“Why not? We’re done for today. I’ll have your car brought to your house.” He smiles, and pushes the tabletop candle to the side. “I think you need a night to relax.”

“I’m relaxed.” I lean against the wall and close my eyes.

“You’re exhausted. There’s a difference.”

I am exhausted. Half of me is dying for my bed, my quiet apartment, my ability to sleep in late tomorrow. The other half of me feels like celebrating. It was that half of me that accepted his dinner invite.

“Why don’t you call Craig? See if he can join us.”

The waiter returns, beers in hand, and I watch him set down the bottles. “He can’t,” I reply. “He has a Chemistry Association meeting tonight. It’s a monthly thing.” I smile. “Exciting stuff.”

“Sounds like it.” He lifts his beer. “Cheers.”

I lift my bottle. “Just one drink,” I say. “I can’t be out too late.”

“Sure.” He shrugs. “You’re the boss.”

I smile at the joke, and take a sip.

I lean forward. “So I walk into the room and they are both standing there, naked.” I giggle, a hiccup forcing its way out. “I thought they were gay. And I started to apologize, you know, for interrupting them—”

“You started to apologize to your boyfriend?” Trey leans forward, a confused look on his face.

“Yes,” I wince. “It was right when there was all this PC stuff about accepting homosexuality, and all I could think was that I wanted him to know that it was okay—you know—him being gay.”

“I don’t understand where this story is going.”

I lower my voice and lean in. “They weren’t gay. They were…” I glance to the table beside us to make sure they aren’t listening. “They were waiting for me.” He doesn’t respond and I sigh, forced to fully explain it. “They wanted to have sex with me. Together!” I take a sip of the beer. “It’s called a threesome.”

The corner of his mouth lifts into a smirk. “Oh yes. I’m familiar with the term.”

Of course he is. He’s probably had one. Or two. Or five. I move past his smirk and on with my story. “So anyway … that was my first boyfriend. A terrible candidate to lose my virginity to.”

“Wait.” He holds up a palm. “You just skipped over all of the good stuff.” He sits back in his chair and lifts his beer. “Did you enjoy it?”

“Enjoy what?” I eye my now-empty beer, and try to calculate how many I’ve had. Three? Four? The waiter swings by and delivers two more.

“The threesome.”

“Ew!” I make a face. “Seriously? You think I did that?”

He studies my face carefully, then shrugs, his broad shoulders lifting the crisp white shirt. “I guess not.” He sounds almost disappointed.

“Why would I?” I press, and now I’m getting irritated. “Do you know how offensive that is? Two guys taking turns on me? Using me? I didn’t even know the other guy. ”

“Easy, Kate.” He pushes aside his old beer and reaches for the new one. “I was just asking for the story.”

“The story is that I left. And I don’t know what they did amongst themselves.” I make a face, then realize my voice may have gotten a little too loud in my indignation. “Sorry for yelling,” I whisper loudly.

“It’s okay,” he whispers back.

I pick up a spoon and stab at the brownie, a desert from an hour ago, one that has been stabbed to death by my occasional tastings. It is okay. It’s more than okay. It’s normal. Normal people think that threesomes are gross. Craig would definitely think that threesomes are gross. I’ve never even told him that story for fear that he would judge me out of mere proximity to the act.

“So…” Trey drawls. “You don’t like threesomes. Anything else I should know about you?”

I glance up and meet his eyes, and with just a flash of that smile, we are back to normal.

The lights of Torrance are blurring, the taxi bumping along the street, and I watch two bums argue in the brief moment before we pass. “It’s the next right,” I call out.

Trey checks his phone. “God, I can’t believe it’s almost midnight.”

“Normally in bed by this time?” I tease.

“Normally in someone’s bed by this time.” He grins at me, a playful one, and I groan in response.

“You didn’t have to escort me home. I’m a big girl. I could have gotten my own ride.”

“I would have worried. This way I can properly see you to your door and earn gentleman points in the process.” He looks out the window. “No offense, Kate, but we have to get you out of this neighborhood.”

I reach down and grab my purse, the car slowing down before my building. “This neighborhood is fine. But if you want to give me a raise…” I shrug. “I won’t fight you on it.”

“Stay here. I’ll get your door.” He gets out, and I wait, watching as he approaches my door and opens it with a grand flourish. “M’lady.”

I laugh, stepping from the cab and over the broken sidewalk. Before me, my building looms, and I have a moment of drunk appreciation for my first floor unit. He tells the cabbie to wait and walks me to the door, pausing before it, his face growing serious. “Monday, let’s talk about a raise.”

“Wow. You really are drunk.” I pull out my keys and flip through them.

“No, I’m serious.” He meets my eyes. “I’ll give you anything you want.”

He meant an increase in salary, but it came out wrong, his voice too husky, his body too close. I step back, but our gaze holds, and I almost change direction, lean in, reach out. He clears his throat, and the moment breaks. I look down, and manage to fit the key in the building’s front door.

“Thanks for seeing me to the door.” The words squeak a little on their way out. “I’ll be fine from here.”

He steps back, and the darkness of the walkway obscures his face. “Have a good night, Kate.” He pauses, his hands sliding into his pockets. Behind him, the cab exhaust smokes in the night air. “See you tomorrow.”

I give a little wave and escape inside, my heart beating, hands trembling as I flip the deadbolt over.

“I’ll give you anything you want.”

In that moment, it wasn’t a raise I wanted.

Chapter 7

Her

“You’re packing it wrong.” Craig stands next to me, his hand on his hips, his head shaking.

“It’s fine.” I shut the suitcase lid and lean on it, struggling with the zipper.

“Kate, stop.” He bats at my hand. “We need to pull everything out and repack. You don’t need so many clothes.”

“What I don’t need is you telling me how to pack. Go in the living room,” I say crossly. “Let me zip this up.” I push on his shoulder and watch as he steps back, a pained look in his eyes. It’s cruel to not let him pack, to not let him use his T-shirt folding board to ensure that all of the edges are crisp and similarly sized. But letting him pack would mean that he’d see the red lace lingerie that I tucked inside, a new Marks item that hasn’t even rolled off to stores yet. I’d like to keep it a surprise, something to pull out on Saturday night, in celebration of my birthday.

I get the suitcase closed, the zipper straining but holding, and I lug it into the living room, giving a ta-da! motion that goes completely ignored by Craig, who zeros in on each of my suitcase’s wheels, examining and then lubricating them, using a tiny squeeze bottle that he returns to a Ziploc bag upon completion. “Ready?” I say dryly, glancing at my watch. It doesn’t matter if he isn’t. We’ve got a good five hours until the flight. There is no Earthly reason why we would leave the house now, except that Craig doesn’t like to leave anything to chance. I thought he overdid it when we went to San Diego for the night. It turns out that international travel puts him on a whole new plane of neurotics. I eye Craig and wonder if I’m making a mistake bringing him. This is a work event after all, a shopping trip to purchase leftover inventory from an old undergarments factory. Our four-day trip, if the inventory is quality, could save us a few hundred thousand dollars. In my initial mention of the trip to Craig, I could have just left it at that. Instead, fueled by wine and a $200 scratch-off ticket win, I’d invited him along.