Pia massages my shoulders. Rubs my neck.

I don’t like massages. I don’t like being touched. But I am also a heterosexual man who likes it and likes her, even though she’s way out of my league.

Another thing, I’m married, so, yeah.

In my classroom at Flat Heights Middle School just outside St. Cloud, Minnesota, four of us teachers are on lunch break but no one’s eating. Talking about where to get a drink tonight, after the emergency meeting that’s been called about the vandalism – cutouts from porn mags taped up all over, Sharpied threats to Somali students – and also after grading a foot-tall stack of, in my case, diagramed sentences.

So Pia rubs my neck without asking, oblivious. “Might sound weird, guys, but I like the bar at Grizzly’s.”

Teddy cringes. “It’s a chain.”

“Baby, just because it’s a chain doesn’t mean every Grizzly’s has the same bar. It is what we make it.”

Teddy looks like an Esquire model and wears a tie with jeans to class. The kids think he’s cool for an old guy. The ripe old age of forty-five. “Might see our students there, and with their parents. What I like is the Indian bar. Kohinoor. Up for some spice?”

Pia kneads away on my muscles. She leans down close to my ear. “Vance, baby, what say you?”

“Grizzly’s is fine. But Indian is fine, too.”

I should tell Pia to stop. Or tell her, “I owe you a good foot rub.”

She’s wearing chunky-heeled shoes most Gen X women her age liked in college and still like now. When she slips them off, her woman’s size thirteens (men’s size eleven and a half) show where the seams imprinted. I’d like to rub those away.

Yes, I’m one of those guys, and there are a lot of us those guys. What can I say?

But Teddy’s the guy she’s seeing, a good six months now, started before she got divorced. Scandalous! Teddy was the only one of us who had met Pia’s ex-husband. Said he was a nice guy. Said if he was Pia, he wouldn’t have cheated on him with himself.

Doesn’t say it in front of Pia, though.

I don’t cheat. I’m not that kind of guy. One of those but not that. Never. Three years of dating, six years of marriage, there’s been one and only: my Maeve.

Did I mention Pia is out of my league? Extroverted, thin, short skirts and tall boots, with a pixie haircut. Her voice is deep and she calls everybody baby. But when she says it, it makes you feel like you really are her baby without even having to try. She doesn’t mean anything real by it, though. I should know better.

The odd-girl out is Willa. “My stomach’s not up for Indian.”

She’s soft-spoken. Fresher than us, her first semester teaching. She has baby fat cheeks and white-blond hair and probably won’t last the whole year. Always a ruckus in her classroom. Zero control. She still lives with her parents, doesn’t drink, and so far has been a hard book to crack.

  “You don’t have to eat. Have some Tikka. Tikka’s mild. Or some naan. Grab some Arby’s after.”

Willa drops her hand to her stomach. Looks ugh.

Her shoes are those plain white Keds boring people wear. I don’t want to rub those feet. She doesn’t want me to anyway.

Pia is still kneading my shoulders and it’s starting to hurt. To Teddy, “Baby, don’t.” To Willa, “How about you and me grab something then meet them there.”

“Where?”

“Wherever you want.”

“No, where will we meet them?”

Teddy, who does not seem to give one dry shit about Pia rubbing me down, pumps his fists. “Kohinoor!”

I wish I had his confidence and swagger rather than this loathing of being touched like this, friends massaging friends with absolutely no romantic or lustful intentions whatsoever.

He’s always bullying us about where to drink, where to eat. He can’t accept normal. Not our sort of normal, anyway. He wants Somali hot spots, Hmong strip mall noodle havens, Indian restaurants, Thai cafes.

Those places are good, don’t get me wrong, and all those people are good, plenty good, but sometimes a Midwestern middle-class white guy wants a Coors Light and a rotisserie chicken. Boring.

“Let’s do Kohinoor this weekend.” Vance the Mediator. Vance in the Middle. “Grizzly’s tonight. They’ve always got new craft stuff on tap.”

I hate craft beer. But Teddy loves it.

Willa looks relieved. Mouths thank you at me as she and Teddy leave, both having to walk down the hall to their classrooms. Pia’s is right next to mine.

We’re alone. Four minutes until the end-of-lunch buzzer. I’m about to toss her the foot rub line as a joke, I swear, when she gives me serious eyes. “Vance, baby, I need to talk to you about Teddy.”

“Sure, sure.” My neck still throbs from her kneading. “Glad to listen.”

