by Kent, Julia
Both seemed pretty significant. What was she doing comparing them, anyhow? Ridiculous. Bottom line, though, was that after this meal she would go home, take a nap, and prepare to call them both tomorrow and face what she’d been putting off for three months.
“Mmmm,” Josie groaned as she munched on her coconut shrimp. Laura plucked one off the plate and took a bite, sinking her teeth in. Instant pleasure. The next ten minutes were a feeding frenzy as Madge brought out their sausage, foccacia, and the grand peanut butter cake.
“You eat more than a high school football team these days,” Josie said, incredulous, as Laura asked Madge for another plate of shrimp.
“I have the sex drive of a high school boy, so that’s not inappropriate.” Munch, munch.
“TMI. I sooo did not need to know that.”
“My batteries need batteries.”
Josie shoved her fingers in her ears. “Lalalalalalalalalalala.” Laura laughed maniacally and started to feel full. One more shrimp on the plate, she speared it and dipped it in the aioli. Heaven. Pure heaven.
“So you’re going to talk to them now, right?” Josie asked quietly, prodding without being negative. Pushing her plate of friend green tomatoes away, she smiled at Laura, an encouragingly sympathetic look.
Laura pulled her unfinished plate into her zone of consumption. Mine now. Stabbing a tomato, she tried the tiger sauce. Horseradish. Was it worth the reflux?
Yes! Mmmmm.
“You’re right. I’ll talk to them. The baby is one of theirs and it’s time.”
Cupping one hand over her ear, Josie leaned across the table. “Say that again.”
“I’m telling them.”
“No—the part before that.”
Laura made a sour face. “You’re right.” Time for dessert! She dumped all the caramel and hot fudge all over the peanut butter hulk smash cake and sneered at Josie. “And no cake for you!”
“You think I’m going to try to take a bite of that from a horny pregnant woman? I’m not suicidal.”
Laura’s laugh carried through the diner, turning a few heads and yielding bemused smiles. Ah, it felt good to laugh, deep belly chuckles that came from relief and calm and goodness and light. The baby kicked again.
“She likes the cake,” Laura said, shoveling in another piece, following it up with ice cream.
“She’s a gourmand. What are you going to name her?”
A long look at her plate. “Hulk Smash. Hulk Smash Michaels.”
“Oh, that’s totally a porn name.” Laura threw a wadded napkin at Josie, who ducked.
Finally full, Laura pushed her clean plate away. If she overate, she’d regret it later. Pregnancy was no different from non-pregnant life, with the exception of evil reflux. “I don’t know. Whatever we name her it needs to be a collaborative effort.”
“Like the conception.”
Laura snorted. They were shifting into uncomfortable territory. “Yeah. Except no matter what, it’s only one of them who is the father.”
“Happy paternity testing.” Josie shot her a sardonic grin.
“Go ahead,” Laura sighed. “I know you’re itching to say it.”
“What?” Josie batted her eyes innocently.
“Just do it in a whisper.” Laura reached for her purse and fished around. Her bladder announced its presence and she stood, hips clicking and left leg screaming in pain.
“Maury, Maury, Maury,” Josie obliged, looking particularly pleased with herself.
“I’m suffering from sciatica and you’re chanting baby daddy cultural references.”
“And you still love me.”
Laura flashed her a middle finger as she waddled off to the bathroom. “You’re totally not my type!” she called back.
Madge happened to walk past. “Not my type either,” she said, frowning at Josie.
Josie sighed. “I get that a lot.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
He wasn’t a stalker. Really. No—really.
Mike kept finding creative—and not so creative— reasons for driving past Laura’s apartment building and Jeddy’s. If he had to meet with the resort’s tax accountant on some issue that went beyond what his onsite CPA could handle, he just routed himself through Somerville, because—why not? And sometimes he found himself really craving those fried green tomatoes and a toffee caramel peppermint sundae from Jeddy’s, so no harm, no foul if he stopped by—right?
Right?
