Which is why I’m sitting in a dimly lit bar, nursing a glass of wine, nervously waiting for my husband to show up after he’d told me earlier in the day to “Just leave it all up to me, Bear, and play along when I get there.”

I’m wearing a crisp pair of gray slacks and a blue button-down shirt, open at the collar, Otter having picked out my outfit. He whispered in my ear that the dress pants made my ass look good, so I put up no argument. When Otter Thompson growls in your ear that he wants to rub his hands over your ass while wearing gray dress pants, you can sure as shit bet you’ll put those on as quickly as possible.

It’s going on eight o’clock, and I realize we actually need this when I think about how late that is, and that by now, I’m usually at home in my pajamas. I’m only thirty-three years old. Otter is forty-one. We should be out having the times of our lives and—

Okay, that sounds exhausting, and I really would rather be wearing pajamas right now, but Otter started really getting into this idea, so I figure I’m doing it for him. It has nothing to do with my own insecurities.

Or so I tell myself.

Izzie’s with Dom and Ty and Ben, and they’re supposed to be out getting pizza. Ty and Izzie had made fun of the “old guys” having a date night. I threatened to put them both up for adoption, only to have Izzie’s bottom lip start to tremble, her eyes wide, hands shaking. Immediately feeling like shit, I’d started to apologize before she burst out laughing, saying, “You’re so gullible, Bear, how embarrassing.”

I know the absolute worst people.

“Get you another glass of Riesling?” the bartender asks me as he comes back my way.

“No,” I say. “I’m meeting my husband here, and we’re going to pretend we don’t know each other because of sex reasons, and I want to be sober for that.”

He walks away without another word.

“This is why I don’t go out more,” I mutter.

And then my eyes are covered with a pair of hands.

“Surprise,” a voice whispers in my ear, deep and husky.

Oh. So it looks like we’ve started. I don’t know where he’s going with this, but since he’s willing to play, I’m all in.

“Who is it?” I say, my voice sultry and seductive. Or at least that’s what I’m going for. In actuality, I probably sound like a seventy-year-old four-pack-a-day smoker, but I figure this is my first time role-playing, so I’ve got some room to grow.

“Guess.”

Well, shit. I don’t know what to say. I’m a middle-school English teacher. I don’t necessarily have the greatest imagination. Am I supposed to make up a name? Sure. Why the fuck not? “Is it… Edgar Hoosen?”

The voice laughs. “What? No. Who the hell is Edgar Hoosen?”