“What I mean is…we need to do something about Teddy.”

Three minutes.

Her teeth tug on her bottom lip.

I am not that sort of guy.

Or am I?

Two minutes.

I can honestly say I’ve never flirted with this woman in all the time I’ve known her because I am a happily married man with a fulfilling if infrequent sex life due to my touch phobia, who would never do anything to fuck up the deep, intimate relationship I’ve built with Maeve over the past decade.

Until right then and there.

Pia and I latch on to each other, a kiss like it’s 1999 again and we’re at college, drunk, yes, very drunk (but we’re not really) and ready to bone in the closest bed at the party we can find.

Two minutes of sloppy, groping, fevered kissing – lips, neck, ears, lips again, nip her lip, she nips my lip, and then her neck again and and and

The buzzer goes.

We break like magnets repulsing. Pia clears her throat, turns, and walks out without another word as seventh graders who smell like cafeteria grease and sweat flood into my English class.

 ♤

I wash my lips in the faculty bathroom when classes are over for the day, thinking Maeve’s going to know. She’ll know. A very jealous woman is Maeve, regardless of my exceptional track record. If I confess now – only a kiss – maybe the punishment won’t be as severe as if…

Never mind.

Pia and I go at each other again in her classroom before the meeting, this time my hand up her sweater and hers down the back of my pants.

Coming up for air, she says, “Baby, we’re going to be late. We still need to talk.”

I straighten my shirt, button my khakis. “Okay.”

“Teddy’s a great guy.”

“Absolutely.”

“But, he was a mistake. Oh god. By the time I realized, we were a couple. I don’t want this anymore.” Pacing. Wringing her hands.

“Have you told him?”

“No, baby, of course not. He keeps asking to move into my house. I can’t have that. I just got divorced.”

It doesn’t sound like the Teddy I know, or thought I knew, who saw the world as a buffet – a little of this, a little of that. Didn’t think he was the settle-down type. If Pia had told me he was cheating his ass off, that I could picture, no problem.

“What do you want to do, then?”

She stiff-arms her desk, head forward, eyes raised, like a Disney villain. “I want to get him fired.”

“Wait, what?”

“Fired, you know. Fired. I want to see if I can get Willa to help.”

“Fired?”

“Fired.”

“Are you…are you fucking kidding me?”

Rolls her eyes, but she bites her tongue, I can tell. Got a heavy-duty sarcasm filter in place. “It’s for a good reason. And he’ll get a new job. He’ll be fine. And so will we.”

Like a magic trick – yanking the rug out from under you, but you’re still standing.

“You think Teddy would ever make a move on Willa?”

“He doesn’t have to. It just has to look like he does. I haven’t talked to her about it yet, but you know she hates him. You know she hates him.”

“That’s…that’s…shit, Pia.”

Cue evil witch grin. “He won’t see it coming, and when it does, it’ll be too late.”

Our phones ding simultaneously – hers a laser, mine a Big Ben bong. Teddy texting us, Where you at? Meeting’s about to start!

Pia points, whirls her finger. “We’ll talk about it later. Wait a couple of minutes before you follow me in?”

Like that’s going to make it any less suspicious.

 ♤

The snow drops fatter and wetter the closer I get to my house. A starter home, a rambler, but with only one salary I don’t see how we’ll afford anything larger. Maeve stopped working at the chiropractor’s office because her feet were killing her. Turned out to be early-onset arthritis. Now she stays home and takes care of our old rescue dog, Rotten, and watches every series on streaming that involves a frilly dress and/or witches.

I find her on the loveseat in the front of the TV, a pajama top and jeans, barefoot but wearing her favorite brown wool beanie. She hates socks, and her head’s always cold. On the screen, British people rock back and forth in a stagecoach, horse hoofs and clipped Victorian tones. She pauses it.

I lean over the back of the loveseat, kiss her cheek. “Did you know that the administrators in our school district are outraged, outraged I tell you, that our students have been subjected to pornography and threats?”

“Is that all?”

“That’s a lot.”

“It’s not swirlies in a toilet. It’s not stealing tampons.”

She’s in a Roman repose – on her side, propping her head up with her hand – but lifts her feet so I can shuffle under and sit beside her. Her feet are clear of indentions. She hasn’t worn shoes all day. I wonder what sort of dirt and germs she’s walked on all day long. It’s the sort of thing that I can’t help but immediately picture.

