Show? “We didn't mean to – ”
Placing one long finger with an even longer fingernail against his lips she shook her head slowly. The rest of her fingernails looked like peacock tails. “You don't get to speak right now. In fact, I hope Mike there doesn't try to talk too much.”
Dylan snorted. “No worries,” he said. Except it sounded like “mo uhwees” with her finger pressing against his mouth. “He's a quiet giant.”
She made a face like she was impressed. “Then you might have a shot. Too bad you guys set her up. The last thing Laura needs is to feel manipulated.” She glowered. “Why am I telling you this?”
Whack. She smacked him with the rubber balls. “Ow!”
“You deserved it.” She was right; he did. They did. His stomach rumbled and he checked the wall clock. Pushing 5 a.m. Shit – he started a new shift in two hours. Whatever they needed to do to get Laura to believe that they wanted her – wanted more – and that this wasn't some pervy plot, they needed to do it fast.
Turning on the charm, he shot Josie a warm grin, his arm going up around the back edge of the booth, the gesture intimate and inviting. “You're her best friend. What would you tell some amazing guy – ”
“Guys.” She turned it into two syllables. Geye – ZUH. Which made it all sound rather pervy.
He kept going. “Guys. OK. What would you tell us to do to get her to explore this with us?”
“Explore? That sounds so...eww. Would you say that to someone if you were just in a one-on-one relationship? 'I want to explore this. Explore you. Explore your hoo-haw' – ”
“Hoo what?”
Just then, Mike approached. Thank God, Dylan thought. He was starting to feel a little too...something. Flinching, he pulled back from Josie and shot Mike a pleading look. Rescue me?
“Hi,” Mike said to Josie, extending his hand to shake. She grasped it and Dylan got a good, long look at those weird, long nails. Yep. Peacock tails. Golden, glittering streaks interspersed with some weird, glittery green and a bunch of colors you'd only see in nature.
She smiled real wide at Mike, clearly drinking him in. Some part of Dylan's ego felt chipped away, irked that she didn't look at him like that. What the hell was he thinking? Whether Laura's best friend found him attractive or not wasn't exactly top on his list of issues right now. Besides, Josie had asked him earlier if he and Mike had ever been in a foursome. Her intent was hard to read; sarcasm? Or – worse – an actual offer?
Mike's return grin was polite. Hesitant. He gave nothing. Atta boy, Dylan thought. Josie's face went a bit tentative, the first sign of any social filter in the woman. Mike could do that to people. He was so centered – not self-centered, but grounded – that his openness unnerved people. It was yet another aspect of him that drew Dylan, and probably Jill and Laura, to the giant –
Ah. Thor. Studying Mike's features, Dylan suddenly got it, chuckling at the women. Taller than most men, Nordic features, the dark blonde hair and those glittery eyes. Legs like tree trunks and a cobra chest and back. Thor.
Did that make him Loki? He shuddered at the thought, his chuckle fading fast. He was waay more built than that guy. More Captain America than –
“Earth to Dylan.” Mike was waving a hand the size of a catcher's mitt in his face. “Josie was just telling us some important information about Laura.” Mike widened his eyes and his look said Hey, dumbass, show some respect.
“Yeah. Sure.” Movement at the other booth caught his eye as Laura stretched her neck from one side to the other, then slid to the right, out of the booth and walked unsteadily to the bathroom. Her gait caught him unaware, and – yep, he was hard. That fine, round, soft as**s sashayed away from him, her hips encased in some loose yoga pant fabric that clung to her curves, disappearing around the corner as she opened the door. It was unsettling when what he really wanted was that as**s on him, in his lap, or in front of him, hands feeling every –
“...so I'm not going to sit here and pour out all of Laura's secrets to you two idiots, but you obviously need someone to hit you with a clue bat.” Josie held up the plastic balls. “Or clue balls. Whatever. You should have been upfront with Laura and told her that you know each other. And that you're gay – ”
“Nope.” Dylan crossed his arms over his chest. Here we go again. “Not gay.” Mike shook his head.
She smiled slyly. “OK, not gay. But...not not gay?”
Dylan pursed his lips, eyes narrowing, face hard. Mike had closed up, too. “We're not having this conversation with you.”
