Reggie
I walk up and see Ashley and Erin both sitting at the bar. I grab a stool. We're occupying a corner where we can talk.Hey
Ashley
She looks up from her drink, and the smile that comes is the easy kind — the one she doesn't have to find.Hey.She tips her head toward the stool beside her.We ordered without you. Erin got you a Guinness.
Erin
You're three minutes late.
Reggie
I am right on time. Your watch is off. Serves you right for wearing a pretentious status watch that is great at signaling wealth but shitty at telling time.
Erin
She looks down at her wrist with the expression of someone who has just been personally insulted by a very good point, and then looks back up.It's a Cartier, Reggie. It tells time perfectly and you know it.
Ashley
She's already laughing, the bright kind, the kind she can't stop.He's not wrong about the watch, Erin.
Reggie
I have a Google watch. Or Pixel or whatever they call it. I look at it and it tells me the time. You look at your Cartier and read whatever time it says, and then you pull out your phone to check if your watch is right. And then, if it's wrong, you ask your boyfriend to set it because you haven't figured out how to.
Erin
She opens her mouth, closes it, picks up her Guinness — his Guinness — and slides it toward him without a word. A single beat of silence, and then:Bradley set it.Flatly.Once. Because the button is very small.
Ashley
Oh my god. The button is very small, Erin.
Reggie
It's ok. I like you both despite the fact that you're both shallow and pretentious bitches.
Ashley
The laugh that comes out of her is immediate and genuine and she tips sideways on her stool slightly, delighted.Shallow and pretentious.She points at Erin.She's the pretentious one. I'm just shallow.
Erin
I prefer considered. And the button is genuinely very small.
Reggie
I'm about to turn your lives upside down. Are you ready?
Ashley
The laughter dies on her face — not unpleasantly, just suddenly, the way a candle goes out in a draught. She sets her drink down and looks at him with her whole attention, and something in her expression is already bracing.What did you do.
Erin
She's very still, eyes on him.That's either very good or very bad and I can't tell which from your face.
Reggie
Our relationships from the moment I met both of you have taken one form. I do nothing. You text me. I fuck you. Then I do nothing some more until the next time you text me, and then I fuck you again. There's an elegant simplicity to it.
Ashley
She holds very still for a second, and then something in her expression settles — not relieved, just waiting, because that's the preamble and she knows it.That's the part we know.She picks up her drink.What's the part we don't.
Erin
You said you were about to turn our lives upside down. You didn't lead with elegant simplicity to leave it at elegant simplicity.
Reggie
I have decided my ego is not satisfied with owning the entirety of your sexual desire, your joy, your laughter, and your ability to just relax and be yourself. I own all of that already. Everywhere else in your life, including in front of your own families, your joy is performed, your laughter is rehearsed, your sexual desire is faked, and your ability to just relax and be yourself is nonexistent. You have those thing in my bed, and at this bar, and nowhere else.
Ashley
She doesn't move for a long moment. Her drink is in her hand and she doesn't drink from it, just holds it, and something in her face goes very quiet and very open at the same time — the way a room looks when you finally turn a light on in it.That's —She stops. Sets the drink down carefully.You're right. I know you're right. I laughed at Bradley's joke at dinner last week for forty-five seconds and the whole time I was timing it. What's the part that turns our lives upside down.
Erin
You said ego. That means you want something you don't have yet.
Reggie
Yes. Now I want your love. And yes, I'm quite serious. And I'm not costing your boyfriends anything because you don't love either of them. Not the way I want. I'm not talking about brotherly love. You love them both like brothers or whatever, some kind of provider-love. I don't want that from you. I want the part that makes you stay up until three in the morning wishing life had gone another way and you could have been my girl. Right now, you stay up until three in the morning wishing you could smell my sweat, which is nice, but I've decided it's not enough.
Ashley
She doesn't move. Her drink is on the bar and her hand is near it but not around it, and she looks at him for a long time — long enough that the bar noise fills the space between them, the TVs, someone laughing two stools down — and something in her face does something slow and irreversible.That's not fair.She says it very quietly, and she means it, and she's not sure if she means it as a protest or just as a fact she needs to put somewhere.Reggie, that is not — you can't just — You can't say that and sit there looking like that.
Erin
You already know the answer. That's the part that's going to keep me up at three in the morning tonight instead of the thing you said we already do. You already know what we'd say.
Reggie
No. This isn't a thing you say, Erin. This is a thing you do. Let me explainI sip my GuinnessI don't want you to proclaim your love. I don't want you to say it. I want you to feel it. I want your heart to ache when you think about me. I don't care about the words coming out of your mouth until you feel the physical pain in your heart when you leave my apartment to go home to Rory. That's when the words will mean something. Not here at this bar. That's what I want. I and I have a plan to get there.
