Carver grinned at him and finished off his champagne, setting the empty flute on the railing. He was, unfortunately, often charmed by Scott’s self-righteousness. It was easy to see that Scott was a strong personality who had been neglected and left to his own devices for much of his youth — he’d had to invent a personal code from scratch, and he’d rarely had to deal with the daily reality of compromise. When he didn’t like the terms, he walked. This was so far from the reality of the average person that it made Scott feel both more and less real.
“Whatdoyou want, then?” he said. He could feel himself nearing some vertiginous point of no return, and he wanted Scott to hasten the journey by making him wild propositions.
Behind them, the door opened. Scott looked over. His entire body stiffened, and he stepped back from Carver.
Carver turned to look too, full of dread, expecting to see one of his parents. Instead he saw Lillian.
She strode over to them, smiling, as cool as can be. When she reached them, they turned to her to form a triangle, and she put her hand out. Scott looked at her for a moment, then put a cigarette into it.
Lillian took it and lit hers off of Carver’s. She smoked for a moment, then looked between them and said, “Did you two fuck last night?”
The world dropped out from under Carver, and his vision dimmed for a second. He gripped the railing and inhaled, then shot a look at Scott, who appeared stricken. The look was meant to saylet me handle this, I’m the better liar, but when he looked back at Lillian’s impassive face, he found himself saying, “Yes.”
“Carver,” Scott exclaimed, dropping his cigarette.
Lillian nodded, her gaze steady. She was scrutinizing him like a disappointed manager.
“Okay,” she said. To Scott, in an explanatory tone, she said, “He thinks I don’t know what he gets up to on the side, but I do. I’m aware he has certain needs.”
Carver exhaled, his heart pounding wildly. The scene before him swam in his vision, and he took a step back from them, still gripping the railing. “What needs?”
“He thinks you don’t know?” Scott said, staring Carver down. “I thought you had an arrangement?”
“I knew she knew, it was unspoken,” Carver said, trying to catch his breath. “What needs?”
“The needs of a man who’s predominantly homosexual and pretty sexually submissive,” Lillian said, lazily wiggling her cigarette at him. His heart stopped, then stuttered back on. “Look, I’m not an old-fashioned person. I’m happy for both of us to do what we like, and I always thought you were too riddled with anxiety to risk contaminating me with germs or suboptimal situations. But there’s something going on here that I don’t like.”
“I don’t think I should be part of this conversation,” Scott said, moving to leave. Lillian stepped in his way and put a hand on his arm.
“Stay,” she said, smiling. “You fuck my husband and you won’t even talk things out with me? Come on. That’s rude.”
“I don’t —” Scott was not making eye contact with either of them. He kept looking over both of their heads. “There’s no, um — we made a mistake. We got caught up in nostalgia.”
“No, I don’t think that’s all of it,” Lillian said. She took a drag, then blew a stream of smoke directly into Scott’s eyes. He stood there blinking frantically. “And that’s my point. I don’t like how you’ve been looking at each other. It’s a littlemuch.”
Scott blinked more, but remained otherwise frozen. He had never dealt with Lillian before, of course.
“Honey,” Carver said, and Lillian turned to him with a look of irritated amusement. “Maybe you’re more okay with me fucking around on you in theory than you are when you’re actually, like, looking at the person.”
“Please,” Lillian said. “You’re not going to turn this around on me. No one here is unaware of what’s going on.”
“What’s going on?”
Behind them, the door opened. They all turned and saw a young woman, drunk-looking, with a vape in her hand.
“Actually, can we get some privacy?” Scott called to her, sounding rattled.
The young woman laughed like he was being ridiculous, then looked between them, seemed to realize she was genuinely intruding on something, and slunk back inside.
“What’s going on?” Carver repeated, staring his wife down.
“You have a crush on him,” Lillian said, pointing at Scott. A breeze whipped her hair. “You havefeelingsabout this person, and you’ve been acting very irrationally.”
Carver felt pain between his fingers and looked to see that his cigarette had burned down to the filter and was scorching him. He dropped it. “Prove I have feelings,” he said.
“Oh, my God,” Lillian said with an eyeroll. “Can we please just accept the obvious facts and go from there? It’s like talking to some children.”
“What are you trying to accomplish here? What’s the endgame?”
