by Julia Kent
“About time someone recognized my awesomeness!” croaked a craggy voice, followed by a face that could make a cryptkeeper scream.
“MADGE!” Josie and Laura shouted. Laura did a double take as someone peered across the large rec room behind the office. Why was that man standing there in the shadows?
“MOM!” Sandy said, joining in and rushing to give the old woman a hug. Laura and Josie stayed back. Josie buried her nose in her coffee and followed Madge with her eyes.
Laura nudged Josie and pointed to the man.
Josie frowned, squinting. Then she snorted, marched across the room into the darkness, and—to Laura’s horror—dragged the man over to them.
He didn’t walk.
“Remember me?” Josie said, pretending to speak for the man.
“Warlock Waitress?” Laura gasped.
Josie reached down and grabbed the guy’s...er, the cardboard cutout’s...plastic balls. “Yep.” The life-sized cutout was actually from the movie Warlock, the 1989 cult classic featuring Julian Sands. A longstanding joke at Jeddy’s Diner, someone had put a waitress uniform on the display, added a pair of plastic trailer hitch testicles, and bam!
Warlock Waitress.
“I brought Eddie with me,” Madge said as her boyfriend, Ed, walked into the office. Hale and hearty, with the slightly slow walk of an eighty-something man, Ed Derjian gave Laura a dazzling smile, brown eyes like his grandson’s warm and curious.
“And Warlock Waitress,” Josie said under her breath.
Madge gave the ridiculous cardboard cutout a sour grin. “Jeremy bought that damn thing at an autism auction. We figured it was nostalgic for you crazy kids.” She slung an arm around Josie’s shoulders and grinned.
“Hi there,” Ed said, offering his hand to Laura. “So nice to meet you! Ed Derjian.” She shook it, though this was probably the tenth time she’d “met” Ed, who had Alzheimer’s. Josie had suggested she just go with it, so Laura played along.
“Hi, Ed! Laura Michaels.”
“A pretty little lady like you shouldn’t be here all alone,” he said, giving Madge the side-eye, knowing he shouldn’t flirt.
Josie set down her coffee and went to Ed, grabbing him for a hug as he said, “Josie! My little Josephine. Where’s my Alex? Is he still at hockey practice?”
Alex hadn’t played ice hockey since college, but Laura noticed that Josie didn’t correct him. The sun was going down and Laura knew he’d lose more of his memory with it, regaining some with the sunrise. Madge gave Josie a grateful, but wistful, look.
Madge and Ed had found each other, indirectly, because of Josie. Laura knew the story because she’d been Josie’s friend the entire time. She’d been working as a nurse on the clinical trial for Alzheimer’s patients that Alex had helped his grandfather to join. Josie had known Ed was a widower, and had stocked the reward closet for the clinical trial with gift cards to Jeddy’s, the diner where Madge worked. Offering patients a gift card to a restaurant, where they could get out and socialize, had made good, sound medical sense.
And, indirectly as well, she’d met her soon-to-be husband as a result. Like the flapping of a butterfly’s wings that causes a hurricane, the tiny choice to have those Jeddy’s gift cards had brought them to this moment.
Okay. Not really. Laura chuckled to herself as she reached up and threaded her fingers in her loose hair, pulling it off her forehead. She thought driving this far north would cut into some of the unexpected late-summer heat wave, but no such luck.
Sandy noticed Laura’s move and said, “Brought a suit?”
“Sure.”
“We can go swimming later. The water’s a balmy fifty-seven degrees.”
“That’s so much worse than the water on the Cape.”
“We’re not Cape Cod.”
“And thank God for that,” Madge said. “Bunch of overpriced dollhouses on overcrowded beaches stuffed with pretentious leeches who think they’re better than everyone else.”
A man Laura vaguely recognized had joined the group, arms crossed over a well-defined chest. He wore a tight, blue Lycra workout shirt and biking shorts that showed off a physique that made her wonder if he was a professional bicyclist. His hair was silver, but he was fairly young. Those blue eyes were the color of his shirt, and when she made eye contact, he gave her a friendly nod, but turned his attention back to Madge.