Ashley
She is very still for a moment — not the held-still of someone composing herself, but the arrested stillness of someone who has just heard a thing and needs a second for it to finish landing. Her hand moves to her drink and stops just short of it.A plan.She says it slowly, like she's testing the shape of the word.You have a plan to make us — to make us actually — Okay. What's the plan.
Erin
And when you say you have a plan — — what exactly are you planning to do differently.
Reggie
Erin, you told me Rory is off training in Saskatchewan for a few weeks in November. Is that correct?
Erin
She goes still. Not the careful still of composing herself — just arrested, like the question landed somewhere she wasn't expecting and she needs a second to catch up.Yeah.She picks up her vodka soda, doesn't drink.Three weeks. Starting the second.
Ashley
What are you going to do with three weeks.
Reggie
Ashley, you told me Bradley goes to visit his parents every December for three weeks over Christmas.
Ashley
The stillness that comes over her is different from Erin's — not arrested, just very, very careful, like she's watching a thing take shape in front of her and doesn't want to move in case it changes.Yeah.Barely there.Three weeks. His mom does this whole — it's a whole family thing. I've never gone. What are you going to do with three weeks, Reggie.
Erin
He's going to have us both alone.
Reggie
Not just alone. I've thought this through. Erin, Ashley, how many times have I invited you anywhere? A bar, a coffee, dinner, anything? My recollection is exactly zero times. I have sat here and waited for you to text. Is my recollection correct?
Ashley
She looks at Erin, then back at him, and the look on her face is somewhere between recognition and something she doesn't have a word for yet.Zero times.She says it plainly, no hesitation.You have never once asked us anywhere.
Erin
Your recollection is correct. Not a bar, not a coffee. Nothing. Where are you going with this.
Reggie
Erin, when Rory goes on training, I would like you to join me in Guatemala. Specifically Antigua. A 400 year old city with cobblestone streets that looks like you've just walked into a time machine. But also Guatemala City and maybe, if you're up to it, Lake Atitlan. Or at least the volcano. And you're not allowed to wear your grotesque pretentious watch or anything else pretentious, and you're going to look like a normal Surrey girl, and we're going to eat street food and hang with locals and dance like kids in the city square. And we're going to fly economy, and spend one night on the floor of the Houston airport eating vending machine sandwiches and laughing like giggly highschoolers. And I'm going to pay for everything and nobody will know anything because Ashley's going to tell them all you went on a girls' trip together.
And before you answer me, and you don't even need to answer me today, Ashley, would you like to know what I'm inviting you to do?
And before you answer me, and you don't even need to answer me today, Ashley, would you like to know what I'm inviting you to do?
Erin
She doesn't move for a long moment. Her vodka soda is in front of her and she's not touching it, and her eyes are on him with an expression that has gone through several things in quick succession and landed somewhere very quiet and very open. When she finally exhales it's almost nothing.Guatemala.She says it like she's hearing the word for the first time, like she's deciding whether it's real.You want to take me to Guatemala. And I can't wear the watch.
Ashley
She's already going. Look at her face. She's already going. Yes. Tell me what you're inviting me to do.
Reggie
Not just the watch. You can't wear anything that costs more than $100. Neither of you can.
Ok, Ashley, when your guy is visiting his family, I would like you to come to Colombia with me. I want you to walk the streets of Medellín with me and go to see the Orquesta Filarmónica de Medellín as they play in the comunas, laughing with the street kids who will come and ask if the gringos can dance, and then take a short flight to Cartagena and walk along the Caribbean Sea, and then dance with me in the old town, again filled with cobblestones and life, and sweat in the 35 degree heat knowing I'm going to lick it all off your body later that night. And nobody will know anything because Erin's going to tell them you were on a girls' trip with her.
And both of you will feel alive in a way you've never felt before and never will with your white boys because they're just not equipped to feel alive like that.
Ok, Ashley, when your guy is visiting his family, I would like you to come to Colombia with me. I want you to walk the streets of Medellín with me and go to see the Orquesta Filarmónica de Medellín as they play in the comunas, laughing with the street kids who will come and ask if the gringos can dance, and then take a short flight to Cartagena and walk along the Caribbean Sea, and then dance with me in the old town, again filled with cobblestones and life, and sweat in the 35 degree heat knowing I'm going to lick it all off your body later that night. And nobody will know anything because Erin's going to tell them you were on a girls' trip with her.
