“What has you so fired up this morning?” He knew me too well.
“Nothing I want to share. So why are you dumping me?” I was being dramatic.
“I have a date with this amazing woman, Alicia. She works at a funeral home as an embalmer. She has to work every night this week except for tomorrow, so she wins cause she might be it for me.” He was glowing, the bastard.
“An embalmer? Have you lost your mind?” What kind of troll was he planning on dating?
The glow didn’t dim. “If you saw her, you would lose your mind too.”
“I doubt it, what kind of crazy becomes an embalmer?” I was actually very curious.
“She wants to restore people’s loved ones as close to their original state as possible so she can give them back to their family and friends before saying goodbye forever. It’s her mission in life.” He seemed sincere, but I had to check.
“You fucking with me, amigo?” I really wasn’t sure.
He was all smiles. “You’re the one watching a man cut off his own arm, how is that worse?”
I waved him away. “I really want to beat the shit out of you. See her next week.”
“I wouldn’t dare. Tomorrow is off, but I’ve come to take you to The Dutch for lunch.” He grabbed the remote and threatened to turn off the TV.
“Wait, just let me watch this last thing,” I said as I held him back.
The scene had moved past the lover’s inability to complete their sacrifice in time. With his hand chopped off, and her unable to eat it, the room exploded. Such good tragedy. But then it continued, the living characters all talk, talk, talk, which was going to translate into cut, cut, cut. I was getting too bored to care, so I took Lucas up on his offer.
During lunch, I asked him how he knew that she was the one. I’d known him long enough to know that, “Hi, I’m Alicia, the embalmer,” wasn’t going to do it for him on its own.
“I met her on a dating website,” he started.
I was authentically shocked. “Shut up, you’re a G.I. Joe. Why do you need the internet?”
I was always jealous of his good looks. I mean, I was handsome, but I always felt like my face was too angular, too chiseled. Lucas had a manly look about him, rugged. That’s why, when we sparred, I always went for the face, just trying to give him a little scar. I wasn’t really — mostly my aim was bad — but sometimes, that deviousness crept in. He knew it though and never faulted me my jealousy. He was the best friend for me because he was completely unaffected by avarice and vanity.
It hit me hard. The little waitress was the same. She even had his brave defiance. She was like Lucas, only she was shockingly beautiful and made my dick hard, something Lucas, thank god, had never done. I was proud of myself and the Freud I had become.
“I need the internet because most of the women I meet are vapid and self-centered. I needed to do a deeper screening. It also gave me a chance to get to know her. Tomorrow will be our first date.”
He hadn’t even met the woman? “Then how the hell do you know she’s it? It’s all just circumspect.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Because she just has it, KP. That indescribable thing that raises your flag and gets your blood pumping. It’s what she says, how she sees the world, her face, her body—”
“Which you haven’t seen.”
He actually blushed. “We’ve Skyped. Skype can’t lie.”
“How would you know, unless you got her naked on Skype?” His blush reddened. “No fucking way, you guys had cybersex?”
“Well, you screw every woman on two legs,” he countered.
“I am exclusively screwing one woman right now, thank you very much, but it’s all probably gonna end soon.” Shit, I hadn’t meant to say that.
His eyebrows went up. “Oh?”
Damn it, I would probably have to confess. I’d just dug myself a hole and jumped right in.
“I just, it’s… fuck.” I couldn’t choke it out.
He leaned forward in his seat. “It’s bad, whatever it is. How did you meet her? Are you two dating?”
“Not yet, but we will.” Hell yes, we will.
“She an actress? Anyone I know?” He could be a curious dickhead.
“Nope, she’s definitely no one you know, and no one I’m ready to talk about.” Was I really desperate enough to ask this next question? Apparently. “If I was going to pursue this opportunity, what do you think the best way to close this kind of deal is? What do women want?”
I thought he would laugh but surprised me when he took the question seriously. “First, you have to show her you care about the things she cares about.”
“So, what did you do? Go to a lot of funerals?” I wanted to laugh, but it felt inappropriate.
He shook his head. “No, when my little brother died, I truly appreciated the people who made him look like he did before cancer ravaged his body.” Crap, he was so real, I had to dial my sarcasm back.
I remembered when Wilhelm died. He was only five. Lucas and I were three years older. I could never get over the shock of seeing his little body in that casket. It felt so final, like it was truly the end, which it was. I looked at my friend. Lucas and I also had that in common, little brothers with terminal illnesses.
“I can see that. He looked just like he was, you know, before…” Fuck, feelings were hard.
Lucas sat back in his seat and lightened the subject. “So, we had that in common, and we both like the Mets, opera, Cheese Wiz, and Star Wars. That was enough of a start for me.”
It felt good to laugh. “Really, she had you at Cheese Wiz?”
“Perfect cheese food in a can,” he confirmed.
“Well, just don’t serve it at your wedding,” I cautioned.
He laughed. “My only advice is to be real with her. I know that’s hard for you to do, but just be yourself. Show her that good guy you have buried under production deals, blockbuster movies, and a billion dollars, and you’ll be fine.”
I really loved him. He was like a brother to me.
We spent the rest of the meal catching up, talking politics and sports, and updating each other on family. I didn’t have much to say about my family. I’d been estranged from them for many years. He, on the other hand, was still very close to his mom, sister, and brothers. His father left them when they were young. His mother was an heiress, so she was plenty rich enough to maintain a large home in our childhood neighborhood. It was another thing I envied about him; he had a great relationship with his family. I didn’t wish to have the same kind of relationship with mine. My parents were a different breed of people, but watching the love Lucas and his family shared, even as adults, was a little painful at times.