The Complete Series Boxed Set (25 page)

But he did.

A slow smile split his lips, cheeks shining with a warmth she loved so much.
He
patted her knee. “No. Never a rush. I’m not real
l
y ready, either. But if you were pregnant right now, my reaction wouldn’t be negative.”

“I just don’t think—”

He squeezed her knee gently. “Just tell me you want Jillian to have a sibling.”

“Of course I do! You know I’ve always wanted at least two. I don’t want her to be an only child.”

He nodded. “I know. We’ve talked about it. I just…needed to hear it again.” His eyes flicked over to her and then returned to the unstable road, but in that split second of eye contact she saw all she needed.

Love. So much love a pair of eyes couldn’t hold it all.

And maybe one chi
ld couldn’t hold it all, either, though that thought seemed so silly to Laura. Of course one child could be enough. It had been enough for her mother. For plenty of people.
 

But not Mike, it seemed.

A cold thought of such alarming clarity hi
t
her between the eyes. It felt like a tiny little pinprick of pain so startling it traveled down to her heart.

Another baby.

Was Mike afraid Jillian wasn’t his, and that
wa
s why he wanted more? Was this about jealousy or competition, or…something unnamed?

The glow of their happy afternoon began to fade a bit as reality intruded on her thoughts. The heat of their skin against hers had been so immediate just moments ago. And now…

S
he had to think. Not just feel. Not just touch.

As they pulled into the driveway, Cyndi played with Jillian on the giant swing set Mike and Dylan had installed last month. Their baby was perched at the top of the slide, Cyndi’s protective arms on her waist, and as Jillia
n
’s fat little hands waved
i
n the air, Cyndi guided her down. Jillian’s face tipped up to look at Cyndi, and those baby hands clapped with joy, cheering herself on for her great slide victory.

Suddenly, all was right in
L
aura’s world.

“What in the hell were you thinking sending my boss to me to talk about my sex life!” Darla screamed in Josie’s ear. Pulling her smartphone back from her head, she stared at it, fully expecting Darla’s holographic image to appear in spectacular, a
n
gry form.

“It was a perfectly reasonable suggestion,” Josie retorted. “Perfectly reasonable because you two are in these crazy threesome relationships, and you’re both struggling.”

“Struggling?” Darla roared. “I’m not struggling with Joe and Trevor!”

“You m
e
et Joe’s parents yet?”

Fuming silence was all Josie got from her niece.

“I didn’t think so,” Josie added. “And Laura’s got her own set of problems with Mike and Dylan—”

“Problems? Problems? You mean you can find yourself not one, but two billionaires, have their baby, liv
e
in luxury with them, and spend your time opening a crazy business for weirdos like me, and have problems? Nice life. What kind of problems does Laura have? Whether to buy lavender-scented car fresheners or verbena-scented car fresheners at Whole Foods?”

“Meow.”
Josie’s arched tone said more than the single word.
 

Darla backpedaled, fast. “You won’t tell her I said that, will you?” she said in a panicked voice. “Because I like Laura. A lot. And I don’t think she’s spoiled. That not what I mean. I know she worked hard and had a degree and a job before she met the guys and oh my God, Josie, say something, because if Laura’s on the line with you and just heard me say that I am going to die from—”

“No, dumbass, she’s not here. But you have some learning to do. Just because someone has a ton of money doesn’t mean their problems go away. In fact, sometimes you end up with more problems.”

“I’ll trade.”

“
H
ah! Anyhow, you guys should meet. Lunch at Jeddy’s sounds like fun.”

“How do you know what we’re doing?” Da
rl
a asked with suspicion.

“Because Laura asked me to be there,” Josie answered matter-of-factly. Being asked wasn’t a surprise, but what Josie had in store for Trevor, Joe, Mike, and Dylan sure would be. First, she’d asked Laura if she thought the plan was worth it. Laura agreed. Now, on to Darla…

“You’ll be there?”
R
elief flooded Darla’s voice. “Thank God.”

“And I need some help from you,” Josie added.

“Help?”

“
L
aura’s going to get Mike and Dylan to come, too. Just to hang out and have a meal nearby. I think you should bring Trevor and Joe.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s like meeting an albino moose.”