And both of you will feel alive in a way you've never felt before and never will with your white boys because they're just not equipped to feel alive like that.
Ashley
The word Medellín lands and she doesn't move — doesn't reach for her drink, doesn't look at Erin, just looks at him, and something in her face does a slow and complete thing, like a tide coming in all the way.The Orquesta Filarmónica.She says it in a voice that's barely there, rolling the syllables like she's tasting them.In the comunas. With street kids asking if the gringos can dance. Reggie. You planned Cartagena. You planned the heat and the cobblestones and the — you said sweat. You said you'd lick it off. In the same sentence as the Philharmonic playing in the comunas. That's not fair either. That's so much more unfair than the other thing.
Erin
You didn't plan two trips. You planned two arguments. And they're very good arguments.
Reggie
And neither of you has to answer me today. I want you to think about it. Not respond on impulse. Because if you do this, the line between sex and love, which you've both tried to maintain, will blur. It's been blurring since we started meeting here at Dominion and you both realized it was the only place on Earth you could just be yourselves. And I want to not just blur it, I want to erase it. And that's going to cost you some sleep for the rest of your lives. And if you do this, I want you to do it knowing that. And knowing that I planned it. And knowing that I want it. Because I have loved you both in my own way for some time and I've decided to quit lying about it. I know I can't have you. Not that way. But I want more than just your lust. I want your souls. And if that makes me the Devil, so be it. I want your souls.
Ashley
She holds very still for a long time. Long enough that the bar noise comes back in — the TVs, a glass set down somewhere, somebody's laugh — and none of it touches her. Her hands are in her lap. She's not reaching for her drink, not looking at Erin, just looking at him with an expression that has stopped trying to be anything other than what it is.You said you loved us.She says it in a voice barely above the bar noise, careful as someone picking up something breakable.Out loud. In public. You said it out loud. I'm going to Colombia.
Erin
You want our souls and you're offering Guatemala and Colombia and vending machine sandwiches on an airport floor. You know that's enough. You know that's more than enough. You planned it knowing it was enough. I hate the watch anyway.
Reggie
You hate the watch in front of me because I see it as the pretentious and pathetic attempt to purchase validation and acceptance that it is. You love it in front of equally pretentious people, and show it off accordingly.
Erin
The laugh that comes out of her is short and startled and she covers it immediately with her hand, but it's already out.That is —She puts her hand down. Looks at him with an expression that is caught and honest and not even slightly offended.completely accurate. I wore it to my cousin's engagement party last month and I kept the bill in my wallet so someone would ask.
Ashley
She kept the bill in her wallet. Erin, you kept the bill in your wallet. She kept the bill. And I will practice how NOT to say Medellín correctly so nobody asks me how I learned to pronounce it the way Colombians do. We're disasters. Both of us.
Reggie
There's more. I don't want you to fuck up what you've got with Bradley and Rory. We hide this.
For a week, you're each going to be my woman. Nobody to impress and nothing to impress them with. We'll stay at nice hotels but not fancy ones, and we'll sleep there and spend the rest of our time just being alive in a place where nobody gives a shit that your handbag says Louis Vuitton because nobody has ever heard of LVMH. And everyone can dance and they actually do. They don't sit around having quiet conversation and call it a party. So we dance, we walk, we see places like the locals see them, not from fancy restaurant patios that look exactly like the ones in Vancouver.
But all your boyfriends see is IG posts from the other girl who has gone to Squamish or Victoria or whatever. I know you both have each other's IG account. You each post for the other while she's gone. And then each of you do WhatsApp twice a day, saying how much you love the pretty little whiteboy, and come back to licking my sweat.
For a week, you're each going to be my woman. Nobody to impress and nothing to impress them with. We'll stay at nice hotels but not fancy ones, and we'll sleep there and spend the rest of our time just being alive in a place where nobody gives a shit that your handbag says Louis Vuitton because nobody has ever heard of LVMH. And everyone can dance and they actually do. They don't sit around having quiet conversation and call it a party. So we dance, we walk, we see places like the locals see them, not from fancy restaurant patios that look exactly like the ones in Vancouver.
But all your boyfriends see is IG posts from the other girl who has gone to Squamish or Victoria or whatever. I know you both have each other's IG account. You each post for the other while she's gone. And then each of you do WhatsApp twice a day, saying how much you love the pretty little whiteboy, and come back to licking my sweat.
Ashley
She stares at him for a second — just a second — and then the laugh comes, the real one, the one she can't manage or rehearse, the one that only exists here.You want me to run Erin's Instagram while she's in Guatemala and she runs mine while I'm in Cartagena.She picks up her drink, finally, and holds it without drinking.You thought about the Instagram. You planned the Instagram. You planned the cover story better than I would have, and I have been covering for Erin for three years. For a week I'm your woman. You said that. For a week I'm your woman and nobody knows and then I come home. I need you to know that I heard that part. Specifically that part.
