by Kent, Julia
“What’s up?” he asked, drying his hands on a towel.
“That whole no lying thing. Should we tell her about the—you know...” Mike made a reluctant face.
“The you know what?”
“The billionaire thing. She doesn’t want lies, and she considers not telling her something major to be a lie.”
Fuck. He hadn’t thought of that. If they kept this from her, eventually it would come out. Would she be angry they didn’t confide in her? Or would she understand why they wanted a little more time? It wasn’t about worrying that she’d become greedy, or view them as sugar daddies, or any of the normal reasons guys with money would hesitate to let a woman know.
They had so much money there wasn’t anything a woman could do to drain it anyhow, short of buying an island or a private jet, and even then—he shuddered, overwhelmed by the realization—it would just put a temporary dent in their cash flow. Jesus Christ. They really were filthy, stinking rich.
Next time, he was buying filet for dinner. Why had he made boring old pasta with meatballs? Sheesh.
“No way, man. Not tonight. It’ll scare her off,” he told Mike. Hell, he hadn’t even wanted poor Laura to have to get into talking about what he and Mike had done before. Anything that reminded her of negative feelings about them was off limits tonight. This dinner was about moving forward, not lingering in the past.
He wiggled his toes, feeling flour. Brushing his hand through his hair, he was shocked by the not inconsiderable amount that rained down on his shoulders and chest. Then he took a good look at the counter. Man, he was a slob.
But a slob who cooked some damn fine food.
“You don’t think we should take the opportunity?”
“I do—just not this opportunity.” Dylan blinked, struggling to explain himself. Finally, he just let arrogance take him where he needed to go. “Look, Mike. She’s vulnerable and unknowing right now. What women want at times like this is certainty. She doesn’t need truth. Oh—eventually, sure,” he said as Mike opened his mouth to protest. “Not now, though. What we all need is a quiet, comfortable, fun night where we get to know each other and—” He winked.
“Uh uh. No—” Mike winked back, exaggeratedly.
“OK, fine.” He sighed heavily. “I was on the fence anyhow. Not that I don’t want to, but more that—”
“That she needs time.”
“I think she needs us.”
“And time.”
“Not too much time, I hope.”
“We’re fucking lucky she’s here, Dylan,” Mike whispered. No anger. No frustration. Just a matter-of-fact statement.
“Not lucky,” he argued.
“Then what?”
Pink. Soft swells. Blonde hair. “Hey, guys?” Laura asked, head peering around the corner. “Ready to eat? I’m starving.” She raised her eyebrows, the skin pulling her nose up a tad and making her lips fuller. A cheerleader’s face. No—a smart cheerleader’s face.
“Yep—ready!” Dylan nearly shouted, almost jumping out of his skin when she appeared.
“What’re you guys talking about?”
“You.” Mike! So blunt.
The three walked into the dining room. Mike had even lit candles. How romantic. How unnecessary, given the cockblocking.
“Me?” she asked.
“How great you are,” Dylan jumped in, eager hands slipping around her waist, his lips reaching out to press a kiss against her temple. The way she melted into him gave him more information than 1,000 words uttered from her lips.
Mike frowned at him. She pulled back from Dylan and said breathlessly, “Well, this is one amazing dinner.” Pulling out her own chair, she settled into what would normally be Mike’s seat. Dylan grabbed Jill’s old place and Mike settled into what they called the “guest” spot. No need for formalities, right? Tradition and habit were thrown out the window now anyhow. Everything they knew, from domestic life to finances to dating had gone out the window over the past two years.
Live a little, he thought. Shake it up. Sit somewhere new.
Ah, Dylan, you wild and crazy guy.
Homemade pasta, meatballs, salad and garlic bread was probably the most stereotypical Italian meal he could have cooked, but it seemed to hit the spot for everyone. Laura ate with great gusto and Dylan admired that. So many women he dated ate like they were competing in American Idol: Anorexia Edition.
She couldn’t possibly eat more than Mike, though, who managed to eat the share of a seventeen-year-old football player going through a growth spurt. With a tapeworm. And a hollow leg.
