“So it would seem,” he replied.
“Can we really do this?” asked Ryan, as he pulled into a parking spot in front of The Horn Lodge, the red neon sign lighting up their faces in a distinctly Amsterdammy way.
“It’s not illegal.” She laughed, then her face changed. “Wait, it’s not, right?”
“No,” said Ryan. He was sure. Well. Not sure. “Pretty sure.”
“Are we being rash?”
He thought about it. Rash? No. They’d spent the last twelve years being so conservative with their expectations and desires, playing their feelings so close to the vest. That had been the poor decision, he was sure of it.
“No. No, I don’t think we are.”
“Are we ready for this?”
Ryan wasn’t sure, so he squeezed her knee. An image swam before his eyes, the two of them in a small beige room with a balding man in a short sleeve shirt and tie. “It’s not like we’re buying a time share here, we’re just meeting a couple friends for dinner.” He laughed to himself.
“A couple friends.”
“Yes,” he smiled, “I don’t feel we’ve made any decision we can’t walk back, do you?”
She snapped the mirror closed but still didn’t look at him. She looked at his hand, then placed hers on top. She took a deep breath. “No. No, we haven’t.”
“So if this all gets…” he searched for the word.
“Too real?” she offered.
“Exactly. If it gets too real, we can always thank them for a lovely evening and head home for the night.” Ryan nodded to himself to reinforce this potential course of action. “And, I don’t know, I guess I feel… optimistic? Like, they seem really well put together to me.”
“Like they know what they’re doing.”
“Exactly.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed each of her fingers. “Today is the day we change our lives.” He sucked on the very tip of her pinky for a brief moment.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“Let’s go.”
18
Without a doubt, the Horn Lodge was the nicest restaurant Jennifer and Ryan had ever been to. Intimidating, in fact, when they walked through the door: dimly lit by discreet inset lighting, deep red cherry wood bar and tabletops crossed with clean white linens, candles on each table. They removed their coats and gripped them tightly as they stood by the hostess welcome station.
A blond woman, early thirties in a crisp white dress shirt, stepped up to meet them. “Good evening, table for two?” she asked.
They stared at each other. No, we’re adding more to our twosome, thought Jennifer.
“We, uh—” Ryan began.
“We’re meeting some people,” she finished.
“You must be the Lamberts.”
The flush of embarrassment hit Jennifer’s cheeks. She felt so exposed here, in her low cut dress, cleavage on display. Real names. Shouldn’t there be aliases or pseudonyms or something when you do this? For rendezvous, for trysts? Something.
“Yes,” said Ryan. “We are.”
“The rest of your party is already here. If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to them.” The young woman turned and walked into the dim restaurant, moving past the bar.
Jennifer looked at Ryan, who offered a weak smile. “It’s about possibility. Potential,” she said, walking after the waitress.
“Yes, right,” he said, following. “We can do this.” He leaned forward and whispered into her ear, “Your cleavage game is on point.”
Jennifer smiled to herself, shedding the doubt for a moment, knowing that he was right.
The hostess led them to a table for four, tucked into a back corner of the restaurant, secluded thanks to a rack of wine bottles on one side and barrels on the other. Bruce and Paige sat across from each other, Bruce with his back to the approaching group. When the hostess neared the table, though not near enough to hear conversation, she stopped and gestured toward it. “Have a lovely evening,” she said, and disappeared back into the darkness.
Paige noticed them first and smiled, standing. Bruce followed her lead and turned around. “Hello, Lamberts!” he said as they approached. He stepped forward, holding his hands out. “May I take your coats?”
Jennifer gave her coat up reluctantly, now with nothing to hide behind, no armor at all. Bruce hung their outerwear on wall hooks in the corner. Perhaps sensing the discomfort radiating off them, Paige walked over, all smiles. Her hair, spilling over her shoulders, framing a face showing little makeup. She also wore a dress that emphasized her bosom, with a high enough hem to reveal that her dark stockings were thigh highs.
She took Ryan’s hands. “We are so very happy you suggested this!”
He cleared his throat, more loudly than he’d intended. “So are we.”
Bruce ambled back to the group, his hands in his pockets. He also wore dark slacks and a burgundy button down. “Honestly we weren’t sure we’d see you again, when we found out that Noah… well, told on us. But thankfully we are seeing you now, so hello!”
He opened his arms, offering a most comforting embrace.
“Oh, well, it was sort of a left field surprise,” said Jennifer, stepping forward.
Bruce enveloped her with his arms. His scent filled her nose as she hugged back, just a touch of cologne or shave lotion. Warm, comforting indeed.
Paige leaned forward and kissed Ryan gently on the lips, following the kiss with a hug. Ryan blinked as she moved to Jennifer. That was the first kiss on the lips he’d received from anyone other than Jennifer in almost thirteen years. That felt… significant. He watched Paige surprise Jennifer with the same kiss, and she appeared to go from quite content to startled, then to a sort of woozy smile.
Bruce pulled Ryan into a bear hug.
As Ryan returned the hug, he pondered the strangeness of it all. The intimate physical interaction with people they’d just met two days prior. Do friends kiss? Have the Shepards already made assumptions about their comfort level? Their interest level? Ryan re-calibrated his thoughts. But isn’t it nice? The brief kiss from Paige, the hug from Bruce. Hell, his relationship with the two men he’d consider close friends was mostly antagonistic, wasn’t it? They didn’t hug. This all felt so…
“You guys sure know how to make people feel comfortable in their discomfort,” Jennifer blurted.
“Well, how about we ease that discomfort by doing something rather normal, and sit,” suggested Bruce. He extended his hand toward the table. He pulled out a chair for Jennifer, and Paige sat across from her. “Mind if I sit here?” he asked, gesturing to the chair next to Jennifer. She looked back at Ryan.
“Oh, uh, sure,” said Ryan, “Fine with me.”
Paige winked at him. “Good, I sit next to him plenty.” She patted the seat next to hers, and Ryan sat.
Quiet. Uncomfortable silence. The foursome smiled at each other.
Jennifer broke first. “So. We don’t know how this works.”
“It’s just like dinner with vanilla friends,” said Paige, “Only with more potential.”
“Vanilla?” asked Ryan.
Bruce smiled, looking back and forth between the Lamberts. “It’s what we call people like you. I mean, at least until you join us on the other side of the fence.”
Paige leaned across the table toward Jennifer. “That’s the fun side,” she assured her. “But Bruce, I think they’re at least vanilla with sprinkles.”
Jennifer and Ryan locked eyes across the table. She willed him to say something, to make sure that the other couple knew that this wasn’t a done deal, that they weren’t a sure thing yet. When he said nothing, she offered: “Oh, yeah, we’re just—”