I rested my arm on the back of Grace’s chair and surveyed the other couples. I had expected them to practically be in each other’s lap like they had been at the last group event. But there was a noticeable tension in the air.
“How are the marriages going?” Priyanka asked.
A short brunette with a tomboyish haircut crossed her arms.
“This is the first time I’ve seen my husband in weeks.”
“Ooof,” I said aloud then tried to disguise the exclamation with a cough as Grace poked me in the abs. I grabbed her hand, rubbing my fingers over her knuckles.
“I just don’t see why I can’t go hang out with my friends,” her husband, tall and lanky, complained. “She nags me constantly. I just wanna go watch sports.”
“You don’t even have your wedding ring on!” his wife screeched.
I looked down at Grace’s noticeably bare hand.
“Where’s your ring?” I whispered in her ear.
“It was like a twenty-thousand-dollar ring,” she hissed back out of the corner of her mouth. “With my luck, I’d lose it. I put it in a safe place.”
“Where?”
She pursed her mouth.
“Where?”
“I can’t remember.”
I bit back a laugh as another bride interrupted the crying of the brunette.
“He said I’m not a sexual being.”
“I didn’t say that!” her husband, a bald man with a potato-shaped head, snapped.
“We have sex every day!” the woman continued.
“We used to,” he barked. “But then you stopped, and all you want to do is post stuff to Instagram and dress up your dog.”
“Because my dog doesn’t judge me!” she yelled at him.
“He is judging you!” her husband hollered back. “I see him staring at us when we’re having adult time.”
“You have your dog in the room when you’re having sex?” Linneah asked.
I poured Grace and myself more wine.
“This is way more interesting than I thought it was going to be,” I said under my breath. “I could use some popcorn.”
She nudged me with her foot but was clearly trying to hold back a smile.
“It seems like everyone is having some issues in their relationship,” Priyanka remarked as the servers set down the platters of Indian food.
“Not us,” Teddy said happily, planting a big kiss on Linneah’s mouth. She recoiled.
Teddy seemed oblivious.
“Hey, Chris,” he said excitedly, “we should all do a double date. Whad’ya say?”
I silently shook my head. Grace snickered into her wineglass.
