I Love You, Man

Sounds Familiar

Bad Steve. Bad Language Words.

"Me? How is this about me?"

"It's not," Chris shrugged, "well, it is, but...it's kind of, not exactly-"

"You're killing me, man."

"Okay, hold on, I'm gonna take a bathroom break before I get into it." Chris stood to excuse himself but was abruptly stopped by Steve's hand on his arm.

"No, you're not."

"I'm gonna piss myself, Steve."

"That's a tough situation."

"Maybe I'll sit on your lap while I tell the story then?"

"Whatever it takes."

"Oh my God, fine!" he slammed his bottle to the bar top and sat back down in defeat. "Your wife got some crazy idea up her ass that my wife was all hot and bothered around you with some twisted fucking hero worship or some bullshit, and when..." he faded and stopped again, shaking his head as if it would clear the moment away. He took the final drink from this bottle before another quickly landed in front of him as if on cue. "And when she didn't deny it...and the idea wasn't as crazy as she let me think it was...things kinda started to unravel. She tried to pull the (Y/N) card on me and how I felt about her before, but I shut that down fast."

"Chris, that's insane," Steve defended quickly with a hand on his friend's arm, just to try to hold the poor guy to reality. "That's nothing to break up over. There's nothing going on."

"Doesn't make me any less pissed off though."

Steve furrowed his brow as he thought quickly, wanting to find a way to fix this for him, but he came up with absolutely nothing fast. "Do you want (Y/N) to punch her in the face? Worked for you."

"This isn't funny, Steve."

"Never said it was."

"Do you know how many women I could-"

"Evans, don't," he warned, pulling back.

"But I could," he spat in reply. "No, I wouldn't, but fuck if I couldn't park the jet in the hangar within the next ten minutes if I wanted to."

"Hey, you stole that line from me, junior."

"Pfft, not like you're using it. You're a homebody now."

"Yeah, I suppose I am," he relented with a heavy sigh, only now finishing his first drink as Chris was well on his way to a six-pack already. He signaled for another, only to see Evans hurry to slam down the rest of his to join in. "Makes it even more confusing and I don't know why she wouldn't tell me. We're together more now than ever. That doesn't make any sense. And hey, maybe slow down a bit, huh?"

"You're not the boss of me, and I didn't drive so back off, Dad," he snapped. "Couldn't tell ya what goes on in that head of hers, Steve. That's your territory."

"Clearly it's not," he sighed, swirling the liquid in his bottle as he watched absentmindedly. He couldn't figure it out, and he was usually pretty quick on the draw for taking cues and finding the answer to almost anything. He glanced up at his friend, watching Chris wringing his hands together, staring at the finger that no longer carried the ever so slight indent from a ring left somewhere at home after tossing it carelessly away in their bedroom when he had walked out. Steve looked down at his own hand now, thankful to not have the pain that his friend was carrying but confused about the new feelings he couldn't quite identify. "We're a sorry couple of fellas, huh?"

"It's their fault."

"Hmm, that may be a little bit true, but we have our part in this too. So, let's have it, lay it all out now while we've got the chance. You are avoiding her, aren't you?"