SUMMER SWAP // Chapter 35

As Cheyenne shimmied her bottoms on, hunkered out of view, Byron stood up and said, “You think it’s funny, sitting and listening to us having sex?”

“Ironic, really,” she heard Carla say, “considering it’s you who’s supposed to be the audience member.”

Byron scoffed and sat down at the foot of the couch, sitting in just his gym shorts.

Carla said, “You ever think of using your bedroom? I mean, you’re chastising me for sitting in a public space here. I should be the one delivering admonishments, if you ask me.”

“She fucking sat there the whole time,” he muttered to Cheyenne as she got her sweatshirt pulled on. Byron reached and grabbed his T-shirt from the floor, holding it between his knees.

Chey glanced over to see Carla sitting at the table, one cheek puffed out with the last of the orange, wiping her hands on a paper napkin. Her mind raced to think of anything Carla might have overheard and anything disparaging she might have said about her or that Byron might have said about Cody. There wasn’t anything she could recall, but she knew her secret had been overheard. If Carla knew, then Cody would know. And Philippe probably too. Well, so what? So what if they knew. In fact, maybe if they knew, they’d make it happen, they’d align Byron for her. It was almost assured that Cody would be up for Byron sitting in with them. But wouldn’t that mean Carla would be there too? And wouldn’t that mean she’d have to see Carla’s hands on Byron? The thought angered her.

Byron popped up and spun, then looked surprised not seeing Carla where she had been. Carla had left the dining room and had come beside the couch, heading to the cushioned chair, kitty corner to their couch. Byron said, “You don’t make any noise at all, do you?”

Carla chuckled and plopped down on the chair, crossing her legs. “I think you know that’s not the case, Mr. Bishop.”

“Hey,” Cheyenne said, brow dropping down low and feeling possessive of her husband.

Carla flipped up her palms in surrender. “Oh hey, Chey, sorry. Just joking around. My bad.”

“Don’t say shit like that,” Cheyenne said, folded her arms and crossed one leg over the other.

Byron looked from Chey to Carla. “Where’s Cody? You hear what he did?”

Carla nodded, eyebrows raised in a look of dismay. “I heard. You mean the thing, right?”

Carla darted a glance to Chey and Chey made an irritated sound in her throat. “Of course I told him.”

“Oh great,” Byron said. “So you might not tell me? You’d let Cody and Chey keep secrets from me? I don’t like the way that works, Carla.”

“All right, already, jeez,” Carla complained, looking straight up at the ceiling. “The Philippe thing. All right, Byron? The Philippe thing. And, no, I wouldn’t tell you a thing. That’s up to Cheyenne. But that’s why I’m here. I was all around the ship with tea for two and an orange to split and I couldn’t find her anywhere. I think she and I should have a talk.”

“Yeah, well, I need to talk to Cody.”

“Yes, you should. He deserves to hear it.”

“Oh, you think so,” Byron said defiantly, as though Carla had objected. But Byron was used to Carla’s sarcasm and didn’t hear the answer the way Chey heard it.

“He’s out on the swimming deck. Go tell him off. I did. He broke a rule. I’m on your side, Byron.” Carla said, giving Byron a steady eye. “Yours, too, Chey,” she added, peeping around Byron to look at Cheyenne. Then: “Thank god you were cool with it.”

Chey’s mouth crimped to one side and she looked to Byron, waiting for him to blow up her scene and launch into a tirade how she thought it was him coming in and how Cody tricked her—which wasn’t true. She got something unexpected, but no one took advantage of her.

Byron said, “Look, I don’t need step-by-step permission or anything. I’m not Cheyenne’s boss. You don’t have to check in on every little detail. But bringing in another guy? That sure ain’t a minor detail. That’s the exact kind of thing you have to run by me first.”

“I agree, Byron,” Carla said soothingly. “In Cody’s defense, he said to me there was no way he’d let Philippe touch Cheyenne, even if Cheyenne begged for it. It was a little exhibition play, a little examination and humiliation. Cody figured it would wind Cheyenne’s crank. But, he was adamant: there was to be absolutely no three-way play. Now that, he says, he would never do. Not without giving you a head’s up.”

“You make it sound like a minor mix-up,” Byron said.

“You have every right to be mad, Byron. Go find Cody, and I implore you”—she lay a hand over her heart—“tell him how you feel. Tell him why you’re mad. He needs to hear it. This was your guys’ first time and Cody went way too hard.”

“I am going to confront him,” Byron said.

“Good,” Carla said, eyeing him up and down. “Go get him. Put your baby batter shirt on and find him down on the swim deck. I need to talk to Cheyenne alone, anyway.”

Byron faffed the semen-soaked shirt toward Carla like he would toss it in her face and Carla yelped and put up a hand to block it. But Byron held on to it and hiked a right. He came around the back of the couch and leaned over it, his face near hers. He said, “You okay here?”

“Yeah,” Chey whispered, looking up at him. Byron was looking good in the light and she had warm after-sex feels for him. She held his wrist and put a kiss up where she would tempt him. Byron put his lips to hers and they held the kiss a long while. It felt good to display their togetherness to Carla.

