Before they had a chance to continue, the doorbell rang. 

“Expecting company?” Shane asked. 

“Oh God,” Jen muttered. “I didn’t think she’d get you both here tonight.”

Shane sighed and rolled his head back and forth on his neck, forcing himself to relax. The vertebrae popped with a series of audible cracks that set Jen’s teeth on edge. He sounded more like a poorly maintained piece of industrial machinery than a human. It was even worse when he stood up. On days when the weather was bad, his knees and ankles sounded like they had sand in them. 

“I’ll be on my best behavior,” he promised. 

“I don’t expect you to sit back and take potshots all night, but Haru really thinks you guys are friends, so try not to let her down,” Jen said. 

“I’ve spent the last five years trying to be the man she thinks I am,” Shane said. “Maybe one day I’ll actually get it right.”

Haru had that effect on people. She firmly believed that her partners were good people, and they tried their best not to break her out of her pleasant fantasies. 

Before either Shane or Jen had a chance to get up and answer the door, Haru practically sprinted out of the kitchen. Not that they tried particularly hard. Shane could guess who was waiting out there, and Jen had learned long ago that Haru treated her duties as a hostess with something akin to reverence. 

Waiting on the doorstep was Lauren, Haru’s other partner. 

Lauren was a short woman. At 5’3”, she was only a little taller than Jen, and several inches shorter than Haru. She was also, by most objective standards, an absolute bombshell, and dressed to the nines to boot. Her cream colored blouse and charcoal gray pencil skirt suggested that she just finished meeting with clients at work. 

She was also a programmer, though her skills lay more in video games than machine learning, and her company was on the cusp of landing a contract with a major distributor for a new IP. Given her striking good looks and effortless charm, Lauren was an easy choice to represent the company. Her bosses knew damn good and well that a pretty face and sharp wit went a long way towards wooing potential investors, and she was only too happy to play along. 

“Hello, Master,” Haru said, bowing formally. “You look gorgeous today. Dinner is almost ready. I hope mapo tofu is okay.”

“Your mapo tofu is to die for,” Lauren said fervently. 

Would you look at that, Shane thought. We agree on something other than Haru after all.

Lauren wasn’t alone, though. Behind her were two men, only one of whom Shane recognized, and a woman that he recognized as Lauren’s other girlfriend, Emma. 

Lauren and Emma were cut from the same cloth. Both were programmers, both had the sort of good looks that would make a supermodel green with envy, and both possessed bright, bubbly personalities. Emma was just slightly taller, a little less curvy, and was dressed a lot more casually, wearing a Nirvana T-shirt and tattered blue jeans. 

The difference in fashion sense was a decent metaphor for their personalities, too. Emma was more of a free spirit, content to go through life with her heart on her sleeve. Lauren was more calculating and reserved. She could put on a mask of pleasant professionality if she had to, regardless of what might actually be going through her mind. Emma was preferred to let fly with whatever thought was on the tip of her tongue. Where Shane was concerned, they were usually pointed, and often barbed at that. 

The man Shane recognized was Rafael, Lauren’s husband. He was every bit the match of his wife in terms of attractiveness: Not especially tall, at 5’8”, but well muscled, with wavy black hair down to his shoulders, chiseled jawline with just the right amount of 5 o’clock shadow, and a wide, brilliant smile that took on a predatory cast when he spotted Shane. 

“Howdy, strangers,” Shane called, suppressing a grimace. 

“Hey there, big guy,” Rafael replied. “How’s tricks?”

“Turning one right after the other,” Shane said. 

Shane levered himself up off the couch, forestalling Jen’s attempts to rise. 

“I’ll grab some chairs,” he said. 

“I can get them,” Haru said. 

“Down girl,” he said, grinning. His smile was brittle, but she didn’t notice. “You’ve got guests and dinner to worry about. It’s the least I can do.”

Haru looked a little uncertain, but she knew Shane well enough by now to know he wouldn’t just leave her to handle everything by herself. Besides, she only had two hands, and they were both firmly grasping her master’s backside. 

