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I play with my glasses as Dev and I wait for the elevator. It takes longer than expected, though I don't really know if I could say that. I haven't been in this place for months now. Who knows what happened during the time while I was out? Seconds pass by, and I find myself wiping the lenses of my glasses, hoping that it goes on for just a little longer. A few more seconds pass by. I wipe the lenses of glasses even though it's already clean. My tail is thrashing and I shift my weight from leg to leg every few seconds. And I can't keep it in anymore.

Dev turns to me. He looks like he's going to tell me a joke. He hesitates when he sees the look on my face. It must be that serious if he stops whatever jokes he's going to make.

"Something bothering you again?"

I put my glasses on and shake my head. "It's nothing serious."

"Nothing serious? You got all fidgety and worked up because of nothing serious? Really now?"

"It's complicated."

"We have time." Dev gestures to the elevator. Then he bumps his shoulder with mine. "Come on. What is it? Did someone else guilt trip you into having sex with them again? What's their species?"

"No. No one asked this time. Thankfully."

"Are the gas prices getting to you?"

"Don't remind me." I groaned. "But no. I choose to ignore it whenever I can."

"What is it, then?"

I sigh. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"

Dev shakes his head, smiling. "Dream on, buddy."

I shake my head. "All right. It's just... I guess I'm a bit nervous coming back here after a while. I haven't been to Vinnie's apartment in months."

"Really? That's what got you all bothered and shit?" Dev asks.

"Look, I just... I don't know how Vinnie will react."

Dev gives me an incredulous look, then shakes his head. "Come on, man. You know how Vinnie is. He'll see you and bygones are bygones."

"Well, you can't really argue with irrational fears."

He pats my shoulder. "You and your semantics, buddy."

"It does make me feel better, though," I say. "Thanks."

"No problem."

The elevator finally opens. We both go inside and Dev presses the number to Vinnie's floor. As the doors close, I take the time to look around. I've been in this elevator hundreds of times now, mostly for parties at Vinnie's apartment. Even after I've been gone, it still has that almost pristine look it always had been since the last time I've been here. I look at the mirror behind me. It looks like I haven't changed as well.

"So, everyone's gonna ask you this, but I'm gonna do it first. Think of it as a warm-up exercise," Dev says. "Why'd you stop coming here all of a sudden? And why are you available now?"

That question catches me off-guard and I look away. I wouldn't say it's unwarranted, though. Every time Vinnie hosts a party, I was always there. I was kind of expected in his parties in my friend group; I was always available for the parties. But then... well, Gavin happened. One thing led to another, and I stopped going altogether.

"It's complicated," I say.

"Is this about the whole thing with Vinnie?"

"No. It's not that."

"Is it Danny?"

I don't answer that at first, because I don't know how to put it into words. Then I sigh. "Look, it's really long and complicated, and I don't have the energy to do that now."

He gets the hint and nods. "Okay, okay." We both go silent for a moment before he speaks up again. "By the way, no offense, all right? But I'm gonna go on for a limb here and assume you and Danny are doing whatever it is you guys do. It's none of my business, but I'm just concerned for you, man. I mean, Danny looks really familiar, right? That probably doesn't mean anything, but... you know."

I pretend not to notice that Dev chose not to say Gavin's name, mostly because I don't want to go down that topic for now. As for what he's implying... well, I don't blame him. He's not entirely wrong. I know full well the reasons I invited Danny to go along with me. I don't regret it, but it's extremely telling of what was going through my head at the moment. I don't know. I really don't want to bring this up right now.

"Hey, no offense. I'm just concerned for you, man."

I look up and smile at Dev. "Don't worry. And thanks, I appreciate it, but Danny and I are just friends. He's not with me when I'm doing what I do."

The German Shepherd looks at me, then he sighs, nodding. "I'll choose to believe you this time. You haven't let me down yet."

"Thank you."

"But you're gonna tell me, one of these days."

I chuckle. "All right. It's the least I can do."

With that, we reach Vinnie's apartment. The two of us stand there for a moment and I take the time to clean my glasses.

"I'll let you do the honors," Dev says.

I chuckle. "If you say so." I go over to the door and prepare to knock. Then I turn to him. "Should we try stripping for private parties?"

He scoffs. "Where did this come from?"

"I remember Vinnie saying something like that a while back."

He shakes his head. "Just knock on the door."

