Marcus looked at him for a moment with the with the assessment of a man who had known him for 5 years and watched him go from someone who almost never came out on Fridays to someone who was sitting in a bar looking like he belonged there. You know, Marcus said, "I almost didn't invite you that night." Ethan looked at him. "What? Last year I almost didn't put you in the group text.
I figured you'd say no." He shrugged. Clare texted me separately. Said, "Put Ethan in the group. He needs to come.
So I did. Ethan was quiet for a second. She texted you separately, he said slowly. About an hour before I sent the group text. Marcus picked up his drink, she said, and I am quoting.
He needs a night out and he won't go unless someone makes him. So make him. He looked at Ethan with the expression of a man delivering information he finds delightful. She set the whole thing up. Basically, Ethan looked down the table to where Clare was laughing at something Diane had said.
He thought about her walking into his office that Friday afternoon. You spend your whole life taking care of everyone else tonight. Let someone take care of you. The way she'd said it, like she'd been preparing to say it for a while, because she had been. She'd planned it.
Not the lap. That part had been improvisation. He was certain of that. Clare did not pre-plan theatrical gestures, but she'd made sure he was in the room. She decided quietly on her own that he'd been alone long enough and she'd taken a specific step to change it.
He got up from his stool. He walked down to Clare's end of the table. She looked up when she felt him approach and she read his face the way she always did, with precision and without flinching. and he could tell from her expression that she understood immediately what Marcus had just told him. You set it up, he said. Diane melted tactfully into another conversation.
I made a phone call, Clare said. You made sure I was in the room. Someone had to. Her voice was even, but her eyes were doing something warm and slightly guarded. The eyes of someone who has revealed more of their hand than they intended and is waiting to see what happens.
You weren't going to do it yourself. Why? He kept his voice low. Just the two of them. Why did it matter to you a year ago before any of this?