She nodded. “She was on her way out or I would have introduced you.”
“Does that mean she’s not an option for Harold if need be?”
Our eyes skated toward our hapless friend on the dance floor.
“I’m pretty sure she likes both.” Kat sipped a purplish concoction through a cocktail straw.
“What are you drinking now, sweetheart?”
“Tango whore.” Kat wiggled her eyebrows over the brim of the glass as she took a sip; that was her sign I wasn’t in deep doo-doo but I wasn’t in the clear, either. Like she had anything to worry about.
“Haven’t heard of that one,” I teased.
“Just discovered it.”
“Does that mean you don’t want me to dance with Inez again?”
“You can never dance with her again.” Kat set her drink down and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Me, I’m signing up for lessons.”
Sam had a you’re in for it now grin on her face. Did she think Inez would cast a tango-spell on Kat?
“By all means.” I raised my glass. “I love to tango, and you, gorgeous, would be the perfect partner, on and off the floor.”
“I know you do,” Kat murmured in my ear.
Sam frantically tugged the back of my shirt. I shooed her away. Kat was many things, but never a cheater.
I lassoed Kat’s waist with a free arm and whispered in her ear, “How about a naked tango later?”
“That’s in the cards, for sure. I knew you could move, but shit, I almost came all over myself,” she whispered in my ear.
“Ha! You rarely see me dance with anyone else. And you got turned on. I’ll have to keep that in my back pocket.”
“Was that your motive for pouring on the dance charm? Part of your seduction plan?”
“Partly.”
Kat cast a thoughtful glimpse in Sam’s direction. “Tell me more later.”
“Of course.” I sealed my promise with a peck on her cheek.
Harold and Amber sidled up. “I think we’re heading out,” Harold said. They held hands, but it didn’t take Sherlock to detect ripples of unease in their eyes.
Kat gave each a hug. “Have a great night, you two.”
I raised a hand in good-bye, and Harold nodded.
“So glad I’m not in Amber’s shoes.” Lucy took a half step away from Sam.
I was glad I wasn’t in anyone’s shoes but my own this evening.
Moments after Harold and Amber made their retreat, Simone and Inez hit the bricks together, laughing and conversing like long-lost lovers.
Was the throuple dead?
“Anyone hungry?” Sam asked. I wondered whether she’d done that to
delay Lucy from asking how she knew Inez.
“Famished.” Kat sucked down the rest of her drink.
Sam and I slammed our beers, and I pretended to toss the empty pint glass over my shoulder, making Kat laugh.
Sam feigned slugging me in the stomach. “I almost followed suit, you idiot.”
“Crowd behavior is astonishing,” I said in my professor tone, motioning for the ladies to walk ahead of me.
Kat patted my cheek as she moseyed by. “Always so polite.”
Next door was a trendy college hangout with low ceilings and walls smeared with signed BU basketball jerseys, pennants, photos, and posters. Fortunately, right when we walked in, a group vamoosed and Kat claimed the table before a staff member had a chance to clear the dishes.
A waitress appeared, stacked five empty pint glasses, and swabbed the table with a wet rag. “What can I git ya?” She was quite perky, given that it was close to midnight.
“The appetizer sampler and grilled cheese with fries,” Kat piped up first.
I turned my head to Kat. “Are you sharing?”
“Only if you’re nice.” Her smile wasn’t reassuring.
“Two appetizer samplers and two grilled cheeses. And a Sam Adams.” I motioned for Sam and Lucy to order.
“Sam Adams for me.” Sam looked expectantly at Lucy.
Lucy queried Kat with boosted brows. “What shall we try now?”
I was liking this side of Lucy—the adventurous side. And I caught a glimpse of Sam running her hand down Lucy’s thigh, obviously enjoying Lucy coming out of her shell. Maybe it would help for Sam to talk to Lucy. Really, all she’d done was fantasize about a hot chick. I mean seriously, who hadn’t done that? Of course, going to coffee with said hot chick may rub Luce the wrong way, but the author was many things, including practical. Would she toss Sam aside for such a minor infraction?
