“Still have time for your other friends?” asked Noah, an odd edge to his voice.
“—have leveled out a bit,” finished Sam, throwing a grumpy look Noah’s way.
“Dinner’s ready, boys!” came Barbara’s voice from the intercom behind the bar. Noah didn’t turn to look at it, holding his steady look at Ryan.
“Dinner’s ready,” repeated Ryan, uncertain what the edge meant. Was he still grumpy about them calling for Bruce and Paige’s number? Wouldn’t that be a bit silly? Maybe it was because they’d gotten a bit too frisky at Christmas brunch. Regardless, he didn’t like the tone, and was about to say so, when Noah pressed the button behind him and told her they’d be right up.
27
Jennifer found she’d missed this, these friends, more than she’d expected. The six of them sitting around the dinner table. Noah’s steak, Barbara’s appetizers and sides, the greatest Caesar salad she’d ever tasted. She smiled at the group, Sam and Patti across the table, Barbara and Noah at either end. She’d even missed Noah’s obnoxious stories.
Despite missing all of it, things felt different now. They had at Christmas brunch too, the last time she and Ryan had sat at this table. She felt bad admitting it, but these relationships, these dinners, felt so quaint now. Like they put on this appearance of normality, a costume they wore to hide the giant S scrawled across their chests. While she’d never quite had a connection with Noah, and Sam was so quiet around her as to almost be a non-person, she genuinely liked Barbara and Patti. Small talk proved difficult now.
Luckily, at the Watkins house, dinner often included The Noah Show, and tonight was no exception.
“Out of nowhere?” Ryan asked. He’d been paying attention while Jenifer had not.
Barbara set down her fork and turned to Patti, whose face seemed to demand an explanation. “He makes this story out to be something it’s really—”
“Middle of the night!” said Noah. “’Have you ever considered a threesome?’”
“Ten years he’s dwelt on this,” said Barbara, rolling her eyes.
“Understandably so,” said Sam.
Ryan agreed. “It’s a big question.”
Jennifer smiled. “Doesn’t get asked nearly enough in this hectic workaday world,” she offered, then snickered into her napkin.
“That’s what I’m saying!”
Patti shook her head as she quietly made a contribution. “I still don’t get the obsession.”
“Oh, Patti,” said Barbara. “I think it’s a pretty obvious obsession.”
“And rather universal,” said Sam to his plate.
Patti frowned at him, then turned back toward Barbara. “Well, I know all guys want is a threesome with two girls. But they don’t get that it doesn’t do anything for us. Where’s the incentive?”
Emboldened by her wine, Jennifer murmured, “Some of us,” under her breath. Ryan gave her a sidelong wink and squeezed her knee.
“I mean just look at it logistically,” said Patti, turning her conversation directly to Sam. “You are now responsible for two whole women and all that goes along with that.” She stared at him. The entire table went silent. After it became clear to her that Sam had no intention of responding, she opened the discussion up again to the rest of the them. “Not to mention the sheer number of writhing bodies and amount of sweat.”
Jennifer wondered exactly how much thought Patti had given it.
“I’ve never asked you for—” Sam began, finally turning to look at her.
“No, you haven’t asked, of course not.”
Squeezing Jennifer’s knee quickly, Ryan sought to slide the attention back away from poor Sam, staring helplessly into his food. “But, guys, the story here isn’t a vague philosophical discussion about threesomes, but rather Noah and—”
“Oh, yes,” said Barbara, “Wouldn’t want to lose that thread, would we?”
“Yes, right!” Emboldened, Noah began to gesture with his wine glass. “So, she asks me this, and I don’t know how to answer.”
“Well, it could be a trap,” agreed Ryan, nodding to Noah like a treasured confidant.
“I was asleep,” Barbara told him, then to the table, added, “It was a sleep question.”
“Something on your subconscious mind, Barb?” asked Jennifer.
Barbara’s lips tightened, and she stared at her husband far across the table. “Well, I’ve thought about it, sure. But I can tell you that this moment he’s obsessing about was truly not an invitation.”
“You’ve really thought about it?” asked Patti.
“Haven’t you?” asked Barb.
“No.”
“Really, Patti?” asked Jennifer. “What about the sheer number of writhing bodies?” She wondered to herself if people noticed her amped up energy, her willingness to toss things around like the boys always did. Privately, it made her feel emboldened, strong. But she cautioned herself not to tip their hand, no, they mustn’t do that.
“So, I’m lying there,” said Noah, wrenching back the conversational reins. “And I’m not saying anything.”
“Sure, no,” said Ryan, egging him on. “’Cuz anything you say could be the—”
“End of the conversation,” finished Noah.
“Ryan, I assure you, there’s no story here,” said Barbara. “Because that was the end of the conversation. He said nothing.”
“Nothing at all?” asked Ryan to Noah.
“Nothing. At. All.” said Barb, a satisfied smile on her face. “I ask him the question he was dying to be asked, and he—”
“I hesitated.”
“Hesitated all night. I went back to sleep.” Barbara punctuated with a raised eyebrow.
“Back to sleep?” Patti asked.
Sam looked to Noah like he’d been betrayed. “You were presented with this opportunity, one that you—”
Patti shook her head. “It wasn’t an opportunity, it was just a—”
“It could’ve been an opportunity.”
“It wasn’t an opportunity,” acknowledged Noah. “Patti’s right.”
“It was a question,” said Barbara. “Not an opportunity.”
“The moral of this story—”
“Oh, goody,” said Jennifer, “a moral.”
“Yes, the moral is that threesomes are the stuff of legend.”
“Not necessarily,” said Jennifer, then realized she maybe should keep that part a bit quieter.
“Because how could one possibly live up to what I’ve built up in my mind?” Noah agreed.
Ryan nodded at Noah’s strange attempt to logic his way around the idea. “Does it have to live up? Couldn’t it just be an awesome experience that broadens your view of—”
Because he was so focused on Noah, Ryan didn’t notice the strange look coming over Barbara’s face, but Jennifer did, and she knew what the look meant even before Barbara opened her mouth.
“Okay. You did it, didn’t you?”
“What?” Jennifer tried to play it cool.
“You,” said Barbara, looking for a comfortable way to say it, “got together with them, didn’t you?”
Sam looked around the table, perplexed. “What’re we talking about?”
“Bruce and Paige,” said Patti to Sam, then turned back to Barbara, “Right?”
“Yep,” said Barbara, terse.
All eyes shifted to Ryan and Jennifer. They looked at each other. A bit of the old Jennifer clawed her way back to the surface, the Jennifer who stayed mostly quiet at this dinner table, the one who didn’t want to make waves.
Ryan tried, and she applauded his effort, but she knew the genie had come out of the bottle the moment Barbara had spoken.
“I don’t know what you’re implying, but—” began Ryan, with all the indignation he could muster. Though that itself was a giveaway, wasn’t it? If he didn’t know what they were implying, why would he be so indignant about it?