Vicious. Kevin O'Brien

      “Oh, he’ll be fine, babe,” Allen said, focused on his barbecuing. “I’m sure the railing will hold. Besides, the drop’s only two feet. He’d do worse rolling off the sofa.”

      “Well, I still don’t want him playing out here unsupervised,” she insisted.

      “Yes, cupcake, anything you say, cupcake,” he replied in a whiny, milquetoast voice that sounded a bit like Truman Capote.

      She rolled her eyes at him and then started into the house. “God, I hate it when you do your henpecked husband act.”

      “Yes, pudding,” he said—with that whiny voice again. “Dinner will be ready in about five minutes, pudding.”

      Susan could hear him chuckling as she slid the screen door shut behind her. She didn’t think it was very funny, not when they were discussing the safety of her child.

      Lately, she found herself cutting Allen very little slack. She wasn’t quite as enamored of him as she’d been when they’d first met. Then again, maybe that was just what she needed right now. If she wasn’t completely in love with him, she wouldn’t get her heart broken.

      Susan set the dining room table—with plaid cloth mats that had seen better days, plain white plates, and mismatched stainless pieces. This was about as close to “roughing it” as they got here. That nice young man she’d met by the restrooms at Rosie’s had been right about this place. It was lovely.

      She could smell the Tater Tots cooking; they had about five more minutes. She remembered the Tater Tot casserole she’d made that one time—eighteen months ago. She would probably never make it again.

      Walt and she had been invited to a party.

      Tater Tot casserole was the “kitsch-dish” Susan had decided to make for Connie and Jim O’Mara’s Fourth of July potluck. The hosts, old friends of Walt’s from college, were barbecuing hot dogs and hamburgers. Connie encouraged their guests to bring a side dish or dessert that was some guilty-pleasure comfort food, parish picnic delicacy, or trailer-trash cuisine. Connie had explained to Susan over the phone that one guest was baking a mock apple pie from Ritz crackers. Another guest was bringing a Jell-O ambrosia salad.

      “And Melissa Beale is bringing a Seven-Up cake—whatever the hell that is,” Susan said, folding a load of still-warm laundry on the bed while Walt dried off from an after-work shower. Steam wafted out the open bathroom door. Dinner was on the stove, and the kids were in front of the TV in the living room. Susan could hear it blaring. “Anyway, I told Connie we’d be there.”

      “I really don’t want to go,” Walt grunted from the bathroom. “Can you call and cancel?”

      “But why?” Susan asked while folding a pillowcase. “I figured you’d be all for it. They’re all your old college friends….”

      The O’Maras had recently moved into a new luxury condominium on the edge of Capitol Hill. They were supposed to have a spectacular view of the Puget Sound and the fireworks. Kids were invited, too. Connie had hired a nanny to look after the little ones and read them to sleep in the guest room while the adults and older kids enjoyed the fireworks. Susan thought it sounded terrific—what with a sitter for two-year-old Mattie, and Michael, age eight, begging to stay up and watch the fireworks this year. It was an ideal arrangement—and she didn’t even have to cook, except for the Tater Tot casserole.

      “I’d just as soon skip it,” Walt sighed, emerging from the bathroom with a towel around his waist. He was working a Q-tip around his ear.

      Susan caught him furtively looking at her in the mirror over her dresser, and she could tell something was wrong. She stopped folding one of his T-shirts and tossed it on the bed. “Okay, what’s going on?”

      “Nothing,” he said. “I just don’t feel like going to a party on July fourth. Traffic is always a pain in the ass. And the parking…” He snatched a pair of boxer shorts from her pile of laundry, then shed the towel and stepped into his boxers. The whole time his eyes avoided hers. “It’s too much of a hassle. I’d rather not go….”

      Folding her arms, Susan stared at him. “Something’s wrong, I can tell. You’re not even looking at me. I’ve never known you to turn down a party. At the risk of repeating myself, what’s going on?”

      With a long sigh, he strode across the room and closed the bedroom door. He stood there in his undershorts for a moment, one hand on the doorknob. He looked down at the floor. “Melissa Beale,” he muttered, frowning. “I’d rather not see her.”

      “Why?” she asked, half smiling. “Don’t you like Seven-Up cake?”

      He kept staring at the floor, and Susan kept waiting for him to say something.

      She knew Melissa from the occasional get-togethers with Walt’s college friends. Melissa was a petite, pretty redhead with a killer body. She taught yoga and had a back tattoo (Walt’s old college gang had had a pool party last summer). She also had a younger live-in boyfriend, Jason Something, with a pierced nipple. Susan had asked Walt ages ago if he and Melissa had ever had a thing in college, and he’d told her no.

      “I’m trying to avoid her, because she’s been calling me and e-mailing me at the office,” Walt said, finally.

      Susan sat down on the edge of the bed. “And exactly why is she doing that?”

      “She and Jason broke up,” Walt explained. “She came by the office about two weeks ago—just before lunch. It was a sneak attack. She said she needed a sympathetic ear. At lunch, she got a little buzz on and asked me to drive her home. I—I wasn’t comfortable about it, because clearly she was flirting with me at the restaurant. But we’d taken her car, and I didn’t want her to get in an accident….”

      “Always the Good Samaritan,” Susan murmured numbly. She didn’t like where this was going at all. This wasn’t like Walt. She kept waiting for him to burst out laughing and say it was all a joke—a very, very stupid joke. But he was still standing over by the door in his underwear, gazing down at the floor.

      “I parked in front of her place over in Wallingford, and she invited me in to wait for a cab.” Walt finally looked at her. “But I said no thanks. I gave her the car keys and I was just about to climb out of the car, and that’s when she kissed me.”

      “On the lips?”

      He nodded glumly.

      “Did you kiss her back?”

      “For only about five seconds,” he whispered. “Then I pulled away and got out of the car.”

      Dazed, Susan stared at him. “But you kissed her back,” she murmured.

      “I’m sorry, honey.” He shook his head. “I told her I was happily married and very much in love with you, and that this wasn’t ever going to happen again. Then I tried to make some kind of joke, because it was just so damn awkward, and I got the hell out of there….”

      He kept saying he wasn’t interested in Melissa. He didn’t mean to kiss her back, it “just sort of happened.” He was sorry he didn’t tell her about it, but he didn’t want to upset her over something that meant nothing to him. But the trouble was Melissa had called him at the office the next day to apologize. Then she’d wanted to buy him lunch just to show how sorry she was. He’d given her a polite “No thanks, not a good idea.” But Melissa wasn’t giving up that easily. She was on a campaign. And that was why he didn’t want to go to the damn Fourth of July party.

      Susan sat there in a stupor, growing angrier and angrier. She still couldn’t believe he’d kissed that woman back—and for five seconds. It probably went on longer than that, but he didn’t want to admit it. If they hadn’t been invited to this party, would he have ever bothered telling her any of this?

      She finally got to her feet. “I need to get out of here, I need to be alone,” she said in a low voice. “You can serve up the kids their dinner. Make up any excuse you want