by Julia Kent
“I’d say the arrogance and pretension started when you decided to turn my personal bedroom into a no-tell motel,” Mike snapped back.
“I had no idea this was your apartment.” Anger she could handle. Keep it up, Mike.
They simmered in silence, the squeal of a car’s tires on the parking garage’s concrete cutting through the moment as they stood in front of her little red car, the same car she’d been in the day they’d first met in the parking lot at her old job.
His old company.
Their old life.
Breathing hard, all she could do was pause. Not think, not plan, not strategize—just pause. The rush of a breeze through the stale air, the scent of oil and gas fumes, the muss of her own appearance and the lingering sensation of fullness and sexual satiety mingled with a new arousal because—after all—this was Mike.
The Michael Bournham.
And damn if she didn’t still want him.
I hate you.
He reached out to touch her shoulder with an assertiveness that bordered on possession. No fleeting graze, his palm rested firmly on her neck, fingers brushing against her collarbone, making her imagine his lips there, kissing a trail down to her breast…
How could one touch trigger so much? What kind of woman stood between two men like this and wanted both?
Without a word, Jeremy climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car, jolting Lydia from her trance. “I said we’d talk,” she said, clearing her throat, willing away the roar of heat in her body.
“Tonight? Tomorrow?” It wasn’t really a question.
“Let me see how my grandmother is doing, but if she’s fine, then yes.” Her hand on the door handle, she paused. “The sooner we get this over with, the better.”
Climbing in, she took a deep breath, closing her eyes so that as Jeremy pulled the car out of its spot and drove slowly down the ramp, she wouldn’t have to see Mike fade away.
The problem with having his best friend find him naked with Lydia wasn’t that Mike had discovered them in flagrante delicto, nor was the problem that Lydia had kissed Mike with all the passion of a woman who finds herself about to touch a lover she’d thought long lost to her.
That was enough to make his dick detach and run off to throw itself into a boiling volcano.
No—the problem was, he thought as he guided the car slowly out of the parking garage and down the streets of Boston to the hospital, that none of the three of them were actually communicating.
How can you when someone’s tongue is shoved down your throat?
Or dick up your—
“Can we stop for coffee?” Lydia asked, forthright and neutral, as if none of the past hour’s events had happened at all.
“There’s a coffee place in the hospital,” he said, trying to keep the tension out of his voice. If not for driving, he’d be a bundle of nervous energy, tapping his foot, fidgeting uncontrollably, body needing to get out what his mind and heart couldn’t process. Watching Lydia kiss Mike as if she were embracing and loving a ghost made Jeremy’s soul seize up. Jealousy had never been an issue with him and Mike, but this…
Was different.
In a perfect world, the three of them would sit down at a lovely restaurant, or dine in at Mike’s place, and have a rational, mature, introspective conversation about the events of the past two months. In his imaginary world, Mike would lay out his emotional landscape, Jeremy would explain his feelings and Lydia would join in, layered and nuanced, revealing and appreciated. The three would talk late into the night, sometimes shy, other times brash—always truthful and honest.
In the end, they would come to some life-altering realization about love and life and sensuality and what they wanted, an undefined (and, perhaps, undefinable) relationship on the horizon, with a shared future that held promise.
Shared.
That was the key here, the part neither he nor Mike would openly discuss.
Yet.
And then? Then they would fuck like Spring Break college students from a conservative Christian bible college with a one-time hall pass.
Feeling a bit like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, he parked in the hospital’s lot and guided Lydia to the espresso bar and bakery in the lobby. Two double lattes later and her caffeine needs were sated.
But not her need for so much more.
He wasn’t enough, was he? All the doubts and insecurities from Dana flooded through him, as hot and rich and dangerous as the steamy frothed milk that scalded his tongue. Pain made the internal turmoil somehow easier to withstand, the words held back by temperature and temperament, his roiling chaos within unable to be unleashed right now, because what would it serve? How would it help to delve deeply into the incredibly complicated mess of the three of them right now, as they entered the elevator and listened to Muzak that made him want to slit his own throat? Really? Who turned Aerosmith’s Walk This Way into some new-agey electronified version of aural waterboarding?
Stepping off the elevator, they made their way in silence to Madge’s room, finding Sandy inside, smiling with abandon.
Madge’s eyes were closed, but the ventilator was gone, the maddening hiss of machinery designed to prolong life now turned off with a simple push of a button, the woman looking less fragile and more like someone who was simply recovering, taking the time and attention she needed to see what came next.
“Mom!” Lydia’s hug was a little too tight, the wide eyes on Sandy making her mother shoot him a questioning look. He just shrugged, instantly transported back twenty years, feeling like a geeky kid again.
Would that ever go away?
“Lydia,” Madge croaked, dry, wrinkled lips forming the sound. The word Lydia rolled off the tongue, requiring very little lip movement, and he pondered that for about three-tenths of a second before moving back so Lydia could go to Madge’s side, her hand coming to rest on his arm briefly, a quick recognition that he was there, that she cared, that they were still connected.