More about Maeve: she has a quick temper and thumps me a lot. Her mom is Irish, her dad from Wisconsin. I tease her because she’d got an effortlessly sexy shape, a lot like the “traffic slut” on our local TV news. Thunder thighs and C-cups, her weight never changes, and the only exercise she’s ever done is her rights.

I can’t really pinpoint where my touch problems started – maybe some grabby aunts knocking the breath out of me with their hugs, or all the scaremongering about STDs when I was a kid with a germ phobic mom telling me viruses traveled through sweat and saliva. No one was safe.

After years of awkward couplings, a mental itch when holding hands too long, or when wrapping my arm around someone’s shoulder, there was something about my first date with Maeve – via online matchmaker – that evaded my firewalls, so to say. Dinner, followed by stopping at Target for Tums because my acid reflux was on the warpath, nervous about what might happen next because it was going so well, then we got stuck in a snow-filled ditch in my car.

Right as I began to panic, Maeve slid onto my lap, straddling me, and I didn’t recoil from anything that happened next.

Over the years, my touch issues have gotten worse, though, no more apparent than at home. Maybe that’s why Pia and I can dry hump like teenagers but my own wife’s feet makes me shudder. Pia is still the fantasy. Pristine. But I’ve seen my wife in sickness and health. Phlegm, vomit, bruises, “bad naked,” enough to make happily ever after feel sarcastic.

  I feel bad about it, but short of hypnosis or a full bottle of wine, I’m not sure how to conquer it. Maeve’s frustrated, I can tell. We’re happy enough together when we are together that way, but my nerves make it like climbing a mountain in the nude. When we’re done, I’m quick to grab a towel and head for the shower instead of basking in it like our first couple of years.

“Drinks tonight. Want to come?” I still ask every time, but she’d stopped coming along close to a year back. Got real bored with the teacher talk, she’d said.

“Where?”

“Grizzly’s.”

A groan. “That’s a chain.”

“I thought you liked Grizzly’s.”

“For ribs, not for drinks. Pia going?”

I run my right hand over her foot. Dog hair? Drool? Did she even shower today? “Yeah, and Willa and Teddy.”

“Two couples?”

“Stop it.”

“Or a love triangle and poor Willa?”

Maeve and Pia? Used to be tight. Then some stuff happened, I don’t know what, and they don’t speak. A backhanded compliment? A subtle insult? Pheromones? Seriously, can’t say. But they no longer want to be in the same room together, even the same building.

Meaning, 1) Maeve has never ever had anything to worry about with Pia and me. That she knew of. Until now. And, 2) she still felt the need to single her out. Tonight of all nights.

“Roads might ice up. Temps are dropping fast.”

I don’t care. “Well, if you don’t want me to go–”

“I’m not saying that. Just be careful. I’ll probably soak in the tub, lay in bed, read a book.”

“You good for dinner, then?”

“Pot pie.” She starts her show again. “What time will you be in?”

“You know us. A few hours?”

“My early bird. My sleepy baby.”

I’m her baby. I’m Pia’s baby. I’m everybody’s baby.

I think about rubbing her feet, but I think about how many times Rotten has made mistakes in the house, and Maeve found them the worst way. So I gently lift her feet again and get up from the loveseat, heading off to grade papers in the bedroom-slash-office.

 ♤

Colder still. Snowing harder now. I take it easy and slow on my way to Grizzly’s, where Pia and Willa are waiting, a fruity cocktail and a lemonade in front of them. I join them and order a dark beer. Teddy is late.

“I haven’t seen him since after school.” Pia texts and texts, sets her phone down. Sip of drink. Fingers tap. Picks up the phone. Nothing yet. Another text.

“Anyway…”

Pia has explained most of the plan to Willa, who is looking more fresh-faced than I’ve seen her lately. I thought she never wore much make-up at work, but tonight there’s even less – her cheeks flushed pink, a few acne scars, clear lip balm. It suits her. She looks in control, maybe. She looks like someone I would take seriously.

Short version of Pia’s plan, using Pia’s own most vivid words: “If you hike up your skirts and slut up your make-up, laugh at his jokes, Teddy will make a pass, which you will then blow crazy out of proportion. Then I’ll join in with my own complaints. Easy.”

For a woman trying to ruin her current boyfriend’s career and reputation instead of, you know, breaking up with him, she seems awfully upset he’s late for drinks. Checks phone, sips, sucks an ice cube, then checks her phone again.

