“Okay, wait. You keep a jar of coconut oil in the bedroom?” Lauren asked. “You don’t run into the kitchen every time, and oh God, tell me you have separate jars for sex and food.”
Andy rubbed her temples and sighed. “Yes, we have a jar in the bedroom, and a completely separate jar in the kitchen. It never feels slimy and I’m told it tastes good, too.”
Lauren sat back and tapped her fingers against her chin. “It doesn’t make you feel dry or sticky afterward?” Andy shook her head. “Does it work for the backdoor, too? I need something that’s good on both the backdoor and the downtown.”
“All your neighborhoods and doors are covered,” Andy said.
“I’m so confused right now,” Tiel murmured.
“This isn’t a vegan joke, right? If I go to your apartment this afternoon, am I going to find a jar of sex-only coconut oil in your drawer?” Lauren asked Andy.
“No,” she said, “you’ll find it in Patrick’s drawer. He’s in charge of lube.”
“Holy fuck,” I murmured. I kept forcing that eye candy wide receiver from the New England Patriots into my mind but my brother, armed with a jar of all-natural lube, a wooden spoon, and a dumb grin, continued to reappear. “I might need to bleach my brain now.”
Tiel caught my eye, and she sent me a sympathetic smile. “Do they know about Scheduled Sex?” she asked, gesturing to Lauren and Andy.
No no no no.
“Tiel, sweetie,” I said. It was her way of changing the topic, and it was a kind gesture but it had my stomach audibly gurgling.
“No, you should tell them,” she continued. “She has the hottest guy in her apartment right now. That man was delicious. Were those military tattoos? The anchor on his chest looked familiar, like a Navy tattoo, but the one on his arm, the frog skeleton—”
“Stop!” I sprung to my feet, my hands outstretched in Tiel’s direction as I tried to catch the words tumbling out of her mouth and shove them back in. “Stop right there and don’t ever say another word as long as you live.”
The waiter chose that moment to arrive with our meals. He spent an entire lifetime setting the plates down, and then asked no fewer than six hundred questions before stepping away.
It took full minutes for my body to relax enough to return to my seat. Tiel was studying the tabletop as if her life depended on it, and Andy and Lauren wouldn’t stop staring at me.
I picked all the avocado out of my salad and onto a saucer, then handed it to Andy before meeting their gazes. We were changing topicsnow.
“Why don’t you tell us about the wedding plans, Tiel,” I said.
Her head snapped up, her eyes wide. “Um,” she started, “we’re waiting until after we visit my parents in New Jersey to make any decisions because we don’t know whether they’re going to be happy and insist on a traditional Greek wedding or pretend I don’t exist or some other, more ridiculous option. We’re going there in a couple weeks, for Thanksgiving, or…the Greek version of Thanksgiving that my family does, which is pretty odd as far as Thanksgivings go and I’m worried that Sam won’t eat the entire time we’re there.”
“Go to Juice Box in Southie and get some smoothies made up for the trip,” I said.
Andy held up her hands for timeout. “Pause. Rewind. Who is this bare-chested, tatted man?” she asked. “Not Gerard, right?”
Tiel pressed her fingers to her lips as uncomfortable laughter bubbled up. These weren’t the baby steps she preferred, not with the lube and the yelling. I was putting money down on her declining all future invitations.
“No,” I said.
I made the mistake of looking at Lauren then, and her smile told me she was putting the pieces together. It was easy to underestimate her. She had the happy California girl thing going for her, and that came saddled with a sweetness that could rot teeth. But she was smart and perceptive, and pushed people exactly as much as they could handle.
She’d peppered a few off-handed comments about Will into conversations last summer, after Montauk, and then some more after the holidays in Mexico. It put me on guard at the time, but I’d convinced myself it was normal chatter and I was being hypersensitive.
“Right, okay. Since we’re skippingthattopic, let’s go back to Greek Thanksgiving. That sounds a lot like Persian Christmas with my Jewish mother,” Andy said, laughing. “And it’s funny because Persians aren’t usually hot on Christmas but I’m a mutt so it’s all good. I’m a little obsessed with our secular version of Christmas, actually.”
“Oh, okay,” Tiel, said. “Maybe we can talk about our biracial holiday experiences some other time. I think I might have broken Shannon. Or, Lauren. Or both of them.”
The way Lauren was staring at me now told me none of it was off-handed. “We’re going to chat very soon,” she said. “You and me, Miss Shannon. You and me.”
*
“I have anew strategy,” I said to Tom on Monday morning. “Patrick’s getting two assistants. They can fight it outSurvivorstyle.” Tom rolled his eyes. “Here are their résumés—Dylan the Girl and Lissa Wynn—and I want you to block time on your calendar to train them.”
“This will be amusing,” he murmured. He was patronizing me in thatmy boss is crazy and I go along with whatever she saysway, and it was a regular feature in our relationship. He passed me a stack of messages before I headed to the weekly status meeting.
