Reggie
Kayla and I walk hand in hand to Wade and Tanya's house. That's where the group agreed to meet this week. The date went exactly as the Tanya date went, right down to the dancing. On the doorstep, I kiss Kayla deeply and, just like Tanya, she burst into tears. I seriously wonder what the hell I'm doing wrong at the end. Like Tanya, Kayla dries her tears, assures me I've done nothing wrong, and walks in the door. Similar to last time, I worry that Cody will think I mistreated her. But I follow her in, smiling cautiously.
Kayla
She walks through the door ahead of him, and her eyes are dry now — she made sure of that on the step — but there's something in her face that isn't the usual high-energy Kayla. She looks at Cody first, the way you always look at the one person in the room whose read matters most.Hey.Quiet. Just the one word.
Cody
Hey. She okay?
Kayla
I'm okay. I'm really okay. I just need a second and then I want to talk about it. All of us. I want to debrief. I have — I have things to say.
Cody
Take your time. I'm here.
Reggie
Cody, I want you to know I treated your wife with the utmost respect. I did not harm her emotionally or physically.
Cody
I know you did. She's the one I'm reading right now, not you. Kayla. Come sit by me.
Kayla
I'm okay. I promise I'm okay. Why does everyone keep crying at the door. Is that — did that happen with Tanya too?
Tanya
Yes.One word. She doesn't elaborate.
Wade
Two for two on the crying. Reggie, I'm starting to wonder if we should be worried about you or about ourselves.He says it dry, no real heat in it, but he means both halves of the question.
Reggie
That's why I told you both I didn't harm them. They both were fine until they got here. Then they cried. I don't know if it was guilt over cheating or what.
Tanya
She sets her glass down.It's not guilt. I don't think it's guilt.
Kayla
No. It's not that. It's just — a lot. All at once. When you're standing there and you have to walk back into a room.
Cody
If it was guilt you wouldn't have walked in. Either of you.
Reggie
Brynn, before we go on, are you angry with me? Or disappointed?
Brynn
She looks at him across the room — the same look she gave him last Saturday when he asked the same question, steady and a little tired of him needing to ask it.No. Same answer as last time. I said what I said and I meant it and I'm still here. Stop asking me that and let them finish.
Tanya
It's just — you walk back out into the regular world and the regular world is right there, exactly where you left it. And you're the one who's different. And that's a lot to hold on a doorstep.
Reggie
Pauses for someone to speak. Nobody does. After a minute, I speak.I'm the first one who used the word debrief and I now realize I don't even know what it means in this case. Do you want to talk about every aspect of each date from the moment we met to the moment we returned? I'm open to that, but it won't be short. Or do you want something else. Really, whatever you all want to hear, I'm willing to say it, or I can just shut up and let the girls tell it.
Wade
He looks around the room once — at Tanya, at Kayla, at Reggie — and then nods, the slow kind.Let the girls tell it. That's the right call.He settles back.Tanya. Kayla. It's yours.
Brynn
That's the better version of this conversation, honestly. Less chance of someone mansplaining what they didn't experience.
Tanya
Okay. We'll tell it. Where do you want to start?
She holds her glass in both hands, not drinking from it, just steadying herself with the weight of it.The walk over.She says it almost to herself first, then looks up at the room.It starts there. He came out the door and he held out his hand. Didn't make it a thing. Just — there it was. And I thought, someone might see us, and then I thought, everyone I know is in this room, so I took it. We walked slowly. Not rushed. Not like he was getting somewhere. Just — walking. And he talked about nothing. The street. Whether I'd noticed the light at this time of evening. Nothing that required anything from me. And then he asked if I could dance.
Kayla
He asked me that too. Right at the beginning. Almost the first thing.
Tanya
What did you say?
Kayla
I said not really. Which is true. What did you say?
Tanya
Same. And he just nodded. Like it was useful information, not a problem to solve. And we kept walking. That's what I mean about the walk. It was the least stressed I've felt going somewhere in — a while.
Cody
Unstressed. He made you feel unstressed on the walk over. That's — Okay. That's the beginning. What comes next.
Tanya
She pauses on that — the walk, where she left it.And then we got there. I want to talk about the apartment before anything else, because I was not prepared for it and I don't think any of you are going to be either.
Cody
Studio. He's been saying studio.
Kayla
It's not a studio.
Tanya
There are canvas prints on the walls. Of everywhere he's been. Floor to ceiling almost. And it's — I stood in the doorway and I just looked for a minute. There's a lot of world on those walls.
