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  After bending down to give Celia a warm hug, Kyle looked around for Eddie’s two boys—Jake, who was three, and E.J., who was eight.

  “My mom took them to pick up steaks,” Celia said.

  Kyle looked down again and grinned. “I was wondering why the house was so quiet.”

  A loud voice echoed from down the hallway. “Did the man who cursed the Yankees just enter my house?”

  Kyle looked up and saw Eddie’s stocky frame enter the foyer.

  “Guess I spoke too soon,” Kyle quipped.

  Eddie Guida had been Kyle’s best friend since the two were randomly paired as roommates their first year at Columbia. Kyle remembered wondering if his own small-town reserved and pensive demeanor would mesh with Eddie’s loud and brash outsized Brooklyn personality.

  But beneath Eddie’s tough-guy façade was a heart of gold, and the two not only remained roommates throughout college, but also for a few more years afterward when Kyle decided to stay to get his Ph.D. and Eddie took an entry-level job at a Manhattan private equity firm.

  “Seriously, though,” Eddie said, “how the hell could you question the man right before he’s about to pitch? It’s like you were trying to jinx him. Who does that?”

  Eddie was talking about the Yankees’ new ace, Evan Hillier. It was Hillier’s first year as a Yankee, and his first year back in the majors after a four-year absence. The twenty-nine-year-old had been out of baseball struggling to recover after successive arm surgeries, but had been lights out since getting the call-up because of injuries to the Yankee frontliners. But after giving up five runs in five innings, his worst outing of the year, most thought the run had ended, the bubble had burst, and his fifteen minutes were up. The Yankees were already discussing trades for another starter. A few nights ago Kyle had sent Eddie a text asking if he thought Hillier would be able to keep his amazing hot streak going. The answer came in the fourth inning when Hillier was tagged for a two-run homer, and was knocked out of the game an inning later after giving up three more runs, albeit all unearned.

  “My bad,” Kyle said.

  “Tell you what,” Eddie said, “if you finally let me put your ass on Match.com or one of those other websites chock-full of desperate chicks, then all will be forgiven.”

  “Not happening.”

  Eddie shook his head. “When are you gonna finally listen to me?”

  “I’m not going on a dating website.”

  “Why not? That’s how everyone meets these days. Especially divorced guys in their forties. Hell, I’d jump at the chance if I was in your shoes.”

  “Well, you’re not in my shoes, and I’m not going on a dating site.”

  “Yeah. Of course you won’t. Because you’re doing such a bang-up job with the prospects now. Tell me, when was the last time you were out on a date? When was the last time you actually fu—”

  “Found someone I like?” Kyle quickly cut in as he looked down at Celia, who was still by their side as they made their way down the hallway. “Is that what you were going to say?”

  “Of course that’s what I was going to say.”

  Kyle had been debating whether to tell Eddie about Allie. He didn’t want anyone to know, but the events that occurred—the hemorrhage, erasing the texts, and then her uncle calling—were becoming too much to keep to himself. He needed to speak to someone. Especially before Liam came to his office the next day.

  “What you should’ve done,” Eddie said, not waiting for Kyle to actually answer him, “is let me throw that ‘Kyle’s Getting Divorced’ party when you guys first split. Hell, man, the sympathy factor alone would’ve caused at least one of those married friends of yours to stray.”

  “Stray from where?” Celia asked as the three of them entered the kitchen.

  Eddie looked down and rubbed his chin. “Think we can put that one on the ‘Don’t tell Mommy’ list and I’ll owe you one?”

  “You know,” she said, wheeling herself over to the table, “one of these days you’re going to have to actually make good on that list. It’s getting pretty long.”

  Kyle laughed. “Good for you, Celia.”

  “It’s not that easy, honey,” Eddie said. “What can I get for the girl who has everything?”

  Celia shook her head and picked up an iPad from the table. “Guess I’ll have to find something,” she said. Then she looked up with a big toothy grin. “I’ll let you know when I do.”

  “Just make sure it’s plenty pricey,” Kyle said. “The last thing we’d want is for your dad to get off easy.”

  “Jesus,” Eddie said as he opened the refrigerator and pulled out two Heinekens, “can’t a guy catch a break?”