Disquiet seeped into her pores as a breeze blew against her grateful skin. She knew him. How did she know him? And then it hit her, her breath sliding through her throat like steam in a kettle just before the whistle began.
Bournham.
That was Michael Bournham.
She knew in a vague sense that Sandy’s daughter, Lydia, was with the former CEO playboy, and with another man. Sandy had been upfront in their very first phone call: the fact that Laura, Mike and Dylan were in a threesome was not only tolerated, it was accepted and celebrated. Mike Bournham had coordinated much of the media strategy with Josie and Dylan. In fact, part of the reason all of Josie’s Ohio relatives flew to Portland and not Boston was to evade discovery.
Her eyes combed over the sleek, athletic arms and that striking silver hair. It was short, but longer than she’d ever seen it. Mike Bournham’s face had been plastered all over the magazine rack in grocery stores for years.
Spending the last four years with Mike and Dylan had given her plenty of exposure to wealthy people, most of whom she found to be self-important, or vapid, or both. While she knew she shouldn’t feel the flutter of butterflies in her stomach, or the telltale grip of anxiousness that came from being uncertain what to do in the presence of someone famous, she did. She just did.
Taking the bull by the horns, she marched up to him, thrust out her hand, and said, “Hi. Laura Michaels.”
“Mike Bournham.” His smile was pleasant if guarded.
“I know.” Might as well put it out there.
His eyes narrowed to gleaming diamond-shaped blue. “I figured. And I certainly know who you are. You’re one of the belles of the ball.”
Laura laughed. “I feel like a melting snowflake in a furnace right now, not a belle.”
He turned slightly, surveying the trucks and a group of men setting up two enormous tents. Laura studied him in profile. She understood why he was often in the “Top Ten Sexiest Men” lists for magazines.
And now he lived here, with Lydia and...some other guy. And he seemed perfectly happy. A strange kinship hit her, the feeling unearned but there nonetheless. She got it. Mike and Dylan and Laura lived in their four-bedroom cabin an hour out of the city because they didn’t want the spotlight. Thank goodness, neither of her guys had seemed to need the attention that came from being a media darling.
Mike Bournham, though? Until a handful of years ago, he’d been as ubiquitous as a Kardashian, gracing every gossip page, mentioned equally on Sunday morning political shows and after-dinner entertainment cable channels.
And now he lived in a campground in Maine.
People change, she knew, pushing the thought aside as Bournham looked at her again. How well she knew about people changing.
“Are Mike Pine and Dylan Stanwyck with you?” he asked. The mention of their names surprised her for a second, then she remembered. He’d had calls with them. Of course he knew their names.
She shook her head. “Tomorrow. They’re coming in late with our nannies and our kids.”
His face split with a friendly smile, making a part of her warm up even more. “You have your hands full, I hear. Sandy won’t stop talking about how she can’t wait to meet your kids.”
A young woman who looked so much like Sandy there was no question about genetics wrapped her arm around Bournham’s waist and leaned her head on his shoulder, giving Laura a very friendly look. “That’s because she wants grandchildren from us.”
This must be Lydia.
Laura offered her hand and after the basics were done, sought out Josie with her eyes. She was in a cluster of people, a super-tal
l guy in a tiny red golf cart offering her a seat in the passenger side, her face marred with skepticism. Josie climbed in, making a hooting sound as the golf cart lurched forward, disappearing in a cloud of dust.
“Miles,” Lydia said, as if answering a question Laura hadn’t asked yet. “He’s probably taking her to her and Alex’s cabin.” The familiarity with which Lydia mentioned Josie’s fiancé caught Laura off guard, and then she remembered. Lydia and Alex were connected by their grandparents. Madge and Ed were dating, and Madge’s heart attack two years ago had led to the mixing of the families, for the better.
“Want an escort to where you’ll be staying?” Lydia asked. There was a casual, relaxed quality to her. They were close to the same age, though Laura assumed she was a bit older. A nod was all it took for the three of them to start the slight climb up an incline to the main road, Laura quiet as she took in the scene.
