Free THE BRO-MAGNET by Lauren Baratz-Logsted Page A

kidding when I asked if there were any more because of course I assumed there were. Who serves just four little square thingies to four people and calls it an appetizer?
    “No,” Alice says. “They’re called amuse bouche . They’re special miniature hors d’oeuvres meant to whet the appetite. There aren’t meant to be a lot. Just one each.”
    Oh.
    Oh .
    * * *
    “ Amuse bouche ,” I whisper to Billy once the girls are back in the kitchen. “How was I supposed to know?”
    “I know, I know.” Billy waves his beer at me. “You’re telling me? It’s like a minefield sometimes. Women. They’re always coming up with something new all the time – cats, periods, little tiny foods no one’s ever heard of before except maybe in France. It really keeps you on your toes.”
    “Wow,” I say, “I guess you’ve had to make a lot of adjustments.”
    Billy tilts his beer at me. “That I have, my friend.”
    I think of the way Billy talks about Alice, like her every word is golden law, and how she looks at him. Even when she looks at him like, “You idiot,” it’s obvious she’s thinking ‘No matter how big an idiot you are, I just love you so much.’ 
    “And you’ve loved every second of it,” I say.
    “That I have,” Billy says.
    Alice and Dawn return with plates and I notice, thankfully, that the plates each have more than four one-inch-square items on them.
    “Oh, is it din-din time already?” I say.
    Alice’s eyebrows shoot up. “Din-din? Did you really just say din-din?”
    I feel the blush in my cheeks. To avoid Alice’s scoffing gaze I look at Dawn. “It’s something Big John used to say every night. Big John’s my dad. See, my mom died having me so my dad felt he had to be both mom and dad so whenever he served dinner at night, even if it was burritos, he’d always say, ‘Din-din’s ready.’ I think he though it made him sound like June Cleaver.”
    “Can I get you another beer?” Billy says.
    “Din-din.” Alice snorts.
    “Aw.” Dawn ignores her cousin as she covers my hand with hers and gives it a little squeeze. “Din-din. That’s so sweet!”
    * * *
    “Well, that went well,” Billy says.
    Dinner has passed uneventfully, meaning I haven’t said anything further to piss Alice off. On the contrary, Alice actually looked pleased when I thanked her for remembering my pescatarian diet by not serving anything with meat. Now Alice and Dawn have gone into the kitchen to fetch dessert and coffee while Billy and I enjoy another beer and a little Mets talk. After Billy complains, yet again, about the annoyance of what was once Shea Stadium now being called Citi Field, a sentiment I concur with wholeheartedly, a silence falls over us, into which I hear drop:
    “Lucky finally knows!” That was Alice.
    “Are you kidding me?” Dawn says.
    “Yes! After all this time. For months I kept wondering: When is this idiot going to realize that his fiancé is sleeping with his half brother, the Greek prince?”
    Alice knows someone who has a Greek prince for a half brother?
    “So how did Lucky find out?” Dawn asks.
    “He caught them together!”
    “No!”
    “Yes! He went over to talk to Nikolas about something and the door was open a crack. There’s Elizabeth in her black bra and panties, straddling Nik.”
    “No!”
    “Yes!”
    “So what did Lucky do?”
    “Oh, this is the best part. He quietly walks away before they see him. Then he goes back home and completely trashes the place. And when Liz stops by later? Lucky says he doesn’t know who did it, that he just found it that way, that maybe Luke did it while on one of his benders.”
    “He did not blame it on his father!”
    “He did!”
    “What a dirtbag!”
    “I know!”
    “So what do you think Lucky’s going to do now?”
    “Revenge? Something else? I don’t know. All I know is, whatever he does, he’ll probably have tears in his eyes while he’s doing it. Lucky’s always got tears in his eyes. He’s such a