Page 73 of Crash Out
Knox walked out, and I could see from the set of his shoulders that he was laughing, silently, with his whole body, and had made the decision to do it in the hallway rather than in my face which was the most generous thing Knox had ever done for me.
Dylan stopped in the doorway.
He looked at me for a long moment. The good jacket. The slightly cleaner apartment. Me, with my hand on the door, having the worst poker face of my entire career.
Something moved through his expression.
"Wear the good jacket," he said.
I looked down. I was already wearing it. I had put it on at some point without deciding to.
"Yeah," I said. "Okay."
"Wes."
"Dylan."
He looked at me one more second. Then he nodded, once, and walked out, and I closed the door behind him and stood in my apartment in the good jacket with the lion roar still somewhere in the tile of my bathroom and Knox's voice in my head.
You might as well just date Cross.
I picked up my keys and headed to the restaurant.
20
It was closed.
Fuck.
Not closed like maybe-there's-a-back-entrance closed. Closed like lights off, chairs up, a hand-written sign on the door that saidCLOSED TUESDAYSin letters large enough that there was really no ambiguity about the situation.
I was standing on the sidewalk outside a closed restaurant in the good jacket five minutes early.
But the restaurant was closed and I had not checked whether the restaurant was closed because it had not occurred to me to check whether the restaurant was closed because I had been too busy doing the Morr Roar in my bathroom mirror.
Those were the facts of the situation.
I took out my phone.
The website said:Closed Tuesdays.
I put my phone away.
I looked at the sign.
The sign said:Closed Tuesdays.
It was Tuesday.
I stood on the sidewalk in the good jacket and thought about going home. Just getting in my car and driving home and texting Nathan something—what, I didn't know, something that explained the situation in a way that didn't include the wordsI didn't check—and pretending this whole evening had been a scheduling conflict rather than the most preventable disaster of my adult life.
I was still standing there when Nathan arrived.
He walked up the sidewalk in a dark jacket, collar open, and he looked at me, and he looked at the restaurant, and he looked at the sign, and he looked back at me.
I spread my hands. "It's closed."
Nathan turned back to the sign.Closed Tuesdays.Then back to me.