Lake. You can see the lake from the main room. I stood at the window for a minute before I could do anything else. I didn't expect any of it. The space or the light or the — It's a very different apartment than I had in my head.
Cody
Twelve hundred square feet and a lake view. Man. You've been letting us picture you in a closet.
Kayla
The prints are the part I can't stop thinking about. Because you look at them and you realize he actually went to those places. It's not decoration. It's just — where he's been. All of it hanging there. And then you realize the two-bedroom with the lake view is also just — where he is. Not a performance. Just his actual life. It made me feel like I'd only been seeing about half of him this whole time.
Reggie
I never said studio or 400 square feet. You all said those things and I didn't correct you.
Brynn
She looks at him for a long moment — the kind where she's deciding whether to be amused or annoyed and landing somewhere between the two.That's a very specific defence. You described your building. You let us fill in the rest. You knew exactly what picture we had.
Don't. Whether you said the word or we said the word — you knew what we thought. Every Saturday. For three weeks. You sat there while Tanya said 'four hundred square feet, nobody's expecting you to host six people,' and you said nothing.
Reggie
I didn't say studio. I'm quite sure. Tanya said studio and I didn't correct her. But yes, that was a lie of omission. I won't try to pretend it wasn't. And now that the story is in my apartment, which isn't that big even if it's not a studio, I think we should clarify to the girls if we want the explicit version or the summary version. I'm okay either way, but I admit, I find it totally bizarre that Cody and Wade would want to hear details about this.
Tanya
Summary. For most of it. There are a few things I want to say out loud because I think they need to be said in this room. But I'm not — I don't want to give you a transcript, Cody. That's not what this is.
Wade
The bizarre part. You said you find it bizarre that we'd want to hear details. I'm not sure I want details either. I think what I want is to understand what happened to my wife on a doorstep. That's a different thing.
Tanya
She opens her mouth to start the doorstep explanation and then stops herself, shaking her head once.No — it doesn't start there. It starts after we left the apartment.
Kayla
At almost exactly the same moment, overlapping Tanya's last words.After the apartment. He took me dancing. In the courtyard.
Cody
He took you — Dancing. In his courtyard. At night.
Wade
The speaker. He had a speaker.
Tanya
You knew about the speaker?
Wade
He mentioned a satchel. Last week. Somewhere. I filed it. Keep going.
Brynn
He carries it everywhere. I've seen it. I didn't know what was in it.She says this quietly, to no one in particular, looking at the middle distance.
Kayla
I couldn't — after everything, I couldn't fast dance. My legs weren't — I was not in a state for fast dancing. And he knew that. He didn't even ask. He just — put the music on and held out his hand and we just moved. Slow. He'd spin me sometimes. And I laughed. Like a kid. I can't remember the last time I laughed like that after — I mean, I was still shaking a little, honestly, and I was also laughing, and both of those things were true at the same time.
Tanya
Same. Exactly the same. I couldn't have done anything fast. And he didn't ask me to. He just — held me. And turned me around in the light. And it was so normal. That's the part that got me. After everything that happened in that room, it was just a man and a speaker and a little courtyard and it felt completely normal. Like it was the most natural possible next thing.
She turns the glass in her hands once, slowly.And then the walk back.She pauses, finding the right words for it.He took my hand again. Same as the walk over. And he just — talked. About what happened. Not carefully, not like he was managing it. Just talked about it the way you'd talk about something that had already settled inside him. Like it wasn't complicated. Like I wasn't complicated. I've never had a man talk about being with me that way. Like it was just — a thing that happened and it was good and now we're walking home and isn't the evening nice.
Kayla
Same. He didn't go quiet. I kept waiting for the quiet — the part where it gets weird because you're both thinking about what just happened and nobody knows what to say. It never came. He just talked. And I talked back. And at some point I realized I wasn't shaking anymore. I felt like — I know this sounds strange — like I was the only person he'd ever walked anywhere with. Not the only woman. The only person. Like the whole walk was just for me.
Brynn
He does that. Talks about the thing that just happened like it's already okay. I used to think it was a technique. It isn't. He's just actually okay with it, and that travels.
Kayla
He kissed me before we went in. And then I cried. And I still don't have a word for why. It wasn't grief and it wasn't guilt and it wasn't — it was just too much good in one evening and it had to go somewhere. That's the only thing I know how to say about it.
