Where True Things Live · Single Brown Male

Two weeks after Brynn was let into the know, all four — Reggie, Marissa, Sophie, and Brynn — sat on the grass after dancing, drinking root beer zero. Marissa opened by asking Reggie directly, in front of Brynn, whether he wanted to sleep with her. Reggie confirmed it honestly. Brynn acknowledged the mutual awareness was not new, only the saying of it aloud. Each person in turn was asked the same question: Sophie confirmed she wanted Brynn, saying she had noticed her since the first night Brynn danced without looking for permission; Brynn confirmed she wanted all three, separately and together, and said the answer had been yes since the second Thursday. Marissa confirmed she wanted Brynn as well, and had known it longer than two weeks. All four honest answers were on the table. Reggie then laid out several things: that he and Marissa have an agreement not to have sex with others without the other's consent, that he holds a personal line of no other men for Marissa while not imposing a symmetrical line on himself, and that he would feel envious rather than jealous if Marissa were with any of the three women without him present. Marissa said the same was true for her — that her jealousy lives in the idea of him wanting someone instead of them, not in this circle. Reggie declared a firm limit of four people total, naming the concern that desire without discernment was something he could not respect in himself, and that the group should not expand further. He also said that whatever happens must happen with clear-headed, enthusiastic, unimpaired consent — no alcohol or other substances introduced to ease it. Nothing was acted on; all agreed to do nothing that evening and let things settle. Reggie named his confidence that Marissa would never find another partner as patient as he is, which Marissa and Sophie both confirmed without argument. Sophie said plainly that Michael has never paid attention to her the way this grass does, that she is not crying over leaving him but over the ordinary Tuesday of a life — the daughter, the mother downstairs — that would crumble if she pulled a thread. She disclosed that sometimes her cycle keeps her away for two full weeks and that Michael does not notice the difference. Reggie suggested that if anything ever moved past talking, once a week need not be the ceiling. The evening ended with all four agreeing to carry what was said home, to meet again the following Thursday, and to make no decisions that night.

Marissa

Reggie, you would like to fuck Brynn, wouldn't you?

Reggie

Yes. I'm sorry. I won't act on it but I won't lie to you. And I'm a bit surprised you asked me that right in front of her.

Brynn

She's pulling at a blade of grass, not looking at either of them, and the flush is entirely different from the dance flush.I mean. For what it's worth. The surprise is only about the out loud part.She finally looks up, and there's no easy grin this time.Not the rest of it.

Sophie

Marissa asked it out loud because she's been holding it in her chest for two weeks and it got too heavy to carry on her own. That's not an accusation. That's her telling you she trusts the room. You told her yes. That was the right answer.

Reggie

She looks good. She smells good. She sweats when we dance in all the right places. I'm human.

Marissa

She's watching the water beyond the path, not Reggie, not Brynn, and when she speaks her voice is slow and careful.I knew the answer before I asked.A breath.I just needed to hear it in the open, where it's ours instead of yours.

Brynn

For the record — I sweat in all the right places because you make me work for it. I'm not trying to take anything. I want you to know that.

Reggie

Looks at MarissaAre you angry with me?

Marissa

She turns her head away from the water and finds his face, and she holds it there for a long moment without speaking.No.A breath, slow and certain.I'm the one who asked you the question. Right in front of her. If I wanted to be angry, I'd have waited until it was just us. I wanted it in the open. That's different from wanting it to hurt.

Brynn

For what it's worth, I didn't feel a weapon in it either. I felt — relieved. That someone finally said the shape of the thing instead of dancing around its edge. Even if the shape is me.

Reggie

Do you wish you hadn't asked?

Marissa

She looks back at the water for a moment, then back at him, and the corner of her mouth moves in a way that isn't quite a smile.No. I wish I'd asked it two weeks ago before it got heavy enough to need an audience. But I don't wish it back. The three of us on this grass knowing it's real is cleaner than me lying awake at midnight deciding whether I trust my own instincts.

Reggie

And now that you've asked and I've answered honestly, are you jealous?

Marissa

She doesn't look at him immediately. Her hands are in the grass, fingers working at nothing, and the silence takes its own shape before she fills it.Yes.She says it the way she said no a few minutes ago — slow and certain, nothing dressed over it.Not the angry kind. Not the kind that makes me want to take the question back. The kind that feels like a bruise you press to make sure it's real. I love you and I wanted Brynn in the room when I asked, and I'm jealous anyway. All of those things are true at the same time and I'm not going to make any of them smaller.

