Following a conversation with Violet is like trying to watch a professional ping-pong tournament. “To you maybe.”

This is news about Randy trying to see Lily. He’s only mentioned her once since we’ve been back in Chicago. He’s been doing the gym with me the past few days, and he’s come back to my place instead of going to Lance’s, too. I thought it was a moral support thing, like he was trying to make it easier for me to cut the bar scene. Maybe his motivation is different than I assumed.

“Have you called Sunny yet?”

“No.” I go back to staring at the screen. She asks this every time I see her.

“Why not? You’re obviously miserable without her, and she’s miserable without you.”

“I don’t know. What am I supposed to say?”

“Honestly, Miller . . .” She makes another one of her faces. “I can’t do it. I can’t call you Miller. It has to be Buck. I keep trying it on, but it’s like a cheap pair of underwear. It doesn’t fit right. I can’t get comfortable.”

“No one said you had to call me Miller.”

“Yeah, but Sunny calls you Miller and so does Randy. I feel bad that I can’t make it work for me.”

“Don’t. Buck is a multipurpose nickname. If you want to feel bad about nicknames, stop calling me yeti.”

“If you had dark hair, you’d look like a Sasquatch.”

“I would not. I keep everything trimmed all nice-nice. Except my balls. Those are bare, like two squishy, smooth, flesh-colored plums.”

She makes a sound like she’s coughing up a hairball. “Thanks, asshole. I liked plums up until now. If you stopped trimming for three weeks, you’d look like one of those wolf people. If we get that reality TV show going, we could dye it all to prove I’m right, but I think we should go purple so you look like a giant wine-dipped yeti.”

I shake my head and fight a chuckle. As ridiculous as Vi’s tangents can be, they’re entertaining, and this one has lifted my crap mood marginally. Relationship limbo sucks. Probably because I was, and still am, way more invested in Sunny than I’ve ever been in a bunny, and I’m not drinking or boning my way out of my funk.

“Are you going to stop with the insults and the reality TV show dream so we can talk about real, actual, important things, like this fundraiser? How are we on the finances front?” I pull up the spreadsheet with the figures and itemized lists of things we need to pull this off. If things go well, I’ll have a solid chunk of funds to donate to Michael’s family.

After I stopped moping, I looked into their situation. It isn’t very good. Neither parent has benefits, so they’re out of pocket for all the medication. Applications for support can take months. It also looks like they’ll have to pull Michael out of hockey because they can’t afford it. Dealing with cancer as a kid is bad enough without losing one of the things that makes life fun.

“Sidney and I have contacted a bunch of people, and we’ve already secured a few significant donations,” Vi reports. “And you’ve contacted the porno car wash guy, right?”

“Yup. Gene’s all over donating as long as he can get center-ice seats.”

“Easy enough.” Vi types frantically on her laptop. “Overhead is covered, apart from a few thousand dollars, so almost everything beyond that will go to Michael’s family. So far it’s looking good. I have a list of volunteers for the day of, and Sidney’s secured an arena, vendors, and security close to Michael so he won’t have to travel. We can start promoting ticket sales as soon as the teams are finalized.”

“Awesome.” I’m amazed at the number of people required to run this event and how quickly we’ve been able to pull it together. My donation to the car wash fundraiser and my involvement in the camp have gone a long way in helping build positive buzz and to making this whole thing easier. Gene has been a great about sharing information and strategies, and he’s given me some new contacts.

“I ordered the T-shirts,” she adds.

“Nice. Wait. What? Why would you do that? I haven’t made a decision about the name yet.”

“I made it for you.” She taps the space bar on the computer, pretending to do something so she doesn’t have to look at me.

“I wish you hadn’t done that. Now I’m going to have to look at hundreds of people wearing shirts with Project Sunshine in huge yellow letters.”

“They’re great shirts.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Yeah, but nothing. Sunny needs to see for herself what she let go. Besides, it’s too late to cancel the order for the shirts or the jerseys.” She gives me a big, jerky grin. “Also, Alex is going to the gym this afternoon.”

“So?”

“You still need a few more players, right? He’s been asking about it, but it’s not up to me if he can play or not. You might want to clear the air before the season starts so you don’t murder each other on the ice.”

“We’ve punched each other out; we should be even.” I’d like to punch him again, but I won’t. “I guess it might be a good idea since you’re gonna marry him and all, huh? I’m gonna have to deal with him no matter what.”

Vi sniffs and wipes away a fake tear. “Look at you, growing up, being the man. I’m so proud.”

“Suck it.”

“Alex was unreasonable. We’re mostly okay, but I’m still not happy with how he managed himself. I’ve been doing a lot of withholding. It hasn’t been easy, but I think he’s starting to get it.”

“Withholding?”

She gestures to herself. “He gets none of this right now. So I’m responsible for taking care of my own orgasms. It’s seriously fucking inconvenient for me, but I’m willing to take a stand for you, so remember that.”

I try to speak, but there aren’t any words to express the level of overshare or my gratitude.

Violet waves a hand around. “Alex hasn’t always done the right thing when it comes to Sunny, and he knows that, even if he won’t ever admit it to you. He also knows how miserable she is right now, and he’s worried. At the end of the day, he wants her to be happy.”

He can’t be all bad if Vi’s willing to spend the rest of her life with him.

“I’ll talk to him when I see him.” I don’t want to get into another discussion about calling Sunny, so I change the topic. “How’re the wedding plans coming?”

Every time I bring this up, Vi has a mini freak-out. It’s fun to watch.

Her eye twitches, and she rubs her palms on her legs. “Ugh. Seriously. We haven’t been engaged that long. And with all this bullshit going on . . . you’d think we were in a state of emergency or something. Daisy and my mom are psycho about it. They have a running list of, like, two hundred people, and that’s just for the engagement party. I keep telling Alex we need to elope. I can’t deal with a five-hundred-person wedding. We’re not even Italian. It’s craziness.

“I don’t get the whole need to be a princess for a day. I don’t want to be a princess. I want to be Violet Waters so I have a princessy, romantic name. The rest of it is total crap meant to propagate false expectations for marriage.”

“Wow. Way to sell it, Vi.”

“Screw you, Buck. You just wait. Your day will come, and when it does I’ll laugh it up like you are. Talking about this is giving me hives.”

At first I think she’s being dramatic, but then I see irregular red dots appear on her arms.

“Does Waters know you’re this stressed out?”

“Say one word and I’ll—”

“Shave my balls. I know.”

“I was gonna say armpits, but you had to go for the genitalia, didn’t you?”

“Shouldn’t you be excited and not stressed? Don’t girls love this shit.”

Violet scratches the angry red welts expanding on her arm and ignores my questions.

The sound of the patio door opening in the condo next door puts me on alert. A new chick moved in while I was away. I haven’t officially met her, but we’ve chatted, and I’ve met her yappy dog’s nose through the tennis-ball-sized drainage hole where my privacy wall meets hers. The patter of nails on the tile follows, and his little brown nose appears in the hole, then it disappears and his paw shows up. He whines, aware he can’t get to me.