As Shane padded over to the closet under the staircase, where Haru and Jen kept a few folding chairs for just such an occasion, he found himself joined by the stranger. 

He was slightly taller than Rafael, at about 5’10” or so, and packed on a little more muscle. If Shane had to guess, he’d say it was the functional variety, built by hard labor rather than sculpted in the gym. In any other room, he’d be a standout for his looks and his build. In this one, he was merely average. He couldn’t match Shane’s improbable size or Rafael's effortless sex appeal. 

The look in his eyes told Shane he was keenly aware, and liable to make it everyone’s problem before long. 

“Gene Moretti,” the man said, offering Shane his hand. “Emma’s fiance.”

The way Gene said “fiance” told Shane that what he meant was “she’s taken.” Which was a bit of mental gymnastics on Gene’s part, since Shane had it on good authority that she was sleeping with Rafael on a fairly regular basis. 

Granted, Rafael wasn’t known for being a great respecter of other people’s relationships, but Emma wasn’t the sort to step out without permission, and Lauren would gladly bring her horndog to heel if he caused problems for her. So maybe what he really meant was “don’t get any bright ideas.” That suited Shane just fine. He’d met Emma before, and as near as he could tell, she was terrified of him. 

“Shane Briscoe. Pleasure to meet you.”

The two traded grips. Gene’s hands were rough and calloused, confirming Shane’s initial impression. Gene didn’t try particularly hard to crush Shane’s hand, but he was definitely flexing. Shane poured on just enough brute force to get the point across: if you shake hands with a shaved Sasquatch, it’s best not to posture. Gene let go with a slight grimace. 

“Need a hand?” he asked. 

“Yeah, sure,” Shane said. “Grab two.”

Jen and Haru didn’t have a proper dining room. Since it was mostly just the two of them, plus Shane on the nights he was over, they didn’t see the point. They had a low table in front of the couch, one part coffee table, one part kotatsu. They rarely had the kotatsu-style cover installed; even in the winter, it was a little bit too warm to be comfortable. 

Shane and Gene quickly got the chairs set out in a semicircle around the kotatsu. It didn’t take long before the women were seated. Lauren, he noted, took his spot on the couch. Haru might insist that she loved them both equally, just in different ways, but Lauren clearly had her own thoughts on the matter. 

And that was his problem with Lauren in a nutshell: she just didn’t think he was good enough for Haru. Shane sussed that out almost from the moment they met. There was no mistaking the look of disappointment in her eyes. How could sweet, precious Haru fall for an ogre like him? 

Granted, the fact that she was with a man at all must have been a shock. Aside from some experimentation in college, all of Haru’s partners had been women. She was, by and large, terrified of men, thanks in no small part to how those experiments so often turned out when her suitors realized she was trans. And here she was, introducing the biggest, scariest man any of them had ever met as her boyfriend. 

Shane himself was as surprised as anyone when his friendship with Haru blossomed into romance. He didn’t resent Lauren’s hostility, not at first. Jen took some time to warm up to him, too. But unlike Jen, Lauren never dropped the mask. He was an outsider, as far as she was concerned, an intruder in her perfectly managed little slice of paradise. And he always would be. 

That realization hurt. It never stopped hurting. But, Shane never let that get in the way of his relationship with Haru, and he always went out of his way to be civil towards Lauren. If Haru realized that two of the people she loved most in the world cordially detested each other, it would break her heart. 

So, he swallowed his pride, buried the hurt, and put on a mask to match Lauren’s. But, he had a hunch that the masks would come off tonight. There was a certain uneasy tension in the air. It would all come crashing down soon. He just hoped he’d still be at Haru’s side when it was all said and done. 

Eager for an excuse not to join the others, Shane helped Haru get the bowls prepared and served to the guests before sitting down himself. As usual, Haru was the last seated, and only tucked in once she saw the others were enjoying their meal. It was excellent, of course. Haru excelled at making dishes that warmed the soul and filled the belly.