Pushpa blinked her large eyes balefully as she moved to a cabinet and began to gather snifters for everyone, clearly comfortable with the house. “I have never had a satisfactory recounting of it, you know.”
“What story is this?” I asked as I took a stack of dishes into the kitchen.
Skylar smiled as she took them. “They love to retell how Brandon tried to get me to be his mistress.”
“I never used that word,” Brandon snapped over his shoulder, hitting himself with a spray of water.
“No, you only offered to put her up in a condo a few days a week so she would be at your beck and call. Who did you think you were? Richard Gere in Pretty Woman?” Kieran shot as she located a bottle of brandy from the liquor cabinet.
“What is this, ‘pile on Brandon’ night?” the man himself asked.
“Well, it is fun, Mr. Lewis,” Jane jeered as she carried over the empty pasta platters.
“Leave it,” Skylar said as she pulled the sprayer out of Brandon’s hand. “You’re too riled up to do dishes, babe. You’ll get soaked.”
After they made sure their phones were synced with the children’s monitors upstairs, we followed the Sterlings out to the orchard next to the house, then settled around a large firepit and watched while Brandon and Matthew quickly got a nice steady blaze going in front of us.
“I’d like to hear this story,” I said as we all took seats in large rattan chairs around the firepit on the outer edge of the orchard.
Pushpa grinned at Brandon as she clutched a blanket around her shoulders. “See?”
Brandon rolled his eyes, but grabbed Skylar’s hand as he began to talk. “There’s not much to tell. They just love hearing about how I messed up with Skylar again and again when we first met. It’s embarrassing, really. And these assholes never let me forget it.”
“What did you do?” I wondered.
“Asked me to be his weekend woman,” Skylar joked.
“Red!”
“Well, it’s true,” Skylar rejoined. “I think the way you put it was, ‘nip it in the bud,’ right? Complete with a wardrobe allowance and a condo?”
Laughter erupted around the fire as Brandon’s cheeks pinked, even in the dim light. I wasn’t sure I found it funny. I personally knew several men who actually had real mistresses they treated in almost identical ways. But having met Skylar, I couldn’t imagine her ever even considering such a proposal.
“And what did you do?” I asked.
Skylar smirked. “Called him a pig and told him to burn my file.”
The laughter grew louder. Brandon, though taking it all in good stride, didn’t seem to find it quite so funny either. In fact, he looked downright guilty as he carefully watched his wife.
“At the time, I just thought he was a womanizer,” she said. “Little did I know he wasn’t available. Not really.”
“But he still had to have you.” This time it was Matthew’s voice cutting across the fire. But he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at me.
“Red.”
Brandon’s deep timbre cut through what remained of the jokes at his expense. Everyone quieted, and the intensity of the way he was looking at his wife brooked no room for her to look away either. No one could.
“If we’re gonna tell these stories, baby,” he said softly, the guttural edges of a South Boston accent creeping out with his emotion, “then we have to tell them right. We need to include the parts where I chased you through a blizzard in the middle of the night just to get your name. Or how I racked my brain for weeks about how to convince a woman like you to love a man like me, making fuckup after fuckup, sure, but never stopping because it always came down to one truth. There was no one else but you. Not from the second I laid eyes on you.” He leaned over in his seat, begging his wife to look at him. “You know that, Red, don’t you?”
The other couples around them leaned into each other as well. I tried not to stare as Jane whispered something into Eric’s ear that made his eyes flash, even in the darkness. Nor could I help but notice the sly smile on Kieran’s face as Pushpa made a secret gesture that clearly meant something between the two of them. It felt intrusive to watch any of their interactions, and so, in the end, my eyes landed on the only other unattached person in our party. And Matthew, of course,