“I don’t know,” I respond, my hands waving around wildly. “Tell them you forbid it.”
Declan and Tony both stare at me for a moment, and then both of them laugh loudly, Declan clapping me on the shoulder like I just told the best punch line ever. I sit there, watching them both laugh until they finally run out of steam, and then I wait impatiently for one of them to say something, anything.
After a few moments, Declan finally responds, “You’re funny.”
I gape at him. “That’s all you have to say?”
“You’re super funny,” Tony offers.
“What is wrong with you guys?” I exclaim, truly baffled by their lack of concern over their wives going off to watch a bunch of buff young men gyrating in front of them. “You’re not bothered by this?”
Tony rests his head back on the seat, his eye closing as he responds, “Not really.”
I turn my attention back to Declan who answers, “Nah, I don’t care. I hope they have a grand old time and then Issa comes back feeling exceptionally frisky.”
I cross my arms over my chest, mutter to myself as I attempt to sort through their obvious disinterest in the activities of the ladies. I stew for a few long moments when Declan’s voice draws my attention back to him. “Why do you care?”
“What?”
“Why do you care if your make-a-deal wife goes off gawking at naked young men?”
“I don’t,” I respond a bit too quickly, and Tony snorts in response as he says, “I’ve heard that lie before.”
Ignoring him, I ask Declan, “Why don’t you care?”
“Have you looked at me?” Declan says with a smug grin, but when I glare in response, he turns serious and adds, “My wife loves me, Ren. It doesn’t matter how many men flex her way, or rub their stripper sweat on her, she’s coming home to me.”
“Dec also kind of likes the smell of the stripper sweat,” Tony adds, still not looking at us. “So, it’s almost a win-win for them.”
Declan narrows his eyes at Tony but then pauses and nods. “That’s actually fair.”
Giving up on coming to any kind of understanding with the rock star in the car, I nudge Tony with my foot, waiting for him to peek an eye open before asking, “And what about you?”
“My wife is a grown ass woman,” he responds. “If she wanted to cheat, me telling her what she can and cannot do won’t prevent it.”
“As if telling any of those women anything would do us a lick of good,” Declan adds, earning a nod of agreement from Tony, who adds, “And I trust if any of them truly wanted some kind of wild tryst they’d just tell us.”
“They would tell you?”
Both men nod, and I make a face, truly confused by whatever dynamic they’re all living in. Tony must sense my unease because he sits up, leaning toward me as he explains, “They all know they can be entirely open and honest at all times. Sexual or not, it’s our responsibility to make sure all of their needs are met.”
“And vice versa,” Declan interjects. “If I want something that I’m not getting, it’s my responsibility to communicate my needs.”
“And that’s it? They can tell you a fantasy about fucking another man, and you’d give your blessing?”
This question has Tony frowning, and he looks to Declan as he says, “You’re gonna have to take this one Dec. I’m too tired to make sense.”
Tony goes back to resting his eyes and I turn slightly on my seat, so I’m facing Declan slightly when he responds, “It’s not so simple as that, Ren. But regardless of what it is they want; I will always listen to my wife and do all I can to make sure her needs are being met, while at the same time not completely mutilating the few boundaries I have.”
“Y’all are fucked up.”
Declan chuckles and waves my insult off. “I think people who risk their relationship based solely on their narrow-minded ideals are fucked up. We don’t all just fit nicely in the same damn box, Ren. Without a sliding scale, a large percentage of relationships are doomed.”
He goes back to looking out the window, the reflection of the lights from the Strip painting his features in rainbows. I turn to look out my own window, using the silence to unpack what Declan and Tony have told me.
Cassidy and I are at the beginning of a journey that has been laid out in legal documents, but the legal documents don’t dictate our daily interactions. Those legal documents don’t tell us how best to meet each other’s needs or how to navigate the many unknowns of learning to coexist as virtual strangers.
That being said, I am not at all happy about her being surrounded by semi-nude muscular young men. I’m not at all happy about her watching them, touching them, maybe even wanting them.