I laugh and knock on the door. I take a step back, so I'm beside Dev. We wait for a few seconds before the door opens. At the doorway is a massive bear, arms and head almost grazing the doorway. He's wearing a muscle shirt and is holding a cup, which is what I expect at a party like this. When he sees us, his eyes widen, and a grin spreads across his face.

"Yo, the stripper dudes are here," he says.

Dev walks forward and the two slap hands. "Hey, Vinnie. It's been, what, two hours?"

"Two hours too long, if you ask me. You missed a lot of stuff."

"I had to do what I had to do to get this guy." Dev points at me. Vinnie looks at me, and it's like I wasn't standing there for the past thirty seconds. He smiles and now the two of us slap hands.

"Eric! It's been months. Where have you been?"

I chuckle. "Happy birthday, Vinnie. I've been busy."

He pats my shoulder. "I get it. Stripping is hard, and you gotta put a lot of effort into it."

"You know full well that that isn't the reason."

"Do you want me to know?"

"I..." I scratched the back of my head. "No."

"That's what I thought. Now come on in."

Vinnie nudges me to come inside, and I follow. The chatter is the first thing that greets me when I go inside. It alone is telling on how much people there are here before I even look around, and the place is filled. That shouldn't be a problem, really. Vinnie's apartment is pretty big. In fact, it's bigger than all of our apartments. We've joked about what he does to be able to afford an apartment this big, but so far, this will be a mystery that Vinnie will never tell us.

"You sure brought a lot of people here," I say.

"I told you I have a lotta friends," Vinnie says.

"Good for you."

"Aw, you don't have to be jealous, man. You're my one and only stripper friend." He pats my shoulder. Then he turns to Dev. "And Dev too."

"I'm gonna hold this against you," Dev says. "Forever."

"Love you too. Now get moving."

Vinnie guides us to his living room, which is twenty steps away. I count fifteen people in the room. Most of them are on the couch, watching football on a TV Vinnie didn't have the last time I've been in his apartment. There's a football game on the TV, and it zoomed in on a tiger donning the number 57. I could practically see the stitches on the number and the sweat on his face. There's no way any of us could afford that.

Vinnie then leads us to the group just behind the couch. A weasel, a snow leopard, and a mouse. I got to admit, these are probably the only people that I know in this apartment pretty well. And that makes me feel a little less out of place.

"Hey," Vinnie calls out. "The stripper dudes are here!"

The three turns to us and the look of surprise on their faces makes me wince. I really have been away in a while.

"Eric!" the mouse says. "Motherfucker, where have you been!"

The three look turn to us and the look of surprise on their faces makes me wince. I really have been away on a while.

"Eric!" the mouse says. "Motherfucker, where have you been!"

"I'm getting that a lot lately," I say. "And, hello to you too, Axel."

"You go MIA for a month and you're wondering why?" he shakes his head. "Come on, man."

"I agree," the snow leopard says. "You have it coming, mate."

I sigh. "Thank you, Emily. I already know that."

Emily shrugged. "Thought I'd let you know."

The weasel waves at me. "Good to see you again, Eric."

I wave back. "Hey, Kira."

Seeing all of them here right now and knowing that I'm going to spend some time with them for more than ten minutes for the first time in a while is a strange feeling. So far, going here has made me regret all the decisions I made over the past few months. But I'm already enjoying my time here already. I'm having mixed feelings about myself and I don't like that.

"We should've had a party sooner if it meant you'd show up again," Axel says. "We could've used a stripper."

"But we had three in the span of the past two months," Emily said. "And we had Dev."

"I know, right?" Dev chuckles, shaking his head. "That hurts, man."

"Birthday parties, then. Eric seems to show up to all of them."

Emily nods. "Vinnie's birthday couldn't have come sooner enough." Her gaze then turns to the bear. "Thanks for bringing Eric here, Vinnie."

"I aim to please," Vinnie says, patting my shoulder yet again.

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. I should've been more present for the past few months, and I'm glad I'm back, too. But we should really stop talking about me; this is Vinnie's birthday party, after all," I say.

Vinnie pats my shoulder again. "It's fine. You coming here is kinda a birthday gift too. Great to have you back, Eric."

"If you say so."

Vinnie is about to say something else when someone calls his name. He turns behind him, spots who he's looking for, then turns back to us. "So, someone's calling me. Gotta go. Bye, guys."

With that, he walks away. We all wave at him, and I greet him with a happy birthday again, which he salutes to. After that, we all looked at each other. It's pretty clear that all of us had something to say, but Emily went first.