Kat eyed the drink chalkboard over the bar. “Oooh, the Bailey’s shake will hit the spot.” She widened her eyes at Lucy who nodded. “Two, please.”
The waitress skedaddled and quickly returned with the beers and iced waters for four. We probably reeked of the dance club, and the waitress didn’t want four obnoxious drunk lesbians on her hands. You couldn’t pay me enough money to work in a bar in downtown Boston on a Friday night. Of course, I could probably get some great material for a novel.
Sam and I swiveled our necks to watch SportsCenter on the TV hanging over the bar.
“So, Sam, how do you know that woman you danced with?” Lucy tapped the top of the straw in her water glass, causing it to jig up and down.
Sam didn’t move a muscle. I tried to telepathically explain the best option at the moment was to confess she’d been taking lessons to surprise Lucy in Argentina.
I could tell by her frozen expression she wasn’t receiving the message.
Somehow, Kat intercepted my mental wavelengths. “Inez was one of Cori’s dance instructors from the dinosaur age.”
“Hey now, I’m only a few years older than you.” I squared my shoulders.
“But you’ll always reach all the milestones before me.” Kat smirked.
“And I’ll always have a younger wife.” I pinched her side.
“So you think.” Kat fluttered her lashes at me. “Did Inez work at the school you and Sam attended? Is that how you met her?” She directed the last question to Sam. I couldn’t tell if her question was innocent or if she was throwing Sam a bone.
“In a roundabout way,” Sam stammered.
The waitress arrived with the shakes. I dipped my finger into the whipped cream and licked it off. Kat shifted in her seat to cross her legs. I imagined her legs wrapped around me in T minus ninety minutes if I played my cards right.
“How many wet dreams have you had about Inez?” Kat pivoted her head and met my gaze.
The color drained from Sam’s face, even though Kat had directed the question to me.
“Ha! You want me to share about those memories in front of an audience?” I rushed to Sam’s rescue and then sipped my beer to stall for time. “Not going to happen.”
“How did I fall in love with such a prude?” Kat squeezed my leg.
“Dumb luck.”
“Yours or mine?”
“Remains to be seen.”
“What about you, Sam?” Lucy asked. “Any dreams about Inez?”
Sam still hadn’t recovered from earlier, and now she was deathly white.
Lucy offered Sam the cherry from her shake. Sam shook her head.
“I’ll take it,” I said. Lucy nodded and I popped it into my mouth.
“Well?” Lucy focused on Sam’s answer.
“Did you see her?” Sam rooted out an ounce of bravado. “Who wouldn’t?”
“Shit, I may be thinking of her later,” Kat confessed.
“Ouch!” I feigned being hurt.
“Would that bother you?” Lucy was on a roll with uncomfortable questions.
“From now on, only beer for you.” I pointed my fork playfully at her. “To answer your question, no it wouldn’t. We all have fantasies. Anyone who says they don’t is a liar.”
“Do you fantasize about men?” Lucy sat up straighter to meet my eyes.
Did she suspect Sa
m was having an affair with a man? Was she asking the group these questions to gage Sam’s body language?
I rested an elbow on the table, cupping my chin. “Not that I can recall.” I scooted my butt farther back on the bench. “I mean, I find some men attractive, but I never think about them in a sexual way.”
Lucy nodded. Her relaxed shoulders and serene face didn’t lend any insight into what was running through her mind.
“And you?” she asked Kat.
Kat tapped her bottom teeth with a finger. “In high school there was this one boy who I wanted to sleep with. I wonder how many times I scribbled Kat with his last name on my notebooks. Hundreds, maybe.”
I turned my head. “Really? You never told me that.”
“Hadn’t thought about him much since then.” She shrugged.
“What was his name?”
“Budziszewski.”
I squished my nose. “Kudos for learning how to spell that one.”
“It wasn’t easy,” she said in all seriousness.
“Shit, after learning how to spell that name, I’m surprised you didn’t marry him. That’s a commitment all in itself.”
“What happened to him?” Sam swigged the last third of her beer.