The past three months had nearly killed him. So finding himself on the road right in front of Jeddy’s stuck at a traffic light, neck craned to the left to stare in the restaurant’s main window wasn’t out of the norm. He made this drive once a week or so.
What was out of the norm was the sight of Laura and Josie in a booth, eating and laughing. All the air in his lungs froze in place, the red light now the only entity keeping him here so he could gaze upon Laura’s face. Glowing. She literally glowed. The restaurant’s facade was a split set-up, the bottom half of the outer wall wood, the top half glass, so he could only see her and Josie through the window, her chest and arms and face animated as she threw a balled-up napkin at her friend, her mouth open and head tipped back in giggles and fun.
Relaxing, his entire body went liquid, the first time in months he felt grounded, the incongruity of keeping the Jeep running, foot on the brake, and counting out the seconds before the light changed somehow ignored by his nervous system.
All he wanted to do was to stare at her from afar. She looked so, so happy. Being apart from him and Dylan seemed to have done wonders for her, red cheeks and dimpled smile deeper and fuller. His own face stretched into a loopy grin, the first in far too long.
Beep! Shaken out of his moment of joy, he realized the light had turned green. With great reluctance he took the left turn, watching for as long as was safe, her face a beacon of hope.
Then gone.
That day at home three months ago, after leaving Josie’s apartment, after Laura had screamed—screamed— that they should buy the building if they wanted in had been the coldest, hardest day of his life, like watching his own death in slow motion, his heart torn out and thrown to the wolves. What had they done to her? How had he and Dylan taken such an open, gentle soul and turned her into a screaming banshee? What evil lurked in them that this could happen?
His run home had been fruitless, his need to escape Dylan at all costs greater than the desire to pound it out. All he could think of when he’d arrived home was a great red wall of anger within, and destruction made more sense than trying to be good. Everything he had worked for went to shit that day—everything —so shattering the glass in the room was like shattering his bond with Dylan.
It made sense through the pure hatred he felt for himself at hurting Laura so deeply.
Now? Not so much. For four months he’d lived apart from Dylan, his cabin a refuge that slowly had turned into a prison. An entire adulthood spent living with Dylan could not be undone so easily; in his rage, he’d missed that point. He felt as if he were missing a limb, the phantom remains of a leg or an arm feeling real and visceral, yet truly gone. Mike had banished himself from Dylan’s life, ignoring the text messages and voice mails that had been plentiful that first week, then tapered off in the second, finally ending with a plaintive, “When you’re ready, I’ll be here.”
Mike hadn’t been ready. Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
Seeing Laura like that, though—a gut punch. Flooding memories of her, of Dylan, of the three of them—and most of all, of the great promise they’d represented, of a lifetime together. Double gut punch. He maneuvered the car into a parking spot at the skyscraper where the tax adviser’s office resided and put his forehead on the steering wheel, taking time.
Breaths.
Awareness.
So full of life! Laura had never been so radiant with them. Perhaps she’d really moved on, finding a new person— persons?—to be happy with. The way the pink and white and green of her shirt h
ad highlighted her hair, her eyes shining and bright, and how Josie had even seemed happier than her normal self all made Mike wonder if he and Dylan were just poison for poor Laura.
Maybe not telling her the truth, though vicious and unfair, had somehow been the right thing in the end. Beating the steering wheel with one fist, he let himself feel. Not react. Not withdraw.
Feel. Fuck fuck fuck. How had his life come to this? Alone in his enormous cabin, designed to be filled with friends and laughter, it was now inhabited by Mike the Monk. Mike the Idiot.
Mike the Lonely. And he was, for the first time in his adult life. Not alone—alone he understood. Alone he could handle, could even enjoy.
Lonely? Lonely was a form of self-abuse he couldn’t escape.
Not that he hadn’t tried. Running ninety miles a week, though, didn’t get him any further from his messed-up self. How had he turned into such an animal that last day at the apartment? What was buried deep within and unleashed at that moment, so all-powerful he’d gone into a near fugue state and been so violent? It had scared him. Badly.
