All in all, though, I’d thought there could have been a few things I could have done to make things easier for Chris. She’d never allowed me to dwell on those thoughts, though.  

Meanwhile, during our talk under the stars last night, I’d told Harley that there was no urgency to make a big deal of our relationship publicly, yet, especially when it came to her friends and her associates at the firm. Given all of the activity surrounding Annie’s and Thad’s wedding, and things being so unsettled, yet, about her position in the law firm, I’d thought it would be better for her, overall, not to introduce the sure drama to follow once she told people about us. I implored her to just keep things between us, until we could figure this all out by ourselves, in our own time. I assured her, though, that I would leave it up to her if she wanted to tell everybody anyway, after she protested.

As I studied Annie, my thoughts fell back on what Chris and I had gone through with that prick of a director. I tried to think through the best way to protect Harley from whatever Annie was thinking up even now in her head. Even if this was all in my imagination, I felt instinctively that it would be critical to steal whatever thunder Annie felt she could throw at Harley. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that one of them was me. I’d have to take myself out of this equation – and make my sexuality a non-issue.

Katy’s chatter had turned to a sex toy that Michael and Marc were asking Katy to help them choose in an adult shop, as part of the prank the two guys were plotting to pull on Thad.

“So did you choose a 7 inch or an 8 inch?” I asked, cutting into Katy’s monologue. Harley paused from her barista duties and turned slowly to look at me with raised eyebrows. Katy dropped her mouth open slightly as she also stared at me.

“Because I’m telling you, size matters,” I continued smoothly. “And you need to get one with veins and everything, too, just to make it as lifelike as possible. Plus, you need to get one that can fit smoothly into a harness.”