Ryan turned to her. “Are you ready for this?”
She laughed. “Not even slightly,” she said and crossed the lawn toward the house.
He watched her stride, two short pigtails bobbing as she went, red, white, and blue ribbons holding them up.
She looked back over her shoulder at him. “You checking out my ass?”
“Yup,” he said.
She stuck it out a little more, her navy blue shorts lighting a fire in him. “You coming?” she asked him.
“Hopefully not yet!”
Ryan hadn’t been to The Watkins’ himself since that evening with Noah, figuring that after the beat down he’d been given, he ought to wait until he experienced some results, at least. They’d both been happy to receive the barbecue invite in June. “Maybe fences are being mended,” he’d offered.
“It’s a big step, though. For Noah and Barbara. Inviting us.”
“It is.”
Barbara and Noah’s 4th of July Barbecue was their second largest event, just behind the Christmas party. Everybody was invited, friends, family, coworkers. Jennifer had asked the question Ryan had on his mind as well. “Do you think they’ll be there?”
He didn’t know, shrugged.
He caught up with her near the side of the house, a case of Summer Shandy under his arm. She reached out and grabbed his hand. She leaned closer to him, filling his nostrils with her intoxicating scent. He had no idea what this one was called, but he’d buy her a gross of it if she told him the name
“Deep breath,” she said.
They walked through the gate and into the yard. Barbara and Noah owned a large plot of land behind their house, surprisingly large for the neighborhood. He’d mentioned something once about the previous owners having bought the house behind them to tear it down. In the space, kids ran and screamed, clusters of people divided themselves into the “how do you know” categories. We’re work friends. We’re family. We’re vague acquaintances who might be upset if we weren’t invited.
A hand went up, just behind a cluster of people crowded around a row of coolers. Sam waved. Ryan dropped the twenty-four into ice and took cans for himself and Jennifer, popping the tops off before joining Sam and Patti Morton. They stood near each other in silence, smiling and nodding for what seemed like an eon.
“So, how are Bruce and Paige?” asked Sam.
“Good,” said Ryan, unsure why he’d said that. He wouldn’t know how they were, of course, not having spoken to them in a couple months, but that’d just be so complicated to explain. He was about to retract his statement when Jennifer saved him.
“We actually don’t see them much,” she said.
“Really?” asked Patti. She looked surprisingly disappointed by that.
“We’ve been reconnecting on our own,” offered Ryan. “Taking a break.”
“Then you’re not swingers anymore?” Patti blinked at them. Sam also waited intently for the answer.
How to answer that, Ryan wasn’t sure. Were they currently swingers? Perhaps not really, they hadn’t done anything resembling swinging since that play party that had gone south. But again, the Mortons didn’t want to know that. They were just being polite, of course. Just asking because they thought it was important to him and Jennifer.
“I’d say we’re on hiatus,” said Jennifer.
Ryan bobbed his head up and down quickly in assent, then smiled at her. Well done, he said with his eyes. She winked.
“We’re just glad you two are talking to each other again,” said Barbara, swinging near the cluster with two large trays of meat. Sausages, hamburgers, bratwurst, hunks of chicken and beef on skewers. She leaned in and kissed both Ryan and Jennifer on the cheek.
“We really are,” seconded Patti.
“Thanks guys,” Ryan said. “That means a lot.”
“Okay,” said Barbara. “Gotta bring the meat for the grill!” She headed toward the patio behind the house, where a billow of smoke sailed skyward as Noah, wearing an apron and an enormous chef’s hat, opened the top of his grill. He took the hat off and waved it in the direction of whatever was, this very moment, getting char broiled.
“So, I think we owe you some thanks,” said Sam, pointing with his bottle of hard cider.
The color drained from Patti’s face. She looked mortified. “Oh, no, Sam! Not now!”
“What is it?” asked Jennifer.
Sam, uncertain what to do, turned to Patti, who rolled her eyes at him. She leaned in toward Ryan and Jennifer. “Your little… thing.”
“Our little… thing.” Ryan repeated, making sure to put Patti’s dramatic pause in the same place.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You know what I mean. Your swinging thing.”
“Oh,” said Jennifer. “Our swinging thing.”
“It’s led to some…” she trailed off and put her hands up. “This isn’t appropriate barbecue conversation. There are kids around.” To prove it, Patti poked a finger in the direction of a child.
Sam rolled his eyes. “Oh, whatever.” He turned back to Ryan and Jennifer. “Patti’s not interested in swinging.”
Ryan looked at his wife, who shrugged. “We weren’t trying to pick you two up. You know that, right?”
“Don’t feel bad about it, though!” added Jennifer.
“We don’t,” said Patti in her clipped tone. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “But it made me realize I am interested in…” She looked away. “Jeez.”
“Being more playful,” said Sam with a smile.
“Yeah.” Patti didn’t turn back to them.
“Like, role playing and stuff,” continued Sam.
“Enough!”
He turned to his wife. “I just want to make sure they understand what—”
“We get it,” said Jennifer.
“And spanking,” added Sam, as though he weren’t in control of his words. “Did you know there’s a dungeon club in the city?”
“Sam!” exclaimed Patti.
Ryan laughed. “And that’s working for you?”
He saw a genuine smile on Sam’s face, echoed by Patti. Something he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen. “Very well,” said Sam, full of pride at the revelation.
“Very well,” Patti repeated. “Now can we stop talking about it?”
51
Jennifer dug through the cabinets under the wet bar in the surprisingly empty basement. She and Ryan came in for some air conditioning, but also because they’d been watching the yard gate a bit too intently, wondering if Bruce and Paige would show. Wondering, without wanting to ask their hosts, if it was even a possibility.
It had taken everything she had to not reach out, at all, in the intervening months. Paige had sent a single text with a thumbs up emoji, slash, thumbs down emoji.
Jennifer had returned, Working on it.
Day by day, working on it. Week by week, working on it. One thing was certain, it felt a lot less like work these days. Not the wild feelings of those months spent swinging, perhaps, but days to rival the best in their marriage. She looked up from the cabinets under the bar and saw Ryan smiling at her, hands folded, waiting.
“I don’t know where he keeps anything,” she said and held her empty hands up.
“It might all be outside,” offered Ryan.
“Do you have any idea how much Scotch is down here?” she asked. She pointed above her, to the shelves of various Scotch lining the back wall of the bar. “That ain’t got nothing on this. Do you like any of these? ’Cuz Scotch we got!”
He laughed. “No, I’m good.”
She stood up and put her arms on the bar. “Are you now?”
“I am,” he said. “Now.”
She lifted herself to her tip toes so she could lean across the bar and kiss him. When she began to slide backward, she grabbed onto the lapels of his bowling shirt, pulling him across the bar toward her. They kissed for a while.