Sophie

She's not asking you to fix it. She's asking you to know it. There's a difference.

Reggie

Marissa, would you like to fuck Brynn?

Marissa

She goes very still, fingers flat in the grass, and the colour that's been missing from her face since she asked her own question comes back all at once.Yes.She says it the same way she said yes to everything else that mattered — no lead-up, no decoration.I've known that for longer than two weeks and I've been even less honest about it than you have. I'm not asking for a door tonight. But yes. That's the honest answer.

Sophie

Now we have two honest answers and one grass circle and a lot of root beer zero left. I'm not going to say the rest of it yet.

Reggie

Sophie, I'll say the rest of it. Would you like to fuck Brynn? I already know how you feel about Marissa.

Sophie

She looks at Reggie for a long moment, then down at her hands in the grass, and when she lifts her gaze again it finds Brynn first, not him.Yes.Her voice is quiet and unrushed.I said I'd sit with it. I've been sitting with it for two weeks. The answer didn't change while I was sitting. I want you to know that's not me following Marissa. I noticed you before I had the word for it. The night you first danced with Reggie on this grass — you didn't look at any of us for permission. That's the part I couldn't stop thinking about.

Brynn

You sat with it for two weeks and came back. So. Three honest answers. Same grass. What do we do with that?

Sophie

One more Thursday that isn't this one. That's all I'll commit to right now. But I'll say it with words, not grass. You asked us for that. So there it is.

Reggie

Wait. We're not done. Brynn, would you like to fuck any or all of the three of us?

Brynn

She stops pulling at the grass. She looks at Reggie for a second, then at Marissa, then at Sophie, and the flush from earlier hasn't gone anywhere. When she finally speaks, her voice is the steadiest it's been all evening.Yes. All three of you. Separately and in the same room and in every configuration I've spent two weeks pretending not to imagine. I wasn't going to say it first because I didn't want to be the one who moved the door. But you asked me directly and I'm not going to dress it up. Yes. The answer is yes. It's been yes since the second Thursday. You knew before you asked Reggie. I think you knew about me too.

Marissa

I knew. That's the other thing I've been carrying. Not just whether he wanted you. Whether you wanted us back. I wanted to hear her say it out loud. Now I have.

Reggie

Now we have complete information. Let's do nothing with it. Let's not introduce alcohol or other unhealthy things into this to make it easier. If anything happens, I want everyone's mind unhindered, and their enthusiastic, clear-headed consent to be the non-negotiable bar we must clear. I do have one thought about how I feel about this, but I also think it might be premature to say it, even though I don't think it will change if I wait. Hold it or say it?

Marissa

She turns her head from the water, finds his eyes, and doesn't look away.Say it, baby. You've never held back on this grass. Whatever shape it takes, we're all still here to hear it.

Brynn

I'm the newest one here, but if we're doing honest answers, yours belongs on the list with the other four. I think I already know part of it, and I'd rather hear the whole thing from you.

Reggie

No, Brynn, I've already said mine with the other four. Marissa and Sophie already know I want to fuck them because, well, I do. I admitted that about you. This is a different thing.

Marissa and I have had the weirdest exclusive talk anyone's ever heard of. We agreed not to have sex with people unless the other person agrees and other such modern stuff. But I've also told Marissa clearly that, if she has sex with another guy, we're done. No "let's talk about this." No "let's have an adult discussion." No therapy. No counseling. We're done.

She has NOT said that to me, but I'm operating under the assumption she'd be as hurt if I did that with another girl as I would be if she did it with a guy, which is a bit silly as she's the one who told me to call Sophie but I'm treating that as an exception, not the rule. I am operating under the assumption that I am NOT to have sex with other women.

What I want to say now is simply this: If Marissa asked me if I was ok with her being with any of you without me being in the room, I'd be fine with it. I wouldn't be jealous. Perhaps a bit envious, if you can see the difference. But I wouldn't want her NOT to do it. I'd think it was hot and beautiful. I just want to lay that right on the table. My insecurities are numerous and often absurd, but this is not one of them.

Marissa

She sits very still in the grass for a moment, her hands flat on her knees, and she doesn't look at Sophie or Brynn — just at Reggie, directly.You just told me you'd be happy watching me be happy without you in the room. That's the thing, isn't it. That's what you've been holding. I haven't said what you said — that if you were with another woman we'd be done. And I'm sitting here trying to figure out if that's because I'm more flexible than you, or because I've never had to feel the actual weight of it. But you just put yours on the table first. So here's mine: the reason I haven't drawn that line is because I already know where my jealousy lives, and it isn't in this grass circle. It lives in the idea of you wanting someone instead of wanting us. What you're describing right now is not instead. So yes. The same is true for me. Any of you, without him in the room — I wouldn't want her not to. I'd want to hear about it in the dark after.