"Looks like Vinnie's into football now."

"Yeah, I've been wondering that, too," Dev says.

"Couldn't he just be putting it on for the guests?" Axel asks.

"Come on, Axel, you say that like you don't know the guy." Emily gestures with her hand holding the cup. "In his apartment, what he says goes."

"You think Vinnie's gonna have a new nickname?" Kira asks.

Each of us have different reactions. Kira and Emily are horrified at the thought. Dev and Axel look like they're just about done with everything. And I'm just laughing at all of them. Vinnie's real name is Vince. And because I met him later than everyone else here, I met him as Vinnie. It took me a while to learn his real name. One of the things I learned quickly about him is that he loves action movies. I could mention any action movie I've seen, and Vinnie already has an opinion on it. And the next thing I learned was that he asked everyone to call him that. There's no harm in that, but it was quite a funny story. And because I have met him after that incident, I'm not cringing like the rest of them. I love having leverage over people every once in a while.

"What kind of nickname is he gonna get from it, anyway?" Emily says. "I mean, I'm not too big on football, but I don't think he's gonna find a nickname relating to football."

"He could always name himself after one of the players."

"That, or change his nickname a bit," Axel says.

"Like what, Vonni?"

Kira, Axel, Dev, and I look at each other, then we nod slowly.

"Yeah, that could be a name," Axel says.

"I could drink to that." Dev proves that statement by taking a sip from his cup.

Emily places the back of her hand on her forehead dramatically. "Man, it hurts being this talented at naming."

"Shut up, Emily," I say.

We all laugh at that. To be honest, I'm surprised at the fact that our inside joke is still alive. I thought it would've been dead by now.

"But as great as Vinnie is, we have been talking about him for far too long. Let's change the topic." Emily uses her cup to point it at me. "Our guest of honor, Eric Firsch. Published author and stripper extraordinaire. Glad to have you back, buddy. Now answer me this, where the fuck were you for the past few months?"

"Since when am I the guest of honor?" I ask.

"Since you showed the fuck up after disappearing for so long. You were gone and now you're back, and we should celebrate that. But you're avoiding my question, mate. Where were you for the past few months?"

All four of them look at me, and it didn't matter that I have been on interviews or have been stripping for quite a while now. I got a little bit nervous now that they all have their eyes on me. I cleared my throat, looking away. "I was really busy," I say.

"Really, that's you can come up with?" Emily says. "Come on, at least to learn to lie better."

"Why do you have to assume I'm lying?"

Emily pointed at Kira, herself, Axel, and Dev. "Grad school, wedding planner, med school, entrepreneur. We're all pretty busy, yet we still manage to come together. What makes you different?"

"Hey, didn't you say that it was long and complicated?" Dev asks.

"So you are lying." Emily looks at me.

"Oh damn, he got busted pretty quick." Axel says.

Emily points the cup at me again. "Spill."

I sigh. I was never good at lying, and the thing with being friends with people is that they can see through you most of the time. But I'm still not ready to talk about that to them, so I thought of it harder. And this time, I hope the writer in me cooperates.

"I..." I start, and sigh to hide the fact that I'm making it up. "It's been a rough couple of months, really. Some personal stuff happened, and it takes a lot for me to do the things I need to do. I didn't feel like going to parties with a lot of people. I swear I promised myself to come hang out with you guys, but it's pretty hard to break habits, so I'm sorry."

The four look at one another, and for a second, I'm starting to think they're gonna see through me and call me out, but instead Dev pats my back. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Didn't wanna bother you guys, is all."

"Really? After everything we did to one another, you didn't tell because you didn't wanna bother us?" Axel says. He looks both mad and comically offended, so I don't know if he's fully serious.

I chuckle. "Feelings are weird. I'm sorry."

"Well, you seem to be doing okay now," Kira says. "That's good."

"Yeah, I don't know what was going on with me for the past few months, but I'm pretty much okay now."

"Glad to have you back," Emily says.

To my surprise, it worked. The advice I got is true, after all.

"I'm gonna get a drink," I say. "I'll be right back."

I walk away from the circle and make my way to the kitchen. For some reason, the kitchen was filled with people as well. With an apartment this big, we should all fit inside the living room, so it surprised me why people would be here at all. It doesn't matter, anyway, so I let it go. I grab a cup, fill it with beer, and get back to the group. They seem to be deep in a story when I get there.

