13
AVERY
PLAYLIST: UPRISING – MUSE
“You’re being watched,” tells Rossi me on the phone.
“I know,” I say. It’s the sixteenth day I registered the tail outside. Sometimes it’s agents, sometimes her. “She doesn’t trust me, and she does well not to, but I mean, she could at least be a little subtle.”
“That woman isn’t subtle,” says Rossi. “She’s like all the federal suits: stubborn, brilliant, constrained by procedure.”
I laugh. I love Rossi’s comments because he just says things as they are without walking around them with his unbelievably dry humor.
“You might need to lie a little low,” I tell him.
“They won’t figure out a thing. She looked me straight in the eyes, not for the first occasion, and didn’t realize it.”
“When were the other times?”
“When I repaired that dripping tap in her apartment to place the mic.”
“Right, she was there that day,” I say. “That was so close.”
“And yet, everything went well,” he says. “I thought, a wine later? I got a new one, you have to try it. It’s from…um…Omar.”
“Don’t tell me you two are back together again,” I say and roll my eyes, because I was forced to watch all thirteen seasons of Rossi and Omar in live and ultra high definition. Not to forget the daily session of therapy I had with him.
“Well,” he says.
“Rossi!” I shout. “Do I have to remind you that the last time you broke up, you made me swear I would drown you if you ever so much as try to call him?”
“I know,” Rossi say. “But he brought me flowers. 152 red roses.”
I rub my eyes because I’d rather scratch them out at this point.
“You will not fuck with him,” I say. “If I so much as hear that your dick was in one of his openings, I swear to God, Rossi, I will kick your ass all the way downtown and throw you from a ferry.”
There is a moment of silence, a moment too much.
“He’s there, isn’t he?” I say.
I don’t even need to wait for an answer.
“Are you doing it right now?!” I shout into the speaker.
“Pssst,” says Rossi, “We have listening ears.”
“OMAR!” I now roar through the speaker so he can hear it. “If I so much as hear one word about you walking out on him ever again, I am going to murder you by hanging you in pieces from the Empire State Building!”
Rossi laughs.
“Omar can’t really talk right now,” he says, and I suck in my lips because there are things I want to say that I can’t say, because it’s Rossi.
“Rossi, for heaven’s sake, I love you, but you are the most deranged person I know. After me. Call me when you’re done and shower before. I don’t want dick smell near me.”
With that, I hang up and walk up to the window front, where I stare outside.
Damnit, Rossi. You stupid little fucker,I curse in my mind, because I know where this will end. Exactly where all the other seasons have ended. In tears and heartbreak and endless hours of Rossi practically living in my bed because he can’t deal with his emotions.