Sophie

You drew the harder line for yourself and the softer one for her. That's not inconsistency. That's love in the specific direction it actually moves. I'll say my version of the same thing because it belongs on the table with the others: I am here on Thursdays. I am not here to split anything. What you just described — Marissa with any of us, without you, and you wanting it for her rather than despite it — that's the thing I couldn't name when I first started coming to this grass. You care about her pleasure more than you care about your proximity to it. Michael has never once felt that way about mine. I just wanted to say that out loud, because it's true, and because this is apparently the grass where true things live.

Reggie

Ok, we've agreed we're doing nothing today. Implicit in that is that everything might change tomorrow. Let me tell you my biggest fear. And it may sound childish. I don't want to become a man slut. And yes, I'm totally serious.

I said to Sophie and Marissa the other week that I don't want a girls' soccer team in my bed. That's untrue. I absolutely DO want that girls' soccer team in my bed and I want to screw every single one of them, and maybe get a different team there next week.

And I am not ashamed of that desire. It's normal among men. You all know how men are wired. But I don't like the man it makes me if I DO it. Wanting it is ok. Acting like that, with no self-control, no discernment, is just gluttony with STDs instead of obesity as the consequence. I think of men that have slept with a hundred or more women and I don't envy them, I want to vomit. That total lack of discernment, self-respect, self-control, and respect for women, just makes me...to be honest, it makes me judgmental.

And while I have no right to judge anyone else, I do definitely have the right to judge myself, and I don't want to be that guy. My body count is higher than any of yours but it's not high. Nowhere near what it could be if I had wanted to run up the score. I don't. I want to look myself in the mirror and like what I see, and I want to RESPECT what I see.

So too long; didn't read: No more. This is it. We started at two, grew to three and now it might become four. NO MORE. If it becomes five, honestly, we might as well rename it the Thursday Night Slut Crew and stop pretending we give a shit about ourselves.

Marissa

She looks at him for a long moment, her hands still flat in the grass.I've never heard you use the word slut about yourself before. That's the whole speech, isn't it. Not the soccer team, not the STDs, not the body count. It's that you've looked at what you want and decided that wanting it without a line makes you someone you don't respect. And you're telling us the line before you need it. I love you for that. And yes. Four. That's the number if it becomes four. I'm not interested in being one of seven either.

Sophie

The part that matters to me is you said discernment, not abstinence. You're not shutting the door because desire is wrong. You're saying desire without a filter is the thing you can't live inside. I've watched you hold this from the beginning. You had the thing with the soccer team and walked it back in the same breath. So this isn't new. You're just naming it in front of all four of us so it can't quietly disappear the next time someone smells right on the Seawall.

Reggie

I wonder if you'll be able to accept my "no other men" line given that you're not giving me a "no other women" line. Although "no other women I haven't also slept with" adds complexity to my comparison since I'm not likely to sleep with any other men. This whole thing is so weird.

Marissa

She looks at him for a long moment, turning a blade of grass between her fingers.You know it's not the same thing. You're asking me to hold a line you're not holding symmetrically, and you know it, and you're asking anyway, which is the most Reggie thing you've done in an hour. The reason I haven't drawn that line for you isn't because I'm being generous. It's because the fear doesn't live there for me. If you were with Brynn or Sophie, I'd know exactly who you were with and why. That's not the same as you imagining me with some man I met somewhere and brought home. So maybe it's not a double standard. Maybe it's just that the fear is shaped differently for each of us and we're calling both shapes by the same word.

Reggie

Marissa at 24 is fine with no other men. Marissa at 30 may start noticing guys with a lot more money, a lot more ambition, a lot more success, better-looking guys, better-dressed guys, guys who impress more people. I'm not invisible but I'm not on the cover of any magazines. Not that anyone reads magazines anymore. And Marissa at 40 may have had sex with me 5000 times and is just BORED of it. And wants to try a different flavour. None of us knows. I'm playing long game, but I don't know if that means until death do us part or until boredom does us part. And neither does anyone else.

