I heard Katie’s voice higher than normal, calling out, “Ladies, thanks for the offer, but Nathaniel and I have all the help we need.”
Three women turned and started walking away from the kitchen. They were laughing. A tall brunette said, “I’d love to help Nathaniel out.”
The shorter brunette woman beside her said, “If I wasn’t a married woman I’d help him out, all right.” She laughed half nervously.
The third woman, a blonde, said, “I’m married, not dead, I may still take a run at him.”
The short brunette gave her a play slap on the arm. “You wouldn’t cheat on Tom.”
“For that, I might.” Her voice had dropped to a low purr.
The tall brunette saw us standing there, and touched the other woman’s arm. They looked at us a little startled, probably wondering if we’d heard them.
“Hello, ladies, I’m just checking in with Katie and Anita wanted to check in with Nathaniel. See how our better halves are getting on with the food,” Zerbrowski said.
By him including his wife and Nathaniel together he made it clear that it was on equal par, wife and . . . partner. The women got it, because they suddenly looked uncomfortable. The blonde decided to tough it out, sticking her chin out definitely, “Nathaniel belong to you?”
“You make him sound like a puppy, but if you mean is he my boyfriend, yeah, he belongs to me.”
“Lucky you,” she said.
“Yeah, I’m a lucky girl,” I said, and fought not to have my eyes go hostile. Her attitude had already gotten on my nerves.
“You really are,” the short brunette said, taking the blonde’s arm and keeping them all moving.
Zerbrowski leaned in and whispered, “Stop glaring at them, just let it go.”
I turned around so I couldn’t keep looking at the women. “It’s just the attitude bugs me.”
“He’s a good-looking guy, Anita.”
“It still bugs me.”
“You jealous?”
“Not in the way you mean,” I said.
“There’s only one kind of jealousy.”
I shook my head. “I’m not jealous as in seeing the women as competition, or being insecure. I know what I mean to Nathaniel, what we have.”
“Then what?”
“If a group of strange men had talked about Katie in front of you the way they just talked about Nathaniel in front of me, how would you feel?”
He stopped walking and just stared into space for a second. He had an odd look on his face. He finally shook his head and said, “I’d have been pissed. I might have made a joke to pass it off, but I would have been pissed.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“But you must be used to that at Guilty Pleasures when he dances.”
“Oh, that and worse, but that’s at his job. He’s trying to be sexy and lusted after, but not here.”
“How do you know he didn’t flirt with them?”
“First, he’s cooking. He can focus on that the way I do at the shooting range. Second, he wants to fit in here as one of the ‘wives.’” I made quote marks over the word. “Flirting won’t get him invited to more family-friendly get-togethers.”
“Katie called me in hoping that the women would be too embarrassed to flirt and loiter in front of another husband.”