"I'm worried I might have driven Joanie away," Joe said in answer to Penny's inquiry about how they were doing.

Penny Watson, their marriage counsellor, removed her glasses and raised her eyebrows. "What happened?"

"Last Sunday, I accidentally revealed that Lauren and I had a threesome with Rachel a few weeks ago."

"Ah, yes, the event you once termed 'progress'," she said, making air quotes with her fingers.

"I still assert that it was progress," Lauren said, which made Joe feel a little better. "We're living together again, and happier than we've ever been."

"Really." It wasn't a question, but a statement of doubt. "Are Rachel and Al still living with you?"

"Rachel is," Joe said. "Al's still in hospital. He woke up from his coma, but he's still recovering."

"He will leave the hospital, though," Penny said. "What will happen when he comes home?"

"They have a new place, a townhouse," Lauren said, and Joe had a sudden memory of what he and Rachel did there on Wednesday. His back was still sore two days later, but the pain wasn't debilitating anymore. "They were supposed to move in there as soon as Al was better, only..."

"Only?" Penny asked.

"Only, the townhouse has a new tenant."

Penny's brow furrowed. "Are you saying Al and Rachel are renting out their new townhouse?"

"Well, not exactly renting," Lauren clarified. "There's an ex-girlfriend of Al's who's in the middle of a divorce, who needs a place to stay while she's sorting out her life. It's a little complicated, but Rachel offered their place for her to stay a while, presumably until Al is ready to come home, but it might last longer than that."

"So, Al could conceivably be in your house again, Joe," Penny said. "How do you feel about that?"

Joe shrugged. "I'm not ecstatic about it, but it's not a deal breaker for me anymore."

"You're saying your feelings about Al have softened a little?"

He cleared his throat. "He's had my wife, and I've had his. It's not like I can claim moral superiority anymore."

Lauren's hand found his and squeezed.

Penny put her glasses back on and jotted something down in her notebook. "Well," she said. "This is enlightening. What about you, Lauren?"

"What about me?" Lauren asked, confused.

"Rachel is living at your house, and she's had sex with your husband."

"At my invitation and with my consent and participation."

Joe felt a hint of guilt that she didn't know about Wednesday, that she still thought his back injury was from the move in spite of the fact that all of the objects they'd moved in had been relatively light for him.

"Still," Penny said, as if reading his mind. "When she's living with you, there's always the possibility of it happening again, if the two of them get it into their heads that they'd liked the previous encounter; maybe they wouldn't ask you next time."

To Joe's surprise, Lauren shrugged. "I've betrayed her trust in the past. I'd have to suck it up if she did the same to me."

"You say that, but that's not the first reaction anybody has to betrayal. You have to let yourself be angry, then communicate to her that it made you angry, then try to work out a way through it to reconciliation. She has to do the same with you, too; I really wish I could have Rachel and Al in front of me the way you two are."

"But Rachel and I love each other," Lauren protested. "We talk about everything, and we're not afraid to get mad at each other. Believe me, we've had some fights, but we always kiss and make up, if you know what I mean."

"I think she does," Joe grumbled. "You don't need to remind her that you're lovers."

"That reminds me," Penny said. "What does this do to your arrangement, if Joanie is pulling away? Will you still allow Lauren to see Rachel, Joe?"

The question hadn't occurred to him until now. "I don't know," he admitted. He looked at Lauren, who unsurprisingly looked worried at the prospect. "I imagine that even if I forbade it, they'd find a way to be with each other in secret, and who does that benefit?"

Lauren sighed in relief.

"And anyway," Joe went on, "I'm still holding out hope that Joanie and I will be able to reconcile."

"Until then," Lauren said, to his surprise, "I have a proposal that I wanted to bring up with you, and I can't think of a better venue to do it than here."

Joe frowned and asked, "What is it?"

Lauren cleared her throat and said, "Tej approached me and asked how I'd feel about... another encounter."

Joe blinked in surprise. "You and Rachel and Tej again?"