His deep sigh of relief was mistaken by Sandy as aimed at Madge. “I know! Mom’s recovery is amazing. Not out of the woods yet,” she added, as if hedging her bets against a God who might take optimism as a challenge to create more medical mischief.
“But better than yesterday,” he said, looking at Lydia hugging her grandmother, his own frantic moth of uncertainty that nested in his chest now going calm, the look of love that stretched between the members of this family—all-encompassing and all too real—replacing his sense of unease with a bigger feeling of wanting to join in.
Jeremy tended to avoid clubs. All clubs. Groups and organizations and anything social that involved obligation. Expectations. Needs.
But here…this was something different.
“Caleb at the restaurant?” Madge asked, her voice like wet wasps nests.
“Yes, and he’s doing fine,” Sandy said as she plucked at the layers of cotton blankets covering Madge’s thick, muscular legs. For an eighty-something old broad, she was in great shape. Too bad his mother hadn’t been the same.
“He knows about the order from the—” Thick, hacking coughs took over Madge’s words, her face twisting in pain. A great whooping sound, followed by a shuddering gasp, made Jeremy freeze in place and look at Lydia to gauge her reaction. Their eyes met, and all he could do was try to telepathically transmit support.
The doctor, an older guy with a bald head and flat gray eyes, marched in at that moment. “Good coughs! You want to clear all the gunk out of those lungs.”
“Is ‘gunk’ a medical term?” Madge asked slowly.
That made the guy crack a smile as he avoided eye contact with everyone and flipped her metal chart open. “Yes, yes it is. ‘Gunk’ and ‘crap’ are two of the finest words I learned in med school. Very descriptive and to the point.”
They all chuckled politely, then went silent for half a minute before the doctor nodded for Sandy to go into the hallway with him, leaving Jeremy and Lydia alone with Madge.
“Where’s E
d?” Madge asked.
“He’s been here twice, Grandma, and we’ll get him back again. I think Meribeth took him home to rest.”
“She was here?” Madge waved toward a pitcher on the nightstand and Lydia filled it, adding a straw, her movements so gentle and careful as she held the straw to Madge’s lips, helping her drink, that Jeremy found himself falling even more for her. That kindness and devotion didn’t spring up from nowhere. It was a part of Lydia, a truth to her core that emanated out into everything she did and was, and he loved her for it.
Loved her.
Draining his latte, he threw the cup in the trash and walked out of the room to give the two women some privacy, and to catch his breath. The emotionality of the past few hours was taking its toll.
So was the uncertainty.
Bzzzz. He knew the text would be Mike.
And, checking his screen, he was right.
Coffee? Mike had texted.
The taste of the double latte still filled his mouth.
How about a drink? he wrote back.
Even better.
The dive bar reeked of soured alcohol and men’s cologne, a bizarre mix that reminded Mike of his college party days. Somehow, Jeremy had extracted himself from the nightmare of Madge’s ICU stay, and he sat across from his friend, both nursing pints of Guinness, Mike wondering how the fuck this was all supposed to get untangled, yet sure of one thing:
He only wanted Lydia more now.
A poster stapled at an odd angle on the post next to their table advertised some local rock band called Random Acts of Crazy. Mike had never heard of them, and when he pointed to the sign, Jeremy just shrugged. Neither had, to be blunt, been part of the Boston college party scene. Ever. Whatever pleasures people found in sweaty, overcrowded, stinky bars stuffed with hot young women and desperate guys trying to get laid, he…wait.
Maybe he had missed something.
“How did you bow out of staying at the hospital?” he asked his friend, who looked so quiet and pensive he wasn’t sure this really was Jeremy sitting there, drawing circles on the glass’s condensation.
“I just asked.”
“The truth worked?”
“Shouldn’t it always?” That was a pointed barb. Time to sling an arrow back.
“Even when it comes to Diane?”
Jeremy’s head snapped up, his eyes full of guarded fear that drained quickly, replaced by a half-smile and a head shake. “You figured it out?”
“Didn’t take much. Diane blabbed pretty quickly, especially when a producer offered her the moon if she could get me on camera for a future episode of her series.”
“Fuck.” The word came out of Jeremy in a long groan. He drank half his beer in a series of steady gulps, then put the glass down and added, “I thought she’d keep her mouth shut.”
“Can’t keep her legs shut. Why would her mouth be any different?”
“Did she end up getting what she wanted?”
“Her show? Yeah. The producer for Meet the Hidden Boss gave her a thirteen-episode shot.” Mike rattled off a description of the cable series as a nearby jukebox fired up, his words buried until the music quieted down, when Mike added, “I’m sure she fucked him, too.”
“I appear to be the only man she didn’t sleep with,” Jeremy said.
“You’re not missing anything,” Mike snapped back.
Mike let that hang in the air, a few easy retorts flying fast and furiously through his mind. Let it settle, he told himself. Jeremy’s not an adversary.
Quite the opposite.
Then why did this feel like a competition? Like they were going to head to head in a game Mike didn’t grasp? None of the women they’d ever shared had triggered this kind of response in either of them. So when the stakes were lower, they’d been cooperative.
Was that it? The stakes were just too high this time?
Lydia was in a league of her own.
The question was: were either of them in there with her? Or both?
