Lawr was silent.

“Did I lose you?” I called.

“You haven’t…” He sounded like he was being strangled. “You haven’t had sex with him?”

“No,” I snapped, slapping the top cookie on the frosted one and setting the sandwich aside, going on, “You’re a man, tell me. You have a sure thing you pretty much know is a sure thing across the street, would you sit on your couch and talk with her on your phone for half an hour before stating you’re wiped and need to go to bed? Or would you find your second wind, walk over and fuck her dizzy?”

“Maybe you should talk to Robin about this,” Lawr suggested.

“Robin’s not a man,” I noted.

“So maybe you should talk about this to a man who is not me, a me who’s your brother.”

“Lawr, honestly?” I asked.

“Mariel and I have not had relations for over two months and the last time we had them it lasted ten minutes and I finished alone.”

I made a gag face that also included a gag noise my brother heard.

Thus Lawr continued, “Do you wanna talk about sex with your brother?”

“Maybe not,” I conceded.

“Right. Call Robin,” he ordered.

“She’s at her new Pilates class.”

There was a moment of silence before Lawr begged, “Please tell me she’s not—”

“She is,” I interrupted him to confirm. “The lover of her ex-husband’s soon-to-be-ex-wife is her new instructor. She says the class is magnificent. The instructor knows who she is. They go for chai teas after and the other one meets them. They’re all bonding over mutual hatred.”

“Jesus Christ,” Lawr muttered.

“It’s actually quite healthy.”

“It’s nutty, like that woman is,” Lawr returned. “And she’s been burned badly enough, she shouldn’t court more.”

“She’s healing, Lawrie,” I said softly. “Let her do it her way.”

There was another moment of silence before Lawr said, “Right.”

I scrunched another sandwich together and replied, “I should probably let you go.”

And I should let him go because he had to get going.

I had an evening of nothing ahead of me.

“Yeah. I’ll let you know about Thanksgiving.”

“That’d be great, Lawrie. Hope the rest of your day goes well.”

“Yours too, sweetheart. And MeeMee?”

“Yes?”

“Slow is not bad,” he said gently.

He was right. Slow probably wasn’t bad.

Crawling to a virtual stand-still wasn’t all that hot, however.

I didn’t share that.

I said, “Thanks, Lawrie.”

“Talk to you soon.”

“Back at you.”

“’Bye, MeeMee.”

“’Bye, Lawrie.”

I hit the button to disconnect and kept at my cookies, thinking it was getting late and I’d not planned anything for dinner hoping that there might be some possibility I’d be eating whatever I’d be eating with Mickey.