Page 67 of Better Late Than Never

“Please do.” I ran my hand up his chest. “So did you not know you were into guys before you got married? Or did you just never get around to experimenting?”

“I…” He furrowed his brow and his eyes lost focus. “I mean, looking back, I think the signs were there. But consciously?” He shook his head. “No, I didn’t know. Not until I’d been married… three or four years, I think.”

“Does your ex-wife know?”

“Oh, yeah.” He waved a hand. “It’s kind of funny how it came out, actually. We were out one night with friends—one of those times we actually sprang for a babysitter—and we’d been drinking. She pointed some guy out—one of the bartenders, I think—and said he was hot. That she’d totally do him.”

My lips parted. “Really? Was she trying to provoke you or something?”

“No, no. She was just drunk. I can say a lot of things about my ex-wife, but she wasn’t like that.” He laughed with a note of fondness. “She just hadn’t had a drink in a while, kind of forgot her tolerance had come down, and she was just feeling absolutely no pain that night.”

I laughed. “Okay, yeah, that sounds about right.”

“Exactly. Anyway, so she’s all, ‘He’s hot—I’d blow him.’ And I—also drunker than I’d been in a while—said, ‘Fuck, me too.’”

“Really?”

He nodded as some color rose in his cheeks. “Like I said—drunk as hell. The next morning, while we were trying not to die from our hangovers, she gave me this kind of sidelong look and asked, ‘Did you mean it when you said you’d blow that bartender?’ I said, ‘Did you?’ She thought about it for a sec, then shrugged and said it would make for a hell of a threesome. Later on, when we were both ourselves again, she came at it a bit more seriously. She asked if it had just been a stupid thing I’d said when I was drunk, or if the alcohol had dissolved my filter enough to let some truth slip out.”

I tensed. “What was your answer? And what was her reaction?”

He half-shrugged. “I told her the truth—I’d realized a while ago that I thought guys were attractive, and I was starting to think I was bi. She said if I’d just told her out of the blue, she might’ve been upset—like she might’ve thought I’d been hiding it from her or whatever—but the hangover and all that had given her some time to digest it. And by the time we actually talked about it, she’d decided it probably wasn’t that big of a deal as long as I wasn’t going to cheat on her.”

“Which you weren’t?”

“Never,” he said quickly. “And in fact it was her idea for me to give it a try. Being with a man, I mean.”

“Whoa, seriously?”

“Mmhmm. It never really materialized, though. I mean, we tried? We did the open relationship thing at one point. Swinging, actually.”

I raised my eyebrows. “No shit?”

“I know, right?” He chuckled softly. “That… didn’t last long. We never even got into bed with anyone.”

“Never?”

“Nope. The thing is, we found out almost immediately the most couples in that lifestyle are straight men with either bi or straight women. A lot of them are looking for bi women, but if they find out the guy is bi?” He shook his head. “They won’t give you the time of day. Not even if the bi guy is totally fine focusing on the women.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh my God. Insecure much?”

“Mmhmm. The straight guys don’t feel comfortable getting naked in the same room as a queer guy. And anyway, before we even got to the point of playing with anyone, I started talking to some bi women who really hated unicorn hunters.”

I tilted my head. “Those are… people looking for a bi woman for threesomes, right?”

“Yep. And I realized that was kind of what we were doing, just with men. So I didn’t want to be that guy, you know? Plus I think the more we dipped our toes in, the more Aimee figured out she’s just not wired for that. Especially since it’s usually two couples swapping partners and having sex in the same room.” He grimaced. “She’s really self-conscious about her body after having the kids, especially the emergency C-section with Landon, and I didn’t want her to be uncomfortable, you know?”

“Yeah, I don’t blame you. So you didn’t get into it, then?”

“No. Right around that time, we also talked to someone in the lifestyle who warned us to be careful with swinging or even open relationships and the military.”

“What?” I cocked my head. “Why?”

“Adultery.”

“The fuck?” I scoffed. “How is it adultery if—wait, it’sstilladultery if everyone’s consenting?”

“According to the UCMJ, yes.”

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