“Can we get to the point?” Jeremy signaled for another round of beers, emptying his with ferocious speed. “We both want her. We both want to have her want us. Us. Not you alone, not me alone. But if she’ll only pick one, I want it to be me.”
“Me too.”
“You want her to pick me?”
Silence. All Mike needed to do was stare him down in answer.
But Jeremy stared right back.
“This isn’t some deal you get to negotiate at the head of the big fucking executive’s table, Mike. You can’t maneuver and persuade and cajole and outplan. Her emotions matter. Who she is matters.” Jeremy nodded politely when the waitress brought the second beers, Mike taking a moment to chug his down, the splash of thick Guinness against his throat so rich it was like drinking unsweetened chocolate mixed with iron, which tasted far better than it sounded.
“You think I don’t know that?” Mike growled.
“You act like you don’t.”
Mike’s temper rose. “What the fuck am I supposed to do now, Jeremy? She doesn’t believe that any of the video was unplanned. She can’t let herself believe—even for a moment—that I really did lose myself in that time with her, and I forgot about the cameras. Unchecked passion isn’t exactly my forte.”
Jeremy frowned. Mike continued.
“I lost myself in her and found, for those shining minutes, the real me. Not the Michael Bournham I’d spent ten years creating, but good old Mike. The tinkerer. The thinker. The doer. Not the dealmaker or the playboy or the image creator, schemer of mergers of major companies and destroyer of anyone who created obstacles.
“She gave me a sense of authenticity that I didn’t know existed. And then—poof!—I sabotaged it before we’d even gotten started.” Mike banged his fist on the table. “You know how much I beat myself up for that? How every day I wake up in frustration not having her next to me, not being able to tell her how I feel, not seeing those eyes, not kissing those lips, not admiring that ass, not…not…not.” His voice began to shake with pure rage. “So don’t tell me I’m unaware of how she feels. It’s all I’ve thought about since the moment I met her, two years ago.”
The words bounced between them. “Two years?” Jeremy asked, clearly puzzled.
Mike waved his hand dismissively. “We met at a corporate thing.”
Jeremy’s eyebrows went up. “You carried a torch the entire time?”
“I carried a fucking bonfire.”
Appearing to mull that over, Jeremy drank more of his beer and took a deep breath. “She isn’t just something you want to win.” The statement came out flat, without affect.
“No.”
“You really love her.”
A bolt of energy infused his limbs, making his hands and feet tingle. “Yes,” he answered simply.
“Me too.”
“Have you said that to her?”
Jeremy snorted. “I can barely admit it to myself.”
Mike joined him, chuckling. “We’re a pair, aren’t we? Sitting here arguing over a woman whose feelings we don’t even know.”
“I know she still wants you.”
Jeremy’s words made the blood pump faster to Mike’s heart. Why did that make his abs ache? “And you…she clearly has something going on with you that’s working.”
“Until today, I thought so.”
“I ruined it?”
Jeremy tipped his glass at him in a gesture of a toast: “To walking in on your best friend after he’s just had anal with the woman a billion people watched you have sex with.”
“Anal?” Lydia was more adventurous than he’d given her credit for. His cock came to life just thinking about it.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t have shared that,” Jeremy said, instantly troubled with a deepening frown. “Pretend I never said that.”
“That’s a hell of a thing to forget.”
They laughed, tension lifting, both drinking until their second beers were gone. A floating, diffuse feeling took over, mak
ing him simultaneously more determined than ever to have Lydia, and caring less about competition with Jeremy.
“How do we proceed?” he asked.
“You’re the one who’s always barking orders. You tell me.”
“Let’s get the secrets out on the table. You first.”
“Me?” Jeremy pointed to his chest. “You figured out my only secret. Diane.” He paused. “How about you?”
Do or die. Shit or get off the pot, right? Bad metaphor. “You want to know where I’ve been for nearly a month?”
Jeremy shrugged. “Sure.”
“Living at the Escape Shores Campground.”
A fine mist of dark beer sprayed Mike in the face as Jeremy reacted, instinct far stronger than manners. Hacking through a series of painful coughs as the beer tinged and ripped into his windpipe, he waved his hands and sputtered an ineffective Sorry.
As he gathered his bearings, Jeremy’s eyes bugged out of his head and he ran a shaky hand through his hair, which the waitress mistook for an order of another round.
“No, I—ah, what the hell. A third won’t kill us.” He peered at Mike with a new respect in his eyes. “In fact, I have a feeling we’ll need that third one.”
Mike nodded. “Just don’t spray me with it.”
Jeremy banged his chest, willing his throat to stop spasming. “So you spill.”
Mike did.
Chapter Nine
“You had buttsex with a guy and less than an hour later you were tongue-fucking another one in front of Mr. Buttsex? Lydia! You’re like something out of a sex-positive Reid Mihalko video!”
Krysta’s voice carried a tone that Lydia couldn’t pinpoint, as if she were impressed and revolted at the same time, like watching a Farrelly Brothers movie and being mortified that you were laughing.
“Ms. Judgmental, aren’t we? You’re the one who had anal sex long before I did!”
Krysta blushed.
