SUMMER SWAP // Part 2 // Chapter 2

Philippe smiled the way someone does when they want to disarm you. Either placating or guilty, Byron couldn’t tell. Maybe it was both. Philippe said, “Hey, Byron,” calm and collected.

“Hey,” Byron answered, scowling and unable to hide the terrible thoughts crossing his mind.

Cheyenne gave him an easy, indolent expression, eyes soft, brows high. She’d folded her arms. She said, “I’m coming up in a second.”

“Yeah, okay, but I came to get changed. You think I could come in and put my shorts on? I didn’t know you two were in here.”

There was an awkward moment where no one said anything, all three expecting someone else to do it, a long tense moment waiting to pop.

Philippe looked to Cheyenne and said, “I’m going to get out of here. Thanks for the talk, Chay.”

“No problem, Philippe,” she said, “and thank you, too.”

“My pleasure,” Philippe said, squeezing past Byron to get out. Byron didn’t give him much leeway, standing his ground in the doorway.

Philippe was taller than him, and bulky, and for whatever reason, all of a sudden he didn’t like Philippe very much. But Philippe was all smiles, passing by him through the open doorway and into the hall. There was a certain aloofness, like the guy knew it was a bad thing to get caught in another man’s bedroom with his wife.

With Philippe gone, Byron said, “What the fuck, Cheyenne,” closing the door behind him.

Cheyenne flashed an angry look and dashed her hands up, then walked to sit on the bed. “It’s nothing, Jesus, can you not, Byron?”

“You’re mad at me for not knocking, coming into my own bedroom? I had no fucking idea you were in here with big dick Philippe.”

“Don’t call him that.”

The way Cheyenne said it—sitting on one leg, the other hanging off the bed’s edge, arms crossed, and looking away—made him aware of a stark detachment from her, a powerless feeling he didn’t like. It angered him, and the anger got him chasing after Cheyenne, incredulous she wouldn’t admit right away what was an obvious transgression. “What? What the fuck, Cheyenne, seriously.”

“Don’t make a big deal out of it, okay, Byron, please.” She studied his face a long while but he could see in her eyes as mad as she was about his reaction, there was a reasonable source for it.

Gazes connected, he said slowly: “What the fuck, Cheyenne.”

“Look,” she said, eyes rolling up and posture sagging. “I know how it looked. I know-I know.”

“I’m fucking mad, Cheyenne.”

“I get that you’re mad,” she said, “but you have to calm down about it.”

“I come in here and you guys are practically fucking hugging.”

“We weren’t hugging.

“You guys were talking real close. Were you trying to slip another toilet roll over his giant dick?”

He’d meant the words as angry and confrontational but they made Cheyenne laugh. When she laughed, the absurdity of his own statement occurred to him. It was stupid. Then he smiled, and palmed his forehead. “All right, just tell me what the hell you were doing in here.”

She said very seriously: “We were just talking.”

“Why were you in our bedroom talking to him?”

She nodded toward the door. “He was passing by.”

“Okay, but why would you close the bedroom door? do you need privacy?”

“Kind of.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Cheyenne. I’m not too happy.”

“Oh, come on Byron. You’re making it sound like you can’t trust me.”

“Can I trust you?”

After he said it, he knew it was to far.

Cheyenne wasn’t pleased. “That’s not even funny, Byron. Look at me.”

His eyes met hers, and he showed him an unimpressed expression.

“Can you trust me,” she said coldly.

“I can trust you.”

“If something were going on that you shouldn’t know about would Philippe and I do it in my bedroom?”

“Our bedroom, first of all, Cheyenne,” he said, “and you’re really thinking this out. Like when you do do something with Philippe, you know exactly not to do it in this bedroom.”

“You’re being a dick right now,” she said, plain and matter-of-factly.

“Right,” he said, laughing, taking his sweat pants off now, a strange urge coming over him to hide the bulge in his underwear from Cheyenne because it might not be as impressive as what she’d seen between Philippe legs. He hunched over, pulled his shorts off the hook on the wall and put his legs in them. “If you came in here and I was up close and personal with Carla, you’d be fine and dandy? I told you that about her last night in confidence and you went after her this morning. That wasn’t very nice.”

“I know,” she said sulkily. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“Are you jealous?”

“You’re the one that’s jealous,” she said, coming nearer to him, looking for a hug. He put his arms around her.

“Did you work it out with Carla?”

“We worked it out. I’m not even really mad at her. I don’t know what came over me. I just felt really stabby.”

“Well you stabbed her good,” he said and squeezed her tighter.

“I don’t know what it was, maybe just that T-shirt thing she was walking around in, you can see all her stuff through it.”

“She was walking around naked last night.”

“But that was funny because we were joking around.”

“But . . . I saw her. What does it matter?”

“You can’t even argue it, can you?”

