Page 62 of Outside the Lines
“Okay.” He pushed the chili around. “That makes sense.” He took a bite, another sip of wine, and seemed to steady himself. “Lyds, if you were a guy, I’d totally be into you.” He reddened to his ear tips. “If we’re gonna be honest.”
Lyds? I raised an eyebrow to Lydia—who’d never had a nickname in all the years I’d known her.
She gave me a smile and a shrug. Okay, I guess Lyds would stick then. Something for her and Ian. Tingles in the back of my skull. This might work. This could work. “Honesty is the best idea in a relationship like this,” I said.
A thoughtful glance at both of us from Ian, but he didn’t say anything. He was obviously chewing on something other than dinner.
I nudged Lydia’s leg with my foot. “How do you feel about all this?”
“Fucking relieved,” she said. “You two are great together when you’re not being dipshits.”
Ian started at that, and I snorted. I loved my wife.
She polished off her wine. “Si, the week you two were together was the happiest and most centered I’ve seen you inages. It’s agoodthing.”
My turn to have a warm face.
“Don’t fuck it up again, guys? Please?”
I couldn’t tell if it was laughter or embarrassment Ian was trying to hide. He took a long drink of his wine and sat back in the chair. “I— So what happens next?” Quiet words. “If Simon and I stay together, and I’m in his life and yours, then what?”
Lydia pushed her plate away. “Well, last time we got near this point, it was me and Vince.”
“Dexy’s father?” Ian asked.
Lydia nodded. “We’d been seeing each other for eight or so months . . . and yeah, we were in love.” She pursed her lips.
“We were ready to fold our families together, ready to take that next step,” I said.
“So, what happened?” Ian reached across the table and almost instinctually, Lydia took his hand. I held my breath, because there it was. Might not have been sexual, but damned if that wasn’t love too.
“We’d talked about getting a big place together, the four of us, and figuring out what we were going to tell the town and all that. Started discussing some legal things and maybe having a commitment ceremony. Then, he went down to Seattle for a couple of days to meet up with some old college buddies. While he was there, he met a woman at a hotel bar.”
“Just . . . like that?” Ian sounded incredulous.
She sighed. “More or less. They’d talked for a while—they both shared an interest in nineteenth-century scrimshaw, and it’s rare enough they exchanged numbers. Texted back and forth while he was there, and met at the Seattle library to pour over books. He didn’t realize he was seriously crushing on her until he was halfway back to Bluewater Bay. By the time he got home, he was shell-shocked and worried and came here.”
I picked up the story. “Eventually, we all decided if he wasthattorn up, maybe it wasn’t time for him to commit to Lydia—or to blend our families.”
Lydia gave Ian’s hand a squeeze. “Six months later, he proposed to her.”
“Holy shit.” Ian slipped his hand from Lydia’s and picked up his wine. “I’d be livid.”
“I was . . . and I wasn’t,” Lydia said. “After he came back from that trip, I knew it wasn’t going to work, no matter how much I loved him and when I met her, I understood.” She folded her hands on the table in front of her. “She was, in fact, exactly the right woman for him.”
Ian took that all in, his eyes narrowing, as if he were thinking. Considering. I saw his next question when he turned his gaze to me. He didn’t have to ask it.
“I wanted whatever made Lydia the happiest. Always do.” I rubbed the stem of my glass between my fingers. “Vince is straight, but we were friends. Still are, all of us.”
“So,” Ian said. “I guess what’s next is you and me figure out our shit, and if we’re still here in a couple of months, all of us talk about the future?”
Give us the time to get over this bump and make sure there weren’t others. “I think that’s an ideal plan.”
“So do I.” Lydia stood and grabbed her plate. “I’ll clean this up, then head out. Why don’t you guys go watch TV or something?”
Very much a dismissal. We both stood, but Ian followed Lydia to the sink. When she put her plate and glass down, Ian muttered something low, and Lydia turned. A smile, then she wrapped Ian in a hug, before pulling back and patting him on the cheek. She spoke as well, but again, I couldn’t make out the words.
My heart soared. I picked up the remaining plates and glasses and took them to the sink.