Maybe he should stay away from Laura. Even Dylan.
Perhaps being lonely was his new normal. What he deserved. Because whatever was going on in Laura’s life, from the looks of her countenance in the window glimpse, she was swelling with glee and enjoying life.
Without him.
Screech. A BMW took a corner too close in the cement-floor garage, tires filling the cavern with too much sound. The clock told him he was late for the meeting with the tax attorney. Climbing out of the car and grabbing his briefcase, he smiled at the memory of her. Once his, once Dylan’s, once theirs, she had morphed into just Laura.
Which was, all along, what she’d really needed.
Tears choked his throat. He ground a fist into his thigh, willing the unexpected rush of very unprofessional emotion away. Tax attorneys weren’t therapists. He was here to talk numbers. As he cantered to the elevators, though, one number rang mournfully in his head, buzzing.
Three.
“You see that? Mr. Money strikes again.” Dylan flinched but didn’t say anything. The guys working the night shift were all crowded around the television, the same local morning news show that had featured his doom...er, his billionaire status three months ago.
“Some guy with more money than he can burn,” Murphy added. The morning anchors were babbling on about some unnamed philanthropist who had come to the aid of burn victims from a local warehouse fire, then mentioned another incident last month where the same donor may have contributed $100,000 to help victims of an unexpected October ice storm.
Every head in the fire station turned to stare at him. “What?” he hollered, trying to get the attention off him. He was just here as a lowly volunteer, looking for something to do.
Murphy laughed, the first good belly chuckle anyone had heard from him in months. Dylan had recently, quietly, funneled a substantial five-figure sum to him to pay for a caretaker for his wife and father. With good care, she was expected to have a strong chance of survival. His father, though, was fading fast. The money bought some peace and space for the family, and isn’t that all anyone could ask for?
“A torn AC/DC shirt and jeans? You are the strangest fucking billionaire I ever met, Dylan,” he said.
“Only fucking billionaire you ever met, Murphy. You probably don’t even know any thousandaires,” Joe cracked. Everyone chuckled, Murphy included. The chief shooed them off to do work.
“You slumming?” he asked Dylan.
“Nah. Just covering a volunteer shift.” Truth be told, he was bored and lonely with Mike gone. But he couldn’t say that at work. The guys might be good at heart, but a few were as enlightened as a lamp post.
“You can do that from home, you know. Scanner.”
“Mine’s broken.”
Joe’s eyebrows flew up. “And you can’t afford a new one?”
“So sue me. I just want to hang out here.”
“Poor little rich firefighter?” Joe’s voice wasn’t mean. Just inquiring. It put Dylan on edge, made him ball his hands into fists, temper rising.
“Something like that.”
“Grab one of the scanners from here on your way out, then. There’s a big training going on in New York and a bunch of guys are there, so we can use all the volunteers we can get tonight. You OK with being on call through the night?”
A warmth spread through him, making him stand taller. He remembered this feeling. Happiness. Purpose. Power.
Action.
“Hell, yeah! Thanks, Chief.”
“Let’s just hope it’s a quiet one.” He always said that. Superstition. If he didn’t, one of the guys would jump in and say it. You don’t fuck around with bad luck in a station crowded with firefighters. They need every drop of help from whatever forces in the universe help out, from God to Jesus to the Flying Spaghetti Monster to Mother Nature. Even Mayor Menino, who wasn’t divine—yet. One more election win and he’d be damn close.
“As quiet as a church mouse,” Dylan answered. Secretly, though, he wanted to do some good. Help someone. While he’d never actually hoped for a fire or a medical emergency, the thrill of the run was always in his blood. Helping people was exactly why he’d gone into this business, and it gave him purpose.
If someone needed him tonight, he’d be there.
Stuffed like the turkeys that had popped up in grocery stores everywhere, Laura lurched into her living room and plopped down. In a few months, she wouldn’t able to get up on her own. Time to start training Snuggles to offer her a hand getting out of deep, overstuffed chairs.
