The phone rang three times before Travis answered. Each ring felt like it took an hour. I exhaled with great relief when he picked up. “Yo mama, what’s shaking?” he said, and I immediately smiled.

“Not a damn thing, my friend. I need you. You busy?”

“Never for you, angel. You know where I live.”

“Yeah, I’ll be there in five.”

I hung up and smiled. Travis was something completely different from all of my other friends. He was the most honest person I’d ever met and told you how it was, brutal or not.

He was sitting on his porch smoking a cigarette when I pulled up to his building. I parked at the curb and walked across the grass.

“Nice ride. Got yourself a sugar daddy?” he asked, flicking his cigarette towards the street and turning to look at me. His sharp green eyes glazed over from whatever he was smoking inside looked me up and down. I pushed his hair away from his eyes.

“You need a haircut.”

“You look like you’re not in need of anything. You look like you just climbed out of bed happy. Are the rumors true then?” He looked at me curiously. I stared at his anti-Bush t-shirt and I laughed a little. I looked into his eyes and he was looking at me strangely.

“Rumors?” I asked, raising my eyebrow.

“The word on the street is that you and Jay are shacked up.” I laughed and rolled my eyes. We both sat down on the couch and I looked at him.

“Shacked up, huh? And you believe this little rumor, do you?”

“Well, not at first, mama, but with the one about you clawing Amy Marks’ eyes out, and that look of contentment on your face, well the odds are stacked.”

“Jay and I share a house and Mary Beth lives there too.”

“Ah, but only you and Jay are sharing the bed.” I flipped him off and laughed. I shook my head, and bit the corner of my lip. “What’s on your mind?”

“What makes you think something’s on my mind?”

“Well, for one your letting me call you mama, which you have deemed the most offensive of all endearments I shower upon you. Plus you keep biting your lip like that, which of course makes me hot, but I know that it means you either have a problem, or that you’re feeling it. I’m guessing since you were up all night, it’s the problem.” I laughed so hard tears came.

“How do you know me so well?”

“We dated for something like half a year, and we’ve been friends ever since. I might look like I spend my life on a cloud, but I do pick some stuff up. Besides, if I didn’t know all that about you I’d probably never get laid. You gotta be able to pick up the signs.”

“And you’re sure I’m not panting for you?”

“Well, listen honey, if you’re panting for me then lets just get that out of the way now. I’ll go put on the music and light the candles.”

“Sounds good.” Travis looked carefully over me as he rolled a joint. He shook his head a little and offered the joint to me. I shook my head and he put it down on the coffee table and pulled me closer. I pulled his face to mine and kissed him. It was a few minutes before either of us thought of anything else.

“This isn’t what you came over here for.” He said, pulling away. I pulled him back towards me and kissed him again.

“This is what I need.” I said, pulling myself into his lap. I took off my shirt, and he started to laugh. Insulted, I punched his arm.

“This is the opposite of what you need honey.” He said, tracing the evidence of my night with Jay. I kissed him quiet again and started to unbuckle his pants. “You know, Liz, it’s not going to work.”

“You’re not that stoned.” He laughed and I glared at him.

“That’s not what I mean. You can fuck every guy in the state and it’s not going to solve your problem with Jay.”

“God, could you just shut up. What does a girl have to do to get laid around here?”

“Am I your friend today?”

“What are you asking?”

“I’m asking if you’ve come to me as a friend today.”

“Just tell me the answer that gets me what I want.” He picked me up in a way to convey that he was not pushing me away, and placed me next to him on the couch. He went to the refrigerator and got two Coronas and a couple slices of lime. I chuckled at the little container with the limes. Only Travis ever bothered with limes outside the bar. I accepted the beer as he handed it to me.

“God, I’m going to sound like such a girl, but we can’t do this. Not until we got some shit straight, anyway.” He took a long pull of his beer and sighed. “What are you running from mama?”

“What do you think about love?” I asked, grabbing a bag of Doritos from the table and started munching on them.

“I don’t know what I think about love. I guess I never think about that stuff unless I’m high, and then I don’t think about it.”

“So you’ve never been in love.”

“I don’t know. What the hell do I know, you know? They say that when you’re in love, you just know. But what if you’re too fucked up. What’s this about anyway, you in love with Jay?”

“After we, uh, set the night on fire, Jay told me that he loved me.”

“Just like that, huh?”

“Well, he thought that I was sleeping. I don’t get this. Last week he told me he was cool with a no strings relationship and then this. Sorry but I don’t get it. And Mary Beth is completely useless, as a best friend. I love her but god she thinks that she’s the great and powerful expert on love.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t bother Mary Beth with this shit. Mary Beth’s got problems she don’t even know about.”

“Huh?” I asked, looking very confused.

“I’m just saying. Mary Beth’s got her own problems, so you better leave this one up to me. I’m not sure she’s up to the kind of advice you need right now.”

“What do you know about Mary Beth’s problems?”

“Probably more than she does right now.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, as the friendly neighborhood drug dealer, I get a lot of information that the rest of the world isn’t always privy to.”

“God, you’ve got to be the strangest mix of stereotypes I’ve ever met. What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Look, she just doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into.”

“Just tell me what in the hell you’re talking about.”

“Bobby.”

“What about him?”

“The kid has some serious problems. You don’t return home in pieces and not go a little crazy. His crazy takes a lot of different forms.”

“What the hell do you know?”

“I am the purveyor of all kinds of relief for those who seek it; in a bottle, in a leaf, in a pill, and sometimes even worse.”

“And Bobby is?”

“Seeking to end his current frustrations with painkillers and hallucinogens. Bobby isn’t well, Liz. Mary Beth is going to have her hands full.”

“Damnit. Why can’t she just catch a break once in a while?”

“If anybody can get someone to kick a habit, it’s Mary Beth.”

“Well, that’s true.”

“The point is that Mary Beth’s going to be over her head with her own problems before you know it. You can’t be bothering her with this stupid Jay shit.”

“Right.”

“Look, I know that Jay’s your best friend, but you gotta know that he’s probably going to play it cool no matter how you act. I know that sometimes sex makes it weird, but you just gotta make sure that it doesn’t get weird. And for Christsake, stop fucking around. If it’s the sex you’re worried about, quit doing it.”

“What Jay and I have is bigger than a boyfriend/girlfriend thing. He’s not disposable like that. We’re stable, you know?”

“Not every relationship is disposable, Lizzy.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Okay, what do you want to talk about?” I once again closed the distance between us and strategically placed my breasts on his arm.

“I’m not sure I want to talk.”

“So you want to smoke some shit, or what, because I am absolutely not going to sleep with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ve been hooking up with Jay and for one I’m not about to piss Jay off because I think he could kick my ass.”

“Please, since when has Jay ever been violent over a girl.”

“When has Jay ever been in love before? Besides, I’m afraid I just wouldn’t compare. We’ve spent many a night heating up the sheets and I’ve never seen you look so content.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t care how pissed about the whole thing you are, you look fulfilled. You look happier than I’ve ever seen you. A roll in the hay with me is not going to make you happy.”

“Maybe it’s what I need.”

“What you need is to grow up and go talk to Jay about all of this. If you don’t do it soon, it’s all going to get worse.”

I leave a bit later knowing that Travis is right of course. That’s one of the weird things about Travis. He spends a lot of time stoned, but he’s not burned out. He has a lot of insights. He can really blow you away with his wisdom sometimes. It was nearly dinnertime when I finally got to the house. Jay’s truck was the only one around, so I took a deep breath and went inside. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I prayed that in the morning Jay and I would still be friends.