“You heard from Sandy?” Darren asked, and we all held our breaths. “He disappeared last night and his phone was turned off.”
“Uh,” Vince said. “No. No I haven’t. Why would I have heard from him? I don’t even know him.”
Paul put his face in his hands.
“Huh?” Darren said. “What are you talking about? Are you okay?”
“Fine,” Vince said, looking like he was starting to panic. “I’ve never been so fine. Why are you asking? Are you okay?”
“Sure,” Darren said slowly, and I had the random thought that I could probably jerk off successfully to the sound of his voice alone. Which was a terrible thing to be thinking right at the moment, but there it was. “You know Sandy, Vince. You know him very well.”
“Oh, that Sandy,” Vince cried. “I thought you meant that other Sandy.”
“The other Sandy. Who you don’t know.”
“Right.”
“But you know this Sandy.”
“Sure,” Vince said. “So well. But not too well. Because I already have Paul. And I wouldn’t want to step on anyone’s toes. You know. Since you’re in love.”
I wanted to strangle him.
“Right,” Darren sighed. “I think he’s avoiding me.”
“Oh?” Vince said.
I started waving my hands at him with the universal sign for shut the fuck up or I’ll murder you with my stilettos.
Vince squinted at me. “Tell… me… more?”
NO! I silently screamed at him.
“I don’t know, man,” Darren said. “Just this feeling I’m getting. Sometimes I feel like I’m getting somewhere with him, and then it’s like it used to be when he hated me. I don’t know what I did, but it’s getting worse.”
I mimed to Vince to just hang up the fucking phone, extending my thumb and pinky and putting my fist into my other fist.
He nodded like he understood but then proved once and for all that we could never be charade partners by saying, “Uh-huh, so how’s the sex?”
Paul started choking rather loudly as I paled.
Corey, for some reason, looked like he was having the time of his life. That bastard.
That’s not what I said! I mouthed at Vince.
I thought you meant sex! he mouthed back at me frantically.
“Uh, I love you, bro, but I’m not talking about sex with you,” Darren said. “Especially since I found out that apparently Sandy wants to have an incestuous four-way with us.”
I banged my head on the table.
“Is there someone there with you?” Darren asked.
“Nope!” Vince said. “No one at all. Just me and Wheels and that’s all there is.”
“Where’s Paul?”
Paul did this complex motion with his hands that almost looked like sign language. It lasted for approximately ten seconds and I wanted to warn Paul that Vince couldn’t possibly understand something so complex and was going to make things worse.