No one else would.
“Oh, stop,” she muttered to herself. After dropping Josie off, she’d thought long and hard on the drive home. Picking up her phone and texting Mike and Dylan would be the hard part. Four months. Four long months. This wasn’t a reunion outreach, though.
It was business. The business of, well, this. Her hands cupped her belly with pleasure, willing love through her palms to the baby. So much love. Only nineteen weeks along and now little Naomi—no, Claire—no, Elizabeth—no, Caitlyn—ah, whatever!—was part of her heart.
This child was a Michaels-Stanwyck, or Michaels-Pine, creation. Time they knew about the baby. Guilt settled in just as her sciatica flared up, the painful nerve running from hip to toe making her rub her muscles to no relief. Walking helped, so she grudgingly lifted herself up and hobbled to the kitchen.
No need for food, but a glass of water and her prenatal vitamin would do for an excuse to move. Sheri said hot showers sometimes helped. Waddling down the hall, she turned on the spray to warm and grabbed a towel. On second thought, she also grabbed a new toy, a sleek little vibrator that couldn’t go too deep, but that had turned out to be just enough to take the edge off her horny second trimester.
Too bad vibrators couldn’t slap your ass and tug your hair. If someone made one, they’d be filthy, smutty rich.
Undressing wasn’t too hard, though she was rapidly losing the ability to bend down and slide pants off; plucking each leg out was becoming the norm, like tying shoes by bringing her feet up and crossing one leg at a time, leaving the laces tied on the insides. Lifting one leg carefully, balancing herself, then lifting the other over the small bathtub lip, though, would be a struggle in a month or too. Shit. This single-mama-pregnancy crap was bad enough in terms of a libido the size of Montana, but if basic self care was going to be a problem, she might have to resort to taking Josie’s offer and letting her move in.
Hot jets instantly relaxed her neck, the warm wetness a relief. Closing her eyes, she soaked quickly and sank into her well-grooved fantasy about Dylan and Mike. For as much as she barricaded herself against them in real life, in her dreams they were very much present.
Overwhelmingly so.
Mike’s strong hands were eating up every inch of her skin, his mouth on her ear. “Your belly is so amazing,” he crooned in her ear. “My daughter. You’re growing my daughter.” His finge
rs slid down over her navel, delicately stroking her swollen front, then diving down to tease a much-abandoned, very-needy clit that begged for release. He turned her around, hands creating a trail of caressing love on her back, her hips, her breasts, all leading the way, a map to her mouth, his palms clasping her jaw and bringing his lips to hers, the first kiss a communion, the second a ravaging.
Every part of her that could swell, did, from breasts to lush nipples, swollen folds and rosebuds that screamed out Mike’s name. As their tongues danced and he used his to convey a secret message, hands raking her hair, lips bruising hers, her hip pressed hard against his thick rod, wanting it in her, now. Four long months of new hormones and bursting, flush desire made this, made her —
Her own hands turned the vibrator on; no more shower head, in case it pushed water or an air bubble up inside her. The tingling was enough, along with her Mike, his tight hands, his wet chest hair scraping against her sensitive breasts...
More hands. Dylan. Ah, there you are, she thought. The vibrator tip made quick work with her, getting her so close, so fast, that Dylan had little time to make his case, his body pressed hard against her back, lifting up, riding friction in the cleft of her ass as she thrust backward, Mike’s fingers going straight to her intense heat, the—
“Oh, oh, oh!” she screamed, tipped over so fast as Dylan lunged for her, tongue lapping fast, Mike’s fingers in her, the vibrator plunging at her entrance, only in a few inches, though, the clamping and contractions of her pussy walls nearly torpedoing it into the shower wall. Huge spasms made her hips ache and howl, her body squirting now, the effort enormous compared to non-pregnant orgasms, the release four times harder than she was accustomed to experiencing.
Climaxing was anti-climatic, though—what she wanted now were strong arms to slump into, and preferably four of them. Someone to rub her feet. Another someone to get her favorite ice cream.