Three plates later, Thor pushed himself back from the table and finished off his wine. “Amazing, Dylan. Really.”
“Thanks.” Dylan’s stomach stretched just enough to make him want to unbutton his jeans. And he would have, if Laura weren’t here.
“Oh,” Laura groaned, setting down her fork. “I give up.” She turned to Dylan and put her elbow on the table, chin resting in her palm. “That was the best dinner anyone has ever cooked for me.”
“Ready for dessert?” he asked. They both groaned and put up their hands in protest.
“How about a movie, first?” Mike asked.
“Which one?” Mike liked some really weird shit, like those Christopher Guest movies. Not “The Princess Bride,” which was a classic even Dylan liked, but the ones where people talked to each other like they were on some pretentious stage doing improv designed by a philosophy professor at a dog show as filmed by the Farrelly brothers.
“Let’s let Laura pick.” Mike bowed slightly, in deference to her. Mike always knew what to say. It made Dylan feel like an idiot sometimes. So, in retaliation, he totally hogged the spot next to Laura on the couch, grabbed the remote, and turned on the television, flipping to an on demand service.
“Comedy?” Dylan suggested. Laura looked between the two men, reading them. Her cheeks were a bit flushed from the wine and she seemed to have let down her guard a bit, relaxing into the sofa with a patterned throw pillow in her lap. He loved seeing her like this. Just being. And there went his body, tingling and rising to the occasion.
The occasion Mike had squashed. Squash this, he thought, wiggling just enough to take the edge off his discomfort. Mike nudged past their knees and took his place on the other side of Laura. She looked to the left and to the right and seemed bemused.
Grabbing the remote from him, Laura’s soft touch made him close his eyes and exhale. Garlic. Elephant amounts of garlic on his breath. Mammoth levels of garlic.
Leaning in toward her, he smelled it on her breath, too. Mike probably reeked, too, which made him relax. OK. It was all good. If everyone smelled like an Italian restaurant, then there was no need for breath mints.
Laura settled on a comedy he and Mike happened to have watched a few weeks ago. They exchanged a wordless glance of understanding; don’t question it. The film was funny enough to enjoy again, and she seemed to be a bit nervous suddenly. Whatever it took to keep everyone happy was what they needed right now.
Even if it meant laughing all over at a movie they’d thought was just OK. Besides, right now, his attention wasn’t exactly focused on the television screen, with Laura’s warm body next to his, the rise and fall of her chest in his peripheral vision, her fingers worrying the wine glass stem. She wriggled and settled in place, crossing and uncrossing her legs, finally gulping the last of her wine and leaning forward to place her empty glass on a coaster.
Heat from her body disappeared and left him feeling colder than he’d expected, and then Mike burst into laughter, followed by Laura’s surprised giggle. Something funny in the movie. He could only give it half his attention because the entire room came into sharp focus suddenly, as if he were watching them from above. A quiet night, capped with a decent, funny movie about some modern woman who was insecure, some man who’d hurt her accidentally, some big misunderstanding that needed to be unraveled, supported by each person’s best friend as plot devices.
Add a sec
ond man and you had, well, them. All three.
Here they sat, laughing at it on the big screen.
Mike’s legs were stretched out on the coffee table, ankles crossed. Laura leaned back in and slouched a little, head cocked to the left. Dylan clutched a pillow and let the glow of the TV wash over them all. They were just three friends hanging out, watching a movie after a great meal.
The tiramisu he’d soon spring on them was soaking in flavor.
He was soaking in all of this.
Self-assured, he stretched his arm behind Laura and rested one hand on Mike’s shoulder. A little smile played on her lips as she pretended to be completely absorbed by a movie that really only needed five of your brain cells to compute.
Mike caught his eye. Looked at his hand. Nodded.
Life was good.
Chapter Three
Knock knock. “Wha?” Laura sat up. Who in the hell knocks at 6:11 a.m.?
Bang bang bang. “Laura?”
