Page 165 of Homewrecker

“Fuck you.”

I walked past her.

Klair’s apartment was an assault on every neutral interior design principle I had ever learned.

I hated it professionally. But personally, I loved it. The couch was burnt orange. One accent chair was blue and the other was lime green. Her rug looked like someone had thrown pink, yellow, purple, and turquoise paint onto the floor. Nothing matched, but somehow everything belonged.

There were Lego flowers in handmade ceramic vases, Lego butterflies mounted in shadow boxes, a Lego clock on the wall, and a tiny Lego version of Klair sitting on the bookshelf holding what appeared to be a wineglass.

I pointed at it. “Did you give Lego You a drink?”

“She had a rough week.”

I looked at the tiny briefcase beside her. “What does she do?”

“Mind her business.”

I rolled my eyes.

Above the couch hung a giant painting of a Black woman with three eyes blowing a pink bubble. Next to it was a framed beige canvas with one red circle in the center.

I had hated that thing since she bought it.

“Your period stain picture still hanging?”

Klair walked past me. “She’s abstract.”

“It is a red circle.”

“Don’t come into my home insulting my art because your life is falling apart.”

“My life isn’t falling apart.”

I followed Klair toward the dining room. Half of her table had been taken over by thousands of Lego pieces organized into little trays.

She pointed toward the kitchen. “You want wine?”

“Yes.”

“Or tequila?”

I thought about Nash. “Tequila.”

Klair slowly looked up. “Oh.”

“What?”

“This is tequila-level?”

“Can you just pour the fucking drink?”

She stood. “Now I know it’s about a man.”

“You don’t know shit.”

She disappeared into the kitchen and I dropped onto the couch. Something stabbed me directly in the ass.

“Ow!”