Tanya
She's quiet for a moment — not gathering herself, just deciding where to begin.When I was standing on that doorstep, right before I walked in —She stops. Sets her glass down.I've been with Wade for six years. And I love my husband. That's not the part I'm trying to say. The part I'm trying to say is that I spent an hour and a half being — completely the point of everything. Every single thing in the room was for me. And I didn't have to ask for any of it. I didn't have to manage it or guide it or take care of it myself. And when I was standing on that doorstep I realized I couldn't remember the last time that was true. And that made me cry. Not because of Reggie. Not because of Wade. Just — because of the distance between those two things. That's all it was.
Wade
Okay.
Kayla
That's — Yeah. That's the word I didn't have. The distance. That's what it was for me too.
Cody
He says nothing. He puts his hand on his knee and leaves it there.
Reggie
Brynn, you were married until recently. Do you feel that distance?
Brynn
She doesn't answer immediately. She looks at her glass for a long moment.Yes. I was married for two years. And I spent most of them trying to figure out why I felt like I was always in the room for his benefit and hoping I'd eventually stop noticing it. And I told myself that was just — what it was. What it turned out to be. I don't think I had a word for it until Tanya just said it. The distance. That's exactly what it was. And I got divorced partly because I couldn't make that distance stop mattering. So. Yes. I feel it. I felt it before tonight and I feel it differently now. Those are both true.
Cody
He's been sitting with his hand on his knee for long enough that the room has gone quiet around it. He looks at Kayla, not at the table, not at the middle distance.Did you come?
Wade
He doesn't let more than a second pass.Tanya.
Kayla
Yes.
Tanya
Yes. Once. It was good.
Brynn
She says nothing. She looks at the space between Tanya and the coffee table and stays very still.
Wade
Once. Good. Okay.
Kayla
You asked. I answered. Don't do the thing where you answer it for yourself in a different direction than I pointed you.
Tanya
She says nothing. She reaches for her glass and this time she drinks from it.
Cody
He lifts his hand off his knee and puts it back down.That's not — that's not all I need to know. Was it more intense than with me?
Wade
Same question.
Kayla
It was different. Really different. I don't think different and more intense are the same word.
Tanya
Different. That's the word. It's — the whole thing operates differently. You can't compare it the same way you'd compare two runs of the same thing. It's not the same thing.
Wade
Different how.
Kayla
When it happens with you, Cody, I know it's happening. I'm — I'm there for it. With Reggie it was — I wasn't anywhere else. There was no anywhere else. I don't know how to make that sound smaller than it is, and I'm not going to try and make it sound smaller, but I also don't want you to hear it as an accusation. It's just — what different means.
Tanya
You asked. And I'm going to tell you the honest thing, which is that I am not going to sit here and tell you it was the same. Because it wasn't the same. And if I told you it was, you'd know I was lying, and that would be worse. Different doesn't mean gone. Different doesn't mean what we have is broken. It just means — there's a kind of different I hadn't been in the room with before tonight. That's all I know how to say right now.
Brynn
You both answered the same way. Different. I think that word is doing a lot of work tonight and everyone in the room knows it.
Reggie
Brynn, are your orgasms with me different from the ones you had with your husband?
Brynn
She looks at him — a long, straight look.I didn't come with my husband.A beat. Plain.Not once. I kept thinking I was doing something wrong. I know now that I wasn't.
The room is very quiet. Cody looks at his hands. Wade doesn't reach for his beer. Kayla is very still. Tanya looks at Brynn and doesn't look away.
Cody
He says nothing. But he is not looking at the coffee table anymore. He is looking at Kayla.
Brynn
I married him when I was twenty-three. I thought that was just — how it was. That it was my job to get there on my own and not make it anyone's problem. I got very good at that. And now I'm sitting in this room and Tanya just said the distance and Kayla said there was no anywhere else and I realized I spent two years not being anywhere at all.
Wade
He shifts in his chair.Okay. The thirty seconds. I said I'd try to spend more time, and I did. I'm going to be honest with you all. Thirty seconds was probably — fine, that was too short. I'll concede that. But here's what I came away with after spending more time down there this week. It's lubrication, man. That's the honest function of it. Getting her ready for the main event. And I'm not saying that to be disrespectful — I'm saying it because that's what I actually believe after thinking about it all week and trying it and paying attention. You can spend an hour on the opening act but the opening act is not the show. And I'll say the quiet part out loud — I don't think women actually enjoy it the way men think they do. I think they appreciate the effort. That's different. The part they actually want is to be fucked. Hard. By a man who's present and isn't spending the whole night down there working up to it. I believe that more now than I did before Saturday. Not less.