As I get back to the group, Kira is now the one leading the conversation. She seems to be starting a story the moment I go back to where I was standing before.

"So, remember Jason?" Kira says.

"Yeah, the otter guy, right?" Emily says. "Haven't seen him in a month, too. What happened?"

Jason is Kira's boyfriend for four years. She brought him a lot to parties we hosted. He was an otter, slender, and often wore skinny jeans and oversized shirts. He's a pretty cool guy. Laid-back and relaxed, but will blast hip-hop or R&B music whenever given the chance. I'm not complaining, though. He has good taste. It seems like he added to the list of people whose lives I've disappeared from.

"Long story short is, we broke up," Kira says.

All four of us remain quiet for a moment. That is as good a condolence as any when it comes to us.

"Sorry to hear that," Emily says. "But I doubt you want condolences."

Kira shrugs. "I'm over it. If I wasn't, I wouldn't have brought this up after Axel's misadventures with his dominatrix girlfriend."

At least one of us is better off, I think as I take a drink of my beer.

"Look, I've never been into BDSM shit, okay?" Axel says. "It's not my fault I didn't know what to do."

"You would have been able to walk upright if you told her you didn't know what to do." Emily gives him a look, then she smiles. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say she knew what she was doing. Oh, wait..."

"Anyway," Kira cuts in. "Jason and I aren't a thing anymore, so don't expect him to come to parties anymore. Just thought I'd let you guys know."

"How'd you guys break up?" Axel says.

"You guys want the shortened version or the detailed one?"

"Detailed."

"I second that," Emily says.

"Third," Dev says.

"Yeah, me too," I say.

Kira nods. "Detailed it is. So, Jacob and I, we haven't been going too good for the last... I dunno, three months? We fought a lot more, and it was pretty hard for us to find common ground. I thought it was fine; just a few rocky months. But I slowly got frustrated enough to realize that wasn't the case.

Long story short, we had a talk about this and we realized that, in the end, we don't have much in common. Our relationship was running on 'oh, that's hot,' and nothing else."

"Oh, damn," Dev says, taking a drink of his beer.

"It took you guys four years to realize that?" Emily asks.

"Look, it felt like we had something in common, all right?" Kira snaps at her.

Axel chuckles. "And those things are?"

"Shut up, Axel."

Axel laughs at that and Kira glares at him. She has quite the stare, but we're all used to it now. Axel is laughing, Dev and Emily have wry grins on their faces, and Kira may not look like it right now, but she's enjoying her time here. As for me, I drink my beer in hopes that I feel the same as them.

"How'd you get over it?" I ask. "The breakup, I mean."

Kira turns to me. "I dunno. I was bummed out for a day, and I thought, 'Screw this, it happened and I wanna be happy.' So I did."

I nodded. "Did you have any regrets? Or other lingering feelings like that?"

"What's with these questions?" Dev says.

"I'm just curious, is all," I say.

"Regrets..." Kira mutters. Then she shakes her head. "Nothing, really. I guess you could say that I regret not seeing that Jason and I had nothing in common sooner, but other than that..." she shrugs.

I nod, taking another sip from my beer. "Glad everything's going well for you."

"It's not really something I was really bummed about," Kira says. "But thank you, anyway."

"All right. That's enough about Kira's love life," Emily says. "Someone else speak up before we go any further about it."

"I'll go next," Dev says. "So, this happened on the way home from work."

Dev goes on in his story. The first one is his from his day job. It is pretty interesting, and I got a little invested in it. His next story happened back at the strip club. It's the best story I've ever heard, but what stuck with me was that I could've been there. I clearly remember that night. I left early because I was still knee-deep in a lot of negative emotions, and it was because of Gavin. No, it wasn't because of him. I'm the only one who's responsible for my actions, but it still doesn't stop it from hurting.

Then Axel tells another story. Then Emily. Before I know it, they're sharing back and forth on what they have done for the past few months. Interesting things. Fun things. Things they did with one another. I could've been in one of those stories. All I had to do was take a step back and join them. Yet I didn't. So they're laughing, thinking about the things that had happened in their lives while I just stagnated.

I excuse myself from the group. I try to make it sound cheerful, and it works. Came up with a pretty good excuse, too. It almost makes me proud of myself. I walk away, to nowhere in particular, worming my way past people and going around the apartment. I end up finding the balcony in Vinnie's apartment. I slide the door open and go outside.

