by Julia Kent
The mother’s phone dance.
By the time she found it, it was too late. Josie left no voicemail, but the texts told the story.
Problem at the office.
We have a PR issue.
Meet me at Jeddy’s.
Not a fake meeting, either.
“What does she mean, ‘fake meeting’?”
Laura hadn’t noticed Dylan behind her as she read through the quick messages. There were just too many men in this house! The affect in his voice was accusatory, yet joking. But not really.
“Nothing.” Laura pocketed the phone and frowned. Could Josie be a bit more obvious? WTF? “What could be so important? A PR issue? As if I need more shit with the company. This is getting out of hand,” she complained. Had to be convincing.
“You guys create pretend meetings so you can just hang out?”
“Of course not!”
“That’s what it seems like.” Damn it, Josie.
“And I suppose that folder on your computer marked ‘Tax Documents 2001’ is really tax forms,” she shot back.
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, stretching out the word. She’d accidentally stumbled across his porn collection a long time ago. Didn’t care, but she knew the knowledge would come in handy some time. Like now.
“We don’t really do a lot of fake meetings,” she said. “And most of the time I bring the baby. It’s just…sometimes I need to sit and have a cup of coffee with a friend without making a big deal out of it.”
“Of course—”
She cut him off as two more texts came in. “But this sounds really bad. Can we talk later?”
“We’re talking?” He smiled, dimples and all, and cupped her chin.
“Ha ha.”
“Mike okay?”
That made her pause, even in her rush. “I don’t know. He’s really grappling with some deep issues. Questions about how we operate, what our relationship means, how I relate to him alone and to both of you…that kind of stuff.”
“I just block that shit out when the worry bubbles up,” Dylan muttered.
“What a great strategy. I’m sure that’s working so well,” she deadpanned. “You’re just deferring all your emotions and in ten years Mike and I will pick up the pieces.”
“That’s the plan. Thanks in advance.” The smile in his eyes made her grateful she’d paused, the joke sinking in on many levels. That they would be together in tens years was a given.
And what a wonderful, loving given it was.
These moments were what made life the chaotic, messy, loveable, astounding shambles she’d always wanted it to be. The days of being lonely and licking her wounds from guys like Ryan (Ryan who?), working in a windowless office, living life as if it were meant to be a series of transactions to get through rather than a buffet of experiences to taste and devour, were long gone.
And then—Dylan’s ringtone.
Echoing down the hall.
“What’s that?” The sound of something country made a tinny reverberation, as if Blake Shelton were stuck inside a tailpipe. The two followed it, and Mike appeared in the hall, watching them as they perked their ears and followed the sound. His still-shirtless chest made her mouth start to water.
“What is that?” he asked.
“Shh!” they said in unison as they got closer, the sound increasingly louder in the living room.
“Weird,” Mike said. “It’s like your phone is trapped somewhere.”
The ringtone ended. Then—Bzzzzz.
“Call it for me, would you?” he asked Laura, who pulled her phone out. Three more messages from Josie. Hold on, she thought, and then called Dylan.
More country music stuck in a tin can.
Mike found it. Pulling a pop-up toy off one of the heating vents, he pointed down through the slotted metal. “Look.”
As she and Dylan clustered around the beige-painted metal vent, they both groaned when the reflection of the glass screen glittered up at them.
“Jillian!” all three exclaimed.
“How did she get my phone down that tiny little slot?” Dylan huffed, his face twisted with incredulity.
“Pure evil,” Laura answered.
“Your daughter!” Mike and Dylan said to each other.
Laura took this as her moment to exit, leaving the two grousing and making plans involving duct tape and rope to retrieve it.
What a waste of perfectly good duct tape and rope.
* * *
“Do you have the key lime pie today?” Laura asked the cute guy who seemed to have taken over the place. Madge wasn’t always at Jeddy’s these days, and if Mr. Hottie Hot Chef Dude was her replacement, then he was a fine upgrade on the eyes over the crotchety old institution.
