“Because you and Nadia are like…” She pushes a hard breath through her nose and lifts her shoulders before gesturing at the ball pit. “You two are real adults. When your kids were born, I was babysitting for barely any money and wearing press-on nails. When your kids started school, I was using a private loan to pay for a spring break trip to Bali. And two years ago, when your kids started learning long division or whatever, I was squatting in a room with my ex in a co-op that might have been a front for some Albanian mobsters.”

“What?”

She brushes away my question. “So, yeah, I was nervous as hell for you to know that I’m just kind of…a mess.”

“You’re not a mess.”

“You don’t know me,” she says, shaking her head.

“And you don’t know us. You know why we started thinking about a third?”

She locks eyes with me and shakes her head slowly.

“Two years ago, our best friends came over for dinner and told us they were getting divorced, and we freaked out.”

“Wait. What?”

I roll my eyes and turn to search the ball pit for Nate. He and his basketball friend are shooting free throws from a makeshift line.

“Yeah. We’re such adults that our friends’ marriage falling apart sent us to therapy, and we decided to look for someone else to spice things up. We’re such adults that we’re just now figuring out that maybe,” I sneak a glance at her, “maybe my wife is bi, and maybe we both might like being with someone else. We rushed into adulthood, and now we’re having to find ourselves all over again.”

When I finish speaking, I hazard a look at Jourdan. She’s looking at me with rapt attention.

“We started going to therapy, and after a year, we thought…” I shrug, even though nothing that I’m saying felt casual at the time. I’m telling Jourdan the life-changing shit Nadia and I still haven’t discussed how to share with our dates. “A year ago, we decided we might be willing to open our marriage to…someone else. Someone special. But we have no idea what the fuck we’re doing. I have no idea what I’m doing; that’s why I fucked up.”

Jourdan nods slowly, but her mouth tilts into a frown. “I’m not someone special,” she laughs in a self-deprecating tone that grates along my nerves.

“We beg to differ.”

It’s the easiest thing I’ve said all day.

I’m on cloud nine.

Jourdan drinks half her milkshake while we talk before rushing back to work. But before she leaves, she looks left and right. My gaze darts to the ball pit. Nate’s back is turned to us.