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"Do you want to see if that new food truck that got tipped over by that crowd of happy hour customers still has any tacos left?"
Stan looks down at his feet, guilty and sheepish. "A-ah, well, um, I actually already have some plans…?"
Jimmy knows what that tone of voice means. It's been cropping up what feels like constantly. He does what he always does, shoves the splinter of hurt in further, deep enough that its hidden, and then acts like it isn't there. "Go have fun with Brenda."
Stan perks up like a puppy, halfway out of Jimmy's passenger side at the word 'go.' "I'll tell her you said hi! Bye Friendly!" He shuts the door carefully and practically skips down the sidewalk back towards the apartments.
"Not what I said but okay," Jimmy mutters, cranking the radio up bone-rattlingly loud and sidling down the road to find somewhere he can mope in private.
It's fuckin' pathetic. Christ, it really is. It's baffling enough that Stan even became his friend in the first place. He's the most naive, earnest idiot Los Santos has ever chewed up and spit out. If Jimmy didn't insist on keeping a soft spot around for other people to step all over, all this horseshit could have been easily avoided.
He just couldn't resist giving the new guy a little advice, could he? How was he supposed to know Stan was going to imprint on him like a baby bird? Jimmy isn't known for his winning personality or acts of selflessness. It's like Stan sees the idealized version of someone, always, who he thinks they could be, and not who they really are.
Except Brenda really is that smart, that driven, that pretty. Even if Stan wasn't the straightest man alive today, Jimmy doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell.
He parks the car at the edge of a neighborhood of duplexes they're building, up in the white trash part of the hills, waits a minute for the dust the tires kicked up to settle sulkily back to the ground. He turns the car off and his ears ring in the sudden silence. It's too hot for anybody to be working today. The pale wood of the frames reflects the harsh sun, makes the neighborhood behind him difficult to look at despite the sunglasses he's wearing.
It'd be different if Brenda liked him. He knows why she doesn't. She doesn't have that gloss over everything, smoothing over mistakes and faults. She can see right to the grimy core of him, and it leaves her unimpressed, not that he blames her. It fuckin' chafes, though, that he's on his best behavior, and she can't put up with him for more than five minutes at a time. He gets time alone with Stan or not at all. These days, mostly not at all. For a hospital worker, she sure has a lot of free time.
And yet he can't bring himself to hate her. That would make it easier to bear, if he could convince himself that she's not good enough for Stan. Probably it's the other way around. Jimmy digs around in his pocket for his lighter, digs around in the other for a cigarette. The lighter is almost out, so while he curses and fiddles with it, he uses his free hand to roll down the window.
He sits in his car, fuming, baking in the heat, until every last cigarette in the pack has been smoked down to the filter. By then, the sun has slunk down out of sight, letting night crawl in behind it. He's gonna have to go break some shit tonight. The only other option is to let this break him.
The last guy Jimmy saw tonight had told him to let himself out while he went to go take a shit or something. So he did, but he also helped himself to the blunt left on the bedside table. Christ knows if it's laced with anything, but he's up for a surprise. He slumps down on the bed, kicking his shoes off without untying them and slinging his jeans to the floor after them. Good enough. He doesn't remember when he last owned a pair of pajama pants.
He really should leave it for another time, when he's not feeling so topsy-turvy, because that's only going to get worse, but he smokes up anyway. Might as well make another bad decision before the sun comes up. He crawls under the covers, leaves a hole for his face and holds his hand out. Heat's out, and it's almost cold even with the warmth spreading along his cheeks and down the back of his neck.
Jimmy stubs out the roach and leaves it for later, retreating into his blanket cave. The hand that was out is colder than the rest of him. It feels odd. He doesn't like it. He shoves it under his pillow and lays his head on top, pretending his eyes aren't getting damp and waiting to fall asleep so everything can be quiet for a little while.
He shouldn't've come to Stan's birthday. He's already an asshole, he could have made up a shitty excuse or just blown Stan off, but instead he's at the edge of the roller rink watching Stan watch Brenda do some backwards spinning bullshit, somehow avoiding every clumsy middle-schooler and oblivious old man as she goes. Kiki is who knows where. She's surely found some unfortunate victim to yell into submission 'til she gets bored and moves on to another.
"I'm glad you could make it, Friendly. It's been too long."
Jimmy hums, doesn't have anything nice to say to that. Better to say nothing at all.
"Y'know, I um, I need to tell you something, Friendly, ah. Well."
"Alright, alright, out with it."
"We're leaving."
"What?"
"Brenda and I, we're going to go back to Indianapolis. It's been nice, b-but you know the city isn't really any place for me, and she's got a job offer at one of the hospitals down there, and it'll be a lot safer, I think, the hospital downtown got shot at just last week, and…"
Jimmy is concentrating so hard at making no expression at all that he tunes Stan out, only realizes he's stopped talking when Stan taps him on the shoulder.
"Yeah, sorry, I get it. Good for you, man. Why don't you get back out there, I gotta take a break." He gives Stan a push as Brenda makes another loop around and she catches Stan by the arms, saving him from going into a tailspin. She shoots Jimmy a dirty look, but Stan is laughing, so as they go by, he sees her face soften into a smile.
He ends up at the bar. He's not a big drinker, usually. Tonight he still probably won't end up going past tipsy. He drove here after all, and he's not leaving his car in the parking lot to get its windows smashed in. That's one more bill he'd get behind on.
"Hey." Oh, great. Just who he wanted to see.
"Kiki, I'm really not in the mood."
"Shut up, I'm being nice to you." She slides a neon orange cocktail across the bar to him, and points at the rink with her chin. Jimmy follows her gaze and sees Stan and Brenda gliding by. "That sucks. I'm sorry. For what it's worth, I'm going to miss him too." A familiar longing colors her voice.
He looks at the drink, looks back at her. She's serious for once. She means it. He lets out a heavy breath and takes the orange monstrosity in hand. "Thanks, Kiki." He takes a sip and starts coughing. "Jesus, what the hell is in this, lighter fluid?"
Kiki cackles, subdued, but more herself, and they sit together at the bar, sipping their drinks and watching things slip away from them.