Indiscretion

Lily’s eyes lit up as Naomi and I made our way over to their table the following Friday night.

“I love having couple best friends!” She clapped and smiled from ear to ear.

I pulled out the chair across from Lily and shook my head as Naomi took her seat. “Why do I feel like we aren’t going to get a word in edgewise tonight?”

Ben lifted a highball glass. “Good whiskey and good-looking women. Yapping makes my wife happy, and that means I’ll get to be happy when we get home. I don’t need to talk to you at dinner.”

Lily rolled her eyes, yet the smile never left her face. I settled in across from Ben, and our dates immediately dove into a two-person conversation.

Lily leaned in. “You look…relaxed.”

Naomi picked up her napkin and draped it across her lap. “Did I look tense recently?”

“It’s the only way you’ve looked in the last year. Even over FaceTime, before you moved to New York, you looked stressed.”

“I had a lot going on. I was unemployed.”

Lily wiggled her brows. “I don’t think the new job is what got rid of the tension.” Her eyes shifted from Naomi to me and back again. “Anything you two want to share?”

Naomi pursed her lips. It looked like she was debating what to say. I thought I’d make things easier, so I leaned in and lowered my voice. “We’re fucking. I’m happy. She’s happy. Don’t overanalyze it. We’re taking it day by day.”

Lily’s eyes sparkled. “The couple that owns the brownstone next to us is retiring to Florida and selling. You two should buy it so Naomi and I can be neighbors when we give birth to Apple and Olive. We’re going to look so chic pushing matching prams.”

I dropped my head, shaking it. “What are the boys going to be named? Pear and Lime?”

“Actually, I’ve always had my heart set on Keanu.” Naomi looked over and winked. “He was my crush when I saw my first Matrix movie.”

I smiled and rested a hand on her thigh under the table. It wasn’t sexual, but it made me warm in other ways. Normally feelings like that left me unsettled, but with Naomi it was just the opposite. I felt content for the first time in as long as I could remember—maybe ever.

Over dinner, Ben told some story about a defendant’s sixteen-year-old son who was arrested for stealing expensive racing bikes and storing them in the garage of his girlfriend’s parents’ house. Apparently, the kid tried to blame the theft on his girlfriend when he got caught, and now he had cases against both father and son.

“I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Ben said. “The father put all the money he embezzled from his employer in an account in his wife’s name and tried to let her take the fall.” He scooped a mound of red velvet cake into his mouth and pointed his fork at me. “Speaking of bikes, remember when we built that ramp?”

“Remember?” I groaned. “My balls still hurt whenever I walk past one of those stupid Citibike racks.”

Ben chuckled. “When Dawson and I were maybe about thirteen, we decided to build a bike ramp, sort of like an Evil Knievel jump. We had no idea what the hell we were doing, so the thing wound up being way higher than it should have. The part you jumped off was probably more than three feet tall. We weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer, so we set it up out front on the concrete street, rather than on the grass.” He looked at me. “We built the damn thing on the grass. Why the hell did we drag it all the way out front instead of trying it in the yard where we would’ve had a softer landing?”

I shook my head. “No clue.”

“Anyway,” Ben continued. “We argued over which one of us idiots was going to try it out first. As usual, Dawson won. Come to think of it, the idiot always won our arguments, even back then. No wonder he’s a good lawyer.”

“Yeah, I won alright. A trip to the emergency room.”

Ben laughed. “Typical Dawson. He went all-in. Backed up half a block and pedaled as fast as he could. When he got to the end of the ramp, he pulled back on the handlebars. I swear, he cleared at least twelve feet of air.”

I squeezed my thighs together and winced. That was a pain you never forget. “Can we please not talk about this?”

“What goes up fast comes down twice as hard.” Ben demonstrated with his hand sailing upward and then hurtling back down. He ended with both hands opening and closing in an explosion-like crash. “His balls swelled bigger than my head, and he had to get eighteen stitches in his sac.”

“No amount of lidocaine took away the pain of the embarrassment of a female doctor and female nurse sewing up my ball.”

Ben laughed. “On the bright side, it gave you an excuse to show your junk to a girl for the first time. Pretty sure that’s what made Bailey fall for you, rather than me. I’m man enough to admit my buddy’s not only got me beat with his courtroom wins, but he’s got me beat in the dick game, too.”

Everyone laughed, though the mention of Bailey falling for me caused a tightness in my chest.

Naomi bumped my shoulder playfully. “Aww… Did you hurt your pee-pee when you were a boy?”

I tried to smile, and even thought I did a pretty good job of not letting it affect me the rest of the evening, but apparently I was wrong.

The restaurant was only a few blocks from Naomi’s sister’s apartment, and it was a nice night, so after dinner, I thought maybe we could walk.

“Are you okay to walk the five or six blocks to Frannie’s in those shoes?”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.”

We walked side by side for two blocks, making small talk until Naomi abruptly stopped. “What’s going on with you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ve been talking about the weather since we left the restaurant. You don’t discuss the fall foliage in the City when we’re alone; you say dirty things.” Naomi looked into my eyes like she was expecting an answer. But I didn’t have one. Eventually she sighed. “What’s the deal with Bailey, Dawson?”

I blinked. “What?”

“I know you lost her, and she was someone close to you. But why can’t you talk about her at all?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. We were all having such a great time at dinner until Ben told that story. You clammed up at the mention of her name and…and you’re walking me home instead of walking me to your place where we could be alone and do the dirty things you should be telling me about.”

“I’m just tired. It was a long week.”

Naomi held my eyes. “Please don’t do that, Dawson. I know we agreed to take things one day at a time and not jump into anything serious, but you’re shutting me out.”

I swallowed. If any other woman had tried to dig into my past, I would’ve done worse than shut down. I would’ve had her in an Uber by now. But I didn’t want to shut Naomi out, I really didn’t. So I took a deep breath and looked away when I spoke. “I hurt her. And she’s gone. Most days I’m able to not think about it. But when I do, I hate myself for what I did. I’ll never be able to take it back or tell her how sorry I am.”

Naomi’s face softened. “Oh, Dawson. Have you ever talked about it with anyone? Like a professional or…anyone?”

My eyes slanted to meet hers. “No.”

“Do you think maybe you should?”

I held out a hand. “I don’t want you to go home to your sister’s tonight.”

Naomi smiled sadly yet put her hand in mine. “I was disappointed that you didn’t ask me to come over. I even packed a T-shirt and shorts and underwear in my bag, assuming you would.”

“Is it too late now?”

She shook her head. “No. And thank you for sharing about Bailey with me. I won’t push you to talk about it anymore, but I think you should speak to someone about it. You need to find a way to come to terms with whatever happened between you two.”