“Hey, babe,” I said, entering the living room. I’d just gotten home from work, and even more than seeing my wife, I was hoping to see Jay. For the third straight night, he wasn’t anywhere to be found. “You heard anything from Jay? I’m starting to get a little worried about him.”
“Fuck Jay. Do I look like his keeper?” I could almost feel the venom in Cassie’s voice, which was strange, because up until the night Jay and I had a fight, they had been thick as thieves.
“You think he’s still mad about that shit with the hammer?” I asked. I thought we had cleared the air that night on Kyle’s boat, but he’d barely been at the house since then.
“Who knows what that motherfucker is thinking? Far as I’m concerned, he can stay gone. We don’t need his ass around here anyway,” she ranted.
I walked over to the couch and sat down next to her. Cassie had been Jay’s biggest cheerleader, so her new attitude took me by surprise. “What’s wrong? I thought you and Jay were friends. Why all the sudden hostility toward him?” To tell you the truth, I was a little relieved that her attitude was directed at him and not me for a change.
“Please, Allen, Jay is a big-ass phony. He is not the friend you think he is.” Cassie folded her arms across her chest. She was so angry that she wouldn’t even look at me. “I really don’t want him staying here anymore.”
Well, damn, I didn’t see that coming.
I scooted in close to Cassie and put my arm around her. Jay was my best friend and all, but Cassie was my wife, my woman. She was my life. I’m talking some Prince, “I would die for you” type shit. If she wanted him gone, then I would figure out a way to make that happen, but first I wanted to be sure it was what she really wanted. Maybe they’d had a little fight over who got control of the remote control or something and she’d get over it soon. I didn’t want to kick him out if it could be avoided.
“Uh, did something happen I don’t know about?”
“I just don’t trust him right now.” She got up from the couch and turned to me with hateful eyes. “And I don’t trust you.” She began rubbing her arms as if she were trying to erase my touch. “I don’t trust men. I’m sick of men, and I just want to be left alone—by all of you.” She looked like she might cry as she walked away.
“Cassie, what the hell is going on? What did I do?” I stood and reached out to her, but she ran off to the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
“What the fuck?”
I’d never seen her so bothered, not since the night she showed up at my door after being beaten. There had to be more to this than just a spat between me and my best friend, and I was going to get to the bottom of it.
I took one step toward the bedroom, but before I could take a second, I heard a loud crash, then “U.S. Marshals! Don’t move!” A swarm of Robocops charged through my door, which they had just kicked down, and knocked me to the ground.
“Where is he? Where the hell is he?” one of them yelled in my face. The spraying spittle was the least of my problems, considering the big-ass gun he had pointed at my head.
“Who? What?” I wasn’t able to think straight.
“Jay Crawford. Where the fuck is he?”
“Allen!” I heard Cassie yell. I looked over my shoulder just in time to see her being taken down to the ground. That’s when, on instinct, I tried to get up to go to my wife’s rescue.
“Don’t you fucking move!” the spitter shouted, grabbing me by my collar. He pulled me nose to nose with him. “Now answer the fucking question. Where is Jay Crawford? We know he’s been here, and we know he’s been disguising himself as a woman.”
Fuck! How the hell do they know that?
I looked over at Cassie, and all I could think was wherever Jay was, thank God he had taken all his shit before he left.