Page 100 of Hate You More

“I’ll keep it to the clean ones.” Max lifts his glass as though in challenge.

“Boring!” sings Hugo. “I don’t remember any clean stories about him, do you?” He looks to Hannah, who doesn’t see. She’s too busy trying to decipher me, I think.

“Yeah, well, without me, Max would be anything but clean.” Troy slides his arm across the back of my chair and leans closer. “This asshole couldn’t even use a washing machine when I met him.”

“Oh, I see how this is gonna go.” Max’s mouth is suddenly a flat line.

And now is probably not the time to admit that, for part of my adult life, I couldn’t use one myself. I laugh a little for real, a little in solidarity, maybe. But real is dangerous because it’s easy to be sucked in. To forget these people aren’t destined to be my friends.

“I’m the youngest in my family,” Max protests. “I was highly indulged.”

“He put three scoops of washing soda in the machine.” Troy shakes his head. “The place looked like spring break in Cancun. Without the bikinis.”

“It’s not my fault I had to wash my jeans and my T-shirt!” Max laughingly puts in. His amusement is infectious. Maybe he was just having a bad day before.

“Then you shouldn’t have worn them to the laundromat, you asshole.”

I burst out laughing at the visual, and Troy presses a kiss to my head.

“You guys look really good together.”

“That’s reassuring, Maxi.” I can’t make out if there is a warning in Troy’s tone.

“Is it?” Max tilts his head consideringly.

“Newlyweds that look unconvincing.” I glance Troy’s way. “That would be odd, right?”

“That, in a nutshell,” offers Hugo, “would be my parents’ marriage. Forty years and counting, and they still don’t seem to like each other. We thought the only reason they didn’t divorce was because neither of them wanted custody of the kids.” He gives a boyish shrug.

“You two like each other, though.” I can’t make out Max’s tone.

“Something other than a bill from a lawyer?” Troy lounges back in his chair, all bonhomie and relaxed posture. “I’ll take it.”

Max complains loudly, and the rest of his friends chuckle. But I can’t think straight as Troy draws his thumb in soft, teasing circles against my bare shoulder.

“Wanna leave these losers and dance?” he whispers.

I quirk a brow. “If you want to risk your toes, why not.”

We excuse ourselves and begin to weave our way through the tables and pulled-out chairs, pausing for the event’s photographer on the way. A camera flashes, and faces suddenly blur. The rhythms are familiar, but I feel out of step with them. And boy, am I thankful for Troy’s presence by my side.

“I thought you said the others didn’t know,” I say once we’re alone again. We had this discussion and I agreed with him; the fewer people who know, the better for all concerned.

“They don’t. Just Max.”

“Not Hannah? I felt like she was watching me so closely.”

“That’s just her way.”

I don’t like it, I don’t say.

At the edge of the dance floor, Troy wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me close. I drape my hands in the appropriate places, running the steps through like my heels aren’t perilous enough.

“Do it for the optics,” I whisper mostly to myself.

“Or maybe because we just want to dance.” A pause. “We never really danced, did we?”

It catches me off guard when he mentions our past without acrimony. “We never went to the kinds of places people dance, I guess.”