“Your wife?” offered Annabelle.
“Yes! My wife.”
“She could join us!” suggested Annabelle, as Ryan rushed down the hall to figure out how to rejoin the tour. If he’d been told earlier today that a girl in her twenties would be into him, he would’ve roundly dismissed it. Now his blood pressure suggested he might want to dial things back. Something mellow. Something calm.
Right now he had to find Jennifer.
33
“How’d that one treat you?” Marty asked Jennifer after she knocked back a shot.
“Like I need another one,” she said with a grin. The bar took up an entire wall of the basement. She sat on a stool next to four others. Immediately next to her sat a man in his mid-thirties named… she wanted to say Jeff. Was that bad? To have forgotten already? The guy next to him, perhaps a bit older, that was Glen, and she was sure of that because he had the dark hair and eyes and chiseled jaw of another Glen, a quarterback in high school she’d had, well, perhaps not a crush on, but certainly had giddy/naughty feelings about. On the other side of Jeff, a few seats down, was a couple in their forties. Marty hadn’t introduced them. They looked like they might be having a serious discussion, bodies turned entirely inward toward each other.
Amanda had turned her over to Marty at the bar after she’d pointed out the hallway to their home theater, warmly lit by discreet lighting along the floor and art deco wall sconces. The game room was complete with a pool table and some younger men playing the bean bag game, beers in their hands. Jennifer didn’t think they looked like they really belonged there. But what did she know?
The guests were eclectic. Impressively so. The age range, too. Whenever people clustered in her standard social circle, the age range tended to be smallish. Maybe ten years. Jennifer was impressed by the variety on display here. But the boys in the game room, holding Pabst bottles… Something about that just made her think they were on a different level than the rest of this place, this elaborate bar she sat at, with a rail for her feet and everything.
Jennifer giggled when she noticed her lap was illuminated by a line of LED lights inset along the underside of the bar. She wondered where Ryan was. They’d lost him on the tour. Surely he’d love this bar. He’d have to tell Noah about it. Rub it in his face a bit.
The thought surprised her. Was she bitter toward Noah? She hadn’t thought much of him and Barbara since the night they’d stormed out of that argument and stormed right into Bruce and Paige’s date. Could hardly blame the Watkins, could she? She shook her head. No, it was pretty well my fault, she thought. While the Watkins might have lit the fuse, Jennifer had been the one to explode.
But tonight was about new beginnings. New exploration. Expansion.
“Let me buy this next one!” said Jeff, winking at Jennifer.
“Nope, I’m buying,” said Glen.
Jennifer smiled at the bidding war.
Marty set his bottle of honey bourbon on the bar and cocked his head at them, a twinkle in his eye. “You two do realize that the only one actually buying this beautiful woman drinks is me, right?”
Glen shook his head at that and leaned across Jeff to make eye contact with Jennifer. “You are simply gorgeous.”
The twinge that ran through her was at least half informed by her long-ago quarterback, but the present was nice too.
“There he is!” said Marty, raising his glass of Scotch toward the stairs behind them.
Jennifer turned to see Ryan coming down the stairs with a dazed expression on his face. She breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at him. He smiled back. She felt herself relax, surprised to discover that she’d been concerned. Not outwardly, not on top, but underneath. A little bit of what if he doesn’t come back? But none of it mattered because now she could, and did, wrap her arms around him.
“Jeff, Glen,” said Marty, “This is gorgeous Jennifer’s husband.” He gritted his teeth for a moment and squinted. “I want to say Randy?”
Jeff laughed. “I’ll bet he’s Randy!”
“Ryan,” said Ryan.
“Yes!” Marty leaned forward. “I do apologize, but I’ve been given this wonderful bottle as a gift by our esteemed friend Jeff here.” He slid over a bottle of Highland Park 25.
Must be an expensive bottle judging by Ryan’s expression, thought Jennifer.
“Usually I’m much better with names, but…” He shook his glass at Ryan. “Would you like some?”
“Really?” asked Ryan. “Sure, yeah!”
Marty nodded and grabbed a glass from below the bar.
“Enjoy it, my friend,” said Jeff.
Ryan raised the drink to Jeff, who mirrored the gesture. Marty followed it.
“Let me just tell you,” said Jeff, “that this woman you brought is a stunning example of… womanhood.”
“That was a nice one,” said Glen. “Womanhood.”
“Thank you?” asked Ryan.
Jennifer loved that he’d followed his thank you with the implied question mark. No one brought me! She enjoyed the attention, though. Quite a bit.
“I would very much like to give her a kiss,” said Jeff.
Ryan looked at Jennifer, then back to Jeff. “Well, don’t you have to ask her if that’s okay? Not up to me.”
Jeff moved behind them, stepping around to Jennifer’s side. “May I?”
Jennifer nodded and leaned forward. Jeff kissed her, at first light, quick, then longer and lingering. Then tongues joined and he brought his hands up to her face. He held her face close to his as they parted, looking into her eyes. His sparkled, a pale blue.
“Lovely,” he said.
She agreed.
“How about a kiss for your old friend Glen?” Glen asked, miming being hurt.
Was it somehow unethical to channel her misbegotten lust for that quarterback from a decade and change ago? To kiss the hell out of this guy just because he shared the name and look? “Of course,” she said and brought her face to his. Whereas Jeff had steered their kiss, Jennifer brought her hand up to the back of Glen’s head, pulling him toward her. His eyes brown, a smile on his face when the kiss ended.
“Man,” said Glen. “You’re something.” He poked his glass into the air. “To Jennifer and Randy. Sorry, Ryan! You are randy, but your name is Ryan.”
Ryan chuckled. He wondered if this might be part of Glen’s game, to throw him off by not using his name. At the same time, Marty had done it too, and he didn’t get that vibe from him. So perhaps… over-thinking? “So,” he asked. “Are you guys here alone?”
“Magdalena,” said Glen, “My wife, I mean. She’s upstairs.” He laughed. “Haven’t actually seen her in the last hour, though.”
“When I last saw the lovely Magdalena,” offered Marty, “she was in the hot tub with Erik and Nicole.”
“There you go,” said Glen.
“My missus assured me she’d be right back,” Jeff said. He pointed at Ryan. “I’ll introduce you to her. You’re definitely her type.”
Ryan wondered what that might mean. He ran a mental inventory. What did Jeff know or assume about him? How could he possibly know what type Ryan was? Furthermore, Ryan wondered if he ever had actually been someone’s type?
“Another finger, Ryan?” asked Marty.
Ryan wasn’t sure what he meant until Marty reached out and tapped his empty glass. “Oh,” he laughed. “Sure.”
Marty gave him another generous helping of the Highland Park 25, two fingers at least, and leaned toward him. “You let me know if you need anything.”
Ryan took comfort in that. “I will.”
“Anything,” he reinforced. “It can be overwhelming.”