Kat tossed two hands in the air. “Who knows?”
The food arrived. Kat snatched half of a grilled cheese before the plate hit the table.
“Excuse her,” I said to the server. “We only let her out of the house once a week.”
The waitress laughed and pointed to the empty glasses. “Another round?”
Sam and I nodded. Lucy declined and Kat ordered a gin and tonic. I found that endearing because she never drank gin and tonic. Had she overheard my earlier comment to Harold?
“What about you, Luce? Any male fantasies?”
Lucy ripped an onion ring in half. “Quite a few.”
My jaw dropped. She devoured half of her onion ring and then primly pushed her glasses into place.
“When was the last time?” Sam rested her chin on laced fingers. Her eyes had that drunk, glassy shimmer.
“I had the most vivid dream last week about a man I saw at one of my book signings a few weeks ago. I kid you not—this guy was ripped. He looked like he belonged on a cover of a romance novel, but not as cheesy.” She flexed her arm to indicate bulging biceps. “Except that he was black. Not sure there are many black models on swashbuckling romance covers.”
“Tell us more.” Color was slipping back into Sam’s face.
Lucy’s cheeks tinged crimson, but she whispered, “He bent me over my desk and took me from behind.”
Kat slapped the table. “Wow! That’s what I call a fantasy. Have you ever been with a man?”
“No, but I feel like I have now after that dream.” Lucy sucked up the dregs of her shake through a straw.
“Is it true? Once you go black, you never go back? Even in dreamland?” Kat swirled a fry in the blue cheese.
Lucy regarded the dingy ceiling. “Haven’t had a sex dream since then. I’ll have to get back to you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this dream before?” Sam shook her head.
“Does it bother you?” Lucy asked.
“No, not really. I’m just surprised; that’s all.”
“Why? I can tell when you’re having a sex dream. You moan in your sleep. Sometimes you make kissing noises and you grind against my ass.” Lucy pretended to hug a person and kissed the air.
“Cori does that!” Kat brandished a half-eaten cheese stick at me.
“I do not!” I put a hand over my heart as if testifying before God.
Kat bobbed her head. “Oh, yes you do. Just last month you woke me up from one of your dreams and attacked me.”
I smiled, remembering that incident and dream.
“It’s okay to have erotic dreams. Acting on sexual desires outside of our relationship would make you a douchebag.” Kat’s evil grin was oddly comforting.
“Duly noted, but you have nothing to worry about.” I kissed her cheek.
“Could you forgive Cori if she did cheat?” Lucy was a dog with a bone tonight.
Kat leaned back with a pensive frown. “I don’t know if I could. What kind of cheating?”
“What do you mean what kind?” My voice trilled.
“Was it just a fuck or did you have an emotional and physical connection? I may be able to get over something that meant nothing—but an emotional connection, I think that’d hurt more.”
“I agree,” Lucy said.
“Wait? You don’t mean friendships, do you?” I clarified.
“Of course not. I mean, if you had a connection with someone else that was like ours, that’d cut me to the bone.” Her voice hardened.
“Ah,” I said, finally wrapping my head around the thought. “Yeah, that would hurt.” I peeked at Sam, who seemed to be digesting every comment.
“So what about the Harold situation?” I asked.
“Come again?” Kat glared at me.
“If we had an agreement, would we survive if the throuple ended?”
She snorted. “If you don’t know that I wouldn’t agree in the first place, then we need to have a chat.”
“Of course I know. Hypothetically.” I patted her hand. “I wouldn’t either, just to be clear.”
“How could we survive? There’d always be that doubt that I wasn’t enough. That you needed more. Or vice versa,” she said with a sneer.
“Ouch!”
Kat’s phone chimed. “That’s odd. Who’d be texting me at this hour?”
I had a hunch.
“Oh dear.” Kat put a hand over her mouth. “Harold and Amber broke up.”
I leaned over to read the text message.
“That surprises me,” Lucy said. “Nerdy guys and confrontation don’t usually go hand in hand.”
