Page 52 of Just Past Two

Jo shrugged a shoulder. “Sometimes.” She smiled. “Becca’s a lesbian. She and Stephan are friends, but not more than that.”

“But she’s on your photo wall.”

“Well, yeah.” Jo smiled. “She’s a big part of my life.”

He followed as she took them down the hall, pointing out the rest of the rooms, finishing in the spare bedroom.

Jo put her hands in her pockets. “We also use it as an office, but it’s good when Becca stays over, or we get guests.” As they followed Jo back down the hallway to the living room, Stephan called them in for dinner.

“Perfect timing.” Jo walked into the large kitchen and kissed Stephan on the lips. Stephan wore a raglan with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows, and he was also wearing a yellow apron with polka dots.

Sam smiled. “Nice apron.”

Stephan looked down at himself and then grinned. “What? Polka dots are gender neutral, dude.”

Over chicken cordon bleu roulades, steamed green beans, and roasted potatoes, Sam started to think this was too good to be true. “Do you eat like this every night?”

Stephan and Jo started laughing together. “Hell no.” Jo looked over at Stephan. “He likes to cook fancy, but we never do it unless we have an excuse. If other people are coming over, he’s got an excuse.”

“Damn straight. Don’t want to waste all this talent on just us.”

Jo wrinkled her nose. “Fuck you.”

Stephan chuckled. “You know I’ll always cook fancy for you.”

“Bullshit you will! You cook fancy for our friends and you cook normal for me.”

He gestured to her with his fork. “Well, my normal is still better than average, so I think you win.”

Jo rolled her eyes in a parody of dramatic exasperation and looked over at Sam and Abby. “He’s lucky that he’s so talented, or I would throw him out on his ass. But he’s pretty good with his mouth, so I keep him.” She waggled her eyebrows at Abby and cast her a mischievous grin. “Right, Abby?”

Abby fumbled her fork, dropping it onto her plate with a loud clatter. She looked up at Jo with an appalled expression on her face before turning to Sam, who could not stop from grinning. God, she was adorable. At his expression, she started to laugh, too, putting a hand on her forehead and staring down at her plate. “You guys are all a bunch of assholes. I can’t believe you just brought that up while we’re eating dinner.”

“You’ve got to excuse my wife.” Stephan, sitting across from Abby, reached out and touched her free hand where it was sitting next to her plate. She looked up at him and then turned her hand to let him hold hers. A small gesture of intimacy, and rather than sparking Sam’s anxiety, it settled him. Watching Abby and Stephan felt sweet, and he hadn’t expected that. “Jo has absolutely no sense of propriety,” Stephan said.

“And that’s why you love me.” Jo grinned at Stephan and winked. Stephan was still holding hands with Abby, and Jo seemed completely undisturbed. Abby released his hand and picked up her fork again. Smiling, she returned to her dinner, and the conversation turned to the snowstorm that was predicted for later that week. Apparently sex was just something they were going to joke about now and then with no real repercussions. It was…strange, actually, how normal it felt.

They all helped clean up after dinner, putting dishes into the dishwasher and storing leftovers, despite Stephan and Jo’s attempts to shoo them into the living room where they wouldn’t have to help. Helping felt more natural. When they finally went into the living room, Stephan had already started a fire in the fireplace, cozy on this frosty night. They had a big soft throw rug and cushions in front of the fireplace, and Abby was drawn to it like a magnet, sitting down on a cushion with her back to the fire and sighing like a contented cat. Jo stretched out on the couch, leaning her back against Stephan, and Stephan sat beside her with one arm absentmindedly draped over her shoulder. Sam ended up settling down in the armchair, close enough to Abby where he could reach out and lightly brush his fingers through her loose red hair. She was lovely in the firelight.

Opening her eyes, she looked over at Sam with a sated indolence. “How can we get one of these in our house?”

“We save up a lot of money.”

Sam stretched out his own legs toward the fire, crossing Abby’s, until she pushed them away.

“Get your feet off me.” Grinning, she shifted into a more comfortable position away from his feet. “Well, if we can’t afford it yet, we’ll just have to come over here and steal the fireplace from Stephan and Jo.”

“You can’t just steal our fireplace.” Jo gave them a look of mischief, like the one she’d given them at the kitchen table. Clearly an instigator, that Jo. “You have to have something to barter with.”

“Oh, is that so?” Abby leaned back, supporting herself on her arms, and tipped her head to the side. “So what do you folks accept?”

“Hmm.” Jo looked at Stephan. “Hon, what do we accept in barter?”

Stephan waggled his eyebrows. “That’s a pretty loaded question, don’t you think?” The tension sizzled, like any minute now things were going to escalate, but they sat there at the precipice of where this evening was definitely going. This was a hell of a place to be, imagining what might come next and ready to roll with it. Sam had no real idea what, if anything, Jo and Stephan had planned, but this moment was about to happen, and he was ready for whatever it might be.

“You know…” Stephan looked over at Jo, who was watching with the kind of contented interest of a satisfied cat. She seemed smug, knowing where this was headed.

“I know what?” She tipped her head back to look up at him.