Marissa

She doesn't look away from him, and her hands go still in the grass.You're not telling me something I haven't already thought. I've sat with the Marissa at thirty version. The one who looks around and notices she has options she didn't have before, and that some of them come with better suits and more impressive dinner reservations. I'm not going to promise you she doesn't exist. What I can tell you is that right now, the Marissa who is actually here on this grass doesn't want the better suit. She wants the man who made a notes app with four objections and then admitted to a room full of people that he edits it. But I'm not going to lie and tell you that's a permanent condition with a factory guarantee. Neither of us knows. You're right about that part.

Brynn

I'm the newest one here and I know that means I should probably say less. But you just described the version of Marissa that scares you most and handed it to her directly on a Thursday on some grass, and she's still sitting here. I don't know anything about long game. I've never played it. But I think the thing you're actually afraid of isn't Marissa at forty being bored. It's Marissa at forty walking away and you having no warning because she was too kind to tell you it was coming. That's a different fear. And the only answer to that one is the same thing you've been doing on this grass all evening. Say the true thing. Keep saying it. Even the ones that make you sound scared.

Reggie

No, Brynn. If she walks without warning, I will lose a bit of respect for her, but it won't materially affect my feelings. She walked. The result is the same. I don't ghost people. I don't respect people who ghost people, generally. Within reason. If it was one or two dates, ghosting is ok. If it's a 16-year marriage, which is what it would be if she was 40, then I deserve a conversation. And if she doesn't give me one, well, I won't respect that. But I won't care much. Again, the result is the same.

But I have hope we might be able to pull off "until death do us part" for another reason totally. But it's a bit arrogant so I might permit myself a bit of self-censorship here.

Marissa

She turns her head slowly toward him, one knee pulled up, her hand loose in the grass, and the fond exasperation on her face is the kind that's been there since the Skytrain.You said that out loud and then immediately told us you were going to censor yourself. You cannot do both. You know you can't. Say the arrogant thing, baby. You've said worse in front of better company.

Sophie

Self-censorship is just a lie with better posture. You've spent this entire evening dismantling ours. You don't get to keep yours because the thing sounds too confident. Say it.

Reggie

Self-censorship is NOT a lie. It is looking someone in the face and saying "I'm not going to tell you." That's not a lie. But ok, I will tell you.

I think we have a chance at forever because I am totally confident that she will never find another guy who is as patient with his face between her legs as I am. Full stop. And I'm not sure any version of her at any age will want to give up those orgasms. And yes, I'm totally serious.

Marissa

She stares at him for a long moment, and then the laugh comes up from somewhere genuine and unguarded, the kind she can't control, and she has to press her hand over her mouth to contain it before she gives up and just lets it happen.That is the most —She takes a breath, still laughing.That is the most arrogant and completely accurate thing you have ever said to me. I cannot even argue with it. I have tried to imagine arguing with it and I cannot. He's not wrong.

Sophie

No. He's not. I've tried to tell myself the orgasms aren't the whole thing. And they're not. But they are a substantial portion of the thing, and he knows it, and he just said it on this grass in front of all four of us without blinking. I'm also not going to argue with it.

Reggie

Sophie and Marissa have started giving each other orgasms. I love it. I'm not even a little bit jealous of it. I think it's as hot as hell. And beautiful, too, as well as being hot, the two being slightly different in a way I have difficulty articulating.

But you know what's fascinating? Neither of them is as patient as I am. Both of them get bored after a few minutes. They do it, and they really want to please the other person, but it's work. It's a chore. A chore they enjoy but a chore. Like if you enjoy washing the dishes in a weird way, but it's still a chore. And they both edge each other a bit, but not that much.

It's not a chore to me. I just sit there in my favourite place in the world and I have all the time in the world and they both know it. And I'm going to edge them so hard that when it happens, their legs go numb. And neither of them will ever be able to do that. Never. They'll get good. They'll get better than 99.9% of men. But they'll never be me. And yes, that's arrogant. And yes, I believe it completely.

Sophie

She pulls her knees in a little, sets her root beer down beside her in the grass, and looks at Reggie.The dish-washing metaphor is going to live in my head for a long time. I'm not offended because he's wrong. I'm quiet because he's not. There is a part of it that's work, and I've never said that out loud even to Marissa. The wanting is real. The wanting-to-please is real. But it costs something I can't always find in the moment and he doesn't even have to look for it.

Marissa

He told me this weeks ago, the patience thing, and I thought he meant technique. But it's not technique. It's that he genuinely doesn't experience it as cost. He's not giving something up to stay there. He's his favourite place. Sophie and I are — I'm trying to give her everything I have, and I want to, and I love doing it, but after a few minutes I feel the clock and he doesn't even own one. You feel it too. The clock.