Cody
That's exactly where I landed. Exactly. I'm not trying to be the guy who didn't learn anything — I heard the data, I understand the data, I know what Reggie does and clearly it registers, okay, clearly. But you cannot tell me the structure is wrong. Preparation into the main event — that's the architecture of the thing and the architecture is right. Maybe the preparation runs longer than thirty seconds, fine, I'm open to that. Two minutes, sure. But an hour is not preparation anymore. An hour is the whole thing and then the fucking is the afterthought. That's backwards. Women want to feel a man. His size, his weight, what he can do with it. I believe that. I believed it last Saturday and I believe it more right now.
Kayla
Preparation. Cody, I love you. I'm not going to list everything wrong with that word right now. But I want you to think about what Brynn said two minutes ago and then think about the word preparation and see if it still fits.
Brynn
You're both sitting here more convinced than you were last week. After tonight. After everything Tanya and Kayla just told you. I'm not saying change your marriage. I'm not asking either of you to be someone you're not. I'm just noting that the evidence moved in one direction and your conclusions moved in the other, and I'd like one of you to explain that to me in a way that makes sense.
Wade
Because the evidence is one guy's approach working on two women who'd never encountered it before. That's not a verdict. That's a sample. Something new works because it's new. Doesn't mean it's better. Doesn't mean what they already have is broken. I'm still the man Tanya married. I'm still the one she comes home to every night. That doesn't change because Reggie has a speaker in his satchel and an hour to spend. Women want to feel chosen. I choose her every day. That's the main event. Everything else is detail.
Tanya
Wade. I'm not going to tell you it was the same and I'm not going to tell you it was nothing. You know me well enough to know I can't do either of those things. What I can tell you is that I'm sitting in this room right now, next to you, on a Saturday night, and that's not an accident. But I'd ask you — genuinely — to think about whether the choosing you're describing is something I can feel. Not know. Because that's the part the distance is about. That's what I was trying to say on the doorstep.
Kayla
The preparation word. I need you to hear me say this and not argue with it. What happened tonight wasn't preparation for anything. It was just — the thing. By itself. Complete. And I came home to you and I'm here and I love you. But I need you to know that 'preparation' is not the word I would use for what I experienced and I'm not going to let it stand in this room unchallenged.
Brynn
I'm not asking either of you to be Reggie. I know that's not the point. But if the lubrication theory is true — if that's all it is and women don't actually enjoy it and the real thing is the fucking — then somebody needs to explain to me what was happening for two years when I was in a marriage where I never arrived anywhere at all. Was I just bad at receiving preparation? I'd like an answer to that. Not a diplomatic one.
Reggie
Brynn, Tanya, Kayla, if I may...scolding Wade and Cody into being something they're not is like scolding me into being a tall blonde white guy. It's not useful. They are who they are, they do what they do, and it must be a good overall package or you two wouldn't have married them. Can't you just accept that everyone has something different to offer?
Tanya
She goes quiet for a moment — not the managed kind, the kind where something actually lands and she has to decide what to do with it.You're not wrong.She says it carefully, the way she says things she means but didn't plan to say.I'm not trying to remake Wade. I married Wade. I know who Wade is. I just — I think there's a difference between accepting that everyone offers something different and sitting here pretending I don't know what I know now. Those are two separate things. I can do the first one. I'm not sure I can do the second one. Not tonight anyway.
Brynn
He's right. Nobody in this room should spend the rest of the evening trying to sand Wade and Cody down into something they're not. That's not what tonight is. But I'll say this once and then I'll let it go. I didn't come home from two years of marriage with more information than I went in with. I came home with less. So the accepting-what-everyone-offers thing — I'm working on building that from scratch. That's where I am. That's different from where Tanya and Kayla are sitting.
Reggie
You know I'm from Vancouver. You know I love Cartagena. In Cartagena, the champeta music is always in the background, and if you're not dancing to it, you're missing the point of being in Cartagena. In Vancouver, it's always silent. Nobody even speaks too loudly. Occasional laughter, never shouting or arguing, just serene calm. A lot of the time, you can hear the ocean waves washing on to the shore.
This doesn't mean music everywhere is better than silence or that silence is better than music everywhere. When I'm in Cartagena, I love the champeta. When I'm in Vancouver, I enjoy the serenity. I don't want either to change and god knows I don't want them to try to become the other.
