'How did that make you feel?' I asked.

'Like Donna gets me more than most.'

'So you think Donna will overlook Edward sleeping with other women, because she's okay with you sleeping with Anita?'

'Something like that.'

'But we aren't sleeping together,' I said.

'When I tried to tell her that, she got mad at me and told me that if she could be brave enough to let us have our relationship, the least I could do was admit it.'

'What did you say?'

Edward looked at Micah. 'What do you think I said?'

I looked at Micah. He was looking at the other man as he said, 'You said, Yes, dear.'

Edward smiled and nodded. 'Exactly.'

'You told Donna we were having sex?'

'No, I didn't argue with her when she said we were having sex.'

'That's the same thing.'

'No,' both men said together, 'it's not.'

'What?' I asked.

'Oh, and now that she's worked all that out, she accepted my proposal and we're setting a date,' Edward said.

It took me a second to process what he'd said. 'You and Donna are finally getting married for real?'

'Yes,' he said, and he smiled. It was a real smile. He was pleased.

I smiled.

Micah said, 'Congratulations.' He was smiling, too.

'When?' I asked.

'When can you clear your calendar?' he asked.

'Me? Why? I mean, I'll be there with bells on, but we'll all work around your schedule.'

'Good, because I want you to be my best man.'

'I would love to be, but won't the whole Donna-thinking-I'm-your-lover be a problem?'

'She says not.'

I tried to wrap my head around it. 'You know, if you just hadn't told me that Donna thought that, then I wouldn't have felt weird about this, but now ... wow, awkward.'

Edward laughed, and it was a good, wholehearted laugh, the one that Donna had helped him find. It made me smile. For that laugh I could handle the weirdness, couldn't I? 'I would be honored to stand as your best man,' I said, because in the end, really, what else was I going to say?

'Donna has made one request.'

'What?'

'That one of your men be on her side of the aisle.'

'She's never met any of the men in my life,' I said.

He shrugged. 'I think she believes that if you have a lover in town with you, that will cut down on our time together.'

'So she trusts us, but not really.'

'She never said she trusted us. She said she forgave us, and she understood what we were to each other; she never said she trusted us.'

'That's just weird. Sorry, I know you love her, and everything, but that makes no sense,' I said.

'It's girl logic,' he said.

'I'm a girl,' I said.

'You're too much guy to be this much girl,' he said.

'That doesn't make sense,' I said.

'Yeah,' Micah said, 'actually it does.'

I looked from one to the other of them, trying to decide if I'd been complimented or insulted.

'Do you feel suitably distracted from ardeurs and blood lusts?' Edward asked.

'What?' I asked.

'I've noticed that giving you an emergency to handle or a problem to solve helps you ignore all the metaphysical stuff, so have I confused and puzzled you enough for you to get an X-ray without eating the doctor?'

I thought about it, and then I laughed. 'Damn you, but yes, I'm going to be puzzling and puzzling till my puzzler is sore about the convoluted logic of it all.'

The door opened, and Dr Cross came through with the nurse at his side. He was smiling. 'I thought I'd take you to X-ray myself.'

Edward gave me a look. 'Should have taken that bet.'

'It was a sucker bet and we both knew it,' I said.

'And you were never a sucker,' he said.