How The Other Half Lives

“Mike?” I heard Josh and Nick speak at the same time, the only difference was that Nick was actually excited to hear Mike’s name, where Josh wasn’t too impressed at all.

“Who’s Mike?” Josh wanted to know.

“Ummm,” I turned away from the guys, hoping to hear Josh better. “Mike is Jordan and Nick’s older brother,” I told him. “You remember, he was at my brother’s New Year’s Party.”

“I don’t remember meeting him,” Josh said slowly, as if he was thinking as he was speaking. “Are you sure I met him?”

“Well I thought you did,” I told him, I wasn’t so sure about it now. “He came with Jordan that night,” I thought that would help him remember.

It did. “You mean the guy who spun you before kissing you?” He sounded upset. “That was Jordan’s brother? The guy you are going to see right now?”

“Yeah, that was Mike,” I chuckled. “I had forgotten about that.”

Josh asked me if he was my ex as Jordan tried to get my attention. “We are going to leave you here if you don’t hurry up!”

“Just hold on a minute,” I snapped at Jordan. “Yes Josh, I guess you could say that.”

“Could say that? What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, I just meant that –”

“Just tell me,” he cut in. “Why do you not think this would bother me?” I asked him what and he said, “You leaving me without a moments notice to go see one of your exs! Anna I can’t believe that you would do that.”

“Wait a minute,” I jumped in as soon as he stopped talking. “Mike is Jordan’s brother, I’ve known him all my life, and he’s a friend…”

“Of course he is, they…”

“And he’s gay!” I shouted over the phone.

“I don’t care if he’s…wait, what?”

I sighed as the guys started to walk towards Mike’s building. “Josh, Mike is gay. That’s why I said you could say he was one of my exs; I don’t really count him because he wasn’t really dating me as much as he was just hanging out, if you really look at it.”

“Oh,” Josh seemed a little lost for words.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew all about Mike; his boyfriend was even with him that night, I thought you seen that.”

There was silence on the line for a moment, I was about to ask him if everything was ok when he spoke. “God I feel so stupid now,” he told me. “I told myself I wouldn’t be that guy.”

“What guy Josh?”

“You know,” he groaned, “The crazy jealous guy who can’t even hear his girlfriend mention another guy’s name without thinking that she would do something with him if she had the chance.”

“Honey I’m sorry that –”

“No Anna, it isn’t you, it’s me. I’m being stupid,” he told me. “I don’t know what it is but I keep thinking that one day you’ll meet someone younger who’ll totally get you and I’ll be…Well I don’t know where that would leave me.”

“Josh don’t you think I think about that? About you meeting someone else who’ll be the perfect woman for you? And where that would leave me?” I closed my eyes, smiling a little. “When I think about that though, I remember that until that woman shows up, you are with me and I believe that we are pretty happy –”

“Very happy,” he stated. “I couldn’t be happier.”

“That’s good,” I told him. “And I must confess, if that woman ever does show up, I’ll be ready to rip her pretty little face off because I’ve waited a long time for you and I’m not letting go without a fight!”

“You are something else,” Josh laughed. “I love you Anna.”

“I love you too Josh.”

Jordan came over and started to pull on my arm. “I’m being pulled away,” I told Josh. “Jordan and Nick are impatient; they want to go see their brother.”

“Ok,” Josh sounded like he was smiling still. “Have fun today Beautiful. Call me later, if you have a moment, to let me know if I should expect you tonight or not.”

I told him I would call him and then told him I loved him again before hanging up. The second I flipped my phone closed, Jordan and Nick both grabbed me by the arm, dragging me towards the building.

While we were waiting for the elevator, I turned to Jordan. “So are you going to tell us why it was so important for us to come here today? Or are you going to wait until we see Mike?”

Jordan glanced at me, then at Nick before looking around the lobby of the apartment building. “Ok fine,” he motioned towards a couple chairs that were close to the entrance for residents who were waiting in the lobby for a cab or something. “Let’s sit down.”

Once we were settled into three of the five chairs, Jordan started to speak. “Eric called me last night,” Nick raised a brow. “What? Eric can’t call me?”

“I didn’t know Eric called anyone in our family.”

“Of course he does,” Jordan snapped. “He calls mom sometimes when he needs to find out something. Anyway,” he shook his head in frustration. “That’s not the point. Eric called me, he was asking me about our plans for today; what we were doing? Where we were going and if it was really going to be the three of us? I told him that we weren’t sure what we were doing because we hadn’t really made any plans.”

“Why did Eric want to know?” Nick wondered. “And how did he know we were hanging out anyway? Are you that close to Eric too?” He started to smile, “Are you cutting in on Mike’s man?”

“Hell no!” Jordan exclaimed, “I was talking to Mike last week, he asked me how you guys were doing so I told him we were all hanging out today.”

“Just checking,” Nick laughed.

Jordan just shook his head, “Anyway! According to Eric, Mike has been really moody for a while saying that he wanted to go home, move back that kind of stuff. I guess when I told Mike that we were hanging out, he went on and on to Eric about how cool it would be if we were to come down to see him –”

“Why the hell can’t he come see us?” Nick cut in. “He hasn’t seen Jenna yet, Amy’s about to blow and he hasn’t been around for any of that and…” Nick glanced at me. “Well Anna damn near has a step son!” He threw his hands up in the air. “Mike hasn’t been around for a long time but he expects us to drop everything to come see him? Screw that!” He jumped up, “He can damn well come out and see us!”

“Nick!” Jordan jumped up, grabbing him by the shirt. “Don’t be a dick! Don’t you think Mike wants to come see us?” Nick just glared at Jordan. “If you even spoke to Mike lately you would know that things aren’t going that great for him! Did you know he lost his office job? That he had to take two crap jobs just to pay his share of the bills? Up until today, Mike hasn’t had a single day off in almost three months and he’s only taking today off because Eric threatened to leave him if he didn’t. He’s tired, grumpy and Eric said he wasn’t eating or sleeping that much anymore!” He shoved Nick, “Did you know that Mike spent his birthday working from 5 am until 12am at his regular jobs? And then he went to their favorite bar and did some bartending until the bar closed at 3am!”

Nick shook his head, “No, I didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t think so!”

Seconds turned into minutes as they stood face to face, staring at each other, waiting for the other to make a move. I couldn’t stand it; I needed to break the silence. “Does Mike know we are coming?”

Jordan reluctantly broke away from his staring contest with Nick, “No he doesn’t. Eric asked me last night if it was possible for us to visit Mike, to get him out of the apartment for anything, as long as it wasn’t to go to work.” When I didn’t say anything, Jordan continued. “He begged me Anna! Eric actually got there and begged me to visit Mike; he said that he didn’t know how to deal with Mike anymore.” Sighing, he told us that he thought we could really help Mike out. "I don't know about you guys but I needed to get out of our town for a while."

I glanced at Nick; he was looking over his shoulder at the elevators. “Nick?”

“Let’s go,” he said without looking back at us.