Josie choked and clapped. “Fucking brilliant!” Tap, tap, tap –
“No! Don't do it. Changed my mind.”
Pout from Josie, then a quick change to a neutral face. “Sure.” Tap, tap, tap as she erased it.
In her heart, what she wanted was an apology from them both. A long, drawn-out pleading and self-flagellation filled with regret and recriminations and sorries and kisses and flowers and all that crap. More words than things, though, more affection than promises, and more attention than empty phrases. At the center of it all was a ball of pain that now lived in her stomach, hot lead and napalm and poison that leaked and festered in her, planted there by Mike and Dylan because this?
This was a bitter pill to swallow. And swallow it she had, whole and dry and without any awareness of what it meant.
That was all fantasy. Her dream world was about her, about people caring what she felt, what she thought, what she needed and wanted. Fantasy.
The real world involved self-centered men who didn't trust her enough to tell her their second-biggest (or first!) secret and who let her learn about it from a fluff-chick morning chat show cougar who had the self-awareness of a bottle of nail polish remover. If that wasn't a big sign that their respect for her was in the crapper, nothing else was.
Add in the little detail that they clearly didn't trust her to be anything but a money grubber and she was, well, she was still struggling to sum all that up into one pithy text.
“Try this,” she ordered. Josie's finger hovered over the glass keyboard. “Don't chase me. Give me that one shred of respect. Why? Because it's complicated.” Josie typed it in and looked at her, eyebrows raised with a question.
Laura nodded and Josie tapped “Send.” Laura took a deep breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth, making a weird vibrating sound with her lips.
Bzzzz. “Man, he's fast,” Josie muttered. Dotty made a hissing sound and arched her back. “It's just a phone. Not a predator,” Josie chided the cat. “She does this all the time,” she explained, squinting at the screen.
“He replied, didn't he?”
“Yep. Wanna hear it?”
No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Ye – “Yes.”
Josie made a disgusted sound, complete with a slow shake of the head that Laura interpreted as not good. “He says, and I quote: 'It's always complicated.' With a little smiley face.”
A slap across the face would have shocked her less. Laura felt a rising numbness take over, blinking furiously with a neutral face, completely unable to comprehend what on earth had possessed Dylan to think that that – that? – trite and flippant response would somehow be perceived as funny. Or endearing. Or clever.
If the intended effect were to charm her, he'd failed miserably. If his goal was to piss her off and harden her resolve never to see him – or Mike – again, then he had succeeded wildly.
Yay, Dylan.
“Am I crazy for thinking he's a fucking asshole for sending that piece of shit text?' Laura railed.
“Not crazy.” Josie seemed to be keeping her face as still as possible, watching Laura with a wary eye. “It's insulting, really.”
“Thank you. Thank you! Because it is, isn't it?”
Bzzzz.
“Don't you answer that! He had his chance. One. I gave him one. And that's more than he and Mike deserve.”
“OK. Whatever you want.” Thank God for Josie, because right now she was rising to the occasion in a way Laura had never thought possible. Of course, they'd been there for each other over the years, through heart breaks and break ups, through angry, gritted-teeth conversations where they'd tried to convince each other to DTMFA, as Dan Savage would say. Dumping the motherfucker already, though, was easier said than done in most cases, and this was another one of those, ahem, complicated situations.
Not really, she argued with herself. Its simple. DTMFA. Both of them. Because the lack of respect they'd shown her told her everything she needed to know, even if that feeling of “fuck you” went against everything her heart was crying out right now, its words pleading with her to give them at least a quick meeting to hear why they hid this from her.
Why she had to learn about it at work, in a lobby, on a cheap television while two women who knew more about anal bleaching than world affairs got to prattle on and drool over Dylan and make comments that made her feel tiny and small and –
Ashamed. God, that really was a huge part of this, wasn't it? It had taken so much effort to overcome her feeling of discomfort at owning her own desire for both men, and here she was tentatively growing and accepting who she was and what her authentic self really needed and wanted. And it was Dylan and Mike, together as a trio that would make everyone so happy.