This doesn't mean music everywhere is better than silence or that silence is better than music everywhere. When I'm in Cartagena, I love the champeta. When I'm in Vancouver, I enjoy the serenity. I don't want either to change and god knows I don't want them to try to become the other.
Wade
He's quiet for a moment after it lands, turning the beer bottle in his hand.That's a fair way to put it.He looks at Tanya, then back at Reggie.Cartagena's got its thing. Vancouver's got its thing. Neither one's wrong for being what it is.
Tanya
Champeta in the background whether you're dancing or not. You can't opt out of the music just by standing still. I think that's the part I want Wade to hear. Not that the music should be different. Just — that it's playing.
Brynn
I grew up in a place with no music. Not because it was Vancouver. Just because nobody turned it on. I'm glad I know what it sounds like now. That's all I've got.
Reggie
We shouldn't stay late tonight, but I have a question for everyone. I remain amazed at the fact that two men I barely know asked me to have sex with their wives. I'm amazed that their wives went along with it. I'm amazed that the girl I'm sleeping with agreed to the whole thing. But despite all this amazement, I don't feel bad about it. It has me questioning a lot of things I had taken for granted. I also have a lot to think about this coming week. So my question before I go is simply this: do any of you regret it? Do any of you wish we hadn't done this? Please be honest. I want the truth, even if it's harsh.
Tanya
She doesn't hesitate. She looks around the room once — at Wade, at the coffee table, at nothing in particular — and then back at Reggie.No.A beat, clean and final.I don't regret it. I want to be honest about that even if it makes the rest of this conversation harder. Not one part of it.
Kayla
Same. I went in with open eyes. I came back. I'm sitting here. No. I don't regret it.
Cody
I want to say no and mean it the way Kayla means it. I'm not there yet. I think I opened something I don't have a lid for right now, and I don't know what that means yet. So — not regret exactly. But I'm not as settled as I thought I'd be.
Wade
I proposed it. I'd do that part again. What I'm less sure about is whether I understood what I was proposing. The idea of it and the thing itself turned out to be — not the same size. I don't regret it. But I'm not comfortable yet either. Those can both be true.
Brynn
I said I wouldn't forbid it and I meant that. I don't take it back. But I sat here for two hours being very brave about something, and now it's done, and — there's a part of tonight that was just mine before. The walking. The courtyard. The tucking in. And now Tanya has that. And Kayla has that. And I'm glad for them, I genuinely am, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel like I gave something away. Not because anyone took it. I handed it over. I don't regret it for you. I'm just — working out what it cost me. That's where I am.
Reggie
Last point. I suggest we keep this to ourselves. Not to protect me. I have nothing to lose in Granbury. No friends, family or reputation. But you all have roots here and unless I've read the whole town as badly as I read you five, this is something best kept between us. Do you all agree?
Wade
He looks around the room once — slow, the way he does when he's already decided something and is checking to make sure nobody's going to argue with it.Yeah.He says it without ceremony.That's not even a question. What happens in this room stays in this room. Has to.
Tanya
We're not a town that forgets things easily. You're right about that. And yes — I agree. Completely.
Kayla
Obviously. I wasn't planning to post it on the bulletin board at the library.
Brynn
You said you have nothing to lose here. I'm going to push back on that one more time before I agree to the rest of it. But yes. Agreed. Not a word.
Reggie
Am I still welcome here next week? Actually, don't answer that. I'll give you a week to decide that. If I don't get a text next Saturday, I'll understand.
Brynn
She looks at him for a long moment — the patient kind that means she's decided something and is just waiting for him to finish being wrong about it.Don't do that. Don't hand us a week to talk ourselves out of something that doesn't need a week. You've been giving us exits since the library parking lot and we've been refusing every one of them.
Cody
Man. You just spent two Saturdays helping my wife and Wade's wife figure out something they didn't know about themselves, you sat in this room while we all said hard things to each other, and your exit line is 'I'll give you a week.' That's the most Canadian thing you've done in four months and that's saying something.
Brynn
You're still the best thing in my life. I said that last week and I meant it and nothing that happened today changes it. So no. You don't get to disappear into a week of uncertainty as a kindness to us. Come next Saturday. That's what you do.
Reggie
Ok, I'll see you next week.SmilesBrynn, will you let me walk you home, knowing I've just slept with your friend?
Brynn
She holds his gaze for a moment.Knowing that, yes. I wasn't going to let you walk home alone anyway.
Cody
Goodnight, man. Same time next week. Don't overthink it on the way home.
Wade
Walk safe. Both of you.