“Bruce!” exclaimed Ryan.
He laughed at the enthusiasm. “Yes, this is! And who might you be?”
“Ryan. Ryan Lambert.”
“Ryan Lambert. We were wondering when you’d call.”
Jennifer watched as that response threw Ryan for a loop. “Oh, we weren’t trying to—” He frowned. “I mean, we didn’t want to be obvious when—”
Bruce laughed again.
Jennifer jumped in to save her husband. “I’m here, too! Jennifer. I mean, hi!” She shook her head at her own awkwardness.
“Well, hello again, Jennifer. Shall I get Paige on the line? Make it a foursome?”
Ryan and Jennifer looked at each other, lobbing a polite, nervous laugh between them.
“So, what can I do for you both? It’s not Paige’s baked Brie recipe you’re after, is it? I warn you, she’s taking that to her grave.” He waited for a response. When none came, he continued. “Sure, I know what you’re thinking, how unique could it be, it’s baked Brie after all. But if it wasn’t so unique, you wouldn’t be calling to ask for—”
Jennifer couldn’t take it. “We want to do the thing!”
Bruce waited in silence.
“With you.” She felt, perhaps, she needed to clarify. “The date thing. With you and Paige. The thing you do. Swingers. We want to. Okay?”
Another moment of silence. Shit. Could that have been any more awkward? Here came the part where he told them that they’d misread the entire situation. Would probably start with something like, “Listen,” and then follow along with, “We think you’re great, and we’d love to be friends with you both, but—”
“Sounds lovely,” said Bruce. “When?”
They hadn’t thought that far ahead. Jennifer grabbed at her phone and opened the calendar app. Shit! Christmas is this week, then New Year’s next week. She showed the calendar to Ryan, who scowled.
“Hard to plan these things, what with the holidays and all,” said Bruce.
“Yeah.”
“But you know what…” They heard Bruce cover the phone with his hand. He was much better at hiding the other half of the conversation than Barbara had been. “Got plans tonight?” he asked when he returned.
Jennifer scrolled back to today, Sunday. Empty. She looked to Ryan who, wide eyed, shrugged. She didn’t want to think about the implication of having a date in less than twelve hours, or to think about what that date could mean, or contain, or imply, so she just answered the question directly. “No. We don’t have plans tonight.”
“Would you like some?”
“Sure,” said Ryan, jumping in.
17
The pile of clothes on the bed intimidated Jennifer. They were all decent options, so she couldn’t rightly say that she had nothing to wear, but she certainly felt that way. Ryan changed his shirt for the fourth time, this one midnight blue.
“Is this okay?” he asked her.
She didn’t give it more than a glance. “It’s fine.”
Jennifer disappeared back into her closet, sliding a blouse, a dress, a shirt, down the rack. Why hadn’t she ever organized in here? Every year she made a deal with herself that she’d only buy more clothes if she organized, or donated the ones she wasn’t wearing. She saw a few of those “not wearing” offenders at the back and pulled them down, looking around for a box to stuff them into, finally start the donation pile.
She stopped. “What the hell am I doing?” she exclaimed to herself, tossing the donation possibilities on the floor in the back corner of the closet.
“You’re getting ready for a date,” Ryan offered from outside the closet.
Jennifer sat on the closet floor. I’m getting ready for a date, she thought. A date with swingers, a date with the intention of learning about swinging, a date with the intention of maybe having sex with other people, a date with her husband and other people. She realized she hadn’t taken a breath since she sat down and gasped, grabbing for the dresser at the back of the closet.
“How about this one?” Ryan appeared in the door, now wearing a charcoal button down. He’d also redone his hair, back instead of to the side. When he noticed her on the floor he rushed to her. “Are you okay?” He knelt in front of her, between her legs.
“Yeah,” she said, “Overwhelmed.”
He took her hand. “Me too.”
“You look good.”
“Yeah?”
She gave him a once-over and smiled. He did look good. His wardrobe for non-formal things was decidedly business casual, but emphasized the business. His dark slacks went well with the shirt. “Very nice. Sexy.”
“Sexy.” He grinned. “Really?”
“Definitely.” She looked, distraught, at her two racks full of clothes. “Will you please help me?”
He glanced at the clothes, too. “Of course. What do you need?”
“I’ve got nothing. It’s like I’ve forgotten what’s sexy.”
“You haven’t forgotten what’s sexy, you looked sexy at the party!”
Jennifer smiled, a warm and fuzzy feeling descending on her. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, and Bruce must’ve thought so too.”
The warm fuzziness became a pulse, and she knew she’d better keep looking before she got distracted by other things.
“How about this?” he asked, pulling a red sweater dress off the rack.
Jennifer went pffft!
“Well, I’m sorry, okay.” He replaced it and slid his fingers down her hanging clothes, stopping on one toward the back. “This?”
She looked at it. She’d be cold for sure, the material was thin, a jersey knit. But that made it soft. The scoop neck was also a plus, since she fully intended to get some mileage out of that old push-up bra that she’d been saving for… well, she wasn’t sure what she’d been saving it for. Simple black, so she could go with anything on her legs. Ryan loved her in tights.
“Sold,” she said.
Ryan looked surprised. He laughed. “Really?”
“What color tights?” She yanked off her t-shirt and kicked off her yoga pants. Ryan stared. “Ryan?” She smiled and ran her index finger over her left nipple. “Please focus,” she said, biting her lower lip. “Or what about the thigh-high socks?”
“Yes,” he said, “Purple. The striped ones.”
She stepped closer to him, pressing her breasts against his shirt. She reached into the top drawer of her dresser and grabbed the woolen purple and black-striped socks he liked so much. “I’m going to look young in these,” she pointed out.
“You’re going to look sexy in those,” he countered, his hand finding the cleft where her legs met. She rapidly drew a breath and he smiled, making an mmmm sound.
“Do you think we have time?” she asked him.
“I don’t know what time it is,” he told her.
They looked at each other for a moment, then she reached forward and unzipped his fly.
When he left the closet roughly fifteen minutes later, Ryan’s shirt hung untucked, his dick protruded from his fly, and his hair was mussed. “Well shit,” he said, “how’s ten minutes late to leave strike you?”
Jennifer emerged from the closet, bra on, pulling the dress over her head, socks clamped in her teeth. The clock read quarter ’till eight. She dropped the socks onto the bed. “You’re driving?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll do makeup in the car. Check your hair.”
They were out of the house by ten ’till.
Ryan drove the twenty minutes to the restaurant, a steakhouse called the Horn Lodge, in the next suburb over. His right hand rested on Jennifer’s purple and black-clad knee as she applied her makeup.
As she finished adding mascara to her lashes, she stared at her eyes in the mirror, blinking at the wide eyes staring back at her. “Jumping into the deep end, aren’t we?”