Her shame, now, was overflowing. Shame at thinking she could really have it all. Shame at wanting something so unconventional. Shame that they couldn't trust her.
Shame that she had trusted them.
And, worst of all, shame that she had something inside her that made her feel so much shame! She couldn't win.
She just couldn't win.
“You've got Netflix, right?” she asked Josie.
“Yup.” Josie's face changed, shifted to something softer. “Ooo, I know what you want to watch.”
Laura sighed. “Let's do it.”
“Oh, my God! It's the billionaire bachelor!” the receptionist screeched as the elevator doors parted and Dylan stepped out onto Laura's floor. The lobby at Laura's work was more crowded than it had been when he'd delivered flowers to her last month and heads turned. Then more heads.
Then every.single.head.
Oh, geez. The last thing he needed. “You remember me, right?” the receptionist crooned, walking over and extending her hand. “Debbie. I was here the day you delivered flowers to Laura.” Wink.
The absolutely last thing he needed. He didn't shake her hand. “Where is Laura?” he asked, not caring that he was being blunt, pointedly ignoring all the eyes on him.
“She went home sick.” A deep male voice answered, to Dylan's left. The man was middle-aged, greying temples, a bit of a paunch. Nice suit. Her boss? He nodded to Debbie, who skittered over to her station and began answering phone calls, eyes glued on the two men.
“Oh. Is she OK?” He frowned, concerned.
“I won't comment on that, but after she watched the news report featuring you, she clearly wasn't doing well.” Ah. This guy was a straight shooter. A little angry on Laura's behalf. Dylan could understand that.
And respect it. Even if it pained him deeply to have caused her pain.
“Thanks. I'll try to catch her at home.” Debbie's eyes widened and she reached for a smart phone, texting furiously. Gossip. Great. Poor Laura.
Poor Laura? He was the cause of what made her poor Laura. Holy fuck. He'd never considered that the fallout could do this to her.
A hand on his arm. Firm. Unyielding. His hackles went up and a thin thread of fight grew in him. The boss's eyes were cold steel, pointed directly at Dylan like a weapon. “I wouldn't do that if I were you. If she wants to see you, she can contact you.” This wasn't advice.
This was a veiled threat. Or, at least, that's how it sounded to Dylan's hypersensitive ears. Who was this tool to tell him how to handle Laura? He shook the man's hand off him roughly and got right in his face.
“I'll talk to her if I want to.” His face was inches from the boss, who stood up and matched Dylan on height. This guy was twenty years older and probably out of shape, but he was a fierce dude who wasn't backing down, even in the presence of a very muscled fire fighter.
“If she wants to talk to you. Otherwise, you're just an angry stalker.”
There was that word again. Stalker. “You don't know anything about – ”
Ding! The elevator behind Dylan slid open and he heard two heavy steps, then Mike's breathless voice. “Is she still here?”
Debbie just about had a heart attack, her jaw dropping so low her mouth could have been a dustpan. “Thor,” she whispered. Dylan nearly barked out a laugh, the comment shaking him from his stand off with Laura's boss.
“No. She's gone,” the boss said, then looked at Dylan. Hard.
A new hand on his arm, this time Mike's. “Let's try her apartment.” He jabbed the “down” button for the elevator as Debbie removed her telephone headset and stood, smoothing her tight skirt, then sauntering over.
Mercifully, the doors opened before she got to them, Mike practically dragging Dylan in. With a pneumatic hiss his last view of Laura's work floor was Debbie's disappointed voice and the back of the boss's head.
Good riddance to both.
Mike stared up at the ceiling and blew out a huge breath of air. “Has she answered your texts or voice mails?”
“Nope. You try?”
“Once, for each. No luck.”
“Where were you when that stupid television report came on?”
“At work.” A low whistle from Mike, whose eyebrows shot up, made Dylan wince. He took in Dylan's uniform and cringed. “Yeah. It was bad. Let's just say I am no longer gainfully employed.”
“Joe fired you?”
“No. I resigned peacefully.”
“Peacefully?” Mike smirked. Damn it, he knew him too well.
“It's complicated.”
“It's always complicated,” Mike said bitterly.