“Order me another, okay?” She climbs down from the bar stool and steadies herself, as if the chunky heels are stilettos. “I’m a go outside, call. Can’t hear myself talk in here.”

She sashays out, not even taking her coat.

When Willa grabs me by the wrist, I’m startled. Tight grip.

“God, I hate her.”

It’s not the wispy voice I’ve gotten used to from Willa. It’s deeper, sharper.

“Wait, what?”

“Did you hear how she talked to me? Like I’m a pawn?” She lets go and takes my beer instead of her lemonade. Big swig. “We should do something about her.”

“You don’t like Pia? Your friend Pia?”

“No, I don’t like Pia. You’re just catching on, baby?”

“But…you don’t like Teddy either.”

“Teddy? Teddy’s great. Teddy’s funny. He’s loyal, too, believe it or not. I don’t want any part of this plan of hers.”

Our eyes meet and hold.

This is not an invitation to make out like porn stars, not the same as with Pia, not at all.

It’s something more intimate.

“What do you mean ‘do something’?”

She looks like a spy, crouching low. “I mean do something so she isn’t here anymore.”

“Like…’dead’ isn’t here?”

“Don’t say it like that.” Slow shake of the head. “I mean, do the same something you should do to her before she wrecks your marriage.”

The cold spreads from my head to my toes and my acid is boiling like magma, threatening to erupt.

“How would she wreck my…There’s nothing between…” Tread lightly. “No, that’s not…no.”

She eye rolls to high heaven and back. “We all know. A lot of us.”

“It was one kiss. A mistake.”

“It was two kisses. A lot of touchy-feely. I didn’t believe it at first until I saw the pictures, since no one ever touches you.”

“Pictures? Who took pictures? Where are they?”

Willa grabs my wrist again but this time I snatch it away like she’s poisonous snake.

“Who took pictures?”

She pinches my cell phone, thumb and middle finger. Swings it back and forth, a pendulum. “Kids these days, always on their phones.”

I get it now. I know what she’s saying.

I back away from the table. “I’ve got to, um, bathroom.”

Quickly, weaving through tables, I hope the acid stays down long enough.

Pia and her big grin are coming the other way. Snowflakes all over her hair. “He’s on his way. Don’t say anything, okay?” Rubs her hand along my arm but it doesn’t feel like it did earlier. Everything feels like an itch I need to scratch and scratch until it bleeds.

 ♤

In the men’s room, I am Mount St. Vance.

Blackmailed? In order to hurt Pia? By Willa?

Krakatoa, people. Krakatoa.

Although I keep the retching to a minimum and clean up the splashes because I don’t want any additional rumors spreading tonight: the teacher got drunk and threw up all over the Grizzly’s bathroom! You mean the same teacher caught cheating on his wife?

I’m all out of magma. My throat is going to feel like sandpaper tomorrow.

Back at the table, Teddy has arrived, telling a story, and the women laugh laugh laugh!

“He actually said it. Actually said, ‘But Mister Rusback, I really am sick this time!’ I told him, ‘That’s why they’re called sick days. For when you’re sick. Not for when a new Call of Duty comes out.’ Jesus, these kids.”

He turns to me. Lopsided grin and a wink.

“You talking about Hugh? How many dead grandparents has he had?”

“I think he’s moved on to aunts now.”

Teddy orders a couple IPAs. He drinks them slow. I don’t even lift my beer again. Willa is playing her usual shy and mousy shtick, but I’m still unnerved by her transformation only a handful of minutes before.

And Pia? Pia’s always Pia.

At one point, a glow beaming from her cocktail-warmed face, she calls on us to lean towards the center of the table.

“I want you to know…you guys, you’re the best. Cheers!” She’s not holding a drink.

Teddy holds his up for her. “Cheers!”

We all cheers, then commiserate, and at some point, the bar traffic ebbs. We decide to head to our respective homes. I’m starving, not having ordered any cheese curds or artichoke dip or rotisserie chicken. Starving but too sick down there to eat.

Putting on our coats and milling towards the door, Pia and Teddy pair up, mumble. Sounds short, tense.

Willa finds her way to my side. “Did you think about what I said?”

“Did I?”

“Jesus, Vance, do you want those pictures to get out?”

“No, I don’t. I really don’t.”

“Then you and I need to lure Pia somewhere, make it look like an accident.”

I shake my head. “I’ll think on it. I’ll text you tonight.”

“Text me? Idiot! You don’t write this down. Never write this down! We’ll talk tomorrow, and I’ll see if I can keep those pictures under wraps.”

