“So you don’t go to parties,” Holly said, “because either there’s too much alcohol or not enough.”
“That’s not what I said!”
“That’s precisely what you said.”
“I don’t see how.”
Holly gave me a sly grin. “Well… You said ‘either you have a bad time or a time so good you don’t remember it.’”
“Well, most of the time I remember them just fine, thank you. And it sucked, watching everybody else make out.”
“W…wait…” Holly stuttered out. “You mean you’ve actually been to those kinds of parties?”
I gave her a side-long glance, trying to figure out why it was such a big deal for her. “Yeah, but not since freshmen year. And obviously, so have you. And so we’re even.”
“I’ve only been to one!” she said, beginning to sound defensive. “And I didn’t screw anybody!”
I pulled the car into our parking spot and put it in park. I turned the ignition off with a sharp twist. “Well neither did I,” I said, getting out of the car. “So quit getting mad.”
“I’m not getting mad!” Holly said angrily.
I rolled my eyes and marched my way up to my apartment.
“Well I’m not!” she protested, following me.
Whatever. I stepped through the door, leaving it open for Holly. “Hey Brent, is the pizza here?” No response. “Brent?”
The lights were still on. When I walked into the main room, I saw a pizza on our table, a plate with a half-eaten slice, and an open can of soda.
But no Brent.
I took a few steps forward, making a quick scan of the room. His computer was still on, his coat was still over the closet door, but he himself was gone.
The bathroom, maybe? I wondered. “Brent?” I called again, taking a few steps deeper into the apartment. But the bathroom door was open and the room was dark. What the hell? I made a quick check of Brent’s room, and then my own, just in case he had weirded out on me. But no, he wasn’t there, either.
“Well?” Holly asked, standing in the middle of the main room.
I shrugged. “Maybe he went to do laundry or something.”
“You think? But he didn’t say anything about it.”
I shrugged again. “Something might have come up.”
“Was his car outside?”
“Yeah. The green one right in front.”
Holly paced from one end of the main room to the other, which only took about five steps. “So, if his car is still here, that means he can’t have driven anywhere.”
“Which is why I said laundry,” I explained. “There’s a laundry room downstairs.”
She frowned at me. “And leave his slice of pizza just sitting there?”
I shrugged. “He can be eccentric like that sometimes.”
“Do you really believe that?”
I gave her a half grin. “Well, if he’s not back in five minutes, we’ll know I was wrong, right?”
Holly scowled at me. “So you think we should just wait here for him?
“And eat while we’re waiting,” I added, opening up the pizza box. At least he had been nice enough to shut it before he disappeared.
Holly crossed her arms and glared at me.
I gave her a blank look back and responded with, “You mean you want to let the pizza get cold?”
She gave up and sat down to wait the five minutes it would take Brent to return.
Except he didn’t return. And five minutes became ten. And ten minutes became fifteen. And when fifteen became twenty, even I started to get nervous.
“Okay,” I explained to Holly, “the laundry baskets are still here, and his clothes were all over the floor, so he didn’t do laundry. There’s no record of any incoming calls on the phone, so I have no idea.” I looked at the door. “The only thing I can think of is that he suddenly remembered he had to work. But really, this is Brent. He probably has the days he works written down somewhere.”
“Hmmm…” Holly stood up.
“What?”
She sat down at Brent’s computer. “He might have a daily-planner on his PC.”
I took a seat on the couch, listening to the rapid clicking of the mouse as I tried to think of another, sensible explanation for Brent just disappearing. Eventually, the clicking slowed and then stopped altogether.
“Found something?” I asked.
Holly cleared her throat. “Wow,” she said. “That’s a lot of porn.”
I walked over to the desk and closed the folder for her, since she seemed too stunned to do it herself. I paced around a bit, trying to come up with any ideas.
“Well, shit!” I said giving up. “I don’t think we have a choice. We have to go look for him.”
Holly nodded. “But where do we start looking? Café Yoko’s, naturally. Maybe even that Wafflehouse you guys hate so much?”
“Might as well. I don’t have any better ideas.”
“Is it possible,” Holly offered tentatively, “that a friend or someone came by? Like there was an emergency or something?”
“It’s not like Brent has any friend, so I doubt….” I trailed off. “Unless it was Amy,” I thought aloud.
“Amy?” Holly looked slightly confused. “You mean Brent’s ex-girlfriend, right? That one you were with a few weeks ago?”
I nodded.
“But why would she drop by?”
I scowled. “To check up on him, make sure he wasn’t trying to kill himself. Something stupid like that. Shit!” I said angrily. “All she’d have to do is walk up here and suggest going to talk somewhere, and Brent would forget all about us.”
“You’re kidding me!” Holly said. “He wouldn’t just leave, would he?”
“Of course he would,” I ground my teeth, “if it was Amy. We’d better find him fast then,” I said as I led Holly out the door. “An evening with her? It’d be better if that loony ‘vampire hunter’ had just dragged him off for some kind of misguided virgin sacrifice!”
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