Paige sighed and smiled a melancholy smile. “We were really glad to have met you two, you know that, right?”
Jennifer’s “Yeah” was unconvincing.
Paige frowned again. “It’s hard to connect with people.”
“Whatever,” said Jennifer.
Don’t be a brat! she thought, willing it across the table at Jennifer. “You don’t believe me?”
“No,” challenged Jennifer, leaning across the table and dropping her voice again. “I’ve seen you at parties.”
“The confidence?” Paige laughed. “Whatever. Honey, listen, it’s hard to connect with people on deeper levels. We have a lot of friends, but very few we’d consider introducing to the boys. We connected, the four of us, the two of us.” She sighed and looked down. “It was nice. It was new. Bruce and I hadn’t connected with anyone like that in a long time.” She brought her eyes back up. “But things got… intense.”
Jennifer avoided Paige’s gaze. “We were so confident, when we were around you two. When you liked us.”
Paige nodded. “The past tense is interesting there.”
“We haven’t gotten it back,” Jennifer said, her voice a little pleading.
“Well, no.” Paige’s own voice was tight, clipped. “You crashed. You burned. And still haven’t talked about it.”
Jennifer said nothing.
“Why haven’t you?”
“’Cuz it could be bad.”
“Sure,” said Paige. “But so what?”
“We don’t talk about stuff.”
Paige reached across the table and put her hand on Jennifer’s. “And that doesn’t strike you as a problem? The hardest conversations are the ones you need to have the most. You two didn’t have any rules or plans at that party, and it showed.”
Jennifer took her hand away. “Please don’t be mean to me.”
“What?” Paige blinked in surprise. She realized that Jennifer was crying. “I’m not trying to be mean to you, honey…”
She slid her chair next to Jennifer. “Listen, all I’m telling you right here is that you need to talk. We’ve had issues, Bruce and I, issues that seemed insurmountable, but we talk, and sometimes it takes days, but we figure it out.”
Jennifer nodded. “Talk things out.”
“Always.”
“I also have some feelings,” said Jennifer.
“Of course,” Paige returned.
“For you.”
Paige nodded. She’d suspected, of course. Hell, she more than suspected, she knew that Jennifer had feelings for her. “What does that mean to you?” she asked, treading lightly.
“I don’t know,” Jennifer looked at her, forlorn. “But I needed you to know.”
“Because talking,” said Paige.
“Because talking.” Jennifer breathed slowly. “Are you mad?”
“Why would I be mad?”
She shuffled in her seat. “Because we’re not supposed to have feelings.”
“You and I?” Paige thought she knew what Jennifer was getting at, that swingers weren’t supposed to have feelings for one another, but wanted Jennifer to clarify on her own.
She watched her go through a brief moment of being flustered. “I’m not supposed to have feelings for you.”
Okay, thought Paige, that’s probably enough. “You can have feelings for me. I feel strongly for you too, you beautiful thing. That said, right now those feelings are a moot point.”
“Because of everything else.”
“Because of everything else,” repeated Paige.
Jennifer sighed, then was self-conscious at how loud it had been. Paige smiled at her, sadly, sweetly. Understandingly. For months now she’d been worried that, aside from anything else that had happened, her feelings themselves were wrong, inappropriate. To know that it was ok, that right now other things needed to take priority but there was nothing wrong with the way she felt, was like an anvil being lifted off of her.
When they returned home from dinner, Paige pulled Jennifer in for a big hug. She held her for a long while, head on Jennifer’s shoulder. “You are special,” she whispered. “Never feel otherwise. Know you are loved and appreciated, and that there’s nothing wrong with your urges, sexual or romantic. Own what you want.”
Welling up, Jennifer pushed her face into Paige’s hair and took a deep breath, unsure when they’d be this close to each other again. “Do you think we could hang out some time?” she asked, hopeful, but suspecting she knew what the answer would be.
“That’d be great,” said Paige. “Once you guys figure things out. You’re a drama risk right now. High alert. You need to talk to each other, and until you do, you can’t be swingers.”
Paige’s deadly serious tone made Jennifer laugh. “It’s like you’re taking away our car keys.”
She laughed, too. “Yes, you’ve lost your lifestyle privileges. You have to be vanilla for a while.”
Before Jennifer left, Paige leaned forward and left a very light, but lingering, kiss on the corner of her mouth. She held her gaze for a moment, sadness in her eyes.
“Be good,” she said. “Be amazing.”
49
Ryan waited in the living room for his opportunity to say it, to mean it. He’d even turned the lights on this time. He heard the front door open, then close. The shuffling of jacket and shoe removal. Jennifer came up the stairs. She stopped in the doorway behind him. He heard her breathing. They both waited. He didn’t want to interrupt her if—
“Hey,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.
“I’m sorry,” he said, then he turned around and said it again to her face.
She blinked surprise.
“Do you have time to talk?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Will you sit down with me?”
She nodded again and sat down on the opposite couch. She noticed the takeout container in her hand and set it on the coffee table between them. “There’s half a fillet in there, if you—”
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
Jennifer let out a long breath and cocked her head. “I’m going to need you to tell me what exactly you’re apologizing for.”
That was fair, very fair. He nodded in assent. “First, for being a dick.”
She snorted out a laugh but regained her composure quickly, pursed her lips and nodded. “Alright.”
“No, I know,” he said. “All of it, at the party, I didn’t trust you.”
“You didn’t trust me?”
Quickly, Ryan, you’re losing her. “I mean, I trusted you, absolutely, but subconsciously, I didn’t. I felt other things. I worried you’d go off with someone and ditch me, like, not come home with me at all. Or you’d meet someone interesting, and he’d be more interesting than me.” He took a long breath and dove in, tearing open the wrapping and exposing the inside. “Because I’m not adventurous, and because I don’t have the experience these guys have, or the charisma.”
“You’re charismatic,” she said, offhand.
“Confidence, they had it in spades the way they came up to you, told you that you were beautiful and sexy and amazing. Making a show of telling me the same things about you, to remind me of how lucky I am.” He looked at her. Lucky alright, lucky she even sat across from him right now. “All I could do was see better options for you, better than me. Smarter, sexier, wealthier than me.
“And then Bruce. I mean, he’s just the best of them. All charm, no smarm.”