“You just lost me. You on something? Because the last time I heard someone talking about albino moose it was Joe, who licked some piece of handmade pressed fair-trade paper from Mexico that had some
LSD
or something on it, and soon the whole world went albino and he was—”

Josie cut her off. It was a well-developed skill. “No. What I mean is, if you heard about an albino moose in a zoo, would you go see it?”

“Maybe.”

“
I
f you owned an albino moose and heard about a second one, wouldn’t you go see it?”

“Well, sure, because that would be so rare that—
ooohhhhhh
. I get it.”

“Good. Because I was about to pull out the hand puppets and leotards and do an interpretive dance to explain.”

“You don’t have to get pedantic.”

“Can’t help it.”

They both laughed.

“You have any idea how hard it’s going to be to convince Joe to go to Jeddy’s and sit at a table with two other guys who do what we…do? He can’t even tell his mom we’re dating.”

“What about Trevor?”

“I’ve met his parents. Nice people. We all met up at some town concert and walked around eating ice cream. Th
ey
think me and Trevor met at an online dating site.”

“There’s a lie.”
Josie’s words were true, but she knew they stung Darla.
 

“
I
f you count being a fangirl as ‘online dating,’ it kinda works. They don’t know anything more than that.”
To Josie’s surprise, Darla wasn’t defensive. A little sad, though. It made Josie even more determined to make sure Laura and Darla talked.
 

“
H
e won’t tell them the truth?”

“Would you?”

Josie tried to imagine calling her mother, Marlene, back in Ohio and
explaining she had two boyfriends. At the same time. No, really—at the
exact
same time.
 

“Uh, no. But then again, with my mom, I’d probably get some story about how she’d had five men at once, and exactly which holes you can use for—”

“
Lalalalala
I can’t hear you talking about Aunt Marlene that way!”
Darla shouted.
 

“You asked.”

“Question retracted.”

Josie let out a long, slow sigh, the kind you can only release openly with someone who knows you inside out.

“I know that sound,” Darla cracked. “That’s the sound of Mama going to get the belt.”

“Aunt
C
athy never whipped you!” Josie protested, knowing this was all a joke.

“No, but she’d pull out Daddy’s belt and tell me that if he was alive my ass would be tanned.”

“And then what did she do when you didn’t listen?”

“Huh,” Darla uttered, the phone popping with the force of her sound. “I don’t know. I always obeyed. I think I figured if she was calling on the belt of a dead man to get me to do what she wanted, I’d better do it.”

T
hey shared a chuckle, and then Josie returned to the matter at hand. “You need to get Joe and Trevor there. They can eat pie with Mike and Dylan.”

Darla made a choking sound. “Excuse me?”

“
G
et your mind out of the gutter, Darla Josephine Jennings. Not that kind of pie. Jeddy’s may have some weird things on the menu, but they haven’t come up with a flavor
that
savory.”

“Pussy Pie has a ring to it,” Darla said through laughter.

“
P
eople would think they were baking strays from the alley behind the restaurant.”

“I’ve eaten in some dive joints here in Boston that probably are,” Darla muttered.

“Quit stalling!” Josie insisted. “Get Joe and Trevor to meet you there.
L
aura’s doing the same with Mike and Dylan, and then we’ll—”

Two strong, muscled arms wrapped around Josie’s waist as Alex appeared from behind, her ass nuzzling up to an alarmingly large sign of how happy he was to see her.

“
H
ey there,” she said in a low voice. “I’ve missed you. And I can feel how much you’ve missed me.”

“You coming on
t
o me, Josie? ’Cause that’s a new low.” Darla’s voice had gone flat.

“Hi, Darla!” Alex called out, then kissed a trail of little pecks from Josie’s ear to her shoulder. “How’s it going?”

“Josie’s crazy!” Darla shouted.

“Oh. Good. Everything’s normal,”
he said, hands sliding up Josie’s front, finding her breasts like they were made of iron and he had magnets in his palms.
 

“No, I mean
crazy
!” Darla insisted. “She wants me to get Trevor and Joe together with Mike and Dylan!”

