SIXTEEN | LUCAN

“WE’RE THROWING A LAST-MINUTE barbecue together over here,” Dad said. “You want me to pick you up, or are you busy?”

“We” probably meant the usual suspects, my aunt and uncles and my cousins. If it weren’t for Nanook I would’ve jumped on the idea. Like I said before, Dad was the better cook in our family, and so far all I’d eaten that day was two bowls of Froot Loops and a turkey sandwich. I offered Dad the same phony Nanook explanation I’d given Mom and asked if I could bring the dog along. “I don’t like to leave her alone too much,” I said.

“And your mother, she can’t watch it for you?”

How to explain the reason that I didn’t like asking Mom for favors lately without tempting my father to refer to her as a whore? The shit I had to deal with lately. Unbelievable.

“Look, maybe we should just leave it for another time,” I told him, popping out the first lie that sprang into my head. “I think Paolo’s coming over later.”

“Paolo can come too,” Dad said generously. “Paolo, the dog, your mom and her boyfriend, eh? One big happy family.”

He wanted me to laugh, so I did. “All right,” I told him. “I’ll see you in a couple hours.” Natalie and Ella would have a good time with the dog. It would probably do Nanook good too. She’d been moping since Ivy left earlier.

I mentioned my plans to Mom, and she seemed happy that she wouldn’t have to make anything special for dinner. “Have you heard anything from your friend Annalea?” she asked. “How’s her grandfather — or was it her grandmother?”

I didn’t think I’d specified which in the first place. “Grandfather,” I replied. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard from her since she left. They’re probably busy at the hospital and stuff.”

“I’m sure it’s a relief to her that you’re looking after her dog,” Mom told me. God knows what she’d say if she knew the warped truth. I wondered what would shock her more — the idea that Ivy would do something like that or that I’d help her.

I’d be glad when it was over with, but I’d probably do the same again if I had another chance. I liked hanging out with Ivy. I was starting to think that I liked hanging out with Ivy a little too much.

I was letting Nanook mangle one of my socks, trying to wrestle it out of her mouth to cheer her up, when McKenna called my cell. After my painfully awkward conversations with Des and her last night I wasn’t ready to speak to her again, but I picked up anyway. My energy level drained as I said, “Hi, McKenna.”

“Lucan, I need you to do me a favor,” she said urgently. “Des is pounding at my front door, and he says he won’t go until he’s talked to me. He’s really freaking me out, and my dad’s already gone over to Tracy’s for the night.”

The scenario sucked. I mean, record-breaking suckage. I wanted to be an EMT, not a cop, vet, or counselor. I didn’t have a clue how to handle a domestic violence situation, especially when it involved my best friend. I heard Des banging and shouting fiercely in the background, and then I got scared for McKenna. I didn’t think Des would hurt her really bad, but the fubar nature of that thought made me crack my knuckles and exhale sharply. He shouldn’t have been laying his hands on her at all. Ever. How could I not have known?

“You told him to go?” I asked.

“I told him I’d call the cops if he didn’t. He called me this morning, yelling at me for telling you the truth. He was saying horrible things …” She paused to listen to the noise from outside.

I couldn’t make out what Des was roaring. “What’s that he’s shouting?” I asked.

“He’s saying that I don’t need to be afraid of him,” McKenna rasped. “He says that he just wants to talk and that … he’s sorry. Lucan, if he doesn’t leave soon I’ll have to call the police, but I really don’t want to do that. Could you come over and talk to him? Please. Maybe he’ll listen to you.”

Des hated me right now. I didn’t know the right things to say to make him stop.

“I’ll be there in ten,” I told her. “I have to take my bike.” I was sure she wouldn’t want me to ask my mother for a ride and risk getting her involved. “Can you wait that long?”

“Maybe he’ll go away,” she whispered. “Can you stay on the phone with me?”

I sped out of the apartment, lost the cellphone signal in the garage getting my bike, and had to call her back. Des ranted and thumped on her door intermittently as I pedaled.

I expected him to look different, like a guy with a boozy face and dirty hair in a mug shot, but when I pulled into McKenna’s driveway the person standing with one hand flat against the front door only looked like a miserable version of Des. He didn’t see me arrive. I could’ve pulled his hands up behind his back and shoved him to the ground like something out of Cops.

“Des,” I called, dropping my cell into my back pocket. “You’re scaring her, man.”

He flinched and spun around, glaring at me with angry red eyes. Then he launched his foot at the door, the sound of his sole clapping against wood making my shoulders jerk. His face was that chicken wire skull again, and he shouted at McKenna through the door like I was invisible. “With the shit you’ve been spreading about me you could at least open the fucking door. What — is Lucan your new boyfriend now?”

“Don’t be stupid, Des.” My heart was hammering in my chest. “She only called me because you’re freaking her out.”

