21...

Frank stumbled to the couch and sat hard. He lightly rubbed one eye and watched the blue sparks tumble into black. Bryan stood with the refrigerator door open, feeling the coolness click to his clammy skin.
“What else has been weird this morning?” He grabbed a beer and sat next to Frank.
“You smell, man.” Frank said with a yawn.
“Yeah, I just ran seven miles.” Bryan took a swig of the beer and handed it off to Frank.
The bottle tilted back and beer began to disappear in giant gulps. Frank closed his eyes and felt that cold goodness fall on down. He smiled with a simple contentment that was near angelic.
“What else has been weird this morning?” Bryan pressed a little harder.
“The phone kept ringing…”
“Oooh, creepy.”
Bryan stood and walked through his own sarcasm. He put his hands on his hips and began stretching from side to side.
“No, I mean it kept ringing until I finally picked it up. And when I picked it up it was someone laughing. Laughing or crying, I’m not positive.”
Frank stared ahead carefully, focusing on nothing and lost in something that felt like a bruise somehow. He took a slow and full inhale of breath, looked down at the beer bottle in his hand and finished it off. He tried to look Bryan in the face, but Bryan was currently bent over at the waist and touching his feet.
“I think it was Alexis. On the phone.”
Bryan stopped the small bouncing motion he had been involved in and began to slowly stand up straight. A sly smile bloomed on his smooth, tan face.
“You’re little chippy called?”
“She’s not my little chippy!” Frank snapped, tossing the beer bottle at Bryan.
Bryan caught the bottle like a zen master, minor league right fielder; all young show and power with absolute grace and focus. He put it on the table without the slightest attention.
“Didn’t she blow you while her boyfriend was passed out two feet away?
“Yeah, but…” Frank stammered.
“Did the two of you not fuck while you were wearing rollerblades?”
“We did, but…”
“While both of you were wearing rollerblades?”
Frank couldn’t help a prideful little smile at that particular memory. The smile faltered and broke almost as soon as it surfaced.
“I don’t know man, I don’t… Something doesn’t feel right.”
“What do you mean?” Bryan asked.
“I think there’s trouble with her. That she’s in trouble.”
“How can you even know that? I mean how long have you known her?”
Frank turned his eyes away from Bryan and thought about it for a moment.
“A few years I guess.”
“How’d you even meet her?”
Frank’s fragile smile began to reform itself.
“Well…”