Gray - By Pete Wentz Page 0,66

and want to believe that this is going to be something more than it is. Only I know it’s not. She tells me she has condoms. It is like signing a contract. Initial here . . . and here. Notarized. Filed. One copy each for our attorneys. The hero in me dies a tragic death, as heroes tend to do. We complete a fruitful and successful business transaction while the photographers wait for us downstairs.

Later, as she sits on the floor by the bed, smoking a cigarette and talking to me about Transcendental Meditation (or, as she calls it, “TM”) and how it “saved my life” or something, I get up and start getting dressed. She stubs her cigarette out and asks me where I’m going, and I tell her I’ve got to split. As I’m buckling my belt, she crawls across the room to me, wraps herself around my legs, looks up at me with hungry eyes, and purrs, “Sta-ayyy.” I tell her I can’t, that I’ve got to get back home, and I step through her grasp. You can tell this doesn’t happen to her often. As I’m pulling on my shirt and walking out of the bedroom, she sits on the edge of the bed and pouts, legs crossed, then lights another cigarette.

“You don’t have to do this, you know.” She exhales. “You don’t have to prove a point to me.”

I tell her I’m not trying to prove any point, that I’ve just got to get back to my place. We both know that’s a lie, but I can’t stand being here any longer, trapped in this penthouse with her. I don’t want to be a part of this anymore. I don’t want to be pulled back down by her, don’t need another addiction to (mis)handle. I’m heading out the door when she shouts that she’ll call me, and then she cautions, “Leave out the back . . . it’ll be easier that way.”

I take the freight elevator down and exit the hotel through the kitchen. A couple of Mexican kids in aprons are smoking out by the loading dock. As I walk by, they smile at me slyly. I’m probably not the first guy to leave this way. I walk a few blocks up to Sunset, call the Disaster, but he doesn’t answer his phone. I hail a cab by a gas station and ride back to my place, making the driver take me back by the front of the hotel before we head into the canyon. Photographers are still out there, leaning on the hoods of cars, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee out of paper cups. Their lives are one long stakeout. For the first time, I feel sort of sorry for her.

I try calling the Disaster again, but it goes straight to voice mail. He might still be at her house, asleep with a model wrapped around him and a smile on his face. But as the cab pulls up to our place, I see him on the front porch curled up in a wicker chair, asleep. I can hear him snoring as I walk up the dusty driveway. I kick a stone at the porch, but he doesn’t stir. I shout his name . . . nothing. He finally wakes up as the cab rattles back down the canyon; a dry, sickly grin crawls across his stubbled face. He looks sunburned and ragged, as if he’d spent the day crawling through the Sahara. He’s out on the porch because, last night, he lost both his keys and his phone.

“Ah think one of them girls musta taken ’em,” he drawls, scratching his stomach. “Or maybe I lefem at th’ house. You think we can go back there again tonight?”

I laugh and say that we probably won’t be going back there anytime soon. As we go inside, he pats me on the back and chuckles, “Boy, whata night. . . .” I can tell he’s aching to continue, but he knows that maybe right now isn’t the best time to relive past glories. He is a good friend. The sun is slowly setting in the canyon, and the rocks are glowing electric red. We open the windows and sit on metal folding chairs—the only real furniture we’ve got in the place—listen to the birds settling into the trees for the night, greeting each other with their familiar calls. Soon the coyotes will emerge from their dens and scurry through the brush; the owls will start up