The sounds of the city fill my ears, along with the warmer air. It's followed by the voices of three people. They look at me for a second before going back to their conversation. I go over to the other side of the balcony and placed my elbows on the railing. Vinnie's really lucky to have an apartment with a view like this, with the buildings and the streets and all the little lights. I wonder how many times Vinnie goes here to think about things.

"Yo, Eric."

I finish my drink as Vinnie walks over to me. He's all smiles as usual, and I got to admit, it's infectious.

"Heard that you disappeared off the face of the earth again. What is up with that?" he says.

"I'm not trying anything, I swear," I say.

"You better." Vinnie chuckles. He turns his back on the railings and leans against it. "Now, what are you doing here, being all broody and shit? The guys said you've been gone for a while."

"It's been that long?" I ask. I was only thinking about things.

"Nah. Not really. But come on, man. You disappear like that for months, then you show up for a fifteen minutes, then you disappear again. Are you plotting something?"

I chuckle. "No. I just needed some time to myself."

"No offense, but you've been doing that for months."

I don't know what to say about that, so I sigh and look back at the city. Vinnie turns his body to face me. "Hey, what's wrong?" he says. "I might not be useful when it comes to advice, but I can hear you out."

I smile at him. "That's appreciated, thank you." I'm about to take another sip from my beer when I remember that it's empty.

"Here." Vinnie hands me his beer. "I'm clean."

"Thank you." I take the beer and drink from it. "All right. Where to start."

To be honest, after Danny, I was sure that I'm not gonna tell my sob story of a relationship. And even he doesn't know what I really do in those places I go by. But Vinnie's been my friend for a while now. If I could tell a stranger at the time about my relationship, then surely I could tell him. So I do. I tell him about Gavin and I, about how the relationship really ended, and what I've really been doing in those months where I wasn't there with them. Vinnie takes it all in stride. And without interrupting too, surprisingly. When I finish, Vinnie nods.

"Dude," he says. "Why didn't you talk to us?"

I sigh, nursing the cup. "I don't know. I thought I could handle it by myself, I guess. Or maybe because I wanted to deal with it on my own. Turns out I couldn't do that."

"How're you feeling about Gavin right now?"

I think of him. His smile, his voice, then his eyes. They're green in my head. I drink again. "I dunno. It's all blending together."

"Are those good things or bad things?"

I shrug. "Both."

Vinnie nods. "So, you're here now. That means you're good?"

"I guess. But... I don't know. I'm here, and that's one step above from the whole thing with driving places. But I'm back here, and all I could think about is everything I've missed out." I sigh. "There's no winning for me, is there?"

Vinnie goes silent, then he looks at the city below. The more he stays silent, the more I wish I didn't speak up. Vinnie keeps saying that he's not the go-to guy for serious conversations, and it was demonstrated time and time again. But I haven't been myself for a few months now... to the point where I have no idea who I even am anymore. Goddammit, it was just a breakup.

"Well," Vinnie says, turning to me. "Don't know a lot about breakups, sorry. You gotta ask someone else about it. But for missing out..." he shrugs. "You're here now."

Vinnie makes a vague motion in the direction of the living room, where Dev, Kira, Emily, and Axel are talking. They're all smiles, talking lively and laughing. I haven't seen them in a while, and seeing them like that brought a lot of feelings to my chest.

"And I'm not much for encouraging speeches too, but..." Vinnie chuckles. "If there's anything I learned in life, it's that it's okay to think back about the past, as long as you get into your head that the past is in the past. Another thing I learned is that it's never too late to enjoy the present, but it's better to do it sooner or later. You're lucky it's only been a few months. I saw this old guy who missed out on a lot of things for years. He's happy now, but he regrets not doing it sooner, when he had the chance. So, think about it, yeah?"

I take it all in, then I turn to him. "You're pretty insightful when you wanna be, huh?"

He smiles. "What can I say? I'm a man of many talents."

"That you are."

He pats my shoulder. "All right. Gotta go. Got some more people to talk to." Vinnie then walks toward the door. "Think about what I said, all right?"

"I will. Thanks, Vinnie."

He turns around to give me a salute before walking inside. I then turn around to look at the city again, taking a drink from the beer. Everything that Vinnie said has been floating around in my head. I think about it some more, then I look at my friends, the people I haven't seen in a while. I look at it some more, then I make up my mind and head back inside.