"So I saw Suzy today," Steve said out of nowhere.
Joe, still chewing on a pretzel opens his eyes wide, pushing his eyebrows up on his forehead and connects eyes with Steve.
"She asked about you," Steve said.
"I can't believe I'm still alive," Joe said. "I've never drank as much as I did last night in my life."
"No shit," Steve exclaimed.
"So what did little miss Suzy have to say about me?" Joe asked.
Steve cleared his throat.
"I bet she didn't say anything."
Steve turned his back to Joe and continued unloading some plates from the drying rack.
"I remember very little of what she said," Steve said.
"God, there is a lot of dishes," Joe remarked.
"Do you really want me to tell you what she said?" Steve asked, looking directly at Joe now.
"I used to believe she cared for me and that she actually even loved me once."
Joe spun his fingers around the rim of the fruit bowl sitting on the counter. It was odd that they even had the fruit bowl since neither one of them had purchased fruit in ages. Now the bowl just sat there collecting dust, two black bananas sagging into its recess, gravity taking its toll.
"You don't think she ever loved you?" Steve asked rhetorically.
Joe picked up the bananas and held them up, inspecting them before placing them back in the bowl and pushing his finger into one of them, ripping its skin and pushing pulp out like a tube of toothpaste.
"You know," Steve started, "I remember when we had that party a while back. The one where you were running around in your underwear. She was there, and when you first ran by in your undies she was talking to me. You know what she said? She looked right at you as you passed and then looked up right at me and said, 'That's the guy I'm gonna marry some day.' I remember feeling so jealous of what you two had at that moment."
"You never told me that before," Joe said, now looking up at his friend.
Steve just looked back down at the dishes and shrugged his shoulders a bit. Joe could sense something had changed inside him and maybe he was imagining things but he could swear Steve's eyes were a little misty. Steve turned on the water and ran the first of the plates under it, scrubbing the caked on cheese off.
