While Tom led the tour to the living room, Dave peeled off and went to the bathroom. It was luminous and smelled of potpourri. The faucet was sleek and geometric. The elliptical sink was filled with polished green rocks.
Dave evaluated himself in the mirror, rotating. The light rendered him healthy and tanned, a bit like Tom. It seemed to increase the thread count on his clothes. He selected a rock from the sink and put it into his pocket. He returned to the living room just as Tom popped the cork on their bottle of wine. He poured four glasses and handed them out. Dave’s had a bit of cork floating in it.
“To friends,” Tom said, raising his glass. “It’s so good to see you both.”
Dave cringed.
“To friends,” they chorused. The wine they’d brought was somehow already cold.
“How’d you get this chilled so fast?” Dave asked.
“We just got a soapstone wine sleeve,” said Parul, “In the freezer. I’ll show you later, when we serve. Rotates the bottle automatically.”
“Wow,” said Dave, “Soapstone. That’s something.” Parul smiled. Alice winched her arm through Dave’s elbow.
“Dave, you wanna give me a hand out at the grill? With the steaks?” Tom was brandishing a carving knife towards the yard and nodding enthusiastically, like the steaks were something very exciting.
“Sure thing,” Dave said.
“How’s the new job?” Tom asked, needling the hissing steaks with a long, twin-pronged fork. The steaks smelled really good. Dave was hungry. Talking made him hungry, and he was already so damn hungry, like all the time.
“It’s, a lot of, you know,” Dave waved his hand, “computer time, but.”
“Marketing,” said Tom lamely, to the grill.
Dave was a user interface programmer. They both stared at the grill.
“You said it,” Dave said.
Tom worried the steaks with the prongs. The hissing meat perforated the silence.
“Where’d you get these cuts? They look nice.”
“Costco.”
“Oh, yeah? Nice.” Their eyes met briefly.
Shriek of shared laughter from the kitchen.
“Well,” Tom gestured to the yard with the grill fork. “Feel free to have a look around.”
“Sure,” Dave nodded, and ambled off as casually as he could, grateful for the permission to leave but resentful that he needed permission. Dave jiggled the bathroom rock in his pocket inside his shapeless pants. Dave had a hackled feeling around Tom. Like if they ran out of things to talk about, they would be able to stand together in silence for only so long before, inevitably, they’d have to fight to the death.