Page 3 of The Best Worst Thing

Independence Day

Speyer, man!”

“Kyle, hey,” Gabe said, flashing that million-dollar grin and extending his hand. “The pool deck looks great. House looks great.”

Nicole smiled, then waved hello. Her egg retrieval was only yesterday, and truthfully, she belonged in bed. But that was never going to happen. This was Kyle McMahon’s famous Fourth of July barbecue, and everyone from Gabe’s office was here … with their big, beautiful families in tow.

And besides, the party was lovely. Nothing like the Fourth of July get-togethers Nicole had grown up going to, but there were still plenty of burgers and baked beans to go around.

It was just, there were also two sushi chefs, a red-white-and-blue children’s flower crown station, and dozens of very shiny, very thin women wearing thousand-dollar midi dresses.

Oh, and cocaine. Upstairs, of course—and only upon request. This was a family-friendly affair.

“Well, you know Alexis,” Kyle said, taking a sip of his beer. He was pushing fifty, balding, and standing there in boat shoes and a blue linen button-down. “Can’t go a year without renovating something. God help me if the tennis court’s next.”

“No way,” Gabe said. “Court looks great. Better than what I’m playing on at my club.”

This went on for several light-years while Nicole politely studied the lemon wedge floating in her iced tea.

Kyle got Gabe up to speed on which semidisgraced movie producer might buy the just-listed monstrosity next door, why so-and-so was totally going to get fucked by that securities fraud investigation, and just how much cash his wife’s latest girls’ trip to Tulum had cost him. Fascinating stuff, really.

Back in the day, when they’d first moved out to LA, Gabe would parade Nicole around these parties like she was some kind of trophy.

She’d never felt quite comfortable in his world, but the way he rested a couple of fingers on her hip or arm or waist while she told a story, the way he lit up when she landed a joke, it had been easy to forget all that.

But that was then. This was now.

“So, tell me, Nicole,” Kyle said, “how’s that podcast of yours?”

“Oh, it’s … it’s good, actually.”

“You still making your husband here late for work so he can talk about his feelings?”

Nicole swallowed. Gabe flinched, then slipped a hand onto the small of her back.

“Colie actually studied English in college, so she’s really good with this stuff—with stories. It’s kind of her thing.”

“English, huh?” Kyle tipped back his beer, found a server to hand the empty bottle to, then signaled for another. “Didn’t know that about you. Just remember you were in advertising for a few years there.”

“I was, yeah.”

“Well, maybe you’ll write a book someday. You know, make something of all this.”

Gabe began to open his mouth, then scratched the back of his neck and gulped his beer instead. Nicole, arms clamped around her elbows, smiled right on cue. And then, when she realized her husband wasn’t going to say a goddamn word, she excused herself and disappeared into the house.

A moment later, Gabe was following her down the hall. His voice, hushed.

“Colie, wait, I—”

“I want to go home,” she said.

“We can’t. It just started, I …”

They were walking and talking, twisting and turning, until they’d stumbled into Kyle’s son’s computer room, all white oak and black matte and soft gray. Gabe shut the door.

That was when Nicole finally began to cry.

“You let me look like an idiot out there! You make me come to this thing. I look like shit. I feel like shit. And then you let him talk to me like my whole life is a joke! Like the things I do don’t matter! How can you expect me to go spend a month with these fucking people? Seriously, Gabe. How?”

“I’m sorry, okay? But what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to say? He’s my boss.”

“I don’t know,” Nicole said, poking at some Star Wars bobblehead on a floating shelf, her back turned. Her face, stinging. “Probably not that, though.”

This continued for a few more minutes. A held-in-whispers screaming match they both knew would never be resolved. When there was nothing left to discuss, Nicole told Gabe she needed a little more time to get herself together. That she would be out soon.

Alone and waiting for her tears to trail off, she wandered toward a desk in the corner and ran her fingers across its smooth, clean wood. At once, a sleeping computer’s screen came aglow. And that was when she saw it: Dwarf Fortress.

It had been years, but she’d have recognized those ridiculous graphics, those pixelated letters and shapes and symbols anywhere. She’d seen them countless times at her old agency, obscured by a pitch deck, a billboard mock-up, a live stream of a Mariners double-header …

“It’s the most complex game ever made,” he’d said to her one afternoon, polishing off a granola bar, then tearing open another. “Pure chaos.”

Nicole rolled her eyes. He was like this most days by three or four o’clock. Hungry. Talkative. Barely working. She’d popped into his office to drop off a few last-minute costs for next week’s pitch only to find him doing, well, this.

“No, seriously,” he said. “The rules are so strange and specific that you have to study for a week just to learn how to build a hut. It’s excruciating.”

“And you play this … on purpose?”

“Yes, Pottery Barn. On purpose.”

Nicole scoffed. She was really more of a Crate & Barrel girl, if anything. He swiveled his chair toward his computer screen, pulled up some obscure message board where people seemed to agree with him, and read a few posts aloud. As if they were real evidence. As if they strengthened his case.

“Okay, I think we’re done here, I—”

“Wait! I haven’t even explained cave adaptation to you! If you let the dwarves get too drunk, if you let them spend too much time inside, they’ll just start vomiting the second they’re exposed to sunlight and—”

“Holy shit, Logan. I cannot listen to this a second longer.”

“Oh, come on.” Now he was grinning like an idiot, running a few fingers through his hair. Closing out his game, getting back to work. “We both know that deep down, you’re just as weird as—”

“Nicole?”

A cloying, mousy voice snapped the memory in half. It was Alexis McMahon—Kyle’s wife.

“Do you need something, sweetie? What are you doing in here?”

“Oh, sorry … I’m just a little out of it today.”

Alexis just stood there, smiling at her. A barely forty blond waif who was always draped in something effortlessly gorgeous. Today, an ivory slip dress that hung off her body just so.

“Come,” she said, touching a few manicured fingers to Nicole’s wrist, then nudging her toward the hallway. “The girls have been asking where you’ve been all summer. Come say hi.”

And with that, Nicole shoved the memory back onto the very top shelf of her mind, slipped on her game face, and got on with it.