"Um... not primarily, although that could happen too. I mean, Rachel, me, and Sunny."

"Whoa, hold on!" Penny exclaimed, raising her hands as if to stop a moving vehicle. "What is this?"

"I'm sure we've talked about our other friends before," Lauren said as Joe grappled with what she'd just suggested. "Sunny and Tej are married, but there was one time in August, when we were at Harrison Hot Springs, where I invited Tej and Rachel up to my room and we... had a little fun."

"Uh-huh," Penny said, face slack with disbelief. "You just decided, the three of you, to have sex?"

"Well, we'd been circling around it for a while," Lauren said. "It all started when Rachel and I discovered Tej wanted us to kiss her, because... I don't know if you remember that party where Al and I were drugged, but I kissed Tej while I was intoxicated, and she decided she'd liked it a lot."

"This being the party after which you and Al woke up together naked in his bed."

"Yes. So, one day we were out with our daughters at a movie theatre, they'd sat a few rows in front of us, and when Tej told us she wondered what it would be like to kiss us, well, we just went for it, and it was pretty awesome."

"Oh, is that how it started?" Joe asked. "I remember Tej calling me and asking about you, but you never told me you'd made out in a movie theatre."

"How do you feel about her taking another woman as a lover, Joe?" Penny asked.

"It was only the one time," Joe said. "I was a little shocked they'd corrupted her, if you want the truth, but I wasn't surprised they'd want to, she's gorgeous."

Penny removed her glasses and looked at him. "I see. Had thoughts of her yourself?"

"Oh, I bet he has," Lauren said.

"No comment," Joe said as he tugged at his collar. "What I'm struggling with now is that Sunny wants in on this."

"It was Tej's idea," Lauren said. "She was feeling guilty about having her cake and eating it too. She offered it as a one time hall pass. Of course, we'd have to be willing, too."

"And she just thought you'd be up for it?" Joe asked. "I know Sunny's hot for both of you, he admitted it to me last Friday at the hockey game. Personally, I don't care what Rachel wants, she's not my wife." Except he did care, a little. He still wanted her all to himself, as twisted as that sounded. He wanted her so he could keep sticking it to Al, and if Sunny had sex with her, it would just take the wind out of his grudge with Al. He went on. "I do care what you want, though. If you're uncomfortable with this, then Tej will just have to figure something else out."

Lauren bit her lower lip and said, "Well, I talked with Rachel as soon as I hung up with Tej--"

"Of course you did," he said. "You and Rachel are two peas in a pod."

"And we haven't said yea or nay, yet, I just want you to know. We were both really nervous about it, because we are both attracted to him, but it's one thing to think about it, and another to act on it, you know?"

"Uh-huh," Joe said flatly.

"What we agreed on was, if we were to do it, it would be together. We'd feel more confident taking him on together."

"Oh, I'm sure he'd love that, too. The two of you together are irresistible."

"Thank you," she said proudly.

"So, walk me through this," Penny said. "Tell me why you'd even consider this right now when you've only just gotten Joe to move back home, when his whole grievance against you was that you were with another man."

"You make a good point," Lauren said.

"And, hypothetically, if you and Rachel were to, as you say, take Sunny on, where would your husbands be while this was happening? What would Tej be doing?"

"Look, we're quite aware of the need for fairness here," Lauren said. "I warned Tej about this too. We'd be opening three marriages up, and the potential for hurt is huge if we aren't careful."

Joe harrumphed. "If only you'd been this careful when you first opened it up to Al; I might not have moved out if you had."

Lauren sighed in resignation and said, "I won't make excuses, but I'd just opened up our marriage to Joanie, and I was feeling raw and vulnerable. I'd gone to Rachel's for some comfort, and it just... happened."

"You opened it to Joanie because you already had Rachel and were feeling guilty about it."

"I know. That's why I went to her. He just happened to be there, too, and I was feeling a little reckless."

"I have a feeling I should stop the both of you before you start arguing in circles," Penny said. "We've covered this ground before. From what I can tell, Joe, you seem to have gotten some compensation for Lauren being with Al by being with Rachel."

