Aha.
Now they were getting real.
“You do get jealous!” Joe said with an excitement that made Dylan uneasy. “See?” He gave Trevor a hot look. Angry look. A look of triumph. Of being right.
“Even after this long?” Trevor seemed defeated. “I don’t have it in me to put up with his shit forever.”
“It’ll change when you live together,” Dylan said. Both younger men gave him skeptical looks. “No, really. When we moved in with Jill it got better, and now that we’re with Laura, Mike’s the one who gets jealous. I don’t.”
“He really doesn’t. It’s weird,” Mike added.
“Weird,” Joe muttered.
“Why is it weird?” Trevor asked. “I think it’s a sign of maturity.”
Dylan reached across the table to high-five him and did a double take. If Mike were even five years older he could be Trevor’s very young dad.
Old. Dylan felt so f**king old. Next time he took a piss he’d need to check for gray pubes after all, because this entire conversation had aged him by five or ten years.
“It’s weird,” Joe said tightly, “because it’s natural to feel jealous.”
“No, it’s not,” Dylan and Trevor said together.
“Yes, it is,” Joe insisted. “It’s part of human nature.”
“Nope,” Dylan declared. “I used to think that, too, but you spend enough time following your own drummer inside you and you realize that all the things people call ‘human nature’ are made-up shit they create to justify their own feelings and behaviors.”
Joe frowned. “From an evolutionary biology standpoint, that seems wrong.”
“But from a real-life, daily-life perspective, I’m right. Live with Darla for a year. All three of you. Together. And then see what happens to the jealousy.”
Both of the younger men’s eyes widened. Ah. They weren’t there yet. Too much commitment. Dylan understood. He and Mike had been terrified to move in with Jill. It was as close to marriage as they would ever, legally, be allowed to come, so it had more gravity to it. Felt bigger.
Seemed enormous at the time.
“And I don’t think you’re jealous,” Mike said to Joe. “I think you’re pissed at yourself. Not Trevor.”
Trevor’s eyebrows shot up while Joe’s forehead furrowed with fury. “What?”
“You made a choice to live far away. You shouldn’t be punishing Darla and Trevor because you’re unhappy with your decision.”
“Oh, great. Here comes the therapy. Where’s your couch, Dr. Freud?”
Mike shrugged. “Take it or leave it. But it’s obvious to everyone else. You’re unhappy and don’t want to be away but won’t make a change. It’s all on you. You are making yourself miserable. You’re not jealous of Trevor’s time with Darla. You’re jealous of something else.”
“What?”
“That they are living their own lives and doing what they want.”
“I’m at f**king Penn! Ivy League law!”
“And look at how happy that makes you.”
Darla
“Joe looks like Trevor just shoved Mavis up his ass and did the Funky Chicken dance with her,” Darla said as Laura giggled. They’d spent the better part of the past twenty minutes talking shop, mostly comparing notes on Good Things Come in Threes clients.
Between Dylan shouting about his erectile dysfunction and Joe yammering on about yet another thing he was pissed about, it sounded like the men were having a more contentious time than the women.
And Alex looked kinda sick over there before they left. She wondered what on earth the other four men had told him to make him so…green. The man delivered babies for a living, for goodness’ sake. He saw hoohaws ripped open, women who birthed babies from their vaginas, and giant alien placentas and whatever else gushed forth as you pushed those muscles down there, and he did all that with a soothing, calm demeanor and a smile.
Really—what had those men said to unsettle a guy who took needle and thread to labia? She frowned and gave Trevor a look that was designed to cut glass, but he was oblivious. Typical.
“I wish I were a fly on the wall over there,” Laura said, turning to flash Dylan a smile that Darla couldn’t help but admire. He winked back at Laura, and a part of Darla swooned. She got it. Joe and Trevor made her feel that way times a million. Glad to see Laura had the same thing with her guys.
Or did she?
“When are we going to talk about your threesomes?” Josie asked, rubbing her hands like a blackjack dealer with a super-drunk millionaire in front of her. “I want some good gossip.”
“You have no friends other than us,” Darla said. “Who the hell you gonna gossip to? Your cat, Crackhead?”
“He listens,” Josie said, pouting. “And Alex.”
“Alex is a steel trap. Won’t say a word,” Darla said.
“How do you know?” Josie eyed her with suspicion, and Laura joined in, curious. Darla wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Once Josie was on your case, you were doomed. She’d still managed not to spill the truth about her friend Amy getting her cell phone caught in her vagina (vibrator apps. Who knew?), and how Alex had come to the rescue.
Some stories are best left untold.
Unshared.
Buried.
“He’s just so dreamy,” she said, trying to throw Josie off the scent.
But it made Josie even more suspicious. “What are you up to, Darla?”
“I’m up to talking about the best lube for getting one man in your back door when another one is nicely nestled in your pink tunnel,” Darla shot back, desperate to talk about anything but the secret she and Alex shared.
Laura turned the color of roses and picked up a stray menu, fanning herself. “Is it hot in here, or is it just me?”
Josie snorted. “She’s just deflecting.”
“Or those tunnel butt plugs. Let me tell you, whoever invented those deserves a goddamn Nobel Peace Prize for saving anuses worldwide,” Darla said.
Madge happened to walk past at that exact moment, stop cold, and give Darla a long, contemplative stare.
“Contoured, or straight? Because the contoured ones make it so much more comfortable to use between the two of us,” Madge asked.
Alex was the closest man to the women’s booth and, if the grimace that crossed his mouth were a measure, he had heard Madge’s declaration.