Josie. “Lost my key!” came her muffled voice through the door.
I never gave you a new one, Laura thought, shuffling to the door. Daylight was a glaring bitch this morning, sunlight aggressively spilling through her apartment.
“You know, they have these places,” Laura said sharply as Josie walked past her, into the kitchen, and grabbed the coffee sack, plopping it next to the coffee machine. “They’re called coffee shops. Professional coffee people make it for you and you give them these green pieces of paper and you get to drink it.”
“Green pieces of paper?”
“Or silver coins.” She yawned. “Or plastic cards.”
“But they don’t have stories about threesomes like you do.”
“Oh, I’m sure if you ask around enough someone will.” Laura scooped the coffee with a slightly shaking hand. Could you have a tiramisu hangover? Jesus, Dylan had used a lot of rum in that delightfully scrumptious dessert. Pressing a few buttons, she got the coffee going and plopped down in a kitchen chair.
“You’re here to interrogate me, aren’t you?” she said, resigned.
“So whassup?” Josie stretched the word out in an annoying mimic of an old beer commercial’s frog actors. “You a little sore today? That Dylan might be short but I’ll bet he has a dick the size of a coke can.”
“Ewwww!” Close, she thought. But she’d never tell Josie that!
“I just crossed over my own line.” Josie held out her palms in a surrender gesture. “Sorry. TMI. I blame caffeine deficiency.”
“Blame your genetics. Your mom’s way worse. Remember how she announced to everyone in the marching band our freshman year that you needed to use non-chlorinated tampons because you couldn’t bear to experience another rash—and then had pictures to warn other girls away from—”
Josie shuddered and interrupted loudly. “No, yo mama.”
“No, yo mama!” Were they really acting like they were in seventh grade? Yeesh.
“I don’t have a mama. She died that day.”
Laura chuckled. “You wish she’d died that day, because three years later when we graduated, there she was at commencement, under the bleachers, banging the band director.”
“She likes a little pomp with her circumstance.”
“She made it clear to the whole auditorium how much she liked his wand.”
“Topic change!” Josie shouted, leaping for the coffee maker.
“Her crescendo, too, was—”
“Oh, my God, stop!”
“Oh, dear. Am I going too far?” Laura said facetiously, playing it up. “Have I crossed a decency boundary? Have I made you uncomfortable talking about sex?”
“My mother’s sex—”
“I wouldn’t want to force you to talk about anything so prurient. That would be being a bad friend, now, wouldn’t it?” Josie finally got the hint.
“Was it weird? Being with two guys like that? I mean, and not sleeping with them?”
Laura rubbed her eyes. Why was Josie getting on her last nerve lately? She was still angry with her for pouring everything out to Mike and Dylan. Why not make her walk around naked with a sign that said “Ask Me Anything”? If your best friend couldn’t keep your secrets, who could? That night at Jeddy’s had been one of the most stressful and surreal in her entire life, warlock balls and all. When she’d learned, later, what Josie had told the guys, after Dylan blurted it all out in a tiramisu-induced haze, she’d come home and nearly killed Josie.
The morning coffee routine was getting old. What wasn’t getting old, though, was this developing relationship between her and the guys. The guys. Even that was surreal and weird. Ah, hell—nothing about this threesome wasn’t bizarre, so she was getting tired of labeling it all as outside the mainstream. It just was. No getting around that. An internal argument deep within her raged on, one part telling her this was madness and a stronger, more settled part humming along nicely, ignoring the part that screamed “freak!”
Speaking of freaks, Josie was saying something through sips of java. “If you kiss one of them, do you have to kiss the other?”
“Huh?” Laura poured herself a cup. Might as well benefit from the fruits of her labor. That, and she needed the jolt. Yet another uncomfortable conversation with Josie, though she had to admit that the girl definitely helped sometimes, making her think about things she hadn’t considered. Like this?
“Does it have to be 50/50? If you sleep with one, do you have to sleep with the other? Or is it always a threesome? Is there always double, well—you know?”
Freak! “You actually sit around contemplating these things, Josie? Seriously?”