  “I’ll go easy on you,” Celia said as she flipped through images and smiled.

  “Thanks,” Eddie said, opening the bottles and handing one to Kyle. “At least I have one friend around here.”

  Eddie opened the sliding glass door to the backyard, which consisted of a small deck with a barbeque and patio furniture, and a plot of grass that in suburbia wouldn’t even qualify as large enough for a garden, but in Brooklyn was prime coveted outdoor space.

  Kyle followed, then slid the glass door closed behind him. “Is Celia excited about going down to the shore house this summer?”

  Eddie shrugged. “She’s looking forward to the pool and big backyard, but doesn’t want to go near the beach. She doesn’t want to be carried.”

  Kyle saw the tension in his face. Eddie didn’t like to talk about Celia’s condition, but Kyle knew how much it weighed on him.

  “Anyway,” Eddie said as he took a seat at the patio table, “tell me when you’re going to get up off your ass and start dating? Or at least get the hell on Facebook and see what your old girlfriends from Hick Town High are up to.”

  Kyle ignored Eddie’s insult, having heard the same joke from him about his New Jersey hometown hundreds of times already. Then he started to say something, but stopped. Not sure how to get the words out.

  “What?” Eddie asked. “What is it?”

  Kyle stared down at the blades of grass sprouting from Eddie’s tiny oasis of land. “I did something stupid,” he said. “Very stupid.”

  Eddie’s attention perked up. “What was it?”

  Kyle looked up. “I began flirting with a student,” he said, cringing as he slowly continued, “I met her out at a bar two nights ago.”

  Eddie’s jaw dropped as he sunk back in his chair.

  “I know, I know. It was stupid.”

  “You fucking shit,” Eddie said, his eyes digging into Kyle. “You were trying to screw around with one of your students?”

  Kyle nodded.

  “For how long?”

  “Few weeks now.”

  Eddie shook his head. “And you didn’t tell me? Me?”

  “I was embarrassed.”

  “Embarrassed?” Eddie asked. “I’m your best fucking friend. This is the shit I’m supposed to hear. No, scratch that. This is the shit I want to hear. I love you and all, Ky, but your stories about next year’s new teaching curriculum aren’t exactly riveting. But you banging an eighteen-year-old? Now that’s some good shit. That’s the stuff I want to hear. And damn, I was starting to wonder if you’d gone gay.” Eddie paused and sunk his chin into his chest. “I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

  Kyle smiled. “Of course not.”

  Eddie leaned forward and rested his hands on his thighs. “So tell me, man, what’s she look like? Smoking, right? Hell, a fat, homely looking eighteen-year-old is smoking to me these days.”

  “She’s not eighteen.”

  “She hot?”

  Kyle squirmed a bit. “She’s attractive, yes.”

  “So how long have you been banging her?”

  “I haven’t done anything with her.”

  “I thought you said you met her out at a bar the other night.”

  Kyle sighed. “I did. But she collapsed before I got a chance to even talk to her. Not that I would’ve nece
ssarily done anything if she hadn’t, but—”

  “Whoa, whoa. Wait a fucking second. Collapsed? The chick collapsed? From what, drinking?”

  “No. She had a hemorrhage. A cerebral hemorrhage. Burst aneurysm. Collapsed on the street when I got there.”

  Eddie laughed. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

  “It’s not funny. She could’ve died. She still might, or might be even worse off. She’s in a coma.”

  Eddie held up his hands. “Sorry. Seriously, I am. But it’s funny just how bad your fucking luck is. I mean, here you go trying to hook up with some eighteen-year-old, and she has a damn stroke before you even get to do anything.”

  “She’s not eighteen,” Kyle repeated. “She’s twenty.”

  Eddie leaned back. “So what happened? Did her parents find out?”

  Kyle shook his head and explained how he erased the texts when he found Allie, then told him about Liam’s out of the blue call just earlier.

  “Damn, Ky. You erased the texts? You? Mr. fucking Goody Two-Shoes? I couldn’t even get you to help me write any of my papers, and now you’re tampering with evidence?”

  Kyle’s eyes widened. “You think that’s evidence tampering?”

  “Might be,” Eddie said.

  “But what’s the crime? She had a burst aneurysm.”

