Err on the Side of Violence: Terribly Acronymed Detective Club Series (Book 3)

Chapter Fifty-Seven: Joe, Fall, 2011-Winter 2012

"So, it looks like we have things to discuss," Rachel said as she walked him around his balcony the Saturday after they'd had their adventure. She'd come with Al and Sunny after they'd gone out to Aldergrove themselves to see if they could track down the people who'd done this to them. 

"Yes, we do," he said stiffly.

"First of all, did you stick to the story?" They were alone on this balcony while Al and Sunny entertained Naomi and Tosh inside.

"I did," he said. "What I didn't plan on was having a whole other story to take in."

"I understand if you're angry with me."

"I'm disappointed, not angry. I don't know why you wouldn't trust me enough to tell me."

"Tell you about me and your wife? And how would that have gone over with you? Would you be any less disappointed? And when could I have told you? We hadn't been alone together until last weekend."

"I just... didn't know you were into that."

"Didn't Lauren tell you about the time we were thirteen?"

"Yeah, yeah. I guess I just thought that was a one time thing."

"It turns out it wasn't."

"So, I guess you must think because you cheated with me, I'd be more inclined to forgive you if you cheated on me."

She was silent a moment before she said, "I don't have a good answer for that. It's really your wife who cheated on you, not me. Can I really cheat on you if we only did it once?"

He sighed in frustration. "This has turned my whole world upside down, Rachel."

"I know. I'm sorry about that. I'm more sorry we kept it from you so long."

"And what about Al? Lauren told me he was okay with it. How is that possible?"

She shrugged under his arm. "I guess he's an open minded guy. He can compartmentalize the two relationships, knowing there are things he can give me that Lauren can't. And the fact that I married him while I was still having sex with Lauren reassured him that my commitment is to him. Relationships are about more than just sex, you know. The trust needed to join your houses together, so to speak, says a lot more about commitment than promising to have sex only with one person. Joint bank accounts and property are a lot harder to disentangle than genitals."

He chuckled in amazement, but what she'd said was similar to what Lauren had said, when she'd visited him in the hospital Thursday evening and confessed to him about Rachel. This was after he'd confessed to her about Rachel, using the script he and Rachel had agreed on. She'd been hurt, but not as angry as he'd thought she'd be, and a second later, he'd discovered why when she'd told him she and Rachel had been seeing each other almost since they'd all reunited. It had hit him like a punch in the gut. Then, after telling him some poetic nonsense about him being her earth and Rachel being her sun (it kind of hurt him knowing he was only her earth, it sounded so... plebeian, as if he were her dependable workhorse of a husband, tilling her soil whenever she needed it,) Lauren had assured him nothing would make her leave her marriage of nearly twenty years and two children. It was only a little reassuring, because for those nearly twenty years he'd been living under the assumption that they were all they needed, and Lauren could say all she wanted about houses and children and family bonds being more important than sex, but he knew sex made connections beyond the joining of part A to part B, which was why he and Rachel felt so guilty about what they'd done; they could never completely distance the act from the feelings around it. Hadn't he betrayed Lauren after just that one time, by telling Rachel he loved her and that he wished she'd married him? That was what weighed on his mind now. If he used the analogy of the Physics he learned in school, the bonds he'd made with Lauren weren't the equivalent of the strong nuclear force he'd thought they were, but of the far weaker pull of gravity, which only seemed unconquerable from the ground but was as thin as tissue paper when you hit escape velocity.