“Okay.” Ryan unlocked the car with the key fob. “Of course, okay.”
He opened the passenger door and ushered her into the car. As he closed it, he looked back up at the house.
Faces in the window. Ryan’s own face burned.
30
She’d already washed the dish, but Jennifer put it back into the soapy water again and began to scrub it. Ryan sat behind her at the table, phone to his ear, waiting to see if this time they’d pick up. Three phone call attempts in the two days since their dramatic exit from the Shepard house. Ryan’s posture would change when they picked up, but every time so far, it’d been voicemail.
She’d left a single message for Paige the day before, full of long pauses and little substance. “I shouldn’t have,” then silence, then, “I didn’t expect to feel the way I did.” Should probably explain that more, shouldn’t she? “When I didn’t get jealous of you and Ryan, I thought,” she laughed uncomfortably. “Maybe I was in the clear?”
Clear from jealousy. Somehow immune. How wrong she’d been, how surprisingly wrong. Foolish. Amateurish. No wonder they were called the newbies, they certainly acted like people who had no fucking clue what they were doing.
Jennifer tensed as Ryan’s posture changed.
“Bruce!” he said, cuing up his apology. Start light, he thought. “Glad I finally got a hold of you! Seems like we’ve been playing phone tag.”
“Yeah,” said Bruce. “Ryan, listen.”
Ryan’s voice quieted. “Yeah.”
“So,” Bruce sighed. “Jennifer’s—”
“She’s really sorry about that,” Ryan said quickly, bouncing his head in an affirmative. “We both are. You know, stress and the events of the evening.”
“I’m sure,” said Bruce. “Yeah.”
A long pause, Ryan waited, hoping he wouldn’t cut Bruce off again. He reminded himself to be polite, gregarious, contrite. It might blow over. I mean, they liked him and Jennifer, right?
“Look, Ryan,” said Bruce, “It made us a little nervous.”
“Nervous,” Ryan repeated. They made Bruce and Paige nervous. He met Jennifer’s eyes and his heart dropped, a mortified look on her face, her eyes glassy. She dragged the soapy sponge in small circles around the plate in her hand.
“Yeah,” he replied, allowing another silence to linger. “So, Paige and I were talking, and we think it would sorta be best if we pulled back a little, put things on the back burner.”
This is the end, isn’t it? They’d blown it. When the words came out, the idea of swinging presented, they never thought they’d get attached. They never thought they’d spend more time with these two than anyone else in their lives. That they’d begin to care so deeply.
That they could be dumped.
“Back burner,” repeated Ryan.
Jennifer turned away, toward the sink. The dish clattered into the pile.
“Hey,” said Bruce, lightening out some of the ominous tenor of his voice. “We like you guys. A lot.”
“We like you too,” said Ryan. “A whole lot.”
“I think it’d be good.”
“So you like us enough to break up with us.” He watched Jennifer’s shoulders shudder.
“Don’t say that,” his voice changed again. The boisterousness gone, now more earnest. “That’s not what this is.”
“It’s not.”
“No,” said Bruce, hitting the word with some added emphasis. “We just need…” Something muffled. “A little space.”
Ryan knew what the muffled moment had been. He could almost see it across the miles between them. Bruce sitting at the table on his phone. Paige standing next to him, nodding at his comments, offering, “A little space,” when it looked like Bruce needed it.
“Just for a bit,” Bruce added. “And then we—”
“Well,” said Ryan. He’d heard enough. “Okay, then. I guess we’ll just leave you be.” He cleared his throat, hearing his voice waver. “Give you that space.”
“Ryan.”
“We’ll probably be at that party next month, so thank you again for that. Maybe we’ll see you there.”
A long pause. “Sure,” said Bruce. “Sounds good. I’ve got a bunch of things I need to—”
“Yeah, bye.” Ryan hit the end button and put the phone down on the table. He stared at it, jaw clenched. “Been a while since I’ve been dumped.”
Jennifer turned to him. “I blew it.”
“No, you didn’t. Don’t say that.”
He could see the tears welling and moved over to his wife, wrapping his arms around her.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
“It’s my fault!”
“It’s okay.” He hugged her tight against his chest and dropped a kiss on top of her head. “It’s okay.”
His focus on taking away the guilty feelings, making her feel better, trumped the rest. The thought that maybe much of the fault did lie with her, though not entirely, no. They had both wandered into that situation, sure, and both of them ought to have realized that they didn’t belong there, that they should’ve begged off. Apologized for interrupting and called it a night. Things would’ve been okay, then.
Even if Bruce and Paige had been mad about their unannounced intrusion, on a night they’d specifically told him and Jennifer they couldn’t get together, they would’ve understood the impulse. The need to cling to people also doing that thing. That thing they’d just been berated about. That thing they’d just been accused of, as though it were a negative, as though it were a horrible thing they were doing.
She sniffed into his shirt. “What do we do now?”
Ryan wasn’t sure. He tried to find something he could say that might make it better. Something that would make it hurt less. Or maybe something that’d help Jennifer not blame herself. All he could come up with was, “I don’t know.”
He did wonder, for a moment, why she had been so jealous there? They’d talked a lot about their surprising lack of jealousy over the past several weeks.
“I don’t think it’s a negative,” he’d told her, “I think it really speaks to how secure we feel with each other.”
She’d nodded. “Like I’m not worried you’ll leave.”
“Yeah, exactly.”
So was that it? That Bruce and Paige had just left? The pulling of the proverbial plug? Ryan tried not to worry that it spoke to something deeper, something that Jennifer needed that he simply could not provide. He’d seen it, too. Maybe it was the newness, the excitement, the exceptional variety that being bisexual afforded his wife.
But the looks Paige and Jennifer had exchanged on multiple occasions. When she’d asked if he’d be okay with her going on a solo date, he’d known immediately it wasn’t with Bruce but with Paige. A tremendous depth existed between the two women, in the unspoken silences, in the kisses, in the touches. That was why it’d been so difficult for her to watch.
Paige was something entirely unique to Jennifer. A singular person in the world. Someone without equal. But two days ago, she’d been presented with a vision of reality she’d not allowed herself to think about, perhaps. The one that showed that while Jennifer might be special too, in Paige’s mind, and Ryan really did think that was the case, she wasn’t wholly unique.
It must’ve been horrible to feel.
Jennifer wiped her eyes, rubbing her cheek on Ryan’s faded flannel shirt. She tried to remember the old saying, about burning bright and fast. Maybe this thing was only meant to be this long. Maybe that’s all it had in it.
The thought crushed her. She liked both of them, of course. Both Bruce and Paige were incredibly sweet and attractive and considerate. Great lovers, without a doubt. But when she thought of Paige, her stomach fluttered.