Page 35 of Just Past Two

Abby slid the dress over her head and smoothed it down, adjusting all the folds of fabric that had gotten caught on her curves, and looked at herself in the mirror. This was a great dress. She’d known it from the minute she’d held it on the rack, and on her body, it was even better. This was a sinful dress, the kind to make Sam stop and stare.

The kind to make everybody stop and stare. Stare, and flirt, and maybe more…

Ah, shit. She shouldn’t want that, shouldn’t even think about that. “Angela, do you think I’m a bad person?”

No answer came from the other side of the door. It wasn’t like Angela to wander away while they were shopping, not without telling Abby first, so she was probably thinking about the weird-ass question Abby had just asked.

“Is this about you buying another dress while you already have, like, five of them in the closet?”

Abby rolled her eyes, which of course Angela couldn’t see. “No.” She opened the door of the dressing room. “What do you think?”

“About the dress, or you being a bad person?”

“About the dress.”

Angela nodded. “It’s hot. Buy it.”

Abby checked herself out in the angled mirrors, looking at the dress from all sides. “I don’t usually wear long dresses. It feels elegant.”

“It’s sexy as hell.”

“Thanks.”

“Now what’s this about you being a bad person?”

Abby sighed, staring into her own eyes in her reflection, eyes that stared back at her, eyes that knew all the terrible things she was thinking. “Maybe we made a mistake taking Zach home with us.”

Angela leaned against the wall next to the mirrors. “What do you mean? You were just saying you both had a great time.”

“I know. We did. But…” To explain this was going to admit to some shit that gave her pause, even around Angela, who was never going to judge her for the wacky shit she thought or said. “Ever since we did it, I cannot stop thinking about fucking other guys.”

Angela’s eyebrows went up, but then she lowered them, returning to a normal expression. Abby pressed on. “It’s not like I’d go off and do anything like that, but I keep thinking about it, like, it’s on my mind all the time. I feel like my hormones have been turned up to eleven all week.”

“That’s probably normal, though. You just did this big thing. It was exciting. Your body wants more. It’ll pass, if you just ignore it.”

Abby grimaced. “I don’t know. I feel really guilty about it. I chose Sam, my one and only. I shouldn’t be thinking about other guys.”

Angela waved a hand dismissively. “Fantasies are just fantasies. They don’t mean anything. You don’t have to act on them.”

Except that they were kind of doing that, bringing up fantasies and acting on them. Abby turned away from her own judgmental reflection and ducked back into the dressing room to take the dress off. “I’m worried that if we keep sharing fantasies, I’m just going to tell him. And then he’ll be hurt, and we’re never going to repair that.”

“Maybe he won’t be hurt. Maybe he’ll be into it. He’s been into everything so far.”

“That’s worse.” She’d definitely already considered that possibility, too. “If he’s into it, then we have this huge tectonic shift in our marriage. We go from just the two of us to… I don’t know, just past the two of us, where I sleep with other people, and then we can never get anything back.” She hung the dress on its hanger and pulled her jeans back over her hips. “Even in the last month, things have changed between us. They don’t feel like they used to.”

“In a good way or a bad way?”

Abby hesitated. “I don’t know. Just different. Sam’s different. He’s not the same guy I married. It’s like there’s this whole other side of him that I hadn’t known, just hanging out there, waiting for kinky sex games.”

“But you like that side of him.”

Angela had her there. “Yeah, I do. But—”

“But nothing. You can’t have it both ways. You’re having super-hot sex and making each other’s fantasies come true. I don’t get why you’re upset about that.”

Abby closed her eyes, sitting for a moment on the bench in the dressing room. Alone in that space, the guilt welled up inside her, another wave of discomfort. “This feels like old me. Irresponsible me. I’m not supposed to be attracted to other guys anymore.”

“That’s bullshit, you know. You’re married, not dead.”