Nico says. It took me four beers and three shots to open him up. All night he’s been talking about the breakup, what’s-her-name Yelena I think, and all night I’ve known there’s something else on him, but I didn’t know know— “Fuck, man.” I catch at his elbow. He’s wearing leather, supple, slick—he’s always mock-hurt when I can’t tell his good jackets from his great ones. “Mandrill?” A better friend wouldn’t have to ask, but I’m drunk, and not so good a friend. “Your cat back home?” “Poor Mandrill,” Nico says, completely forlorn. “Ah, shit, Dominga. I shouldn’t have left him.” He only goes to the Lighthouse on empty Sundays, when we can hide in the booths ringed around the halogen beacon. I expect sad nights here. But, man, his cat … Nico puts his head on my shoulder and makes a broken noise into the side of my neck. I rub his elbow and marvel in a selfish way at how much I care, how full of hurt I am, even after this awful week of dead bikers and domestics and empty space where fucking Jacob used to be.
