After a long pause in which only the club music assaults his ears, Anya finally says, “Yes. We probably would’ve. If he played his cards right.”
Cal tries to make himself breathe. “Because you want him.”
“There’s different kinds of wanting.” Her eyebrows pinch together.
“Come on,” he says. “We both know what it means when you want someone other than—”
“You mean it different than we do.” She digs her nails into his arm briefly to emphasize her point. He jerks under the tiny sting. Her blue eyes are impatient and demanding. “You think only wanting one body is a sign of love. But to say so is a polite fiction meant to spare insecurities. That’s not real. I’ve wanted men before Zac, before you, and I will continue to do so. That’s...fuck, that’s biology. That’s not me giving that desire any weight, it’s just flesh. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to what my heart, my mind and my will have decided. My body might crave any number of things that I might indulge in, but everything important that makes me Anya wants very specific things.” She thumps the heel of her hand against her chest. “Yes, I’d fuck that man, and I’d get off on it, and then I’d fuck my husband too, and the difference between being with that stranger and being with Zac is light years apart. One is living pornography that nets you an orgasm and a friendly wave good-bye because that’s all that stranger wants too. And the other is the fucking other half of my soul in another body. You can’t compare the two.”
Which one am I? But he doesn’t ask it, because he already knows.
Anya said it herself back on Zac’s birthday. She’s as much as said it here again. At the end of the night, it’s always her and Zac and PJ. They’re a family. Cal might be exclusive for now, might be the most serious addendum to that family that they’ve ever taken on, but serious isn’t forever. He had serious with Sharon back in high school, and they turned out to want very different things. He didn’t have the life experience or romantic experience then to know that the things that don’t line up easy are the things that inevitably drive you apart.
He knows better now.
Anya turns to straddle him, hiking her skirt up in the process. She cups his face and forces him to make eye contact with her. “You have to listen to me. You have to hear me. Even if I’d fucked him, chances are I wouldn’t remember his name three months from now. But I’ll always know yours, okay? You’re not that man down on the dance floor, Cal. Not to me.”
“Not to me either,” Zac says. “Dumbass.”
“We know what you need. It’s—I won’t say it’s not alien to us, doing this the way you need it, but we understand why you need it, and it’s not—It’s fine. I think you think it’s hard for us to give up the other men, but it’s not—not the way it would hurt me to give up Zac. Do you see? It’s okay. We’re okay. You’re worth it.” She’s so fervent that her grip on his jaw is a little painful. Anya doesn’t lie. She says what she wants. It’s one of his favorite things about her—he never has to guess.
Cal nods, tries to pull the last tatters of his confidence back together. “Okay.”
All right. He’s not the man on the dance floor. He’s serious. To them, he’s always going to matter, enough that while he’s with them, they’ll let the other men go. That’s something, to know he’s important enough for that sacrifice. He’s maybe not soul-in-another-body important, but that’s a rare thing even in married couples. He can’t begrudge Anya and Zac that kind of bond. He might wish that there was room for him in there, but it’s not anyone’s fault that there isn’t. It’s the nature of the thing. They’re married.
He takes Anya’s hand, lifts it and kisses the palm. “Okay. Sorry. I don’t—I’m not trying to drive you crazy.”
“You’re not.” She brushes her thumb across his mouth. “You’re enough. I promise.”
Zac rests his head against Cal’s other shoulder. His hand strokes over Anya’s cheek before dropping to circle Cal’s wrist. He squeezes once gently.
Anya kisses Cal, kisses him hard enough and long enough that he loses track of everything else. It’s so dim in the club that when he closes his eyes, it’s all black. It’s easy to believe they’re hidden away, just the three of them, alone in all the world. There’s only the music throbbing through him and Anya warm and eager in his arms, biting at him, rocking against him, moaning in his ear, and when he feels Zac’s hand slip in between them to open Cal’s pants, any protests he might’ve framed in a saner moment can’t get past the pulse of need in his throat. He can’t believe this is happening, that he’s doing this in public, but she’s desperate against him, needing this, needing him, and he can’t say no. If he’s honest, he doesn’t want to say no.
Anya shifts, lifting up, and if she was ever wearing underwear, it’s certainly gone now. Cal has a distant thought that he really hopes Zac’s keeping an eye out for their waiter, and then he’s inside her. He can’t breathe, she’s so slick and hot and tight and he’s going to come in about ten seconds, but she’s smiling at him, a smile that he would’ve said was very un-Anya six months ago, back when he didn’t know her. He hadn’t known she could be this soft, this sweet, and he believes her now, with all his body and his heart. He’s not the nameless man on the dance floor, not to her. She cares about him. She might even care enough to call it love.
He loses himself in her, in his best friend’s wife, and tells himself to be satisfied.
* * *
After the night at the club, Cal half expects them to be tired of his drama. To want some time without him there so they can regroup as a family. Instead, he gets the sense that they’re waiting too. Like they think he’s going to end it. He wishes he was as good with words as Anya is. He would find a way to explain that it’s not going to be him. It’s never going to be him.
Over the next week, when Cal doesn’t say anything about going home, they slowly relax. They go back to where they were before their tempestuous natures required soothing—Anya and Zac shoving their baby at him for cuddles, putting off the inevitable separation with hot sex and cozy evening plans. They never make him choose the movie.
It’s not entirely comfortable ground, but it’s familiar, and as Anya said, it’s enough.
* * *
One night they pick up huge bowls of Vietnamese soup from Zac’s favorite food truck, three different kinds that they all share: bún bò Huế, and pho bo and bún riêu. Later they move to the couch to put the television on low in the background, although nobody’s watching it. Cal’s feeling relaxed and sleepy. Anya has her feet in his lap, and as long as she’s making those happy noises when he digs his thumbs into her arches, he knows she’s not going to make him leave. So he keeps rubbing.