I gave him an unfriendly look.
He held his hands up, as if to say, Don’t shoot the messenger. "You know I’m right."
Nathaniel said, "I’m saying that other people have wanted me for a night, or a few days a week, or a month, but you never seem to grow tired of me."
I just looked at him. "They were crazy."
He smiled, not the sexy smile, but the big, bright, happy smile. The one I hadn’t even known he had in him until we’d been together for months. It made him look even younger than twenty-one, and I had the feeling that maybe that smile was what he might have been if he hadn’t lost his family and been on the streets before age ten.
Jason leaned around Nathaniel and said, "I’m remembering why I don’t go to lunch with all of you."
"Why?" I asked.
He gave us all a look.
"I think Jason feels left out," Micah said.
It was one of those moments that Miss Manners didn’t cover. I had sex with Jason, but he was my friend, not my boyfriend. There was a difference. So if your guy friend and sometimes lover feels left out when you’re cuddling your boyfriends at lunch, do you owe him a cuddle?
"I’m closer," Nathaniel said, "but I think he’d rather have the kiss from you."
Jason, being Jason, then put his arm around Nathaniel and said, "It’s nothing personal, dude, but she’s not a dude." He did a drawling movie-dude voice to go with the line.
It made us all smile, and I leaned past Nathaniel to give Jason a quick kiss. It was almost as if now that we had the touching out of the way we could talk.
We’d found out on the walk over that the dance class that they were taking was going well, but the routine that they were trying to teach some of the other dancers from Jean-Claude’s clubs had hit a snag.
"You said you’d explain the problem you’re having teaching the dancers," I said.