Page 31 of The Marriage Blunder

He stopped, took in the bowtie, and grinned in a way that would have been undetectable to anyone but me.

“Hey,” I said, which was not what I meant to say, but it was the only word that made it out intact.

“You could have told me,” he said, voice pitched low for my benefit, the rhythm already locked in from years of collaboration. “About Kenneth.”

I shook my head, smiling despite myself. “You know confidentiality.”

“You married him,” he said, as if this was a point in his favor.

“Confidentiality,” I repeated, helpless, because I had promised, and because I was technically still on retainer to keep his affairs separated from the rest of the universe. “On the flip side, he doesn’t know about you either.”

Kyue laughed as he stepped forward and enveloped me in a hug that lasted two, maybe three seconds, but contained about a decade’s worth of unspoken sentiment. He let go first, then stepped back, eyes flicking over my shoulder to the entryway.

Kenneth was there. Lucas stood beside him. The two of them together looked like a recruiting poster for something you couldn’t get into without several letters of recommendation and a genetic screening.

Kenneth took in the scene, then gave me the smallest nod, an acknowledgment, not a command.

Lucas looked at my bowtie. The smile was barely there, but I caught it. “I see the dress code was enforced,” he said.

“Mandatory,” I said, and was surprised to hear my own voice so steady.

Kyue laughed, a sound that could be mistaken for disdain if you didn’t know him. “You look good, Jude.”

Lucas and Kyue stood together, hands clasped, the picture of a couple who’d weathered enough public scrutiny to make private affection into an art form. If there was any tension over the fact that I’d just married Lucas’s best friend, it didn’t show.

Kenneth held out his hand. I shook it, and the contact was brief, but somehow managed to communicate both restraint and the possibility of much less restraint if given the opportunity.

“Glad you made it,” he said, voice pitched so that it only registered in the space between us.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” I replied, because apparently I had given up on irony as a defense mechanism.

Lucas spoke next, his tone the kind of formal that can only come from expensive prep schools and years of practice. “I’m told you’re the reason our art acquisitions have gone from ‘eccentric’ to ‘uncannily prophetic’.”

I shrugged. “I just do the numbers.”

“I admire that,” said Lucas, which I decided to take at face value.

There was a pause. Not awkward, but full of things left unsaid.

Kyue broke it by steering the conversation, as he always did, to the most pressing concern. “You’re staying for dinner?”

“That was the plan.”

“Excellent,” said Lucas, who clapped his hands together once and then placed his other hand on Kyue’s back. “Shall we?”

We walked down the hall, and I became aware of a strange, bone-deep sensation. I was not nervous. I was, in fact, almost relaxed. Maybe it was the penthouse, or the way Kyue and Lucas moved through it as if it were just another room in a series of rooms.

Maybe it was the fact that, for once, I wasn’t the secret at the center of the conversation—I was just the person who happened to be there when the secrets started talking to each other.

If the penthouse was a study in self-regard, the dining room was where it got its doctorate. The mahogany table could have seated a minor parliament, but there were only four of us, which meant there was nowhere to hide. The overhead fixture threw a soft but insistent light onto the polished surface, multiplying every glass, every plate, every hesitation.

The dining room was set with a table long enough to accommodate a diplomatic summit. There were only four places set, which felt like a statement, though I couldn’t have said what the statement was.

Lucas and Kyue were a study in opposites. Lucas unflinching, every motion exact, each word so carefully measured it made you wonder what he sounded like when he wasn’t performing for a room; Kyue poised, but kinetic, eyes flicking over every detail and never quite resting. If Lucas was the frame, Kyue was the engine.

Kenneth, to my left, had a presence so efficient it didn’t seem to take up space until you looked straight at it. I took the seat across from Kyue. Napkin unfolded, silverware in alignment. The bread basket in front of me was a minefield of social cues.

The meal began with a course of something that looked like a science experiment and tasted like a four-star bribe. Adams delivered each plate with the faintest arch of an eyebrow, and I had the suspicion that if you ever failed to react appropriately to the food, you would simply vanish from the guest list, and possibly the world.