“You camp much?” Lydia asked after a minute or so, her voice polite. She was asking to make chit chat, but Laura felt her own nerves ratcheting up. You’d have to be living in a fog to not realize the other’s situation. Both were women in permanent, long-term threesome relationships with two wealthy men.
In other words, they were rare as rare could be.
And together.
“No. We haven’t tried. Been too busy with our little ones,” Laura replied, careful not to be the first to say anything.
Mike gave Lydia a meaningful look that Laura recognized instantly. Ah. The topic of children in their relationship had come up. Perhaps Laura, Mike and Dylan’s presence was shaking things up in more ways than one here at Escape Shores Campground.
While Laura had spent plenty of time with Darla, who was also in a permanent threesome, the difference between someone in their early twenties, on the road, with no plans to have kids in the near future and an ex CEO, his billionaire dot com wunderkind, and a more mature woman was no contest.
Laura felt a pull of kinship toward Lydia.
“I need to ask Miles a question,” Mike Bournham said, giving Lydia and Laura looks of apology.
As he jogged off, Lydia turned to Laura with a sly smile. “That was slick.”
“Slick?”
“He invented an excuse to leave us alone.”
Laura grinned back.
“Whatever could we talk about alone?”
The two shared a knowing laugh.
“You and your guys are further along that I am with Mike and Jeremy,” Lydia said, her eyes unfocused, staring over Laura’s shoulder.
“Because of the kids?”
Lydia gave a small shrug.
“We didn’t exactly plan to have Jilly. But what a wonderful gift she’s been.”
“And then twins!” Lydia’s words were familiar. Laura had heard it all over the last year. I don’t know how you do it! was the number one response.
A nanny, a backup nanny, a cleaning service, two best friends who babysat, and two dads who were billionaires was how.
“Please don’t say, ‘I don’t know how you do it,’” Laura said with a sigh and a laugh.
“Okay. I won’t.” Lydia touched her hand. “But do you have friends? People you can hang out with who aren’t weirded out by your situation?”
“Other than Josie and Alex?”
“Are they your best friends?”
A flash of eagerness in Lydia made Laura freeze inside. My God. Didn’t she have someone like Josie to talk to?
“Yes. They are. And Mike has some people at his ski resort. Josie’s niece is in a permanent threesome, too. She’ll be here soon.” Laura peered at Lydia. “You have a best friend, I hope?”
“I do. Krysta. But we don’t have a couple or a triad we can just hang out with.”
Laura didn’t know what to say.
“Plus you run the dating service,” Lydia added, studying Laura. “You’re not hiding your life.”
“We don’t exactly flaunt it, though,” Laura said. She wasn’t defensive. She was just unmoored. This conversation was very, very surreal.
“Here in Maine, we don’t exactly advertise how we live. But people talk. And most understand. If they don’t, they keep to themselves.”
“And those people aren’t worth being in your life.”
“Right.”
Awkwardness descended. Lydia reached for Laura for a hug, and whispered, “We’re so glad you chose Escape Shores for your wedding.” Laura squeezed her back and opened her mouth, ready to reply.
Her phone rang, the buzz on her hip jolting her out of of her looping, anxious thoughts.
“Hello?”
“Hey, gorgeous.” Dylan. “How’s it going up there?”
Relief flooded her. She kept her eyes straight ahead and followed Lydia and Mike, who began talking to each other about domestic issues. Something about coffee and a broken garden hose.
“It’s great. We just arrived. I’m being given the tour and Lydia and Mike are taking me to our cabin.”
“Mike?”
“The other Mike.”
At the mention of his name, Mike Bournham looked up expectantly, as if he thought she were calling for him.
“Two Mikes is going to make this weekend very confusing,” she said to him with what she hoped was an apologetic tone. “I’m talking to Dylan about you.”
“I hope it’s all good?”
She gave him a thumbs’ up and returned to her call.
“And he’s nice?”
“He’s fine. The people here are so friendly.”
“You sound overwhelmed.”
Just talking to him was helping her to ground herself. “I am. It’s been a lot. And we have so much more to do.”
