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“You make the divorce sound like it was mutual,” Gary said.
“It was, even if she won’t admit it. She wasn’t happy.” Tiffany had wanted the beautiful Newport Beach package—cute kids, shiny marriage, big house. She wanted what her parents had on the outside, even if we’d been worse off than them on the inside. Even if it meant she and I weren’t truly happy. By the end, she’d known my feelings for Lake had run deep, and though she got her barbs in, she still hadn’t been willing to confront me head on about it.
My friends knew me well, and they left it at that. At some point, night fell, but we barely noticed for all our talking and drinking. A few six-packs in, Lydia was giggling, Gary was smoking a blunt, and Henry just got more stoic, watching and listening to us. Or me, mostly. I had a feeling he had things on his mind, but he was a private man and wouldn’t want to talk about them in front of the others.
“Let’s have s’mores,” Lydia said.
I squinted at her over the top of the fire. “I don’t have the ingredients for that.”
“We brought some,” she said. “Except we need something to put the marshmallows on. Do you have any long, sterile pieces of wood, Carpenter Man?”
Living in the woods with a fire pit in my front yard, this wasn’t my first encounter with s’mores. “I think there are some in one of the drawers by the stove,” I said.
While Lydia was inside, Gary leaned toward me, nearly toppling out of his chair. “Tiffany must’ve been a tiger in the sack for you to put up with her for so long.”
I glanced at Henry, but he’d fallen asleep. I’d had Tiffany in every way imaginable except one. I had never made love to her the way I had Lake. Afterward, I’d never had the urge to demand every thought in her head, to feel her heart beat against my chest, to touch every inch of her to know she was real. I’d wanted kids, even if it was with Tiffany, but I’d never felt the deep-seated instinct to get her pregnant the way I’d wanted to with Lake. “You know me well enough that I’m not going to answer that,” I told Gary.
“Damn. I was hoping you were drunk enough.”
“Almost,” I joked. “Not quite.”
Lydia nearly skipped out of the kitchen with metal skewers in one hand, waving the Us Weekly Martina had brought over months ago in the other. “It seems our Manning has a secret indulgence.”
Lydia fisted the magazine, sending a crinkle right through Lake and Corbin. I had a secret all right, but an indulgence? I hadn’t indulged in Lake in years, not the way I wanted to. What I wouldn’t give to run her silky strands through my fingers again, to tug her hair hard enough to make her bite her plump, watermelon-flavored lip.
“Hollywood gossip, man?” Gary asked. “Really?”
“Not that.” Lydia showed him the cover and pointed to Lake.
“Aww.” Gary squinted at her photo. “Look at our girl, all famous and shit. Is that Corbin she’s with? They look happy.”
I looked into my beer bottle and repeated to myself the question that’d been running through my mind since Martina had asked it. What if she’s not?
“Have you seen the show?” Lydia asked.
It took me a moment to realize she was talking to me. “No,” I said.
“Why not?”
I’d tried once more since getting rid of my TV. I’d been at a bar in town and the fucking show had been on in the background, ten o’clock at night. Watching her on screen was like taking a screwdriver to my chest. I’d made it half an episode. When she’d gone on a date with some guy with tattoos and a bike—fine, fuck, it wasn’t some guy, his name was Sean and I’d never forget it—I’d paid my tab and high-tailed it out of there. I had no idea if he was still in the picture or if it was just Corbin. “I don’t have a TV,” I said.
Lydia flipped through the magazine. “There’s something about Lake, don’t you think, Manning?”
Gary rolled his eyes. “Lydia.”
She sat down, piling all the s’mores paraphernalia in her lap as she showed us the tribute to Lake’s dating life. “Look at those guys. They’re crazy about her. I hope she’s dating them all.”
The beer bottle slipped a little under my grip. All? Corbin was enough to deal with. I hadn’t considered she might be seeing more than one of them at a time. What right did I have to be jealous? I’d married her sister. I’d fucked women after being intimate with Lake. I thought of kneeling before Lake that first time, dawn breaking outside the window as I’d explored her. Did she remember my confessions about wanting her in the truck? Did she remember how I’d cleaned her between the legs just to fill her with myself? Did she still feel my hands around her waist after we’d fought and I’d thrown her over my shoulder?
