“When you’re poaching women that I find for us, it becomes my business, Mike!”
“I never asked you to go out and find women for us, Dylan!”
“Well, you never asked me not to! It’s been eighteen months. When are you gonna get over Jill?”
Mike pursed his lips, his nostrils flaring, the affable good guy now morphing into something that Dylan knew was under the surface. “I think I can ask you the same question, Dyl. When are you gonna get over Jill? When are you gonna get over this idea that there’s some perfect woman out there for us. There isn’t. There’s a good woman for you and there’s a good woman for me, but the perfect woman for us? That’s...” Dipping his head and hiding his face, Mike’s voice faded out as if it were too impossible to voice.
“Then why did you date Laura—why did you go after her? Doesn’t make any sense Mike, what you’re saying man.” Dylan’s heart rate started to slowly drop. He knew where this was going and he knew that picking a fight with the man he loved was about the last thing on earth that he needed right now. And yet he couldn’t help himself, because, son of a bitch, the guy had just gone and taken away the woman that he was trying to court for both of them.
“You wanna know the truth?” Mike ran a hand through his thick blonde hair and shook his head, smiled ruefully. “The real truth, Dylan?”
“No shit, Mike, of course I wanna know the truth. Don’t lie to me. Oh, wait a minute. Hey—you already did!”
Mike rolled his eyes again. “The truth is, I wanted to prove that whatever woman you try to find for us is independently attracted to me. I’m sick and tired of getting your sloppy seconds.”
“Oh, so now Jill was sloppy seconds!”
“I did not say that!” Mike straightened up to his full height. Six feet, five inches. A wall of runner’s muscle. Now the aggression was coming out, the anger was reaching the surface, and Dylan could watch it, but all he could do was respond to it, instinct taking over.
“I never said that about, Jill. But you know how that worked. I had—”
“Dylan, you can’t just go out and find some woman and throw her down at my feet like a table scrap and expect us to live in threesome harmony. You have to respect the fact that I need to care about her, too. I need to make sure that she cares about me as well.”
Dylan had known at the back of his mind that this was true. Of course it was true. Of course Mike should feel that whoever they shared was in love with him—in love with both of them but in love with him. Dylan knew it. Dylan had known from the moment he met Jill that she was head-over-heels in love with him and the other night with Laura he had felt something awfully close to that, maybe even the same as that, but he was holding back. Grief had a way of messing with him.
Now here stood Mike, pissed as hell at him. The two of them facing off, the anger tangible, so palpable he could almost lick its bicep.
And then suddenly, both men pulled back. Mike peered at him. “You know, there’s only one way to find out where this is going.”
Dylan shook his head. “She won’t answer my texts. She won’t answer my phone calls. She won’t—it’s like, man, she just cut me out.”
Mike frowned. “That does not square with the woman I met. Laura’s warm, she’s intelligent, she’s eager to find someone to connect with to develop a relationship with.” As Mike continued, Dylan screwed up his face, a bit jealous that Mike got that much out of her whereas Dylan had had more of a surface level experience. More entertainment than emotion.
“Dylan—you listening to me?”
“Yeah, sorry. My mind just wandered.”
“What the hell are we supposed to do about this mess now?” Mike asked.
Dylan threw his hands up in the air and made a sputtering sound. “Hell if I know. Then again I’m not so sure we have a situation if she keeps ignoring me.” He reached his hand out to shake Mike’s. Mike gave him a confused look but grasped his hand. “Then,” said Dylan dramatically “the better man won!”
Mike screwed up his face in a grimace. “That’s not how this is supposed to work.”
“No. I know. That’s not how it’s supposed to work,” Dylan answered, “but what am I supposed to do? She won’t let me even say a word.”
“I think you should go find her.”
“Find her where?”
“You know where she works, right? You even know the floor. Can’t be that hard. You know her name. You know what she looks like. You may not be the brightest bulb on the string, but...”
“Hey!”