He groaned and kneaded the bridge of his nose. "There was once a time when I was quite happy to be having sex with one woman, to know I'd only be having sex with one woman for the rest of my life."

Lauren barked a laugh and said, "I don't think that's entirely true. Yes, for the most part, we were happy just being with each other, but Joanie got into your head on the night of our wedding, and like a seed she was sitting there, dormant, just waiting to sprout until you met her again. Why else would you have heated up so fast as soon as it happened? Then there was me. I told you what Rachel and I did when we were thirteen; I'm sure that, if Rachel hadn't moved away and we'd had a chance to explore our feelings for each other, I might have started having encounters with her back then."

Penny was scribbling furiously in her notebook. "That's very astute of you, Lauren. You're saying your long period of monogamy was only long because the main threats to it were missing."

The two women had stopped speaking, and Joe realized they were both waiting for him to say something, but he was still speechless at how Lauren had so casually debunked the legend that was them, the long-time love that was the envy of the rest of their friends. "So, what, are you saying we would have split up back then?" he finally asked. "Would you have wanted to be with her instead?"

She huffed in frustration. "No! I was obsessed with you, remember? No, I still wanted to be married to you, but I think Rachel and I might have been doing what we're doing now, except if she was seeing someone other than Al, he might not have been as cool with it."

"And me? You think I'd have just let you see her without wanting someone else myself? Maybe one of the girls at Notre Dame?"

Her mouth dropped open in indignation. "You told me you weren't attracted to them!"

"I wasn't, really, but when they're throwing themselves at you it's tempting to just say, 'Why not?'" He saw her horrified expression and said, "I never did, but the temptation was there."

"Maybe it's better that this happened now, then," Lauren said. "I don't think I would have been able to handle you being the high school stud. We have the maturity of our years to guide us now."

"What about Al?" Penny asked. "What if he hadn't moved away? Would you have taken up with him?"

Lauren took a moment to think about it. "I don't think so. My feelings for him developed only a couple of years after we reunited. He was just a good friend when we were kids." 

"That kiss, though," Joe said. "The one you gave him when he visited that time. What was that about?"

Lauren shrugged sheepishly. "I was just comforting a friend. He was sad Rachel had moved away."

"But we were just starting on kissing at that time. You didn't tell me about it, so you must have known how significant it was."

Lauren sighed and threw up her hands. "I don't know. Maybe. But I was still totally committed to you, I know that for sure."

All three of them looked drained, and Joe checked the time. Only five minutes left. "If we're all still committed to each other," he said, "and if you and Rachel want to try it out with Sunny one time, then I want to try it out with Tej while you're doing it."

"I thought so," Lauren said. "I'll talk to her about it."

"And Al?" he asked, still amazed that she'd so cavalierly opened their marriage to yet another woman when he'd been feeling so guilty about Rachel the past couple of days. "Is he involved in this at all, or did you envision him still in the hospital while this was happening?"

Lauren considered her booted leg and said, "I think, if it does happen, we're going to have to wait until my leg's out of this cast, and Sunny's arm is out of its sling. We should be healed up before we do anything strenuous. By that time Al may be back."

"And if he wants to try it on with Tej, too? If Sunny's making love to his wife, too, shouldn't it all be fair?"

"I'll talk to her. She might not want either of you, have you thought of that? Then we'll just have to call the whole thing off."

"Poor Sunny."

Penny closed her notebook with a snap and removed her glasses. "I don't even know what I'm doing here, honestly. You two are just going to do whatever the hell you want anyway."

Thanks for reading this far! This chapter cheekily revisits the marriage counselling sessions in the last book, this time through Joe's point of view, and the counsellor's increasing frustration that Joe and Lauren have learned nothing from their experiences, since now they're considering bringing Sunny into it. If you liked what you read so far, hit "Vote" to send this title up the ranks. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!

To see how Joanie is confirming Joe's fears about her moving on, click on "Continue reading."