“It was Amber who broke it off.” Kat displayed her phone on the table for everyone to read.
Amber left me. Said she likes women now.
“Invite him here. He shouldn’t be alone.” Sam picked up Kat’s phone to punch in the message.
A second later, he responded. “He says he’d rather be alone.” Sam handed the phone back to Kat. “Poor guy. This will crush him.”
“It was only a matter of time.” Kat drummed her nails on the table.
Sam nodded, avoiding my eyes. Maybe the demise of Harold’s relationship was hitting her almost as hard.
***
By the time Kat and I made it home, it was well after two in the morning.
We stood in the bathroom, brushing our teeth. Kat withdrew her toothbrush from her mouth. “So, Inez?”
I spat out a gob of toothpaste and took a sip of water to rinse. “Me or Sam?”
She continued brushing, staring intently at my reflection in the mirror. “Do I need to know anything about you and Inez?” The flourish of her hip punctuated the question.
“Only that she taught me how to tango years ago. Well before I met you, I should add.”
“Stop hedging. You mentioned Sam had an innocent crush. From what I saw tonight it’s more than that.” Kat leaned over and spat into the basin.
I snapped off some floss, debating whether I had the energy, until images of gum disease ran through my mind. With clumsy fingers in my mouth, I slurred. “I’m not so sure what she feels.”
Kat rested against the countertop with her arms crossed. It was hard to concentrate with the way her tits poked out of the top of her tank.
I gargled Listerine, the original yellow kind that burned. Mint was for sissies. Kat pinned me with her tell me everything eyes.
“Let’s go to bed. I’ll fill you in there.”
She waggled a finger in my face. “I want to be very clear, no hanky-panky until you spill.”
“Hanky-panky? I’m beat!” I slouched against the wall.
She pressed her breasts against me and kissed me. Not surprisingly, I
responded with vigor.
“That’s what I thought.” She took my hand and walked us to the master bedroom. Neither of us glanced through the half-open nursery door.
We slipped under the bed covers, and I smooshed two pillows behind me. Kat rested her head in the crook of my arm.
“I don’t have much to tell, really. Sam mentioned she had the hots for Inez and vice versa. They went for coffee and Sam said it was horrible, like a blind date your mother sets up. No chemistry.”
Kat’s hand slid under my T-shirt and she teased a nipple. “Do you think she’s telling you the whole truth?”
“I did… until tonight.” I closed my eyes as Kat squeezed my nipple between her thumb and forefinger. “If I knew my interrogation would involve this type of torture, I would have skipped brushing my teeth.”
She squeezed harder. “What changed your mind?”
A moan escaped my lips. Kat applied more pressure. Clearly the interrogation wasn’t over.
“The way Inez spun her away from Lucy, like she was staking her claim,” I answered. “She just grabbed her by the hand. At least she asked me to dance.”
“Which you were more than willing to do.” Kat raked her nails across my stomach, causing a hitch in my breath.
“Can you blame me? She’s an incredible dancer.”
“You two looked good together.” Kat nipped my earlobe. “Once I learn, we’ll look better.”
“Of that I have no doubt.”
“Back to Sam. What else is bugging you?”
“That Sam was so upset seeing Inez dance with Simone. Recently she said she wanted to marry Lucy, but then she gets jealous about Inez and Simone. Things aren’t adding up in my head. I don’t think they’re adding up in hers, either.” I cocked my head and noticed Kat nodding with me.
“I hope she figures it out soon, before it’s too late.”
“Me too. I know she loves Lucy. Maybe she’s getting cold feet just thinking of marriage.” I paused to enjoy Kat’s skin against mine, and to forget about Sam and Lucy for the moment. “You really going to take lessons from Inez?” It was hard to get the question out because Kat had her tongue in my ear.
“Absolutely. God it was hot watching you two on the dance floor. That leg thing you did! Of course, I’ll be the one doing that since you’re taller.” Kat climbed on top and straddled me. I sat up and helped her remove her tank top, which was losing the battle to constrain her breasts. “I thought you were tired,” she teased.
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