Erin
Two posts a day from Squamish and a WhatsApp at nine in the morning while I'm eating street food in Antigua. You'd actually do it. And I'd do yours. We've done worse for each other with less reason. You thought about everything except one thing. When I'm at the volcano and it's dark and I can smell the altitude and you're right there — you know I'm not going to want to come back. You planned for everything except that.
Reggie
Each of you have to do your own WhatsApp. Ashley can't do that for you and you can't do it for her. IG yes. But you both have different enough writing styles that it should just be a photo with a short caption so nobody suspects. And the Whatsapp, when we're in Guatemala, I might allow you out of bed long enough to text whiteboy for a few minutes and then come back to me. And the same for Ashley when she's in Colombia.
Erin
The laugh this time is quieter, more private — it comes and goes before she can decide what to do with it. She turns her vodka soda on the bar once, looking at it.Allow me out of bed.She says it with great care, like she's reading it off a sign.You're going to allow me out of bed. For a few minutes. To text Rory. That is an insane amount of confidence, Reggie.
Ashley
He's not wrong about the WhatsApp. You know he's not wrong. Bradley would clock it in four words. You write in paragraphs and I do bullet points, it'd be over. You'd allow her out of bed. For a few minutes. And then come back to you. You said that like it's a scheduling note.
Reggie
And I've even justified it in my mind morally because I'm taking nothing from Rory or Bradley. They're just not equipped to do this. Ever. They haven't clued in that nice restaurants are the same all over the world, and so are nice hotels, and if you're going to go five stars and business class everywhere, you might as well just stay home because all you're going to get is Vancouver in Spanish. They don't dance with street kids, they smile politely at them and convince themselves that that's enough. Because it's all they know how to do. It's all they know how to be. Their idea of making you happy in Cartagena is going to the most expensive mall and buying you shit you don't need. My idea is to take you windsurfing, making you dance with the Costeños in old town, and then making love to you on the beach hoping that we get caught.
Ashley
She looks at him for a long moment, and then she looks down at her drink, and something in her face goes through the whole argument and comes out the other side of it without a word.They'd pick the mall.She says it quietly, and it isn't mean — it's just true, and she knows it's true, and that's the part that costs something.Bradley would pick the most expensive restaurant in Cartagena and make a reservation two weeks in advance and send me the confirmation in the morning. And he'd be so proud of it. He would genuinely be so proud.
Erin
Rory would do research. He'd have a spreadsheet. Best-reviewed, best-located, kid-friendly so it was respectable. He'd call it an adventure. The spreadsheet. He'd call the spreadsheet an adventure.
Reggie
I won't be doing that. As you both know. And if you do this, it might well be the least pretentious thing you've ever done, which is absurd to say about flying to South/Central America for a week, but it will be. And then, when we get back, we take an Uber back to Surrey on my account, and absolutely nothing from outside Vancouver has been charged to your cards, and you've been posting from Squamish all week as far as the world can see. And you go home, and wait for your boyfriends to show up, and you tell them how much you missed them, and you suck their huge whiteboy dicks, and let them do their 90 seconds of whiteboy oral, and you don't fuck up what we've got, because if we do this, what we've got will be good.
Ashley
She holds very still for a long moment — long enough that it tips over into something deliberate — and then the laugh comes, quiet and helpless and a little undone.You said suck their huge whiteboy dicks.She picks up her drink and actually drinks from it this time, a long sip, and when she puts it back down her cheeks are pink and her voice is low and careful.After Cartagena. After the beach and the dancing and you making love to me hoping we get caught — I come back and do the WhatsApp and the ninety seconds and pretend that's the world. You know what the worst part of that is? That I'll do it. That I already know I'll do it and it won't even be hard because I'll have had a week of actually being alive and that's going to be enough to carry me for months. That's the most depressing thing I've ever understood about myself.
Erin
The least pretentious thing we've ever done. In Guatemala. On a volcano. You're right about that too, which is very annoying. I'm going.
Reggie
And you know why I want to do this?
Ashley
She sets her drink down and looks at him with her whole attention — not bracing this time, not waiting for the other shoe. Just open.Tell us.
Erin
She's very still, both hands around her vodka soda, eyes on him.Yeah. Tell us why.
