There was a pause.
An actual pause.
Angus blinked. “Fine.”
“Very scenic,” said Mr. Banks, staring up at the ceiling fan.
“Did you guys talk things out?” Cal asked gently, sensing the energy shift.
“We looked at lava rocks,” Angus replied.
“In Hawaii it’s called pahoehoe,” Mr. Banks corrected.
“And you’re called a know-it-all!” Angus said, hands on hips.
“If you must know,” Rashida said, sitting back with her wine and narrowing her eyes on both Angus and Mr. Banks like a therapist who’s about to get real. “I didn’t resort to a sacrificial offering to the volcano gods, but there’s tension there.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Angus said too fast, shoveling cheese puffs into his mouth.
“Nor do I,” Mr. Banks added, his fingers trying to anxiously straighten a bow tie that wasn’t even there.
“She means exactly what she said,” Mrs. Mulroney said. “You two are acting like a pair of Dublin schoolgirls fighting over who gets to sit next to Paddy O’Rourke at lunch.”
“Who’s Paddy O’Rourke?” Cal asked.
“He was a boy who also needed a bucket and mop, but that’s not the point. The point is Angus and Mr. Banks need to grow up, talk it out, and stop sulking.”
“I think you’re all imagining things,” Angus said, straightening his back like he was trying to become furniture.
“Nobody’s imagining anything,” Rashida said. “I’ve been watching you both for days, and I know the difference between mutual avoidance and heartbreak over a friendship that’s fraying at the seams.”
Mr. Banks snorted. “I wouldn’t call it heartbreak. More like indigestion.”
Rashida raised an eyebrow in Angus’s direction. “With a side of abandonment issues.”
“I’m fine,” Angus said. “Completely fine. Happy, in fact. Kimo and I have a wonderful time together. We sing. We meditate. Our auras connect. He understands me.”
Mr. Banks scoffed. “He understands how to keep his shirt off and oil his chest in public. What a spiritual connection.”
“Oh, here we go,” Angus snapped, shoving cheese puffs into his mouth like they were a defense mechanism. “I knew it. You can flirt with Makani until the cows come home—literally, there were cows—but the minute I hang out with someone new, suddenlyI’mthe problem.”
Mrs. Mulroney raised her glass. “Oooh. There it is.”
“Don’t you dare drag Princess Makani into this,” Mr. Banks said. “She and I have a long history—”
“I saw you together in a rowboat on a lagoon full of swamp ducks. I’ve watchedThe Notebook—I know what that means!”
“We were birdwatching!”
“Oh, please,” Angus scowled. “You two are doing the hoochie-coochie and you know it. You’ve left me for woman you haven’t seen in a hundred years.”
“You left me for a man who keeps crystals in his fanny pack!”
“Kimounderstandsme.”
“Kimo wears toe rings!”
“You let her braid your hair.”