She had the decency to pinken a bit. “Who doesn’t?”
“Most of the rest of the world.” Sip. If she didn’t fill her mouth with something it would soon be full of words she’d regret saying. Please. This was devolving quickly into voyeurism. Laura was surprised by how annoyed she was becoming. Josie was always inquisitive. It was just who she was, and as aggravating as she could be at times, it had never troubled Laura this much.
Josie shot her a wary look. “I just...no, I don’t sit around dredging up embarrassing questions to ask you, Laura.” Her tone of voice conveyed hurt feelings. “But it’s natural, I think, to wonder. Most threesomes are one-night-stand kind of deals. What you have is so out of the realm of normal that it makes me think. Philosophize and stuff, about what it means for the long haul.”
Aha. And that was it. That was why this bothered Laura so much.
Because, damn it, Josie was right.
“What you’re doing, Laura, is fascinating to watch from the outside. Plus, yeah, I am demented. So sometimes my mind just...goes there. And I found myself wondering what it felt like, eating dinner with two guys, snuggling on the couch with two guys, wanting affection—but not sex—and having to, what? Pick? Kiss both? Cuddle in a sandwich?”
That made Laura laugh. “I thought it would be weird, too. It kind of was, at first. Mike made a big spectacle of making sure I knew they didn’t expect sex. I knew what he was doing. He really was just trying to be nice and to help me relax.” She let out a puff of air. “And it was good and kind and all that, but it pissed me off. I still don’t know what they were thinking, hiding the truth about their relationship from me.”
“They’re not gay.” Josie started to unpeel a banana from Laura’s fruit bowl.
Laura did a double-take. “Did anyone ever think they were?”
Through a mouthful of banana, Josie sputtered, “Ah, c’mon, Laura. Two guys with one girl? Gay, gay, gay.”
“Not gay!” Holy smokes, not even close to gay. Laura knew gay. Gay men, that is. Her high school boyfriend her senior year had turned out to be gay. He’d come out when they were juniors in college, home at Thanksgiving and hanging out in a piano bar with a group of friends. Ding! A million little questions had been answered with one big answer. What other hot-blooded seventeen-year-old teenager wanted to cuddle and kiss all the time instead of banging wherever they could get a s
hred of privacy? Or knew all the words to the disco songs? Or liked to go clothes shopping with her?
And eyed the same guys Laura surreptitiously checked out as they had wandered the mall?
Her gaydar wasn’t pinging with Mike and Dylan. No way. It was just...complicated. That’s all.
Why was it always complicated?
Josie swallowed hard, trying to clear her mouth. “I know that. I asked.”
“You asked?” Laura’s turn to sputter.
“They closed right up. That Dylan is one scary dude when he’s being cold. Mike, too—but Dylan was worse. I felt like the ice king had just cast a spell over the booth.”
“You asked them that at Jeddy’s? Jesus, Josie. You have some—”
“Balls. Yeah. I know. I had to ask, though. If you’re just some bed toy for them, then I’m not letting anyone do that to my best friend, because that is some fucked up mental shit right there. If two gay guys are just out trawling for a chick they can bang to get off their jollies, it won’t be you.”
Laura started peeling a clementine. “I’m touched.” She frowned. “I guess. In your own extremely convoluted way, you mean well.”
“And, by the way, no foursomes. Dylan shut that one down.” The orange wedge in Laura’s mouth went flying across the room, landing in the sink as she did a spit take.
“You asked about a foursome?”
Josie winked. “I was just testing them.”
“Oh, my God.” No wonder Dylan had made a funny face when Josie’s name had come up last night. Mike’s arched eyebrows without a smile had made her wonder as well. What in the ever-loving hell did they think of her best friend? And how did this reflect on how they viewed her? The night had been nice. Just nice. And just nice was exactly what she’d needed after far too many nights of surprise, shock, passion and boundary pushes. Breaks. Annihilations.
Having a few boundaries in place where affection, banter, food and fun were all that were expected of the night had been refreshing.