  “But you didn’t know that at the time.”

  “But I know now.”

  “All right,” Eddie said. “Whatever. Tampering or not, it’s still pretty risky. Especially for a tightass, by-the-rules geek like you.”

  Kyle hung his head. “I know.”

  “And so now her uncle’s coming by your office tomorrow?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You think he really thinks she was attacked?”

  Kyle shrugged. “I hope so.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Eddie said. “But, c’mon, let’s be real. The guy probably wants to kick your fucking ass for trying to slam his eighteen-year-old niece and then abandoning her when she stroked out.”

  “She’s twenty.”

  Eddie took a swig of his Heineken, then stood and opened the sliding glass door. “Celia,” he said, “bring the iPad out here for a second.”

  “Why?”

  “Just for a second, honey. I want you to check something out for us.”

  “What?” she asked as she wheeled over the small ramp used to make the ridge of the sliding glass door wheelchair accessible.

  “I need you to go on Facebook and look up a Liam … what’s his last name?”

  “Murdock,” Kyle said. “You think he’s on Facebook?”

  “Everyone in the world’s on Facebook besides you. My goddam ninety-five-year-old grandmother’s on Facebook.”

  “There are a few Liam Murdocks,” Celia said. She scrolled down the list. “Three of them are in Australia, and one guy’s in New York.”

  “How old is the guy in New York?”

  “Forty-two,” Celia said. “His profile’s public.”

  “Age sound about right?” Eddie asked.

  “Seems so,” Kyle said. “Can I see it?”

  “Sure,” Celia said, handing him the iPad.

  Eddie peered over to take a look as well. The profile didn’t have a photo. Instead, it had a Batman insignia. It also showed that Liam owned a comic book store downtown. Kyle clicked on the photo icon to see if there were any actual pictures of Liam, but there weren’t—just pictures of superheroes, wolves, the Yankees, and cartoons. No people. Kyle scrolled through a couple of wall posts. There were quite a few, many using words like “effing,” “frig,” and “dang” while avoiding the actual curse words themselves. The most recent posts were about Allie, telling his “friends” what had happened, that she was in a coma.

  Kyle looked up. “So? What do you think?”

  Eddie didn’t answer right away. Instead, he took the iPad from Kyle and continued to scroll down the screen, looking at Liam’s posts from before Allie’s incident. “I can’t stand these types of guys,” he said. “They feel the need to post about every single second of their boring-ass lives. I mean, shit, do you think this guy’s 478 friends really give a damn that he was on the bowl for an hour after eating Mexican takeout? And look at this.” Eddie turned the tablet toward Kyle. “He’s one of those doomsayer Yankee fans. One of those guys who gets upset if they don’t win every game by a blowout.”

  “Still think this guy wants to kick my ass?”

  “Why would someone want to kick your ass?” Celia asked.

  Kyle looked over his shoulder. “They wouldn’t,” he said, having made the same mistake Eddie had earlier. “I was just making a very bad joke to your dad.”

  “I’ll tell you what I think,” Eddie said. “I think spending all that time with nutcases has caused you to become a magnet for ’em. This dude’s a bona fide freak.” He looked back down at the iPad and started scrolling around. “What’s the name of his niece? Allie what?”

  “You think she’s friends with him?”

  “Of course she is, he’s her uncle.” Eddie stopped scrolling. “Shelton, right? It’s gotta be. She’s the only Allie he’s friends with. Probably also the only chick he’s friends with who isn’t four hundred pounds.” Eddie found her photo, then leaned back and looked at Kyle, nodding with approval. “Very nice, my friend.”

  Kyle turned red and picked up the iPad.

  He tried to look at her profile, but all he could see was the picture. The rest was private.

  “You want me to come by tomorrow when he shows up?”

  Kyle handed the iPad to Celia and smiled. “I’m pretty sure I can handle it myself.”

  “Thanks for the iPad, honey,” Eddie said. “You can take it back inside and keep looking for something that’s gonna bankrupt me.”

  Celia wheeled herself back through the open sliding door and said, “It won’t bankrupt you. But I just have to figure out a place to put the litter box.”

  “A cat? Don’t think your mom will go for that one.”

