"You okay?"
I blinked and took a breath, then let my eyes focus. Yes, I was still in the bar and Tara and Dave were still sitting across from me. "Uh ... yeah."
"I mean, we get it if it sounds weird," Dave said.
"No. I mean, yeah. I mean, kinda? I ..."
"I know," Tara said, "It's okay."
"Besides, it'll be pretty wild," Dave offered.
I took another breath and thought of a response. It's not every day that you go out to drinks with your two best friends and they proposition you. And I don't know what was more surprising--their request or that I was thinking of saying yes.
Honestly, I sort of expected this from Dave. When we were in college, he was always first in line to do something crazy. But Tara? She was way more level-headed than him, and the last person I figured would go along with it. But there she was, sitting across from me appearing just as certain as her husband.
"Is it okay if I think about it?" I asked.
"Uh... sure," Tara replied, "We know it's a big ask."
"Yeah," I replied as I took out my wallet. A big ask? That was helping someone move or watching their dog for a week. Even being given power of attorney would probably seem easier to say yes to. I put a twenty on the table to cover my part of the tab and left, trying not to make my exit awkward even though all three of us knew that wasn't possible.
The thing is, if I only knew Tara because she was married to Dave, I probably would have said yes right away. But Tara and I had gone to high school together (although we didn't know one another very well) and wound up at the same college, which is where we became close. I hadn't even met Dave when she and I ran into each other at a party freshman year and hit it off in a way we never had. I can't explain it; it was just a lot different. Okay, it was probably because we were each a few beers deep, but she was easier to talk to and hotter than I remembered. In fact, we probably would have hooked up if she didn't have to help her very drunk roommate. Or if I didn't start dating someone soon after. Or if she hadn't met Dave.
While potential romance fell victim to terrible timing, our friendship didn't and as the four years of college went on, our many hours getting coffee, grabbing lunch, and late-night drunken conversations led to an unspoken agreement that we would look out for one another. That's what I was thinking of when I texted her a couple of days later to ask if she had time to meet up and talk. I needed to hear from her without him there.
We grabbed coffee at a diner; it would be quieter than a bar and stayed open just as late, so we knew that we could grab a booth near the back and not be disturbed except for when the waitress buzzed by for refills. Clearly, we'd tried to make the conversation as comfortable as possible, but the subject matter wasn't going to allow that, so we stumbled through small talk until I finally took a deep breath and said, "So."
"Yeah, so," Tara replied before sipping her coffee.
"How do I even approach this?" I wondered aloud.
She laughed. "Yeah, sorry. We didn't mean to freak you out or anything."
"I wasn't freaked out."
"Tim. Come on."
"Okay," I said, "it just took me by surprise. I mean, where did this come from? Is it for real?"
"It is," she replied.
"So did Dave just propose it to you one day?"
"Kind of."
"Kind of?"
"Well, it's not like he walked up to me one day and asked if he could ... you know," she said, keeping her voice low. "It goes back a year, year and a half?"
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Did something happen?"
"No, Nothing happened. Or at least I think it didn't," she said before taking another sip. I must have looked very confused because when she finished, she put her cup back on the table and said, "You know, forget about it."
"No, sorry. Tara, you know you can tell me if something's wrong. I know it's been a while since we've hung out like this..."
"Yeah. Not since you broke up with Kate."
I chuckled. "Yeah. So you've had to hear all about my relationships."
"I know, but we're talking about my marriage, Tim. Not just someone you were seeing for a year and a half."
I sighed and took a big sip of coffee. The waitress caught my eye and I waved her over for a refill.
"I'm sorry," Tara said. The waitress refilled our cups, and walked away. "It's just that, I think something could have happened? Dave didn't have the best ... reaction to turning thirty."
"That's not surprising. He definitely still would drink a lot whenever we went out."
"Yeah. And that didn't help things between us."
"Really?"
Tara nodded and her cheeks flushed. "If he wasn't passing out after getting home from a happy hour or night out, he just wasn't interested in me. I know we had been married for a while by then, but it was only three years. That's not supposed to happen that quickly, right?"
I nodded with sympathy. She took a breath and continued. "I also heard that when he went out, he would hit on other women and buy them drinks and stuff. I don't think he ever went further than that, but still."
"Shit. I'm sorry," I replied. Dave had pulled the same shit in college, always telling me that what Tara didn't know wouldn't hurt her. Of course, she always knew and I heard all about their massive fights that ended with him saying he'd change. They even broke up a few times. I thought it had all stopped when they moved in together a couple of years after graduation. But here we were. "How did that lead to ... well, this?"
"I talked to my sister--"
"Your sister told you to do this?"
"No. She told me to be up front with him about why I was upset. It was such basic advice but I don't know, I guess that it made sense coming from her because she's been married for a lot longer and they seem to be doing well."