“We do, and I have a new blackberry glaze to go with it, on the side if you don’t like the drizzle,” he added, grabbing a coffee pot and two mugs. “Your friend joining you? The brunette?”
A flush of something prickly and unfamiliar crawled over Laura’s cheeks and chest. Oh, yeah. She remembered this. It was called attraction. Had he noticed her and Josie? Was he interested? How was she supposed to act? She was taken. Twice over!
“Um, you mean Josie?” she stammered.
“Is that her name? The one my grandma told me liked to defile the warlock waitress?” When he smiled there was a dimple on one side.
Ah. Not attraction. Notoriety. Stupid stupid stupid, she chided herself, mumbling, “Uh, yeah, she’s coming, too.”
“Two mugs, then,” he said cheerfully, slamming them down with the coffee and a creamer pitcher, then moving with a muscled grace that made her eyes linger a little too long over his denim-covered ass. If Josie was going to be late, at least she had a fine view while she wasted a few minutes. Wow. She’d been out of the market just long enough to forget what it felt like to find someone other than Mike or Dylan attractive.
What did that mean?
Ruminating on it wasn’t in the cards, for Josie careened into the booth, a blur of sinew, her single-digit-sized body making Laura feel big and bumbling. Not that Josie was responsible for that—it was simple comparison and all on Laura. This was her own insecurity she was slowly shaking.
One coconut shrimp at a time.
“Key lime pie?” Josie huffed, reading her mind. As if on cue, her friend poured a cup of coffee, fixed it just so, took a sip, made a frantic burned-tongue gesture, and sat with wide, expectant eyes, fanning her open mouth. She looked like an Affenpinscher with a caffeine habit.
The waiter dude happened to walk by at that moment and stopped on a dime. His sneakers actually squeaked. “Two pieces?” he asked, nodding toward the door. “We’re about to have a huge crowd come in, so if you want to order now, you can get ahead of the crush.”
“Two coconut shrimps, two pieces of the pie, and…” Laura looked at Josie, who shrugged.
“And?” the waiter asked.
“And that’s enough,” Laura added definitively, touching the rim of her mug. “The coffee’s fine.”
“Sounds good.” He ran off, and Josie gave her a look of appraisal.
“That’s it?”
Laura patted her stomach. “Not eating for two any longer.” She actually wasn’t nearly as ravenous now that Jillian had started solid foods, and her appetite was diminishing back to normal. “What about you?”
“Alex and I had lunch an hour ago.”
“You don’t have to eat with me.”
“Give up coconut shrimp and key lime? You crazy?” They shared a good-natured laugh and settled into a very weird, awkward silence that stretched on. And on. And interminably on, until finally Laura broke.
“Why are we being quiet?”
“You’re being quiet. I’m waiting.”
“What are you waiting for?”
“For you to tell tell me why you needed to be rescued from Mike and Dylan.”
“By the way, Dylan read my texts. Thanks for the fake meeting comment, you dork.”
J
osie snickered. “Sorry. Is the fact that he’s reading your texts one of the reasons you needed a meeting? Too controlling? Men like that are total assholes. If you have to control your woman to that point, or send her hundreds of texts a day, you’ve got a screw loose.”
Laura waved her hand dismissively and took another sip of coffee. Her shoulders began to relax. “No. He just happened to look over my shoulder at the wrong time.”
“So you’re here because…”
“Because I need help with my relationships.”
“Pffft. Wrong person to ask!” Josie crowed, taking a long, nervous gulp from her mug. “Wrong, wrong, wrong.”
“Says the woman who runs a dating service. So inspiring.”
“You hired me!” Josie shot back. “No accounting for your taste.”
“Speaking of which, how is business? I assume you made up the PR comment in those texts.”
Josie went from joking to uncomfortable. Uh-oh. “I did, but there was an element of truth. Some online forum like Fark or someone’s Tumblr made fun of us. We analyzed the inbound traffic to the website and followed it backwards. Just nasty stuff.”
