Our Third for the Night

Cammie grabbed the booth by the window like she always did, sliding in first and patting the seat beside her instead of across from her. I took the hint and sat down next to her. Our booth. Same one for three years now, more or less.

"Two tequila shots and two margaritas," she told the waitress before I could open my mouth.

"Both? Right now?"

"Both. Right now!" She grinned at me. "Happy anniversary, babe."

I'm Erica, thirty-four, hairdresser, been cutting hair at the same shop for nine years. Cammie is thirty-three, graphic designer, and we've been together three years as of tonight. We met at a coworker's party back when I was thirty-one, and she spent twenty minutes explaining to me why her beer was a design choice. I liked her immediately.

The Pour House was doing its usual Friday thing. Dim lights, jukebox playing Tom Petty, a handful of regulars scattered around the bar. Faded brick walls, the long oak counter with the wobbly stool at the end nobody uses. Just past happy hour, so it wasn't packed yet.

The shots came first. She raised hers.

"Three years."

"Three years," I said, and we clinked and threw them back. The margarita chased it. She watched me the whole time, which I noticed, because Cammie doesn't watch me like that unless she's up to something.

"Okay," I said. "What did you do?"

"Nothing."

"Cammie."

"Nothing yet. But I have an idea." She turned on the bench to face me, knee bumping mine. "And before you say no, hear the whole thing."

"That's never a good start."

"Shut up and listen." She took a breath. "I want to invite Vic over tonight."

I blinked at her. "Vic? Vic from the bar?"

"Yeah."

"Vic the mechanic, Vic who fixed the Corolla, that Vic?"

"That's the one."

I sat back and looked at her. Vic is a regular here, forty-two, been friendly with us for months now. Big guy, quiet until he isn't, always saves the good booth when he sees us come in. Never once been weird about anything.

"You're serious," I said.

"I'm serious." She was turning her glass on the coaster, around and around. "I've been thinking about it for a while. I love what we have. I'm not trying to fix anything, because nothing's broken. I just want to do something big together. Something we'll remember."

"You'll remember," I said. "You want to watch me with another guy?"

"I want to be there with you. Both of us, all of it. If you want."

My stomach did a thing. Not a bad thing, exactly. A nervous thing with a twist in it.

"He'd even say yes?"

"Babe. Have you seen how he looks at us?"

"He's polite."

"He's polite and he flirts with both of us and he checks us out when he thinks we're not looking. We're always looking." She squeezed my knee. "And if he says no, we drink margaritas and go home and have regular anniversary sex. There's no downside."

"There's a downside. It's called being weird forever."

"It won't be weird."

"You don't know that."

"I kind of do," she said, and finished her margarita, and I realized she'd already thought this through way more than I had.

I noticed something about myself while she was talking. I wasn't saying no. I kept waiting for the no to show up and it didn't. I kept picturing it instead, which told me plenty.

"Let me think," I said.

"Take your time. Drink your margarita."

The door swung open around eight and there he was, still in his work shirt with the name patch, hands rough as ever. He spotted us and lifted a hand.

"There's my favorite couple. Mind if I crash the anniversary?"

"Actually, we were hoping you would," Cammie said, way too fast, and I nearly choked on ice.

Vic settled across from us with a beer and fell into easy talk like he always does. The jukebox was doing Springsteen and he argued about which album, real ones.

"Born to Run is the answer," he said. "It's always the answer."

"Darkness on the Edge of Town," Cammie fired back.

"You're both wrong," I said. "Nebraska."

"Nebraska?" Vic put his beer down like I'd insulted his mother. "Nebraska is four guys and a tape recorder."

"It's one woman and a tape recorder, and it's perfect."

He laughed, big and easy. "Okay, hairdresser, you got taste. How's the shop?"

"Busy. Everybody wants bangs again. I've cut forty bangs this month."

"The economy is in shambles and everyone wants bangs. Makes sense."

"And how's the garage?" Cammie asked him.

"Brutal week. Some guy brought in a sedan that sounded as if a garbage disposal were full of bolts. He'd been driving on it for a month."

"A month?" I said.

"A month. People are amazing."

And then, somewhere in there, the talk tilted. I couldn't tell you the exact second. Maybe when Cammie put her hand on his forearm going "no way, show me the scar" about some engine story, and he did, and she ran her thumb over it a beat longer than a scar needs. Maybe when he said "you two clean up nice" and looked at Cammie first, then me, and didn't rush it.

Maybe when I caught myself doing the same thing back.

"So how'd you two meet, anyway?" Vic asked. "Three years, right? I remember the anniversary cake you brought in here last year."

"She ambushed me at a party," I said.

"I did not ambush you. I made conversation."

"You cornered me by the snack table and lectured me about beer for twenty minutes."

"And she stayed for the whole lecture," Cammie told Vic, "and then asked for another."

"Can't blame me," Vic said. "She's got that thing where everything she says sounds interesting."

"She does have that thing," I said, and meant it, and Cammie looked at me quick when I said it, and something passed between us that we hadn't talked about yet tonight.

The flirting got deliberate after that. That's the only word for it. Nobody was pretending anymore. Cammie's hand went from my knee to my thigh under the table. Vic paid and left the tip too big, the way he does, and when the waitress cleared the glasses he said, "So what's the occasion again?"

"Anniversary," Cammie said. "Three years."

"Three years. That's the one where you get something good."

"We were actually going to ask you something," Cammie said.

I held my breath. Here she went.

"Erica and I have been talking, and we'd love it if you came home with us tonight. Both of us. If you want."

Vic set his beer down slow. He looked at Cammie, then at me, and I nodded, because I wanted him to see it was real.

"I don't want to mess up anybody's night," he said.

"You wouldn't be messing it up," I told him. "It would be the night."

"You're sure? Both of you, a hundred percent sure?"

"A hundred percent," Cammie said. "We talked about it. It's not a drunk idea, it's a plan. Say no if you want, it changes nothing."

He sat with it for a second. "I've had a few flings, nothing ever like this. But yeah. Yeah, I want that."

Cammie squeezed my hand under the table, and then she leaned in close to me, lips at my ear, hair brushing my cheek.

"I'm already wet," she whispered. "So wet."

My heart was hammering, and I nodded at her, and Vic was waving down the waitress for one more round, and every part of me felt lit up.

"Last one here," Cammie said out loud, "and then we go."

We finished the drinks and walked out together. Vic only lived a block up, which felt like luck. He offered both of us his arms like a gentleman, and Cammie took one and I took the other, and we must have looked ridiculous, three adults shuffling down a sidewalk on a Friday night.

"Fair warning, my place is not impressive," he said. "I spend my money on tools."

"Mine's not either," Cammie said. "My desk is two sawhorses and a door."

"So you're saying I shouldn't be embarrassed."

"I'm saying nobody's embarrassed."

His building had a buzzer that didn't work and a stairwell that smelled like old carpet. Third floor. He fumbled the keys and laughed at himself.

"Okay. Here it is."

It was clean. That surprised me, I guess, because he's a mechanic, but there wasn't a speck of anything. A couch, a TV, a table with one chair. A bed you could see from the front door because the bedroom had no actual door, just a curtain.

"Water? I've got water. And a towel if anybody needs one."

"You always offer guests a towel?" Cammie asked.

"You always need one. Trust me."

He got us each a glass and we stood around his kitchenette drinking water like it was a business meeting, and then Cammie set hers down and looked at me, and I knew that look. Three years of that look.

"Bedroom?" she said.

"Bedroom," I said.

We went through the curtain together, all three of us, and Vic turned on the lamp by