“It’s not hard to find her. Go after her, Dylan. Maybe that’s exactly what she’s looking for.”
“Why would she want me to chase her when she’s cutting off all contact with me, or at least not answering anything? I mean 34 messages is pretty...”
“You sent her 34 messages?” He knew it, but the reality hit him, hard, in this moment, with adrenaline making his veins feel like balloons, the steady throb of blood rushing through him like the beat at a Blue Man Group concert. “Jesus, Dylan, are you nuts?”
“What? I was impatient!”
“If I were Laura and some guy sent me 34 messages through an online dating site after our first date, I’d run away screaming, too! And I’m a guy.”
Dylan laughed ruefully. “Alright, you’ve made a good point. I just, you know...”
“So how many texts did you send her?”
“Just three.”
“Three?”
“Yeah, and I left a couple...a few...okay.” Faltering, he confessed. “Six voicemails.”
“Oh, God. Really? You’re worried that I’m blowing this for us? How about you? Come on, Dylan. It’s one thing to be the alpha, it’s another to be the nutso!”
“Hey!” Mike was right. He’d gone overboard. “So, you’re saying the only way to make this right...?”
“Yep, go find her.”
“Don’t you think, if I would have scared you off from all the messages and texts, and phone calls, and voicemails, then won’t showing up at her place of employment pretty much guarantee me a visit with the cops?”
“Well, it all depends on how you present yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Go there with flowers and a latte, make it a double with some vanilla, and you may have a chance.”
“How do you know how she likes her coffee?”
Mike grinned.
“Ahhh, geez. You spent more time with her than I did, didn’t you?”
“After our date, we ended it with a nightcap. She got hers decaf but I’d imagine that during the day she drinks it straight up. Go find some coffee shop, get her a double latte with...”
“With vanilla?”
“...with vanilla. And show up with a dozen roses and see what happens next. Just don’t go all Richard Gere and do the Officer and a Gentleman thing.”
“Well, I am a firefighter. I’m used to carrying people up and down stairs and across places.”
“Yeah, I know. You are used to carrying people.”
A silence hung between them.
“But you weren’t gonna let me do that this time were you?” Dylan asked Mike. They stared off at a stand off.
“Just go see her. See if you can fix this.”
“But what about...us, the three of us?”
“I don’t know. That’s a good question.”
Nostrils flaring, Mike’s answer pissed him off. Dylan puffed up and got closer, in Mike’s personal space, his own boundaries barely drawn. “I don’t want to go see her till we’ve —until you and I have settled that.”
“Fine. So what are we doing here?”
“Um...”
Neither man knew what to say.
Mike’s eyes lit up. “I have an idea, but it’s really out there.”
“How out there?”
“Way out there! It’s kind of a long shot. I...I don’t know.”
“Spit it out.”
“Tell you what, you go and talk to Laura and see if you can convince her to date you again. Don’t bring me up, don’t talk about us. Don’t talk about our...you know...relationship.”
“Our threesome.” The men spoke in unison.
“Okay,” Dylan said “Fair enough.”
“Just get the lines of communication open and get her to have a date with you. Not tonight. Tomorrow night.”
Dylan scrunched his face up. “Why?”
Mike smiled “Because I have a plan.”
The idea hit Dylan as the elevator dinged and the doors opened on the thirty-second floor of Stohlman Industries. He was holding a giant vase filled with eighteen red and pink roses sprinkled with baby’s breath and was carrying a double latte with vanilla as well. He could pretend to be the deliveryman—that’s how he’d get access to her.
The receptionist made it easy. “Hey there,” he said, grinning madly. “I’m looking for Laura.” Pretending to fumble with the card to read her name, he shot the woman his conspirator’s grin. She smiled back, leaning forward on her desk.
“Last name?” He paused. Let his smile deepen enough for the dimples to show. Flirting with receptionists was one of his finest arts; helped him with fire investigations. As her face changed from all business to wishful pleasure, Dylan knew that he was about to get access to Laura in two seconds.