“Quit screaming,” Josie said, distracted by what Alex was doing and by Darla’s shouts through the tinny phone speaker. “I’ll put you on speakerphone.”

Darla came through loud and clear as Alex spun Josie around for a deep, warm kiss. “Together! The four of them!”

“You’re setting the four guys up?” he murmured in Josie’s ear. “That’s…inventive. Good things come in fours?”

Josie hit his pec through the stained scrubs he wore. After a typical
twenty-four
-hour shift he showered and changed at work, but had come straight home
this time
. She looked at the clock. More like a
thirty-three
-hour shift.

“Why are you covered in—ah,
G
od, is that blood? And you smell like rancid amniotic fluid.”

“How do you know what that smells like?”

“You two have the w
e
irdest conversations,” Darla added.

Alex and Josie both stared at the smartphone. “Like you don’t?” Josie snapped. “You are the queen of weird discussions.”

Darla backed off, voice sheepish. “Fair enough. But c’mon—you know how hard it will be to get Joe and Trevor there? And what the hell will they talk about?”

“Double penetration positions?” Alex suggested. “Best sex practices for threesomes? How to make a schedule on Google
Calendar
to balance it all out? What to do when—”

“Stop!” Darla and Josie shouted at the same time.

“
You just managed to offend both of us,” Josie said, laughing and trying to look stern as he lifted her shirt and kissed her belly. A flood of heat pooled between her legs and her fingers wove through his hair, then down his muscled back.
 

Except he smelled funny.

“
O
ff to the showers with you!” she ordered, regretfully pushing him toward the bathroom. Her bathroom.

Um,
their
bathroom. Alex had moved in two days ago.

His lease had been up and his roommate was long gone on some fancy residency fellowship, again, leaving Alex with a tough choice of either finding a new roommate or getting a smaller, cheaper place.

She’d expected him to suggest moving in with her, but to her surprise, he hadn’t. As days had turned into weeks of watching him scour Craigslist and ro
o
mmate sites, she’d finally caved
in and asked
.

This was an experiment. A testing period. It was not permanent.

At least, not for now.

He gave her a big, sloppy, sexy kiss and stripped his shirt off over his head, leaning forward as he peeled the v-neck scrubs over his neck and head, the ripple of muscled layers like soccer fans doing the wave. Only this was better.

“
E
arth to Josie? You there? Alex still there making pervy co
m
ments about my sex life?”
Darla’s voice startled her.
 

“No,” she sighed, watching him untie his scrub pants and shake out of them, leaving him in boxer briefs that outlined every vein, every curve. Thumbs hooked into the waistband, he gave her a big, sultry wink like a stripper, and
then he
pulled them off, giving her a mouth-watering view.

“Is he doing sex things to you right now? On the phone? Because th
a
t’s just plain rude.”

“No, Darla, he’s not doing—‘
s
ex things’? You have the vocabulary of a
twelve
-year-old
boy
.”

“
It’s about all I need to have a conversation with you.”
 

The sparring normally would have made Josie laugh, but watching her boyfriend’s ass stride toward the bathroom to take a soapy, steamy shower rendered her quite speechless.

And intolerant of being on the phone.

“Do whatever you need to do to get Joe and Trevor to Jeddy’s.”

“You make it sound life or death.”

“No—but I think it’s worth a try.”

“Why is it so important to you?”

“
C
ome here!” Alex shouted as the distinct sound of the water being turned on filled the walls. Josie scrambled to get out of her clothes while talking with Darla.

“It’s important because I see my niece and my best friend in really unique relationships and sometimes it’s nice not to be the only freak. If it turns out there’s another freak just like you, you’re not a freak anymore. You’re a tribe.”

“A tribe of two?”

“Oh, oops! I dropped the soap!” Alex called out from down the hall. “Josie, can you come pick up the so
ap
for me in the shower?”

Darla giggled. “
You two play games, too? Me and Joe and Trevor have this one game we call the ‘Tortured Romance’ game, where Joe is the Russian hit man who is ’sposed to kidnap me, and does, and then Trevor is the Special Ops dude who has to rescue me. But then the hit man and the Special Ops dude find—”