Out the main doors, on the curb, Teddy and Pia are still hashing it out in the now heavy snow, I mean heavy. The slush under our feet is slick. I look around the lot, searching for my car, even though I remember exactly where it is, anything to not look at Willa. “We’re not going to, like, accidentally kill Pia. We’re just not! Let me talk to the kid who took the pics. Maybe he’ll take some money.”

“He’s traumatized by this. You’ll make it worse. Let me handle that part.”

A few feet away, Pia huffs and bares her teeth, then stomps off to her Honda on her own.

Willa sniffs. “What’s up with them?”

  I don’t notice Teddy following me, nearly drop my key fob when he says, “Vance.”

“Jesus! Teddy!”

He wraps his hand around my upper arm. “Watch it. This ice, buddy.”

“Scared the hell out of me. What do you need?”

“A ride home? Too many beers.”

Could’ve sworn he’d only had two, and never finished the second one. “Me? Not Pia?”

He pulls a face. “Not tonight. Sometimes, just need your space.”

“Didn’t look like she thought so.”

“Let’s get out of the snow, man.” He walks around to the passenger door and tugs the handle a few times. “Let’s go.”

I bleep the fob and off we go.

Can’t help myself as we drive like turtles, the slippery surface bad enough, but the snow blinding in the headlights. “You and Pia, that’s all good? Since the summer, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, all good. Growing pains, that’s all. Where are we going to spend Christmas, her family, mine, or is it too soon? Shit like that.”

“I hear you.”

“You guys had that?”

“Sure, but it works out. No worries.”

He grunts. “How about Willa tonight? Seemed she’d had a few.”

“Lemonade, that’s all.”

“I swear, she puts tequila in it or something. I don’t buy the act.”

“I don’t think it’s an act.” But I do. I do now anyway. Not that I’ll let him in on it. Or anyone. I’m still preoccupied, gritting my teeth, trying to think up a way out of Willa’s trap.

What have I put at risk kissing Pia? I mean, Maeve, my God. She’s adorable without trying. She makes me laugh. She’ll eat any flavor of ice cream except chocolate. She knows when not to touch me, knows when she should even if I say I don’t want her to. We spend our Christmases together, the two of us and the dying dog, no children, not now or ever, we’d decided, and told our families we’d love to see them for New Years instead.

I don’t tell Teddy that. I don’t think he’d appreciate it.

The car slides when I brake at a couple lights. Only a few more slow corners before we’re at his apartment complex. He lives on the ground floor, a pretty nice place, great bachelor pad. We’ve watched a few games here before – Super Bowl, college hockey, winter Olympics. Not a sports fan, but I’m there for the chips, guac, and beer.

“Here we go. You need a ride tomorrow? If they don’t close the school?”

“I’ll call Pia, she can take me to get my car.”

“All right. Sleep it off.”

He opens the door, puts one foot on the ground, winces at the wind blowing in more snow. “Aw, man, I’m dizzy as hell. Think you can give me a hand?”

“Off two beers?”

“And some cold medicine before dinner. I feel something coming on.”

I give him some side-eye. I’ve seen Teddy gulp down six or seven craft IPAs in an evening and the only thing affected was the volume of his voice.

Two beers and cough syrup?

“Fine.” I climb out. The snow gets in my eyes, my nostrils, my ears. I need a cap. Why don’t I have a cap? Around the back to Teddy’s side. He’s holding out his hand. I take it, arm wrestling style, and give him a heave.

That’s when he sweeps my legs out from under me.

It’s my earlier suspicions that save me, thinking he was being weird. He sweeps and I think I knew it!

Teddy’s fingers go slack, but I hold on tight. If I’m going down, he’s coming with me.

Which is what happens. I slow my roll, but he falls on top of me, both of us splayed across the snow, ice, and asphalt. I scramble and kick, trying to get out from under him, but Teddy pins my arms to the ground, straddles me, and takes my head in his hands like a melon.

I see where this is going. He’s going to bash my head into the pavement. I strain like mad, my neck like an oak trunk, while he tries to slam my skull down.

“Die, damn it! Die already!”

“Get off me!”

“Stop fighting me!”

I buck my legs, try to throw him off. He loses his grip. My left arm throbs under the weight of his knee, but I’ve almost got it free.

“That’s enough! You trying to cause a scene?”

A familiar voice. Too familiar. Not one I expected to hear.

I peek over Teddy’s shoulder.

