“There they go again,” he said, gazing into her eyes. “Now they’re blue. How do you do that?”

It was all she could do not to tear off his clothes and sit on his lap right in the middle of the Davenport-Gardners’ lawn, peering eyes be damned. Had she flipped her lid? “I hate you!” she said, stepping out of hands and face reach. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”

“Ten o’clock?” he said.

“No!” she said, then, remembering how good it had felt, how otherworldly after so many months without intimacy, cried, “Yes! God damn you!”

He laughed and pointed his little compact excavator toward home.

She was a horrible person. There was no way around it. Cheating on poor Ted! She rarely thought of him without the adjective “poor” these days. It wasn’t a good adjective to associate with your husband. Your poor husband.

On the other hand, Ted didn’t want to have sex anymore, and that was kind of a marital right. She’d suffered through more than five months of sexual drought before succumbing. Five months was a long time. And Ted had given her no indication about when that might let up. She might agree to an indefinite hiatus if he let her have sex with Nick to fulfill that need.

But he wasn’t going to agree to that. Of course not. Especially not with Nick. Not that a friend would be better. Who would agree to that kind of marriage? Well, some people would, she’d learned. Some people were polyamorous, which had sounded like a dangerous idea when she first heard about it, but now sounded like a pretty great option. Would Ted agree to be polyamorous? It wouldn’t even be polyamory, actually. It would be monogamy. Just not with him.

But what about Kaye? Poor Ted was one thing, but what about poor Kaye? She made herself picture Nick’s wife, his pretty, well-meaning wife. It was something she really hadn’t done in a serious way until now. In what way did Kaye deserve to have her marriage destroyed by Allison? Or their children? What right did Allison have to potentially destroy Lindy and Jakey’s family? And for what? It wasn’t as if she and Nick were going to make a life together.

Allison made a decision. She would not meet up with him again tonight. She would not meet him ever again. She was done with it. Done hurting her husband, done hurting Kaye and the children. How had she let herself become a potential homewrecker—with a man who actually wrecked homes? She sent Nick a text, a cryptic one, in case someone in the family picked up his phone before he did. Cannot make meeting tonight. All collaborations off. Then she blocked his number.