Chapter 6: Couples Night

Lila picked the restaurant, and Lila picked the table.

It was a round table in the back of her favorite Italian place, with a candle and a basket of bread.

She put Brett on my left and Tony on my right and sat herself directly across from me.

"There," she said. "Couples night. We haven't done this since June."

I smiled at her.

I had practiced the smile in the car mirror, and it held.

Under the tablecloth Brett's knee leaned against mine.

On my other side Tony sat straight, with his napkin in his lap, saying nothing.

"We should get the burrata," Lila said.

"We should get the calamari," Brett said.

"You always get the calamari."

"Because it's good."

"It's rubber, Brett."

"It's rubber you love."

They went back and forth for a full minute, easy and bickering.

I looked at the bread.

Lila ordered both.

When the waiter left, Tony's hand came down on my knee.

I didn't jump.

I kept my eyes on Lila's face and my fork in my fingers.

His palm was warm through my dress, and it lay there for a moment, still.

Then it slid up.

An inch.

Another.

Brett was telling a story about his boss's golf cart, and I laughed in the right place.

"You're quiet tonight," Tony said, in a perfectly ordinary voice, to me.

"Long shift."

He leaned toward my ear and reached past me for the salt.