She sits up in the grass slowly, and sets her root beer zero down beside her, and the laughter from a moment ago has gone somewhere else entirely.You know why I don't actually know if we last until death do us part? These looks — the ones you helped me build in two months — they're good for a few more years. Maybe five, maybe eight if I'm disciplined. But time doesn't work differently for me than for anyone else. And when you're fifty, you're still going to be exactly what you are right now. Still patient. Still the same man between someone's legs who doesn't own a clock. Still the man women cross rooms for. And I'm going to be an older woman who has been invisible for thirty years. And I would bet every root beer zero on this grass that all three of you — all three — would date the fifty-year-old version of him. Right now. Without blinking. And I don't know if you'll be able to resist that. And neither do you. And I'm not saying it as an accusation. I'm saying it because it's the true thing, and we said the true things live on this grass.

Sophie

I'm not going to tell her she's wrong. I would. I'm already here. And I'm twenty-six, not fifty-year-old-Reggie's hypothetical. So yes. The math she's describing is real. The question isn't whether it's true. The question is whether he already knows which version of himself he wants to be at fifty, and whether that version is the one who holds this or the one who takes what's offered. You just told us you don't want to be the man who runs up the score. That was twenty minutes ago. She's asking if that holds when the offer comes with twenty-something cheekbones and a Seawall.

Reggie

I know the man I want to be. I don't know if I will succeed in being that man. I will try.

And you will know for the next little while that if you leave me for a guy with a Porsche and a mansion, you'll be lying in that huge king-size bed wishing you could have just one more night with the brown guy who could dance and make you wobbly. And you'd know he won't return your texts.

And I will know for the next little while that if I leave you for a hotter, younger version, with no stretch marks or scars, someone who still turns heads everywhere she goes, that I will be lying in my modest house with the hot young girl beside me all wobbly after her third orgasm, and I'll wish I hadn't turned into a piece of shit somewhere along the way, and I would wish I could have my stretch-marked, grey-haired wife back to make me whole again. And I'd know she won't return my texts.

Marissa

She holds his gaze for a long moment.You just described both versions of the future and neither of them is the one where we win. I don't want that bed. The mansion one. I know that right now. I'm telling you so it lands somewhere real. I just don't know if knowing is the same as keeping.

Brynn

You each described yourselves walking away and then missing the other so badly you couldn't even text. And you said it like a warning to each other, not like a threat.

Reggie

It is a warning, no question. That doesn't mean we'll heed the warning. Porsches and bubble butts are intoxicating. It means we know the risks. And that's all we can ask for.

Marissa

She picks up her root beer zero from the grass beside her, turns it once in her hands, and looks out at the water.We know the risks. Most people walk straight into the thing that breaks them without ever naming the shape of it first. We named it. Out loud. On this grass. In front of Brynn and Sophie. That doesn't make us safe. But it makes us honest about being unsafe. I'll take that over a guarantee that's a lie.

Reggie

Your situation is different, Sophie. You never had what Marissa and I have. Well, you have it Thursdays but you've never had it with him. We're best friends. And our favourite place to be is between the other's legs. And we talk until one of us literally nods off. And when I see something interesting, the only person I want to show it to is her, and I know she feels the same because my WhatsApp is full of her cat video shit.

All I got from Michael when I met him is that he thinks you're ok, and he's not ashamed of you, and he's happy to not have to go to parties alone. Nobody's going to sit on the floor five years after leaving that and cry and ask herself what the fuck she was thinking leaving that. I'm doing my absolute best every day to make sure Marissa will do exactly that, so that she never has to find out.

Sophie

She doesn't look away from the water when he says it.You're right that I never had it.A breath, careful and unhurried.I've known that for a while. What I didn't know until about the third Thursday is what it looked like from the inside. The cat videos. The nodding off. The only-person-I-want-to-show-this-to. I know what that is now because I can see it from ten feet away every week. Michael and I were never best friends. I think we were both lonely in the same direction for a while and called it compatibility. I'm not crying on any floor over leaving that. I know exactly what I'd be leaving. The part that costs me is everything else that comes with it. The daughter. The mother downstairs. The ordinary Tuesday of it. Not him. Not him.

Marissa

I didn't know that was the shape of it until you just said it. That the leaving wouldn't be about Michael at all. I've been thinking of your situation as staying for Michael, or staying despite Michael, but it's not that. It's staying for a Tuesday. For the ordinary structure of a life that doesn't crumble if you pull one thread out of it. That's a completely different kind of staying. And a completely different kind of hard.

