here! Can you check the blondies for me?”
At Char’s name Tate paused, her gaze flying to meet mine. Her cheeks flushed, deep and red and confessional.
I turned toward the kitchen, washed in a whole-body discomfort, but Tate grabbed my arm.
“Did you say anything?” she whispered, gaze flicking from one of my eyes to the other, searching. She must have found her answer, because she blew her breath out and nodded. “Please don’t. It was just a kiss. A little drunken kiss.” When I didn’t respond, she tightened her grasp and changed tacks. “You could really mess her marriage up.”
“Could mess yours up pretty good, too, huh,” I said, quiet but not so quiet that she couldn’t hear the acid in my tone. She had the grace to drop her gaze.
“Please,” she said. “It was nothing.”
I looked away. Last night it had sure as hell sounded like more than a sloppy smear of lip on lip. Tate had been implying something truly juicy, but she’d backpedaled in the wake of Panda’s shock and Lavonda’s disapproval. If they had leaned in, smiling and dirty-interested, she might have had more to tell.
But “might” was a big word. And damn Tate Bonasco for putting me in this position anyhow. She had me whispering in the hall, behind my best friend’s back. I had to do the right thing for Char, with no idea what the right thing was. I didn’t want to hurt Char, but if it was more than a kiss, she needed to know.
What if telling wrecks our friendship?
The thought rose unbidden, but it was a valid question. Women in denial shoved at people who told them truths they were not ready to hear. Shoved them hard, all the way out of their lives.
Then I was ashamed. I had to do what was good and right for Charlotte, even if it boomeranged on me.
“I don’t want Char to hear it elsewhere,” I said.
“Panda and Lavonda won’t gossip about me,” Tate said. “I’m going to go make nice with Roux, but even if she does talk, she thinks it was some stranger at the car place. They all do. I’ll never tell a soul that it was . . .” She paused and then jerked her thumb toward the kitchen, indicating Char.
Maybe nothing was the right thing to do. I tried to put myself in my friend’s shoes. If it were Davis, would I want Char to tell me?
The answer was a blankness. There wasn’t enough beer in the world to make Davis into a man who would fall into a clutch with Tate Bonasco at a barbecue. Davis was . . . the word was “decent.” It wasn’t an announcing quality, just bedrock goodness, quiet and ever-present. It was his base. When I first met him, he’d seemed so stiff that I could see why Maddy sometimes called him Fuddy or Duddy instead of Daddy. But I came to see that if Davis said something, he meant it. If he made a promise, then he kept it.
“Please,” Tate said again, sharp this time.
At the end of the hall, the kitchen door swung open and Char poked her head through. “I think they’re ready. I took them out. Hi, Tate.”
“Oh, hi, Charlotte,” Tate said without enthusiasm.
“There’s some coffee left. Want it?” Char asked, smiling as we came down the hall and back into the kitchen. “Amy says you had a tough night.”
Tate smoothed her ponytail again. “I don’t know what got into us.”
“Don’t you?” Charlotte said. She went to get Tate a mug, as comfortable in my kitchen as she was in her own. “Because I have a pretty good idea of what got into you.”
“A bucket of wine?” I said, sounding lighter-hearted than I was. Most of my good gin had gotten into Tate as well, though, to be fair, she’d given it back directly, right into my unlined brass trash can.
“Excellent guess,” Tate said. This would normally be good-natured neighborhood teasing, but for me, today, it had an edge to it.
“Actually, I meant Roux. Roux is what got into all of us,” Char said plainly. She must have felt the edge, too. She poured Tate the last of the coffee and left it black. Tate didn’t waste calories on cream or sugar.
“Yeah. I’m not crazy about her after last night either,” Tate said, shooting a fast glance in my direction.
I turned away slightly, checking on the babies. Oliver was edging around the coffee table, both hands on it for balance. An