bed. He did not sleep for a long time. Finally, close to dawn, he must have dozed off. When he woke, Tyler was passed out in the bed across the room.