He dragged his bare arm across his forehead and refused to face me. “You know I’d never touch you, never hurt you,” he said into the door, his voice softer now. “I just need to get some things straight. Can’t you understand that?” The last part sounded like a plea.

“Lucan, are you out there?” McKenna yelled from inside.

I shouted back to make my presence known. Des eyed me with the glazed stare of a sleepwalker: What am I doing? How did I end up here?

“You don’t have to do this,” I warned. Be cool. Go home. “She’ll call the cops any second now.” My cell was ringing in my pocket. I ignored it and concentrated on Des. “You want to get tossed into the back of a cruiser?”

Des looked defeated and furious at the same time. I didn’t realize those two emotions could coexist before that moment. “You can call whoever the fuck you want, McKenna. I don’t give a shit.” He launched his foot half-heartedly at her front door a second time.

I gripped his arm to pull him back. “She lies,” he mumbled. “She fucking lies.”

My body pushed between Des’s and the door, blocking access. “You think that’s what you’re proving by coming over here and acting like an asshole? That she’s lying? From where I’m standing it looks like the opposite.”

Des buried his hands in his pockets and stumbled backwards, shaking his head. “You don’t know, you don’t,” he stammered. “You don’t know anything.” It was only the second thing he’d said directly to me since I’d pulled up at McKenna’s door. “Why don’t you …” His eyes jumped to mine for a second before cutting away.

I thought I knew what he’d been about to say to me. Why didn’t I believe him over her?

But he never got the words out. Next thing I knew he was turning and running, down McKenna’s lawn and into the street. He must have walked over to her house instead of driving in the first place because he kept on going. Sprinting away from us. Bolting like he was being chased.

I watched him disappear for something like thirty seconds before leaning into the door and saying, “He’s gone.”

McKenna unlocked the door and stared at me on her front stoop. “Thank you.” A wisp of her blond hair fell into her mouth. She swept it away, her cheeks rosy but her eyes dry. They scanned the street for Des, but he’d already passed out of view. “I was afraid he’d break a window or get in somehow.”

I grazed her hand. As usual lately, I didn’t have the words.

“Thank you,” McKenna repeated, the two of us looking at nothing in the road.

“It’s okay.” I wished I’d done something sooner. Sensed what was going on and made it stop somehow. Then it struck me like a tire iron. I’d follow Des. Speak to him. For real, this time. There was no more hiding anything.

“I’m going after him,” I told McKenna. “Will you be okay here?”

She nodded slowly, shell-shocked. “I’ll call Faith and ask her to come get me.”

“Good.” I didn’t touch her again; I was afraid she would take it the wrong way. I was friends with someone who beat up his girlfriend — it made me feel guilty by association, capable of who knows what? “Lock the door when I leave.”

I didn’t need to tell McKenna that; she already knew. “I will,” she said anyway.

I stalked over to the garage and swung a leg over my bike. Cycling down the road, there was no sign of Des anywhere. I pedaled faster, scanning the cross streets. He was on foot; I should’ve been able to catch up with him in seconds. But it was like he’d evaporated.

After fifteen minutes of searching the neighborhood, I tore my phone out of my pocket to call him. “Where are you?” I asked his voice mail. “We need to talk.”

I had no idea what I’d say when I spotted Des. All that shit about speaking to someone and fixing himself didn’t feel real; I didn’t want to give a pep talk. But I couldn’t let things lie. My fingers forced their way into my pocket again, burying the phone in it as my feet slid back onto the pedals.

I cycled over to Des’s place and rapped on the door, a weirdly polite knock that sounded wrong. Maybe he was inside pretending that he wasn’t. I knocked louder and louder until I nearly sounded the way Des had at McKenna’s door.

Then my hand drifted away from the door, my fingers uncoiling from a fist into five separate entities. Fuck you for putting me here, Des. Do you think I want to do this?

So maybe I was glad he wasn’t around when it came down to it. Maybe it was better that I was climbing back on my bike and heading for home, sun shining down on me as though it was a good day while Des kicked a dent into McKenna’s door inside my head.

If Ivy had been there today maybe she would’ve handled things better, despite the messed-up situation with her ex’s dog. And maybe I shouldn’t have been in such a hurry to dodge Annalea. Maybe my mind wouldn’t have been stalling on Ivy as much if I had someone else around to distract me.

Annalea was exactly the kind of diversion I needed now. Her and the stunningly humungous boobs she’d showed off in my bedroom that day. Why hadn’t I taken better advantage of the situation when I’d had the chance? Maybe she would’ve wanted to …

But, no, I didn’t even want that. Not really. Not her and not the sexy Russian woman I tried to shift my thoughts to because she’d know what she was doing and I wouldn’t have to worry about feeling like I was using her.

For once thinking about sex felt like no comfort at all. Zip. Nada. Niente.

All I wanted was to clear my head and not think of a damn thing.