He laughed. “Not really.”

“It was different.”

“Yeah, in the bathroom it was. But this morning she was just wearing a nightshirt.”

“I told you I worked it out with her. Can we just drop this, please?”

“Can you promise me I’m not going to walk into another room and find you making out with Philippe.

“We were making out, stupid. It was a continuation of our conversation last night.”

“Of the conversation when he had his dick out?”

“Yeah,” she said, “that one. Anyway, I gave him some advice and he texted Paloma this morning.”

“What are they doing, patching it up?”

“No. That’s his business. I shouldn’t say. He’s just making . . . amends. Okay? He was just saying thanks and telling me what Paloma said and he didn’t want somebody else with a big mouth overhearing.

“Who? Carla?”

“Carla or anybody else who wants to gossip about him talking to Paloma again.”

“I guess it’s okay.”

“What are we doing now? You want to go sun ourselves?”

“Yeah, it’s hot now. I’m gonna go sit out front with Sullivan and Arlo. We’re hitting the beers already.”

“Great,” Cheyenne said and rolled her eyes. “It’s going to be one of those days.”

As she left, he gave her butt a quick snapping backhand that made her yelp and jump and laugh. She shot him a cute look over her shoulder out in the hall, and then disappeared.

***

After an hour and a quarter on the front deck with Arlo and Sullivan and three beers each, he headed back inside. He stopped in the can to drain off the beer he’d consumed, then continued. Then paused at his door, staring at its blank rectangle space.

It was hard not to recall that punch of dread in his stomach opening it and seeing his wife with another man. His heart pounded just staring at the door.

Jesus Christ, for the whole time he’d been on the deck drinking those beers he’d erased all of that fear and jealousy. Two seconds looking at his bedroom door and it was stabbing his heart again.

His hand went out, as he pictured what could be behind the door. Pushing it open, finding Cheyenne in Philippe’s arms. They were kissing . . .

Only, when he switched the latch over and shove the door open he found the bedroom dim and empty. Beyond the window it was bright and sunny and the choppy waves had ceased.

It was a bad thing to think, and there were better things to do. Like right now he should be finding Cheyenne, sitting with her, spending time together. But as he passed through the hall, he tried to remember which door was Philippe’s—

Now his stomach was alive with butterflies again. He rested a hand over top his middle and scrunched his T-shirt in a fist, continuing on down the hall.

Relief was found in the kitchen.

Philippe was there by himself, wearing a tank top, drying a dish in a towel. The kitchen was spotless. All the dishes done. Boxes of cereal closed up, lids on jars, all lined up neatly at the back splash. Everything in its place.

“Hey, did you do this?”

Philippe turned, smiled, said, “We’re all total pigs. If we don’t keep on top of it, it’s going to be a super shitty final day if we have a boatload of cleanup to do.”

Byron laughed. “Yeah, a boatload for sure.” He closed the space between them, needing into the fridge to get another beer.

Philippe put a dried plate in the cupboard, turned and leaned on the counter. “Hey, Byron, man, look—”

“The bedroom thing?” Byron said, opening the fridge door.

Look, Byron, I know how that must seem . . .”

“It wasn’t cool,” he said. “Beer?”

Philippe checked his watch. “This early?”

“Early? Really? This will be like my fourth. And I’m not the only one.”

Philippe said, “Yeah, all right, shoot me a beer.”

And now, trying to be nice, here he was handing a beer over to this good-looking guy who’d been spending illicit time with his wife. Shit, one o’clock this morning, Cheyenne was closed in the bathroom with this guy, finding out just how huge his dick was. And then he’d encountered them in the bedroom together, awfully close. . . . Now you’re passing the guy a beer? Now you’re all buddy buddy?

He passed over a beer and Philippe held the bottle against his stomach. “It’s not how it seemed. Cheyenne gave me some advice.”

“Yeah, Cheyenne told me about it. I trust her. It’s not a big deal, it’s just not something that felt so great walking into. But I trust my wife.”

“Cheyenne is awesome, Byron. You’re the luckiest guy in the world. I hope you know it.”

“Trust me. I know it. You don’t have to tell me.”

“I don’t want to sound like a jerk, I don’t mean to make it sound like that.”

Byron smiled. “Well, you are telling me something I already know.”

“Cheyenne gave me advice. I took it. It worked out pretty good. I just wanted to say thanks to her.”

“Yeah, I know. She told me. You don’t have to say anything.”

“So, we’re cool?”

“Philippe . . . I’m not some fucking crazy jealous boyfriend. It’s totally cool. And I don’t care whatever happened in the bathroom last night, either. It’s not a big deal. I was down in the bathroom with Carla. Cheyenne’s madder at me for that than I am at her, trust me.”

“Okay, okay. That’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah, I’m a cool guy. I don’t stress. I trust Cheyenne.”