"It's awright, where'd you hear that?"

Chubby flipped the pages absently, tossed the book back on the desk. "I heard, I heard around."

"Yeah, I was just thinkin', things were gettin' too much. I felt more like a goddamn watchdog than a boyfriend. Jealousy's a humiliatin' emotion. I felt like shit. So, like ah, so like I rehearsed." Stony started pacing the room. "I rehearsed for hours, for days what I was gonna say to her, things like 'Ah, Cheri, I think it's time we went our separate ways'; 'Ah, I know we love each other but I think we have two different ideas in our heads what that means'...ah, who knows, it was all a buncha shit anyhow. If I had balls I woulda said, 'Cheri, you fuckin' tramp, if you wanna run with me you stay locked in your room whenever I'm not around. You spend all your time thinkin' about me, you hereby get the hots just at the mention a my name.'"

Chubby leaned his ass on the corner of the desk, his arms folded in front of him. "So what happened?"

"So I call her, right? And I got this whole jive speech worked up about why we should split and I say, 'Cheri, I think the time has come when we should go our separate ways,' and then she says 'O.K..' just like that. That was the whole thing. An' I was sittin' there, you know, like waitin' for the bomb to drop, the pain, the remorse, the whatever. Nothin', nothin' at all. I'm sittin' there thirty minutes just waitin'. Finally, I realize, what the fuck am I doin', if you don't get slammed, just go with the flow, so I go. Jump into some nice threads, run down to D'Artagnan's an' I party all night. After closin', I go out with Chili Mac, you know, that spade cat I run with sometimes? We go down to the Village, bop aroun'. I din't get home till seven in the mornin'. I guess I got sick a runnin' around like a mope allatime." Stony sat on his bed and lit a cigarette.

Chubby frowned. "So how's Annette?"

"Where'd you hear about Annette?" Stony felt something rising inside.

"Around."

"Around, around, around, what the hell is this, a village? Who'd you hear about Annette from?" He stood up, ditched his cigarette.

"What's the difference?"

"I wanna know, Chubby. Who the hell is goin' aroun' reportin' my business to the papers?"

Chubby shrugged. "I ran into your friend Bobby."

"Butler?" Stony stamped around the room. Chubby hooked his arm. "Hey, don't get your balls in a uproar, it just came out in conversation. It's no big deal. I just wanna know, how serious are you with her?"

"Whadya mean serious? We just racked a couple a times, I have a nice time with her." Stony was shouting.

"Easy, easy. There's people out there."

"Whatta you drivin' at, Chubby?"

"Look, I just been around a little longer than you, and I been through a lotta different things, an' there's women you get involved with, an' women you don't. Now, I hear things about this Annette, I don't hafta go into details, you know what I mean."