Chapter 3
three
Grant decides to host a cookout because apparently cheating requires protein and an audience.
He invites two business associates, their wives, Brook, Reid, and enough children to turn our backyard into a liability.
He tells me on Thursday.
The cookout is Saturday.
“Nothing big,” he says.
Men say that when they mean someone else will do all the work.
By noon, I have bought groceries, marinated chicken, cut fruit, cleaned the patio furniture, found extra sunscreen, filled a cooler, and hidden the decorative pillows Brooke once called aggressively suburban.
Grant carries one bag of ice from his car.
“Team effort,” he says.
I smile because murder would complicate the divorce.
By three, the yard is full.
Grant stands near the grill holding court with Trevor Hale and Marcus Dean, two men from his company who laugh too hard when he talks.
He has a beer in one hand and tongs in the other.
The grill is not on.
Reid fixes that.
He arrives late with his daughter, a tray of something covered in foil, and shoulders wide enough to make our sliding door look narrow.
I have not seen him in almost a year.
He looks unfair.
Grant is attractive in the polished way that photographs well.
Reid looks like he could carry Grant out of the yard under one arm and still ask whether anyone needs help with the chairs.
His T-shirt stretches across his chest. His forearms are thick, tan, and marked by veins that should not be relevant to anything happening at a family cookout.
They are.
“Tessa.”
He hugs me with one arm because he is holding the tray with the other.
The contact is brief.
Warm. Solid.
I step back too quickly. “What’s this?”
“Mac and cheese.”
“You made it?”
“I can make my way around an oven,” he says.
Ava appears beside him. “Is it the good kind?”
Reid looks playfully offended. “There’s a bad kind?”
Ava blushes and takes the tray from him and hurries toward the kitchen. Reid’s oldest daughter follows, debating what constitutes good mac and cheese versus bad mac and cheese.
Reid watches them go.
He knows where they are.
He does not ask me what they should be doing.
Sexy should not be this simple.
Grant shouts Reid’s name from across the yard.
“There he is! Finally!”
Reid lifts a hand.
Grant does not leave the circle of men surrounding him.
We make our way toward Grant.
Reid points to the grill. “Need this started?”
“I was told it was under control,” I say.
Reid glances at Grant. Grant is reenacting something with the tongs.
“Oh, right,” Grant says.
It’s too late.
Reid turns on the propane.
I then get the hamburger buns and have to go back inside to get the napkins. Grant left them on the counter.
When I return, Reid is seasoning the chicken.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say.
“I know.”
He says it without looking at me.
That should not feel intimate.
It does.
Across the yard, Grant laughs so loudly one of the wives turns.
He had now switched to bourbon.
It’s four fifteen in the afternoon.
Brooke arrives wearing white shorts, a pink halter top, and enough perfume to announce her arrival before she reaches the gate.
She hugs me.
Too tight.
“Everything looks amazing.”
“Thanks.”
Her eyes flicker toward Grant.
Then away.
I notice because now I have to notice everything.
Brooke joins Trevor and Marcus near the drinks table. Within minutes, she is touching Trevor’s arm while Marcus pours her wine.
She is not interested in Grant.
Not like that.
The realization doesn’t comfort me.
It makes her involvement even uglier.
If she wanted him, I could understand the shape of the betrayal.
Desire is selfish. Money is colder.
I carry a bowl of salad toward the table.
Reid takes it from me before I can set it down.
His hand brushes the middle of my back as he moves behind me.
Barely a touch.
A warning so we do not collide.
My entire body notices.
I hate that.
I hate Grant more.
A cheer erupts near the patio.
Grant has started telling a college story.
Something about a stolen mascot, a police officer, and a night none of them apparently remember despite Grant describing it every year.
Reid stands beside me, turning chicken.
“Was he like this in college?” I ask.
Reid watches Grant nearly spill bourbon on Marcus.
“We both were,” Reid says.
Grant climbs onto the bottom step of the deck so everyone can see him better.
Reid flips a piece of chicken.
“He just never stopped,” he says.
I laugh.
A real one.
It surprises me.
Grant looks over.
For one second, his eyes move between us.
Then Trevor says something and Grant turns away.
Reid notices.
“You okay?”
The question is quiet.
Not casual.
I pick up my wine.
It is cheap because Grant bought it in bulk and called it good enough.
“There’s no way he’s sleeping with Brooke.”
Reid turns his head. “What?”
The words hang between us.
I should take them back.
Instead, I stare at Brooke laughing with Marcus.
“I don’t know why I said that.”
“That wasn’t nothing,” Reid said.
“No.”
His expression changes.
The easy warmth disappears.
“What makes you think Grant is sleeping with anyone?”
I take a drink.
Too much.
“His laptop,” I whisper.
Reid waits.
He doesn’t interrupt.
He doesn’t tell me I’m imagining things.
He doesn’t defend Grant because they once shared a dorm room and several bad decisions.
“I saw messages,” I add.
“What kind of messages?”
“The kind that come with pictures.”
His jaw tightens.
That is all.
No dramatic reaction.
No questions about what she looked like.
No curiosity disguised as concern.
“Who?”
“Sienna,” I whisper. “Cole.”
He knows the name.
I can tell.
His eyes narrow slightly. “From the company…”
I nod.
“And Brooke?”
“She covered for him.”
“How?”
“She invented an emergency. Said her ex showed up drunk. Grant was supposedly with her.”
Reid looks across the yard.
Brooke is now laughing with both men.
Grant has one arm around Trevor’s shoulder and is talking with his whole body.
“They think I’m stupid,” I say.
Reid looks back at me. “No.”
“They do.”
“That doesn’t make you stupid.”
I stare into my glass. “It makes me something.”
“Tessa.”
“Maybe this is just what happens.”
“What happens?” Reid asks as his face goes still.
I gesture toward myself before I can stop.
The old sundress. The soft stomach beneath it.
The breasts that used to sit higher before two pregnancies and a decade of gravity.
“Two kids,” I say. “Fifteen years. My body isn’t exactly?—”
“Don’t.”
The word is hard.
I look at him.
Reid’s expression is not gentle.
It is furious.
“Don’t what?” I ask.
“Use his failure to punish your body.”
Heat climbs my throat.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
I laugh and then snort. “Sorry. Cheap wine.”
“You created life,” Reid says, not smiling. “You did it twice.”
“Reid…”
“No.” His eyes hold mine. “You do not get to stand here and talk about your body like it failed because Grant forgot what he has.’
The yard goes quiet around us.
Not actually.
Children are screaming near the sprinkler. Grant is still talking. Someone drops a plate.
But all I hear is Reid.
“A man should be on his knees worshipping that body for everything it gave to him.”
He says it like a fact.
Not a line.
Not an invitation.
That makes it worse.
Or better.
I cannot tell.
Reid turns back to the grill.
The muscles in his forearm tighten when he picks up the tongs.
I take another drink.
The wine is not strong enough for what his words just do to me.
Behind us, Grant laughs.
I look at my hand.
Then at the man cooking dinner for him.
For the first time in years, I wonder whether Grant was ever the prize.