Maeve. Arms crossed, bulky scarf wrapped around her neck, her favorite brown wool cap, with worry lines around her eyes.

Which one of us is she worried for?

Teddy rolls off me, slams his back against my car, head in his hands. “I can’t do it. I just can’t do it.”

I sit up, struggling. “Do what? What can’t you do?”

Maeve shushes us. Shushes! Then, sharp as a knife, “Would you both get inside before someone else sees this?”

“I can’t do it, baby. Forgive me.” Teddy on the verge of tears.

Baby?

I reach for the bumper of my car to pull myself up. “You think I’m going inside? After this? Maeve, what the hell?”

“Please, Vance, please come in. I promise, no more tricks.”

Things dawning on me. Bad things. “He was trying to kill me! Literally trying to murder me!”

“Keep your voice down!”

“I’ve got to go. You two? Together? No, I can’t. I’ve got to go.” Fumble my wet key fob, shake it off, remote-start the car.

“It was a set-up, Vance.” Teddy shakes his head. “The kiss, Pia, that was all…it wasn’t fair. It was a test.”

From Teddy back to Maeve back to Teddy back to Maeve.

“Test for what?”

“Can we please just go inside and talk about it?” Maeve’s teeth chatter and she stamps her feet.

“You two go talk, I’m going to go.” A bit lost about what to do. “I’ll go home, pack a bag, stay at a hotel. Shit, I’ll stay with Pia.”

Teddy shakes his head. “No, man. All an act. I told her to lure you in, say she was done with me.”

“But she was telling the truth! She was…was she?”

“Reverse psychology, that’s all. Anyway, it was only a back-up plan.”

“Back up to…killing me?”

“Accidentally. See, accidentally.” Maeve has stopped chattering and stomping, now staring at the icy sidewalk. Exhaling clouds of ice.

Teddy raises his hand to me, again, and says, “Help me up? For real this time.”

I can’t believe I do it, but I do.

“How long?” I ask Maeve.

She shrugs. “Like, a month? Six weeks?”

“That’s enough to make you want to murder me?”

“Accidentally!”

“I never would’ve kissed Pia. You know me!”

“Yeah, I do. That’s the problem. I do know you. I can barely touch you, only when you can stand it. That’s not what I signed up for. I need body heat. Someone with no force field.” She steps to Teddy and wraps her arms around him. “But I didn’t think it would be so easy to make you kiss her. I thought it would take weeks.”

Guess this is it. The end of my marriage. I’m not happy about it, but…almost relieved? At least they didn’t murder me. “Um, okay.”

“Okay?”

Deep breath. “I’m exhausted. I’m confused. I’m hurt. I just want to go home, but if I do that, you might sneak in and kill me–”

“It was supposed to look–”

“I know! I heard you.”

I wipe snow and snot off my face. I swallow, but my throat is dead dry. “What about the pictures? Someone took pictures, right? Was that part of it?”

“I told Hugh he could pass the class if he got pictures of you two kissing. I didn’t think we’d get them on day one, though.”

“Pia, she doesn’t feel…doesn’t like me?”

Teddy counts off, holding up a finger for each one. “One, you were supposed to slip on ice and die. Two, if not, then Maeve was going to ‘find out’ about you kissing Pia and confront you.”

“Why was killing me plan one?”

Maeve’s the one who says, “Just felt…cleaner that way. Like I was doing you a favor. Life’s hard for you, Vance. You can’t be touched and you’re always a nervous wreck. I thought this was…kinder.”

I nod. I nod. I nod. I’m done. “No harm done.”

As I’m about to climb into the car, I say, “What about Willa, though?”

Teddy looks across the roof, squints. “Willa?”

“You got Willa involved.”

“No, not…why would Willa be in this?”

“She’s the one who told me about the photos.”

Teddy and Maeve blink at each other. “How does she know about that?”

“She does.”

“Oh, god.”

It’s me who realizes. “She knew everything you’d planned. She saw the whole thing ahead of time. She’s going to use the pictures to blackmail us.”

“For money? We’re teachers!”

“I think…I think she wants Pia…you know, accidentally.”

“We kill Pia, then Willa won’t tell anyone about the pics, and we keep our jobs.”

“If we don’t get caught for killing Pia.”

I close the car door. I walk back around to my cheating wife and the friend who cuckolded me.

Almost simultaneously, we say, “We need to do something about Willa.”

The three of us go inside Teddy’s apartment to figure it all out.

♤

July 7, 2024