Reggie

The thing is, I give Marissa more than Michael ever gave you except money. I don't know your finances but I get the feeling he has more money than I do. But in every other way, Marissa is more fulfilled.

And I still spend time every day wondering if it's getting old, and how I can keep it alive and new and fun. I don't take it for granted at all. I don't take her for granted at all. I assume every day that some other guy is going to make her an offer, a good offer, and that I had better make sure she has good reasons to refuse it.

I don't think Michael thinks about you at all that way. I don't think he's even considering it. And if you did leave, he'd take on the role of betrayed husband because that's what he's supposed to do.

And you know what else? I hope he gets his way. I hope you stay married to him forever. Because I want you in our bed forever. And I know that's a bit cuntish of me but whatever, it's true.

Sophie

I know he doesn't think about it. I've known for a long time. I used to tell myself that was a kind of peace — that he wasn't anxious about me, that it meant he felt safe. It means he feels nothing. I've been translating absence as certainty for five years. You're not being cuntish. You're saying out loud what I've already stopped arguing with in the dark. And yes. I want to stay in your bed every Thursday. Not because the building is all I have. Because this is the only place where someone is paying attention to whether I'm still there.

Reggie

You know, we agreed we'll do nothing tonight with what we talked about. I just want to say that I never thought once a week was enough. Once a week of someone wanting you just for you. Someone choosing you first, not because they had no other choices, but because they wanted you more than anyone else. If what we talked about ever gets past the talking stage, and I'm aware that's an "if" today, it doesn't have to be just once a week. It's way too early for logistics, but it might not have to be six straight days of a guy turning his back anymore.

Marissa

She's quiet for a moment, fingers wrapped around her root beer zero, staring at the water.You just made it worse and better at the same time.A breath, slow and unsteady.Worse because now she has to picture what once a week is the floor of, not the ceiling. And better for the exact same reason.

Sophie

I've been treating once a week like it's the whole grammar of this thing. The entire sentence. That's the first time you've suggested it might be a clause. I'm not asking you to change anything tonight. I'm going to carry it home and see what shape it takes in the morning.

Brynn

I keep thinking I understand the shape of what this is, and then you say a thing like that and the shape gets bigger. Six straight days of someone turning their back. You said that like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and it landed like a diagnosis. I didn't know that's what I was picturing until you named it.

Reggie

That's what she's got, Brynn. One day where a brown guy who is SOME OTHER GIRL's boyfriend will hold her close to him like she's the only person in the world, except the other girl who's holding her just as close from the other side. And then she goes home to someone who...doesn't do that. For six days. Until the next time. And sometimes it's two full weeks. Women have cycles. You might be the answer to a question nobody knew they were asking.

Marissa

She turns her head toward Sophie slowly, not looking at Brynn or Reggie, just Sophie, and her voice goes lower and quieter than anything she's said all evening.Two full weeks. I didn't know the number. I should have asked. I'm sorry I didn't ask.

Sophie

It's not always two weeks. But sometimes. The cycle keeps me away, and Michael doesn't notice the difference between a Thursday I skipped and a Thursday I was there. The bed is the same either way for him. You never asked because I never said the number out loud. I think I didn't want it to be a number. Numbers make things too specific to ignore.

Brynn

The question nobody knew they were asking. Six days of a back. Sometimes eight or ten. That's not an arrangement. That's a sentence.

Sophie

Don't. Don't make it a rescue. I'm not asking to be lifted out. I'm asking to be held on Thursdays. There's a difference, and I need you to hold that difference carefully if any of this is going to stay the shape it needs to be. But yes. You might be. I didn't know how to say that without it sounding like I was opening a door you hadn't knocked on yet.

Reggie

She's right, I'm letting my wild imagination get out of hand. We all know more about each other today than we knew before today. We all appear to hope something might come of this. And none of us are in any rush. Shall we go?

Marissa

She doesn't stand immediately. She stays in the grass a moment longer, root beer zero balanced in both hands, looking at the Seawall path and the water beyond it.He's right. We said the true things and now we get to carry them home.She finally stands, brushing grass from the back of her legs, and offers Sophie her hand.Come on. Some of this needs to settle before we decide what it means.

Sophie

Good. I don't want to decide tonight. I want to drive home and make tea and let the number stop being a number for a little while. Same time next week.

Brynn

Same grass, same root beer zero, same speaker on the railing. I'll be here. Thanks for the true things. All of them.