  As she slid the door closed, Celia smiled and said, “Guess you’ll just have to sharpen up on those persuasive skills.”

  When the door closed, Kyle said to Eddie, “She is definitely your daughter.”

  Eddie leaned back and sipped his beer, his expression turning serious, the playful flicker in his eyes muted. “She’s way better than me,” he said. “I’d be cursing life every chance I got for the shitty deck it handed me. Not her. Girl’s a goddam angel.”

  Eddie took another sip. For all of his bluster and bravado, Kyle knew beneath it all was a father’s aching heart that cried out in pain every time he thought about his daughter never walking again.

  “Anyway,” Eddie said, shaking away the thoughts, quickly regaining a lighter tone, “you, my friend, are a glutton for punishment.”

  Kyle shrugged. “What choice did I have? He didn’t ask to come over, he said he was. And after what he’s going through with his niece, who am I to say he shouldn’t?”

  “That’s exactly what you should’ve said to him. That you don’t have time for him. Be a bit of a dick once in awhile. It won’t kill you. Or at least don’t be such a damn Goody Two-shoes. Look where it got you with Trotter.”

  Trotter was Henry Trotter, a former patient whose family was suing Kyle for causing their son’s death. It was the event that had precipitated Kyle’s decision to take a break from practicing.

  “Speaking of which,” Eddie said, “what’s going on with that lawsuit?”

  “We have a mediation scheduled for next week.”

  “Good,” Eddie said. “Time to put that crap to rest already. You should have never written that letter to the licensing Board questioning your own treatment to begin with. You know it, and I know it. And so does every other sane person in this world, even the weasel lawyer manipulating the system. That lawsuit is the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve ever seen on paper. It makes me embarrassed to be an American when I think about it. That fuckhead who took the case should
be thrown in jail. Better yet, he should be shot. Even the notion of suggesting that you did anything wrong is insane.”

  Eddie always said that but, in a twisted way, Kyle was glad the case was started. He wanted a jury to hear how he had treated Henry Trotter, and he wanted an unbiased finding telling him what he did, or didn’t do, wasn’t wrong. But lately he was beginning to think Eddie was right. Maybe it was time to move on. Completely move on.

  Eddie took another swig of his Heineken then set it down hard. “Now down to real business,” he said, his thick eyebrows dovetailing at the bridge of his nose. “You’re coming down to the shore with us after Bree goes to camp, right?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “C’mon, man. It’ll be fun. There are tons of single women down there. And you’ll have the room downstairs. It has its own bathroom. Dana’s parents stay there when they come down. It’s like they have their own little suite. In fact, I was thinking about putting a little kitchenette in there off the hall so I never have to see them.”

  “I’ll see.”

  “C’mon,” Eddie egged him on, not happy with the half-hearted response. “Is it because it’s the Jersey Shore and not the damn Hamptons? A beach is a beach. Sand is sand. They sell the same Fudgy Wudgy bars down in Jersey as they do out in the fancy-pants Hamptons.”

  “Of course it isn’t that. And they don’t sell Fudgy Wudgy bars in the Hamptons.”

  “I don’t know, man. You may have grown too soft from being with Sheila and her Hamptons crowd,” Eddie said. “Too soft from being married to a woman whose secretary’s bonus alone is five times the average person’s salary.”

  “Me?” Kyle laughed. “I’ve gone soft?” Kyle looked around at Eddie’s spacious home, the fruits of his own successful career in private equity. “It’s not like you’re exactly struggling. And if anyone’s grown soft, I would say it might be the father who left work in the middle of the day when his son’s classmate bit him in nursery school.”

  “Damn right I did. That fucking little shit was like a goddamn Pac-Man.” Eddie’s face turned angry. “Did I tell you what that kid looked like when I went down to the school? He had crazy eyes and was foaming at the mouth. The little shit almost bit me! He’s destined for the short bus. I mean, if your kid can’t control himself from biting, don’t send him to fucking school. Keep Chompers at home and do the rest of us a favor.” He pointed his finger at Kyle. “That wasn’t being soft, my friend. That was a goddamn act of public safety. I would’ve gone down there and bit that little shit myself if he’d sunk one more of his grimy little fangs into my kid.”