Kate laughs and throws herself at him again, slowing his progress as he pulls his phone from his back pocket. “I love it when they act innocent. It’s totally my kink.”
Nate glances from me to Alex, then grins. “Mine, too, babe.”
“Babe?” I blurt, my gaze darting between them. “Did you just call her babe?”
“No need to get jealous,” Nate says, easing toward me. “There’s plenty of lovin’ to go around.”
Everything clicks in a millisecond. “Oh shit.”
“We’re out of here,” Alex says, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and dragging me with him.
“No need to be shy!” Kate calls. “Though, really, that’s a kink of mine, too.”
“Alex,” I gasp as we rush toward the door. We’re practically jogging. “They’re swingers!”
“No shit,” he mutters, nearly shoving someone aside, out of my way.
“They, like, planned that!”
“Yes, Ted.”
“How!” I yell as we stumble out into the biting-cold air outside.
“In the past ten seconds that I’ve had to try to come up with an answer,” Alex says, rushing us toward his car, “I’ve only come up with one possibility. Your picture.”
I frown up at him. “My what?”
“The picture,” he says, “that you included in your profile? The one with all my family and me at Dad’s birthday party in December?”
We throw ourselves into the car. My door’s not even fully closed before Alex starts to peel out.
“I don’t get it,” I tell him. “Why would that—ohhhh.”
“I was in it,” he says. “And I have my arm around your shoulders.”
“We agreed that would inspire a healthy, nontoxic level of advantageous jealousy in a prospective suitor.”
He lets out a little disbelieving, high-pitched laugh. “Why are you talking like that?”
“I don’t know, I read a lot of historical romance! That’s beside the point. So you’re saying they work together—”
“They’re swingers, Ted, not hit men. But yes, they strategized, and based on our bios, I guess assumed we’d be up for some…”
“Group effort,” I say miserably.
Alex glances my way. “Yeah. Pretty much. You okay?”
“Nope. I am not. I mean, he didn’t do anything gross. But I just… wow. How are you? Are you okay? Kate seemedreallyhandsy.”
Alex shudders. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I bite my lip, adrenaline starting to ebb in my body, the comforting hum of the car rolling down the road, Alex’s familiar scent suffusing the air. “That was a disaster.”
“Yep,” he says.
“No knocks on swingers,” I tell him. “Because, you know what, everyone deserves to have consensual fun and intimacy however works for them.”
“Yep,” he says again.
