“Cheapest beers near the office. So what? We liked to go for beers after work.”
“All those long hours and late nights. You must’ve wondered about it.”
“What are you doing? What are you trying to pin on me?”
“I just mean there were a lot of drinks over three years. A lot of shared bitching about coworkers and clients. It’s not like it’s out of the realm of possibility. It happens to people. It has happened to people…”
Will fixed her with a disbelieving stare. “There was a woman, my age, at work for a stretch, with whom I occasionally drank beers, because she was actually down to drink beers. That’s it.”
“And that’s all it is to me, too. But there was something longstanding. There was something in the air, is all I mean.…You never fucked her before?”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this.”
“Might as well get it all out now. I’m just asking the questions while I have the opportunity.”
“You didn’t have to react this way,” Will said. “This was the thing I worried about most the whole time. You coiling back down into that snake pit and getting me for the same old fucking thing I’ve more than paid for. You could’ve held on for twenty more minutes, gotten to the end of all this, and decided to be okay with it, but instead—”
“You’re the one who broke the rules,” Whitney said. “I’m just trying to lend a little context to the encounter.”
“Well, now you know,” Will said. “You’re up. Go on, Number Two.”
“You head home with her from the party,” Whitney said, undeterred. “Where does she live?”
Will scraped his fork around the plate. He chewed slowly and the volume of the dining room crashed over them.
“East 80-something…” He swallowed and watched the light change in her face. “Look at that fucking grin. It’s exactly what you’d hoped, isn’t it?”
“It makes me feel better.”
“You’re such a fucking snob.”
“Close to the Met because she loves art so much?”
“Closer to York.”
“Even better.”
“So I head up there with her after the thing. We’re both pretty beat. I, unlike you, don’t have it in me to spend eight straight hours going at it.”
“But you get her clothes off. You get to see those glorious tits.”
“The apartment smells like kitty litter. There’s three or four half-drunk Juice Press bottles in the fridge.”
“More please.”
“White carpeting with scattered wine stains. A stand-up AC instead of an in-window unit. I don’t know. Mailings of summer offers from SoulCycle. A membership application to The Wing. A fridge with a dozen Save the Dates. One of those little word-magnet things spelling out a lyric from ‘Formation’—”
“I love you,” Whitney said, cutting him off. “I’m sorry I lost it for a second. I know you, I trust you, I didn’t even mean what I was saying. I know you didn’t do anything intentionally hurtful. I recognize that you’re one of the good ones. I’m sorry.”
“If there’s anything I’ve learned this month,” Will said, “it’s that this thing here is good, okay? You’re good to me, I’m good to you. That’s it.”
“I know,” she said swallowing hard, serious very suddenly. “I feel the same way. I love you, and I want to do this with you, and I’m sorry about a minute ago.”
“I love you, too. But do me a favor and think back and count. How many times with Adrien Green?”
She failed to quell the rush of blood to her face. She failed to suppress the grin that knew the precise answer. “It’s hard to count. What’s the number you’re looking for?”
“How many times did you stop and start again?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying. I can see how crystal-clearly you know the number.”
“Enough…”
“Four, five…” he said.
“Nine?”
“Nine?!”
“Twelve?”
“Whitney!”
“I don’t know. Six. I don’t know!”
“So a new record,” Will said.
“I guess it felt like a record.”
“It was purely sexual.”
“Something to shoot for, then,” she said, placing a hand in his lap.
“It was too big, it was gross.”
The waitress dropped off a single cube of pork belly.
“So, what,” Whitney said, drawing her hand back to her knife, “you snap her bra off with one free hand and dim the lights with the other?”
“The whole time I’m thinking of you,” Will said.
“Give me a fucking break.”
“You and the petite blonde who broke my nose—I can’t get either of you out of my mind.”
“I’ll bet Kelly gives effortful head.”
“I don’t know.”
“I bet she watches herself in the mirror above the bureau that’s caked in foundation dust. I bet she watches porn for tricks and practices on her hairbrush.”
“All based on a conversation at the beach three years ago?”
“I’ve met her other times. I met her at that holiday party. You glean things.”
“It was all fine.”
“You do it this way and that. You shove your face between her legs. She says, You have great hands.”
“All I wanted to do was go to sleep. I couldn’t stay up any later. I was thinking about work again.”
“You run your tongue along the heart she’s shaved into her bush.”
“It didn’t look like she’d been up to much down there for a while, if you really want to know. Unlike Number One, she did not appear to be expecting company. Based on the mess of mail, and the cat box, and whatever was going on with that situation…”
“So between the downstairs nothing and the downstairs everything of your pair, you really did catch the full spectrum we thought wouldn’t be possible with just two, huh?”
“The missing variety of seven years out of the game,” he said.
“You ask her to ride you so you can watch her bounce,” she said. “So you can stare at that line on her stomach.”
“I don’t even know what this line is you keep referring to.”
“You know the line. Which is why you try out all the positions, to get a good look at every inch of that body. You flip her around. You smack her butt. You pull her hair—not too hard, though, ’cause, remember, you’re one of the good guys.”
“She faked a couple big crescendos.”
“And we’ve already revealed the fact
