Sam shook his head and wrapped a hand around her ankle. As his thumb stroked the sensitive arch, her leg quivered approval. He had just begun to explore her calf when the lights dimmed and Lily appeared to welcome the audience.

Rune reappeared and dropped into his chair with the first strains of music. "I'm back," he announced. Kes jumped, covering her dishabille by reaching for her mug. Rune rolled his eyes and turned to Sam.

"Unless you want to claim squatter's rights and join us, I get first dance. Although," he jerked his head toward the bar, "Aunt Rhea loves her gossip and the three of us doing it together could be all over town by morning."

Kes choked through a mouthful of beer and Sam tightened his grip on her leg, which prompted only her outright giggling.

"What?" Rune frowned in confusion. She looked at him pointedly until understanding crept in. "Kestrel Lynn," he huffed, "you've got the dirtiest mind in Pennsylvania."

Kes giggled again. "You said it, I didn't."

"Don't let her drink too much. Beer makes her sillier than shit."

"Yes it does," she sing-songed, "and I seem to remember beer is the reason I told you all about my little fantasy in the first place."

"That," he grinned at Sam, "I do remember well."

Dick nowhere near diminishing, Sam steered abroad. "Two guys, huh? I have one with two women myself."

"Twins," Rune nodded sagely, "me, too. Tell her, man, two guys is a different story."

"Oh come on, Runey-Toons," she chortled, "it is not."

"Is too. Two guys is..." Shooting a glance at Sam, he cleared his throat.

"Homophobe," Kes muttered. "Just because your perverted brain can't imagine two women without having them--interact--doesn't mean when there's two men, they have to do any of that shit."

Rune's discomfort shone so brightly, Sam expected him to launch into a recitation of the Packers' odds of winning the Superbowl. Unfortunately, bemusement blocked sense, and stupidity just had to say, "She's right. Guys don't have to be bi to share a woman."

The authoritative meteor hit the table and exploded into a crater of undivided attention. Kes cocked her head, curiosity so obvious, he winced. Rune gaped at him like he couldn't decide if he sat next to a traitor to his own gender or the sickest motherfucker to come down Lancaster Pike. Damn it all to hell! The older he got, the more he hated surprises--and none of them more than the ones that popped out of his own fucking mouth.

He should have looked before he leaped. Yet Rune's unintentional innuendo and Kes' suggestive teasing lit a fire under the mother of all his problems, sparking myriad memories that, only yesterday, would have left him limper than week old sheets. But not today. No, today, smack in the middle of a very public place, they shot into his equipment like a cattle prod of excitement. Visions of another dark-haired beauty, in another time, another place, another--God help him, life--swept in. Visions of the woman he couldn't, shouldn't, love, even while his cock rutted emotion into silence between her thighs, forever trapped and defeated by the mirror image who filled her mouth.

"Are you," Kes hesitated only briefly, "speaking from experience?"

Jesus. Rock. Sam. Hard place. He had been too sincere. Too late to lie now. But the truth still required a predicate breath. "Yes."