Page 50 of Poolside

Noah had taken Tommy’s gentle rejection in stride, offering him a sad smile as they exchanged a quick embrace. Tommy hated the thought that he might have hurt the kind man, but could bear the thought of leading him on even less.

He caught Rebecca’s sympathetic look. “We’re here if you need to talk about it,” she offered. “Not like we have it all figured out or anything.” She and Darius exchanged an amused look.

“Pshh,” Tommy scoffed. “You guys are perfect.”

Two sets of brown eyes stared at him like he’d lost his mind, and then both of them burst out laughing; Darius’ laugh was rich and musical, while Rebecca’s was so high and bright it was impossible for Tommy to keep a straight face when she laughed.

Rebecca caught her breath first. “Tommy,” she said, shaking her head. “We aren’t perfect. We fight and argue and accidentally hurt each other all the time.” She reached a hand out to squeeze Darius’ thigh. “We are constantly messing up, but he’s my best friend and I can’t imagine doing it with anyone else.”

“And she’s hot,” Darius added with a teasing grin, ducking out of the way of Rebecca’s soft smack. “But seriously, T, it’s hard being married. The only reason we’re still together is because we want to be, and we fight damn hard to make it work.”

“We worked our asses off,” Tommy said, voice rising. “Court and I. We went to couple’s therapy fora whole fucking year, and the grand conclusion from that experience was that I wasn’t loving her the way she wanted me to.”

“And what about you?” Darius asked, leaning forward.

“What about me?”

“Did she love you the way you wanted her to?”

Tommy felt his jaw tighten. “I thought so. I really did. I guess it just felt like enough,” he admitted. “What we had was enough for me.”

The oven timer beeped, and Tommy pushed up to standing. “Enough about my life,” he called out over his shoulder as he pulled the pork tenderloin and roasted potatoes from the oven. “Tell me what’s new with you.”

As they ate, Tommy found himself watching his married friends more closely. He watched the way Darius rolled his eyes and shook his head when Rebecca repeated a story he’d already heard. He watched Darius indignantly try to deny his gluten intolerance, in spite of Rebecca’s graphic descriptions of their bathroom after he ate pasta for dinner. He watched Rebecca flick Darius’ hand when he tried to steal food from her plate.

There was an irreverence to the way they were with each other, like they knew exactly how far they could push the other and liked flirting with that line. They were teasing, but affectionate. It was obvious they were best friends, and, more than anything, it didn’t look like they were pretending.

It felt good to have people in his apartment. Their voices and laughter filled the space, and it felt a little less empty and cold than it had before.

Darius had to teach early the next morning, so they left pretty quickly after dinner. They exchanged hugs at the door, and Rebecca promised they’d return the favor and have Tommy over soon.

“And call us,” she added. “If you need to talk about any of it, call us.”

Tommy thanked her, gently closed the door behind them, and then face-planted onto his couch with a dramatic groan, his mind still stuck on the way that Rebecca and Darius interacted with each other.

Were he and Courtney ever like that?He knew the answer before he’d finished the question. No. No way.

Tommy and Courtney’s relationship had always been more traditional. When they first started dating in school, he’d pick her up at her dorm room with a bouquet of pink roses and then take her out to Angelo’s for dinner. Afterwards, they’d get handsy in his car and then he’d walk her back to her room. Even after college they’d kept a certain level of formality to their dating: going out in Charleston together, Tommy always driving, and then, most nights, returning to their respective apartments to sleep.

He’d thought she’d make a good wife, with her seemingly endless well of kindness and the way she’d always be waiting for him with a smile when he got home. He’d proposed with a ring he’d found saved on her Pinterest, and he’d thought she was happy.

It had been weird for them, at first, learning how to live together. Tommy wasn’t good with laundry, and tended to drape clothes over the hamper if he thought they had another wear in them before they needed to be washed. Courtney wasn’t used to sharing a bathroom space, and spread her huge collection of cosmetics all over the counter.

But they’d made it work, and Tommy made sure every Friday night was date night, complete with flowers and candle-lit sex when they got home. For all of their struggles, they’d always been great in bed together.

It was hard for him to remember how he’d thought about Courtney and their life together before the couple’s therapy. The request had completely blindsided him, but of course he’d agreed. If his wife said their relationship needed work, he was going to show up and work his ass off.

The first time he’d heard Courtney speak candidly about their marriage, he’d felt like the floor had given out beneath him. He’d had no idea she felt unseen, like a doormat, like he didn’t actually care about her as a person.

All along he thought he’d been a good husband, doing the things he thought mattered, when all he’d done was hurt her along the way. He wasn’t sure he’d ever actually known Courtney until those months of sitting stiffly beside her on the couch in the therapist’s office. He didn’t know she liked to do puzzles, or that she craved more variety in their life. He didn’t know she felt excluded from his friend group or that roses made her sneeze.

She wasn’t without fault either: her lack of communication about what she’d wanted or needed had played into the outcome of their relationship. By the time they’d dug deep enough to identify all of the areas where they’d failed each other, in her words, it was too late.

And now that he was on the other side, Tommy could allow himself to imagine what a marriage—or shit, even just arelationship—might look like with someone he really, deeply knew. What it could be like to love someone who was his best friend.

It would probably be comfortable. There would definitely be sweatpants and home-cooked meals. There would be lazy, unhurried sex because neither of them would have anywhere better to be.

There could be freckles and laughter and too much singing. Legs tangled on the couch and Spartacus playing on the TV. Burgers and sweet-potato fries.

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