“Let me guess. A bunch of guys moaning about how the only good threesome involves two women and one man.”
“Something like that.”
“Whatever. That we can handle. It’s when the gossip sites get hold of the whole ‘billionaire freak’ meme that we need to worry.” Laura could talk a good game, and was significantly calmer about the occasional bubbles of scandal, but it still hurt. When the gossip sites ripped into the life they chose, it was still her life. Her men. Her child. The jokes she could chuckle at. The barbs, though, drew blood.
And always would.
Jillian wasn’t an “abomination.” Her threesome life with Dylan and Mike wasn’t “unnatural.” The folks who spewed intolerance came from such a wide cross section of people that she found herself studying it from a distance, because sociologically it was fascinating. Christian, Muslim, Jewish, atheistic, southern, New Englander, male, female—there were equal-opportunity haters out there, and all had an opinion.
Good Things Come in Threes soldiered on, though, gaining a steady clientele as Mike, Dylan, and Laura did everything they could to stay out of the limelight, going as far as hiring a PR specialist who had a sub-niche speciality: keeping clients out of the press. What irony.
So far, so good for the two months since they’d hired her.
And Darla was a treasure. An absolute treasure, and a bargain, from what Laura understood. They’d worked together occasionally, but their schedules never gelled well. Laura lived on Jillian time while Darla seemed to need her nights to play with her guys and their band. Josie said life was working well for her niece, and that the move had been good, which was fantastic. Laura knew how hard and radical giving up your known life for uncharted territory could be.
“I can’t prevent people from finding out that you three are, in fact, freaks. Did you ever get that hip injury checked out?” Josie’s eyes were filled with merry mischief.
Laura blushed. “I’m fine.”
“Alex had to go into a lot of detail that involves physiology and anatomy terms I haven’t heard since college when he was on the phone with Dylan that day. You guys really need to stop abusing that sex swing.” The last words came out of Josie’s mouth just as the hot waiter dude appeared with their shrimp and pie.
His jaw was on the floor and he stood, blinking furiously. Dark hair, gorgeous eyes, and the muscled upper body of someone who did hard work for a living. His shirt fit nice and tight against his pecs and his hair was cropped short. Forearms bulged under the strain of the serving tray, but he didn’t seem to struggle with the weighit.
And he stared.
“Hello?” Josie said, half standing to help. “You’re keeping us from a mouthful of your luscious stuff.”
“Excuse me?” He choked, nearly sending the tray onto Josie’s lap. A quick movement from Laura held it in place, the pie balanced precariously on the edge.
“Caleb, what the hell?” Good old Madge appeared, eyes clear and blazing as she jumped in, delivered the food, and tucked the empty tray under her arm. “You planning to throw the food at people now in an effort to streamline efficiency?”
“No, it’s just—”
“And you!” Madge snapped at Josie. “Are you talking about balls and threesomes and did I hear a sex swing comment?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Josie’s face was a careful mask of restraint. If Madge weren’t her boyfriend’s grandfather’s girlfriend (say that five times fast…) then Laura knew Josie would rip her a new one. Instead, she demonstrated remarkable tact, and it made Laura realize how much they’d changed.
Both of them.
Stunned silence from Caleb, who—in Laura’s humble opinion—could sit there and look shocked and pretty all day long. Stealing a chance to study his rugged cheekbones and noting the alarm in those perplexed eyes, she noticed the similarity between him and…Madge? Wasn’t a grandson helping to run the place and develop new menus? Bingo. She put it together all by herself, all while eyeing a guy whom she had no right to admire.
But hey—a girl could look as long as she didn’t touch, right?
“Good.” Madge cracked a wide grin and patted Josie gently on the cheek. “I’m glad to see Alex is being well taken care of.”
Josie’s turn to choke. Literally. The bite of pie she’d started to munch on went down the wrong pipe and she whacked herself in the chest several times as both Caleb and Madge beat a hasty retreat.
“Heimlich?”
“How about bleach?”
“Bleach? For what?”
