Tuesdays with Jay and Other Stories: A Neighborly Affection Companion is a book of forty-two stories—thirty-nine Tuesdays with Jay stories, one Christmas musing from Henry, a peek into the Neighborly Affection trio’s future in Jay’s “Family Man,” and an outing with the trio in “Three-Way Tie.” The pieces are primarily arranged in chronological order, but each also begins with a note about its placement in the main series.
In Chapter 5 of Neighborly Affection Book 1: Playing the Game, Alice tells us that she and Jay are sharing weekly lunches. She’s not quite forthcoming with the details:
Jay seemed to be making some extra effort to maintain their friendship, and he provided comical entertainment at its finest. Every week, not just every other week, his delivery route brought him out near her office complex. Somehow, he always had time to stop for lunch, texting to say he’d be down the street in five and did she want to join him?
So every Tuesday for six weeks, she’d eaten lunch with Jay. During which he talked about anything and everything except the fact that he was fucking her on alternate Fridays. He flirted, though. At least until he’d get a half-panicked look on his face and change the subject.
Maybe Henry had given him a list of acceptable topics.
With the exception of “What Henry Wants for Christmas” and “Three-Way Tie,” all of the stories in Tuesdays with Jay are narrated by Jay himself as he fills in the male side of the story Alice tells in Playing the Game and Neighborly Affection Book 2: Crossing the Lines. The final numbered story, No. 39: “No Rush,” carries over into the opening of Neighborly Affection Book 3: Healing the Wounds.
It’s your choice whether you want to read Jay’s stories straight through by themselves or put them into context by reading them alongside the main novels in the Neighborly Affection series. The guide notes at the opening of each story are there to give a quick recap of when in the trio’s relationship the story is taking place.
Let’s get to it before Jay drops another story in our laps.