Byron walked off, topless, his slender back showing some muscle and the beginning of summer sun. Carla said after him, “Go throw that shirt in Cody’s face, if you’re so mad about it.”

“Maybe I will, Byron said, voice growing thin as he passed from the lounge, going around the glass-walled elevator shaft and heading out to the back deck that overlooked the swimming deck.

Carla chuckled and said, “Cody’ll fucking kill him if he does.”

Cheyenne said, “Why do you have to be so nasty about all of this?”

Carla looked honestly shocked, touching the fingers of one hand to her chest, not saying anything but her expression as if she were saying in French, “Moi?”

“Byron’s not going to fight Cody. Why would you say that?”

“I know they’re not going to fight, Cheyenne. I’m just joking around.”

“Not everything’s funny, Carla. We’re both a little touchy after last night.”

“Of course you are,” Carla said in a smooth conciliatory tone, all full of understanding. Then she sighed and looked around the room, gathering her thoughts. Cheyenne got the impression Carla was re-evaluating her tact, given she wasn’t winning any friends here in this lounge. Carla was a woman who wanted things and found ways to get them. Not necessarily a manipulator, not a Machiavelli, but definitely a natural-born student of policy-as-provocation and other Mirrors Of Princes. Carla considered herself above it all, a maestro of pleasures and possibilities where rules were for the common folk and she pretended to play by them only so she could bend them to shape her life the way she desired. She rose from the chair and padded across to join Cheyenne on the couch. She didn’t sit close, not side by side, but quarter-facing and a foot apart. “Let me hear it, Chey. I know you’re mad at me, so let it out. I only want the best from this situation. Not for me, but for all of us. Tell me what I did wrong.”

Chey eyed Carla’s sly face—the knowing arch to a brow, one eye covered by her shaggy crop of silvery blonde hair, and the wizened angle to her smirk—and sought to decipher what Carla wanted from her. She wasn’t even mad at Carla. Who the hell was she mad at?

Carla said, “If you weren’t jealous, I’d think something was wrong with you. Or wrong with your marriage to Byron.”

“So, I’m jealous,” she said sullenly and shrugged.

“Work it out with me, Chey,” Carla said and leaned a little closer, looking sincere. “I know I’m a prickly pear, but we’ve been friends long enough to know I’m not out to hurt anybody. Talk to me. What you went through last night, I’ve done it myself. There was a first night where Cody was with another woman. Thank god, switchblades are illegal, you know what I mean? All I was armed with were eye daggers. The good news is the eye-daggers you’re sending me aren’t poisoned. There’s hope, right?” She flicked a manicured forefinger, arm draped on the couch back, to tap Chey’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Chey said, Carla’s nail giving her the goosebumps and getting her shivering. She scooted sideways so they faced. “There’s hope. I had a great time last night—”

“Cody told me.”

“It was good. It was a lot and I went further than I ever anticipated.”

“The hard part is your own jealousy. Work it out with me. Tell me what’s a no-go. Tell me what is verboten.”

“I don’t even know. It’s not any act that gets me riled, it’s the sharing itself.”

“But you had such a good time with Cody. Aren’t you worried Byron’ll think you’re selfish?”

“Oh, I’m totally selfish,” she said flatly and unabashedly, and when Carla chuckled at that she joined in. “I need to get over it.”

Carla said, “Perfect. What you told Byron you wanted . . .? That’s the way to get over it.”

Chey scoffed. “Make him watch me?”

“Mm. Let me tell you a little something about your husband. Not that I know him better than you do, just that I’ve seen couples like you before. I have a little experience. Byron was so skittish last night. All he could talk about was you. You were the only thing on his mind. I’m not insulted. But when I mentioned him joining in and watching you, you should have seen the resistant little dance he did.”

“I know. He hates to even hear about it.”

Carla shook her head, lips thinned.

“No?”

“Surface level? Yeah. He hates it because he thinks he should. Byron wants to watch you. You’re going to have to beg him and make him feel like it’s all your idea and he’s doing it for your benefit, but he wants to do it, Chey. Trust me.”

“Do you ever watch Cody?”

Carla smiled, even showing it in her eyes. “I love watching Cody with another woman.”

“I could never watch Byron.”

“Sur you could.”

“No way,” Chey laughed nervously.

“Think about it, Chey. Think about it.”

Her brow lowered as she contemplated it, savvy Carla putting something awful in her mind, challenging her to accept it. She could picture Byron with some nameless, faceless girl. He’s on top and all she can see is the other girl’s legs hooked around her Byron’s hips. “Oh no way,” she said.

“You love him don’t you?”

“Yeah,” she said indignantly, offended that love was measured in your ability to endure something awful.

“Hey, okay,” Carla said, showing her palms again. “Another my bad. I’m only offering help. Offering fun. Oh, hey, I know . . .”

“Know what?”

“How about this? Don’t picture Byron with me, picture him—”

“I wasn’t picturing him with you.”

Carla got real close and held Chey’s wrist. “Picture him with someone you trust completely. Picture him with someone you really love.”

“Like who?”

“Picture him with your good buddy. Picture him with someone kind. Picture him with Scarlet.”