“That’s why we hired professionals,” he said in a soothing voice. “Let them do their jobs.” Laura had struggled to adjust to their financial situation. Never reluctant to spend money on help, she did have a hard time spending money on herself.
“I miss you.” Their hot-and-heavy sex in the woods had been on her mind, circling around and around like Dylan’s tongue on her—
“Hey!” One of Lydia’s brothers shouted, a super-tall guy with dark, curly hair. She turned toward the shout and saw why he was upset.
Someone else was driving away in his little painted golf cart.
“Jeremy got you,” Bournham called out, the handful of workers all laughing in an uproar. Inside joke, she assumed.
“You there?” Dylan asked, his voice worried.
“Yeah. Just interrupted.”
“We’ll be there tomorrow. All of us. My mom and dad and brother.” Dylan’s other siblings couldn’t make it. Partly true, partly a socially-acceptable lie, Laura accepted the absence. Who was she to judge? She was an only child. Her best friend was an only child—who was marrying an only child. Knowing nothing about having a sibling, Laura felt she couldn’t really pipe up about how she felt.
Dylan seemed resigned to his siblings’ absence. She wouldn’t push.
Mike, though...
No word from his mom and dad. Her attempt to reach out had been met with silence. In her letter, an old-fashioned paper letter she’d actually mailed through the post office, she’d enclosed a picture of Jillian playing with the twins, a gorgeous shot from earlier in the summer when they spent a day at a nearby lake.
If that adorable picture didn’t tweak their hearts, then nothing would. Mike appeared to be right. His parents would not budge.
And so their wedding would be celebrated by a gaggle of friends, coworkers, former colleagues and a ton of Dylan’s family.
That would have to be enough.
Lydia gestured toward a large cabin, and Laura described it to Dylan in real time. Two bedrooms, one on either side of a large, lodge-like living room. A tiny kitchenette. A bathroom that was barely larger than a walk-in closet, with no bathtub. She wondered how she would clean the kids, until Lydia opened the back door.
An enormous hot tub, big enough to seat twelve, was there.
She groaned into the p
hone.
“What’s wrong?”
“Twelve-person hot tub on the back porch.”
“Can I come now?” he growled, making her laugh. Lydia and Mike made their goodbyes, leaving her alone. Mike gestured that he would send up her bags from her car.
“I’m alone now,” she said softly into the phone. “And I know this wedding’s going to be wonderful, but I really am looking forward to it being over.”
“Me, too. Not the honeymoon part,” he quickly added. “But the wedding part.”
Her stomach lurched, like a small, slimy creature lived in it. “I kind of think we are making a mistake,” she whispered into the phone, afraid to say it but needing to confess this feeling. “It’s just a feeling,” she quickly stammered.” I don’t want to back out of this or anything. I just feel so...I don’t know.”
“Oh, honey,” Dylan said, his low voice soothing. “You’re overwhelmed.”
Her voice thickened. “Yeah.”
“And you’ve been overwhelmed for a long time.”
“Yeah.”
“Mike and I got this here at home. Cyndi and Ellie are fabulous with the kids. Let the campground owners do their thing. Let go of details. Just remind yourself that we’re doing this because it’s a celebration. Not a chore.”
The words helped her stomach to settle. “I know.”
“I know you know, Laura. I’m reminding you, though. We all need to be reminded sometimes, even if we know something. It’s like throwing dirty socks next to the hamper.”
“What?” She started to laugh and cry at the same time. Dylan had a way of taking a perfectly normal conversation and turning it into something weird.
“I know I’m supposed to put them in the hamper. But I don’t. I have no idea why I don’t. I couldn’t form a coherent thought to explain it. I just...don’t. And then you have to remind me.”
“You’re comparing your laziness with dirty socks to my emotional existential crisis around our wedding?”
He paused. She could hear him thinking.
“No?” his voice turned up in question. “No. Um, that would be stupid, right?”
Her laughter made her fear lessen.
“I think I get what you’re saying. I do know. I just can’t...do. I can’t relax. I can’t stop feeling like this is a lot of work and effort and not a whole lot of fun.”
