Page 7 of Just Past Two

What got into him? What about her? “Just…caught up in the moment, I guess.”

“Right.” She licked her lips. “Do I look like a whore?”

I’d like it if you did. The thought came to mind immediately, shockingly, and he pushed it away. “Of course not.”

“C’mon.” She gestured to the door. “It’s fucking freezing out here. Let’s go dance.”

Chapter Two

“And…you just haven’t brought it up since then?” Abby’s best friend Angela frowned at her, pausing in front of an endless row of pipe fixtures. “You fool around on the porch at the reunion while literally watching somebody else fuck, and then you go home and go to bed and don’t talk about it again?”

Having a conversation about her relationship in the middle of a Home Depot was weird, but it’s where they always ended up on one of Angela’s home improvement adventures. Now, though, watching Angela give her side-eye while surrounded by towering shelving and repair tools, Abby’s mouth went dry.

“I don’t know if I want to have this conversation right now.” She looked around. “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up. It doesn’t seem appropriate here.”

Angela wheeled her cart farther down the aisle and waved off another well-meaning employee coming by to ask if she needed help. With her blonde hair tied up in a messy bun and a pink fuzzy sweater over a willowy build, Angela was often mistaken as someone who didn’t know what she was doing in a home improvement store. Little did they know Angela was here almost as much as someone who worked here, what with a new project popping up nearly every weekend. “It’s a Home Depot, Abby, not a library. Tell me more. Like why you might suddenly have crazy hot public sex with your husband, the same husband you describe as ‘stable, predictable, boring’—”

“I never called him boring,” Abby interrupted. “You make me sound like I hate all the mature things about him. Sam is not boring. I love him.”

Angela rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know you love him. You’ve been together for what, almost a decade now? And super lovey and gross, all the time. I get it.” When Abby went to interrupt, she held up a hand. “But listen. Listen. You have to admit this is a little out of character for him, and to just go home and not talk about it at all? You haven’t been curious about what’s up?”

“I didn’t want to ask.” In fact, Abby had spent the last two days justifying to herself all the reasons they didn’t need to talk about it. “But it was New Year’s. Don’t people always get a little crazy on New Year’s?”

“Does Sam usually get crazy on New Year’s?”

Abby hesitated. “Well…no, not usually.” Not ever.

Angela gave her a “You see what I mean?” face, which Abby ignored to press onward in her defense. “But also, we’d been drinking. And reunions are kind of weird, too.”

“Liminal spaces.” Angela nodded knowingly.

“What?”

“Liminal spaces. Somebody was talking about them at work last week, and I looked them up. They’re transitional spaces that seem to exist outside of space and time. Like playgrounds at night. Or airports. Or pretty much any Target.” Angela consulted her tiny spiral notebook, then steered her cart toward pipe fixtures while Abby hustled to keep up. “Reunions are weird because it’s a set of people all in a place where you’re not used to seeing them.”

“Right! So maybe, with New Year’s, and the fact that it was a reunion, Sam was just acting weird.”

Angela consulted the list in her notebook again, then tossed a few elbow connectors into the cart. “I don’t think it counts if it’s not his reunion. You see pipe dope around here?” She scanned the aisle. “Oh, there it is.”

Abby trailed after her. “I’ve been trying to convince myself this is a fluke.”

“Do you want it to be a fluke?”

Abby hesitated, and Angela stopped her cart and leaned on it to ask another question. “Do you want to go anywhere with this?”

“Like where?”

“Well, like spicing up your marriage, for one.” Angela shrugged a shoulder. “If he was into it, and you’re saying he was into it, then maybe this is an opportunity to go a little further. Go wild.” She waved jazz hands.

Go wild. What even would going wild look like with Sam? “I don’t think that’s in the cards for us.”

Angela smiled. “Because Sam’s a tight-ass?”

“He’s not a tight-ass.” Abby threw two giant boxes of humidifier filters into Angela’s cart as revenge. “He’s stable. He’s professional. He’s loving. He’s considerate.” She ticked off his qualities on her fingers. “He’s perfect for me. He’s everything I need.”

Angela put the boxes of filters back on the shelf. “Is he everything you want, though?”

“Of course.”