So . . . That’s that, I guess.
I pee and wash my hands and make my way out into the backyard, which boasts a statue of a gnome holding a gazing ball, a tiny wishing well complete with crank and wooden bucket, and one of those little decorative ponds you can fill with Japanese koi. In this case it seems to be mostly filled with muck, which isn’t stopping a bunch of people from playing catch across the diameter of it, one of those old Nerf footballs with the fin on the back of it sailing through the air. Gray and the rest of the book club are still negotiating the rules of this alleged beer pong tournament, though suddenly the last thing I want to do is play some dumb drinking game.
“I’m not having fun anymore,” I announce, and Gray frowns.
“Can’t have that,” he says. Then, more seriously: “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” I offer him a smile; I want to explain about Chloe, but I don’t want to do it here. “You want to maybe bail though?”
There’s a part of me that’s expecting him to be kind of a dick about it, but instead Gray just nods right away, taking my hand as we turn to go. That’s when I hear a scoff off to my left, and when I turn I see Jacob. A bottle of Coors dangles from his fingers.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
“Just enjoying this little lovefest,” he calls from the edge of the mucky pond. He’s even drunker than Chloe, if that’s possible. There’s a mean, hard glint in his eye. He turns to Gray, his nasty smirk morphing into a faux-magnanimous smile.
“It’s cool if you want my sloppy seconds, dude,” he says, slurring just a little. “And Bex’s too, I guess.”
I take an instinctive step back, shocked as if he’d slapped me. There’s a moment when I feel, horribly, like I’m about to cry.
“What did you just say?” Gray asks. His voice is perfectly pleasant—friendly, even—but he lets go of my hand as he takes a step closer to Jacob, who squares his shoulders and holds his ground.
“You heard me,” he says, lifting his arrogant chin.
Gray nods easily. “I did,” he agrees, taking a step closer, then another; now Jacob does back up, only he’s misjudged how close he is to the side of the algae-covered pond. A slippery rock gives way under his foot and he goes pinwheeling backward, landing in the chilly, smelly water with a splash so noisy and dramatic half the party breaks into applause.
Gray looks at Jacob for a moment, then back at me, trying not to laugh and doing an overall admirable job of it.
“Sorry,” he says, sounding a little sheepish. “I know you don’t need me to protect you.”
I reach to cup his face with both hands, stamping a kiss on his mouth like a seal of approval. “You know,” I say, “I think I can make an exception just this once.”
I don’t have to be home for an hour yet, so we swing by Gray’s house, a tidy Cape Cod with carefully tarped rosebushes planted underneath the windows and a porch light shaped like a star hanging over the red front door. Inside it’s warm, the air fragrant with the scent of sandalwood incense; I spy the orange flash of a cat as she darts up the stairs.
“Home!” Gray calls, hanging our coats on a hook by the doorway.
“In here!” a woman’s voice calls back.
Gray leads me through the living room, which is lined with bookshelves on two walls and art prints on the others, a blue velvet couch facing a pair of architectural-looking chairs. It’s not how I pictured his house, and it must show on my face, because Gray nudges me in the side. “Were you imagining like, the whole place decorated in the colors of the New England Patriots?” he asks.
“Shut up,” I say, though he’s definitely on to me at this point. “No.”
“You totally were,” he says with a laugh, then nods at the bookshelves. “How exactly did you think I came up with a copy of The Handmaid’s Tale so fast?”
He leads me through the formal living room and into a den, where two women are sitting watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine and drinking wine, a second orange cat purring on the sofa between them.
“Hey, baby,” one of them says, lifting her face so that Gray can drop a kiss onto her cheek.
“This is Marin,” he says. “These are my moms, Heather and Jenn.”
“This is Marin!” the brunette—Jenn, I think—crows, like she’s heard about me before.
I smile.
“Mom,” Gray says, looking faintly embarrassed. “Jesus.”
We chat for a little while, about the book club and about my editorials for the Beacon, which I guess he also mentioned.
“How was the party?” Heather asks.