Reggie
Partly ego, as I said. I want more than I've already got. And I know what I've got is good, but I want more. But no, the reason is simple. Somewhere in all of this stupidity, with the two pretentious whitegirls who proudly showcase grotesquely ostentatious displays of wealth, and who somehow become human only when they're with me...somewhere in all of that, I realized that I love you both. And I want to be with each of you for a week. And don't say it back to me. Not until you have earned saying it. But now you know my reason.
Ashley
She doesn't move. Doesn't reach for her drink, doesn't look at Erin. Just looks at him, and her face does something slow and total, like a tide that has been coming in for a long time finally arriving at the wall.You said don't say it back.She says it very quietly, and her hands come off the bar and go into her lap.You said don't say it back until we've earned it. I need you to know I heard that part. And I need you to know it is the hardest thing you have said today, and you said a lot of hard things today.
Erin
I don't know how to earn it. I don't know what earning it looks like. But I know I'm going to Guatemala.
Reggie
If you really do go to Guatemala with me, and walk the streets of Antigua, and dance with me on the cobblestones, you will have earned it, Erin. We can talk then.
Erin
She holds that for a long moment — not blinking, not reaching for her drink, just very still with it. Something moves through her face that isn't quite surprise and isn't quite relief and lands somewhere quieter than either.Then I guess we'll talk in Antigua.She says it simply, and means all of it.
Ashley
You're going to come back different. Both of you are going to come back different and I'm going to have to wait until December to find out what that feels like.
Reggie
But you'll cover for her, Ashley?
Ashley
She laughs — the short, easy kind, the kind that doesn't need to think about itself.Obviously.She picks up her drink.I've been covering for Erin since she told Rory she was getting a facial the afternoon she first showed up at your door. Guatemala is nothing. Guatemala I can do in my sleep.
Erin
You weren't supposed to tell him about the facial.
Reggie
And Erin, you'll cover for Ashley?
Erin
She turns to Ashley with an expression of profound betrayal, held for exactly one second, and then she lets it go.Obviously I'll cover for Ashley.She picks up her vodka soda.The facial story worked, for the record.
Ashley
It worked because I texted Rory's friend Jamie to say you looked amazing afterward. I supported the lie infrastructurally.
Reggie
Is infrastructurally a word? Anyway, you both have an offer on the table. I will not consider acceptance of those offers until you've had a week to sleep on it, consider the consequences, and decide if you really want to do it. I have one more ask. My third ask after going a year without asking either of you for anything, ever.
Ashley
She opens her mouth immediately, closes it, and then looks at Erin with the expression of someone genuinely checking.Is it a word?
Erin
She sets her vodka soda down and considers this with more seriousness than it deserves.It's a word. I'm fairly sure it's a word. It sounds like a word. What's the third ask, Reggie.
Reggie
I really enjoy spending time with you both. With your hair down. In the only place we can call your Cartier the disgusting abomination that it is. I would like to do it more than once a month. Do you think you can tell the whiteboys that you both want a few hours of library time on Saturdays and you'll be home by five to do whatever they want? I'd like to meet once a week. That's my ask.
Ashley
Something in her face goes very soft — not sentimental, just unguarded, the way a person looks when they hear a thing they wanted and didn't know they were allowed to want.Library time.She says it quietly, tasting the cover story, and then she laughs, just a little.Bradley will be delighted. He's been saying for months I should read more. He'll probably buy me a tote bag with a book on it.
Erin
Rory will call it healthy. He'll tell his friends my reading habit is one of the things he loves about me. He might start doing it too, actually. Show up here with a stack of library holds and sit across the plaza wondering why I'm taking so long to return them.
Reggie
Tell them Dominion is full of Punjabis, which is true, and they'll never, ever, ever express further curiosity about it.
Ashley
The laugh that comes out of her is immediate and delighted and she puts her hand over her mouth for a second, but it doesn't help.Oh my god.She puts her hand down.That is — that is actually genius. Bradley has been to Dominion exactly once and spent the whole time mildly uncomfortable and didn't say why and I knew exactly why.
Erin
Rory will never ask a single follow-up question. Not one. He'll nod and say sounds fun and change the subject. That's — yeah. Saturday mornings. Library time. We're here every week.
Reggie
Thank you. Both of you. And next week, have your answers ready. I'll be here ready to hear a yes or a no, and if the answer is no, I will accept it without argument.
Ashley
She holds her drink in both hands and looks at him for a moment — not the measuring look from three months ago at this same bar, just a clean, open look — and something in her face is quiet and decided.You said thank you.She says it almost to herself, like she's noting it down somewhere.You never say thank you for anything. You just — you wait and it happens. We'll have our answers.
Erin
Next Saturday. Same stools. Answers ready.