Page 41 of Savage Row

Greg folds his hands across his chest, and through narrowed eyes he glares at me. He knows me better than I think he does, but clearly not as well as he thought. “Amy,” he hisses. “What have you done now?”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Greg paces back and forth across the room, eventually stopping at the window. He folds his arms across his chest and peers out. His reflection shines back at me. His nose is pressed so close to the glass that it might as well be touching it, as though he’s trying to get as far away as possible. “I just can’t imagine what you were thinking.”

“You want to know what I was thinking?” I feel my face get hot. Tears well up. “I was thinking I wanted to avoid something like this from happening. I was thinking I wanted Jack Mooney back in jail.”

“And you thought contacting Alex, of all people, would solve your problems?”

“Actually, yes.”

He crosses the room and sits next to me on the couch, his elbows balanced on his knees. He rests his head in his hands and presses his palms into his eye sockets. “I just don’t get it. Don’t you remember what a creep he was—what he put you through?”

I do remember. I’d been living with Alex when I met Greg. It was actually Alex who introduced the two of us. Back in college, they were study partners. But after we started dating, Alex developed a sudden distaste for Greg, which wasn’t surprising. He found fault with most of my friends. He didn’t think Greg was good enough for me, and he made it clear every chance he got. But he paid the bills on time. He split household tasks evenly, often taking on more than his fair share, and always without complaint. Until the end, he was the perfect roommate.

It was nice to find a member of the opposite sex that I could be completely comfortable and completely platonic with. It helped that he was gay. Or at least that’s what he’d said, and I had no reason not to believe him. Even now, I’m not sure what was a lie and what was the truth. We never made it that far.

One drunken night as we were lying together on a mattress on his bedroom floor, he let something slip. He’d just learned he’d passed the Bar exam, and we were celebrating, talking about everything and nothing, the way inebriated people tend to do. He’d mentioned something that had happened at a party, a party he hadn’t been invited to. When I asked him how he knew about the incident, he was evasive. The way I saw it, it wasn’t a big deal. I saw my questions as harmless. Mostly I was joking. He saw it as an interrogation. Sure, I might have accused him of following me. I thought it was cute. I was admittedly a little honored that he cared that much. I saw Alex as the big brother I never had. Protective and all-knowing. But as I continued to rib him, he grew defensive and angry. He grabbed me by the wrist, yanked me off the bed, shoved me out of his room, and slammed the door shut. He didn’t speak to me for two weeks.

Fourteen days is a long time when you share a tiny apartment with only a thin wall separating your beds. After that night, things were awkward. More so, when I found the photos in his bedroom of me. Me sleeping. Me laughing. Me at various angles, making it obvious I wasn’t aware the photos were being taken.

I moved out the same day and in with Greg. I had nowhere else to go, not on such short notice. I’d left the photos on the kitchen counter with a note that said: this is not okay.

I’m not sure what I had expected to come of it. But it wasn’t silence. Truthfully, I thought he’d reach out with some sort of explanation. What kind of explanation, I can’t say, but our friendship was important to me. Secretly, and naively, I hoped he’d beg me to come back. I hoped that things would go back to the way they’d been before. It didn’t help that he had driven a wedge between me and the rest of my friends with his frequent antics. It was always something. Even so, I’m almost sure that, with the proper apology, I would have forgiven him. I never got the chance. He ghosted me.

At the time, I was hurt. Now I can see that it was for the best. It’s clear that our friendship was a concept, a fantasy. Something I had gotten swept up in. By the time I realiz

ed what was happening, it took drastic measures to find my way out. Hindsight being twenty-twenty, I understand how I led him on. Thinking he batted for the other team, I saw it as harmless. But it wasn’t harmless.

I reach out and touch Greg’s thigh. “Please don’t be mad.”

He looks up at me and shakes his head. “I’m not mad, Amy. I’m disappointed.”

“I understand. But right now we need to focus on Blair.”

“Why do I get the feeling there’s more you’re not telling me?”

“Because there is.”

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in. On the exhale, he opens them and puts me in my place. “For fuck’s sake. What?”

“I bought a gun.”

“Of course you did.”

“It’s missing.”

His head cocks to the side. “What do you mean it’s missing?”

“After the break-in, it was—” I shrug. “It was just gone.”

“And you didn’t think mentioning this to the police was worth it?”

“I didn’t know until after they were gone. I had it hidden. And at the time I didn’t think to look.”

“Did Alex help with that, too?”

“With what?”