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He huffs and walks around the living room, picking up a throw pillow, putting it down like he’s inspecting the space for evidence. “It was pretty obvious.”
I feel sick. Lulu looks the same. She sets Betty on the recliner to wrap her arms around her middle. I should go to her, but with George here I feel like I can’t. “We didn’t think...”
He waves his hand like it’s not that big a deal. “Oh, don’t worry. I think everyone else just assumes you’re close. Good friends. But...” He shrugs, sighs. “I know what he looks like when he’s in love,” he tells Lulu.
Double shit.
The little wrinkle in Lulu’s forehead gets deeper.
“In love?”
It might be the dream still clinging to the edges of my mind, this moment that is as embarrassing as it is sudden, but I feel like crying. In the last few years, I’ve cried more than I ever have before. Usually alone, usually about Pop, or my leg, or my pain, or my job.
Maybe Lulu can see it on my face. She says, “I think when we have this conversation we should all be wearing pants.” And she leaves. Presumably to get pants.
“George, what the fuck,” I hiss at him the second she’s out of eyesight. There’s no way she didn’t hear me.
“Have you made coffee yet?” he asks, peering into the kitchen.
“You came to my house to throw a bomb into my personal life and didn’t even bother to bring coffee.” I grunt as he hits me with a half-hearted punch on my way past him.
“I’m not mad,” he says as I measure out grounds and set out cups.
Well, that’s funny, because I’m mad.
“I’m just disappointed.”
“Cute,” I say.
Lulu comes back with the clothes she was wearing last night and her hair in a messy bun. Her eyes still have that puffy, sleepy look. Her lips are puffy from something else. I wish we weren’t doing this right now and that we were still cuddled together in bed. I’d open the curtains and the window to let in fresh air. Betty would chase our feet under the comforter.
We all watch the coffee as it percolates. Stand in silence as I fill up the mugs.
Finally, George takes a deep breath, but Lulu cuts him off.
“It just sort of...happened,” she says. She stares down into the depths of her black coffee. “We were hanging as friends, like we were supposed to, but.” She looks to me. “I guess we’re kind of horny for each other,” she says with a half smile.
I snort into my coffee. “Yeah,” I say. “Something like that.”
“And now,” she says. “It feels like more.”
“How long exactly have you two been having sex?” George asks.
Lulu looks up at the ceiling. “Well, do you mean like fully penetrative or...”
He holds his hand up and I laugh again. I might be able to get out of this situation without saying a single word. Let Lulu and George work this out for us.
“We’ve been hooking up. For lack of a better term. As friends. Just friends.”
“Friends. With benefits,” he says.
She nods. “We had rules. I won’t get into the details,” she says when George pulls a face that screamsno thank you. “We weren’t touching each other exactly. It was more like adjacent platonic pleasure.”
He frowns at me. “Are you telling me you watched porn together and jerked off?”
“We never watched porn,” she says. “That could be fun, though.”
“Lulu,” I say quietly. Not the time.