“My brain. I don’t need sex tips from Madge. Not about Alex.” She whooped her way back to a normal respiration pattern, then cringed as if she’d tasted something that had gone bad.
“Seems like she and his grandfather have a healthy sex life.”
“Lalalalalalalala, I can’t hear you!”
“It bodes well for you, actually.”
“What the hell does Madge’s sex life have to do with me?”
“If his grandpa’s going at it in his eighties, then when you and Alex are in your eighties, you have a sense of what to expect.”
Josie froze, her eyes going huge, her breathing stopping. Leaping to her feet, Laura came to Josie’s side of the booth and leaned into her face. “Josie!” she shouted with alarm. “Are you choking again? Can you breathe?”
“Why are you screaming in my face?” she gasped. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Your eyes…and you stopped breathing!”
“Because of what you said. Your fault! Not the pie!” As if to prove a point, Josie stabbed another piece and shoved it in her mouth, chewing pointedly this time and not gagging, thank God.
“What on earth did I say?” Tears threatened her nose and eyes, her face suddenly swollen and puffy, feeling too big for her bones. Knowing this feeling, she realized she was overly sensitive and on edge, in need of a friend and a pow-wow. What she hadn’t expected was an edgy Josie. If the rule said only one of them could fall apart at any given time, then it was Laura’s damn turn right now.
“You implied that Alex and I would still be together in fifty or sixty years!”
“Why would that make you freak out?”
“Because I only recently let him take up an enormous amount of my apartment! Nearly half!”
“Josie, a toothbrush in a drawer and some underwear is not ‘nearly half.’”
“Says the woman who defines half a piece of key lime pie using the same metrics.”
“Touché.” At least they had their own pieces this time. “So you’re still that commitment shy with Dr. Perfect? Why? He’s…perfect.” He really was, and Laura never thought she’d say that about any guy Josie dated. The handful of men over the years that Laura had been allowed to meet were suspiciously familiar at the time, and months later she’d catch a rerun of some reality show about cheaters and realiz
e, oh—that’s why.
Not Alex. Every time she thought about the two of them together, she smiled. Just like her and Mike and Dylan. The fit was so…perfect that there was no need to search any longer. Done. Signed, sealed, delivered.
And Josie knew it. Knew it deep in her dried-up little terrified peach pit that masqueraded as her heart. She just needed to give herself permission to let go and be with it, giving Alex a lifetime to get her to let go of the shield that was looser each day.
“We’re not talking about my relationship,” Josie said archly. “You’re the one with problems.”
Hearing it stated that bluntly didn’t sit well with Laura. “Not problems. Complications.”
Josie pointed her fork at Laura’s head. “Don’t you say it!”
“What? That it’s always complicated?”
Josie groaned and threw a sugar packet at her.
“It is, though. It really is. The complication comes part and parcel with the love.” Both took deep sighs and filled their mouths with blackberry drizzle and key lime perfection. Food was truly perfect with greater consistency than men. And it didn’t hog the bed or leave beard shavings sprinkled all over the sink. Food didn’t leave the toilet seat up or shove balled-up dirty socks between the couch cushions.
Food also couldn’t fuck you silly and whisper dirty love sayings in your ear while it asked you—begged you—to share a fantasy you’d never told any other person in the world. And then give you that little naughty dream right then and there with strokes and licks and squeezes and pinches and moans that lingered in your mind for weeks.
But man, if food ever could do that, then men would be done in a second, replaced by kitchens with insemination stations.
So men better be on their toes.
“Alex is really pretty simple. As a body, I mean. But that brain of his gets in the way,” Josie said in a tone that made Laura wonder if she was just a microchip implanted in a human body.
“What about his heart?”
“Even worse! He expects me to be all touchy-feely new-agey and all that shit.” Eye roll.
“And you are too cool for that,” Laura said in her best neutral voice.
“I thought we were past it. Hello? We watched your daughter overnight. I gave him a few inches for his toothbrush and he took a mile.”
