Cooper Beckett - A Life Less Monogamous

The warmth and velvety-smooth intoxication that descended upon Jennifer Lambert brought with it faint pangs of long-forgotten feelings, confusing and exciting, abstract and scary. For a moment, Jennifer was reminded of her eleventh summer, and a slumber party in a tent in her backyard with two girls from school. But as soon as the memory formed in her mind, it vanished again like smoke from a snuffed candle. Paige’s eyes were on her again, the faintest smirk on her lips, but as soon as Jennifer noticed, Paige turned her attention back to the group.

The memory and her sure to-be-noticeable leering brought Jennifer to the conclusion that she ought to make a hasty exit. Find Ryan, grab coats, keys, go. Barbara would be disappointed they weren’t staying for White Elephant, the game that Ryan always called Nasty Christmas, but she’d understand. Something Jennifer ate, maybe, a bout of luncheon food poisoning. She gulped the last of her Moscato down and spun to retreat to safety, beyond the reach of these indefinable feelings. Her flight ended quickly as she slammed into Paige’s husband.

“Whoa,” he said. “Let’s not be hasty.” He put a hand on her shoulder, looking down and smiling at her. His hand was cold and smelled of tobacco, the idea of which usually repulsed Jennifer, but the scent also called to mind the past. Other summers’ evenings on her front porch, neighbor smoking a cigar. The momentary regression made her smile and look away.

“Not leaving already, I hope,” he said with a smile.

“No,” said Jennifer. “I was—”

Paige caught the eye of her husband. “Bruce! Speak of the devil.”

“And the devil appears,” returned Bruce. “Didn’t want to drop this in the yard, Barbara, my dear.” He held up the final remnants of a snuffed cigar, and the comforting smell again captivated Jennifer.

Barbara held out her palm. After a moment’s hesitation and a nod from her, he put the cigar into her open hand. “Thank you,” she said.

“Thank you!” He clapped his hands together. “Good stuff to speak of, I hope.”

Paige brought her hand to his bicep and gave it a light squeeze. “Magic hands.”

Bruce gave a laugh, hearty and true. “These old things?” He held up his hands to the ladies.

Paige’s hand dropped to the small of Bruce’s back, and the effortlessness of their interaction overtook Jennifer. These two made marriage look easy. Smiling at each other with genuine smiles, not the semi-glazed looks that so many of their friends carried around to exchange with their significant others, their life partners, their better halves. Somehow Bruce and Paige seemed to have stepped from out of a movie screen, showcasing the kind of heightened-reality love story that comes without problems, regret, envy, jealousy. Somehow…

“Doesn’t everyone look just marvelous here.” Bruce’s smile was wide, without a tinge of smarminess. He made eye contact with Jennifer. Smoldering chestnut brown eye contact. Then he pointed at the empty glass in her hand. “Jennifer Lambert, you need more wine.”

She raised her hand, unsure how to proceed. Moments ago she’d been desperate to leave and now, despite the words “Oh, no, I probably…” spilling forth from her mouth of their own accord, she held up her glass toward this man, desperate to have another drink. Desperate to have him bring it for her.

“What do you like, beautiful? Merlot, Cabernet, Chianti, Chablis. I can go on, but please stop me when I get somewhere. Pinot Gris, Char—”

Jennifer nodded. “Yes.”

Despite the understanding in Bruce’s eyes, he questioned her. “Yes?”

“Anything.”

Paige whispered in her ear. “He knows oodles about wine, why don’t you go with him.” Her hot breath on Jennifer’s neck sent shivers down her spine.

Bruce offered his arm. Jennifer looked to Paige for approval. Could it be this woman was actually sending her off with her husband? People didn’t do that. That would be wrong, somehow, wouldn’t it? At a party, indeed, people would talk. But Paige smiled and nodded, so Jennifer hooked her arm into his and followed him from the room.

“Will you allow me to surprise you with something?” asked Bruce, looking back over his shoulder.

“Something?” Jennifer asked, uncertain, the amount of wine already in her system making her thoughts dance in and out of focus, playing tricks on each other, shoving and scrapping.

He laughed. “With some wine, my dear, nothing nefarious.”

“Oh,” was all she could find to respond.

He suggested she sit as he perused the bar, lined with bottles she was sure outclassed anything on their fridge-top wine rack at home. She obliged and sat.

The overstuffed leather sectional couch seemed to stretch out for miles in what Jennifer had once heard Barbara Watkins call their “great room.” She sat, legs stretched along one exceptional wing of the couch, her back to a cream leather pillow against the cream leather armrest of this cream leather island.

Bruce sat mere inches from her toes. He leaned over to hand her a new glass of beautifully deep crimson wine, his charcoal sport coat brushing against the tips of her toes clad in black tights.

“Thank you,” she said, feeling mildly naughty that here she sat with another woman’s husband; freely given, to be sure, but alone, off somewhere, at a party. That’s always when you hear someone speak up, in the distance, saying something like “Has anyone seen Jennifer?” and “I think I saw her with Bruce” and there’d be a to-do. There was always a to-do.

She took a long sip and felt warmth in her mouth. About to swallow, she hesitated, watching Bruce admire his own wine in the light, swishing the liquid in his mouth, taking a deep breath, closing his eyes. Then swallowing.

Jennifer gulped and hers went down as well. She coughed, and the cough turned into a laugh.

“Superb, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “What is it?”

“Amarone della Valpolicella,” said Bruce. He set his glass on the equally expansive ottoman/coffee table/island next to them, folded his hands together and leaned an arm on the back of the couch to tip himself in her direction. “We bought two cases when we were there. Have you been?”

“Have I— What?”

“Damn, sorry. I hate when people do that.”

Jennifer smiled at him. He was flustered and she had no idea why, but at least now she wasn’t the only one. “Do what?” She leaned over her legs towards him.

“Make assumptions of wealth.”

“Ah,” she nodded, then shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I don’t really care.” She blinked slowly and realized that things were getting smoother. “This is really… really … good.”

“Packs a wallop too,” he said as she finished her glass. He took it from her and set it on the ottoman. “It’s from Valpolicella, just north of Verona, actually.”

“Ahh…” she drew out the sound of the word longer than she should’ve and nodded again, ignoring the inner warning bells sounding that she’d crossed that warm and welcoming threshold of alcohol into the foyer known as tipsy. “Fair Verona, where we lay our scene.”

Bruce’s laugh was hearty, the laugh of a Viking, she imagined. “Indeed it is. Shakespeare fan then?”

“A master’s thesis worth, anyway.”

“Dedication.”

“Regrets…”

He dropped an eyebrow as he squinted a bit, sizing her up.

Maybe he’s wondering whether he should be hanging out with a drunk girl. How many glasses did we have tonight? Jennifer frowned. Well, we had two in the kitchen, one from Noah when we arrived, and hmm, maybe I shouldn’t—

“Should I have brought the bottle?”