“No offense,” Mike jumped in, palm up and facing Josie in a gesture that asked her to give them a second to explain. “It's complicated.”
“It's always complicated.”
“Where have I heard that before?” Dylan muttered. Now he was getting pissed, and he could tell Mike could tell he was getting pissed, and he was hard from watching Laura walk away and now this little yippy drowned rat of a friend wanted to tell him allll about him and Mike. Judgment was all fine and good until the other person was just plain wrong.
Then it was torture.
“You don't know us from Adam,” Mike said in a soothing voice. Josie looked at him with rapt attention, her mouth open slightly, lips parted and face softened. It made Dylan like her a bit. Just a bit. Mike had that effect on women. On men. On dogs, for that matter. He could make almost any living being feel like they were the center of the world.
“And we hope you respect that. We know you're Laura's best friend and we know you know her far, far better than we do. Someday we hope to rival you on that,” he added, his grin widening, eyes lasered on Josie's.
She smiled. Dylan dropped his hands from his chest. Now they were getting somewhere. He couldn't stop surveying the women's room. A glimpse of her was what he wanted.
Not really. What he wanted was to storm over to her table, slide in next to her and charm the pants off her. His pants tightened. Damn jeans.
“If you really want to understand Laura, you two need to back the f**k off.” The profanity caught Dylan's attention; her tone was nasty but matter-of-fact. “You're not asking for anything she's ever experienced. Or that most people, much less most women, have experienced. You lied to her – ”
“We didn't lie,” Dylan sputtered. Mike tried to shut him up with a look but Dylan wasn't having any of it. “We just didn't tell her everything.”
“You Catholic?”
“How'd you know?” he asked, bewildered.
“You have the Irish-Italian Catholic look. So you know the difference between lies of comission and lies of omission.” She said it flatly. It wasn't a question. Mike pinged between the two of them, a confused look on his face.
“Yeah.” She had him. Omitting the truth was as bad as telling an outright lie.
“Fill me in?” Mike asked, waving at them both. “Lapsed Lutheran here.”
“You guys didn't tell her the truth,” Josie said, exasperation coating her words. “You have a lot of trust to regain. A lot.” She screwed her face into a disapproving look that was a bit too reminiscent of those nuns Dylan dealt with back in elementary school. “I don't see how you ever thought that was a good plan. Date her separately and then assume you could just shift into threesome mode?” Hissing the word “threesome,” Josie twisted her head back and forth, making hard eye contact with each. “Not the smoothest of moves. Who came up with that one?”
Both men dipped their heads, suddenly entranced by the silverware, Mike fingering a fork while Dylan polished his spoon with his old t-shirt.
She snorted. “Yeah. Well, whatever led you to surprise her like that – don't do it again. Not if you hope to get her back.”
“Any ideas?” Mike asked, a half smile trying to coax some allegiance from her.
She shook her head. “Don't stalk her?” As she stood to walk back to her and Laura's booth, Dylan caught a glimpse of a blonde pony tail, Laura's face down as she hurried back to her booth.
“We didn't stalk her,” Mike protested. “We just wanted Jeddy's as much as you guys did.”
“Everyone has a big appetite after a menage,” Josie joked. Madge appeared, arms laden with plates of hot sausage and more, just as Josie spoke. Plates delivered, Madge pivoted three steps, stopping.
“Menage, huh?” Madge muttered as she filled salt shakers the next table over, pointedly taking in Dylan and Mike. “I wouldn't mind surviving that.” She shot Josie a sideways look. “They must have crushed you to a pulp.”
Laughter filled the restaurant as Josie plunked the rubber balls in front of Dylan and Mike and walked back to her friend, leaving Dylan with no appetite and a million questions. Go slow? How do you go slow after...
Madge waggled her eyebrows. “You buys ever need a third, you know where to come.”
Ewww. Dylan's pants loosened instantly. “Uh – ”
She threw an arm around the warlock waitress. “I meant him. Her. It.” A choking laugh carried down the aisle as she shouted back, “Sorry, boys. I'm taken.”
Laura hyperventilated in the bathroom stall. Calling it a stall was a bit of a stretch. Years ago, someone had removed the metal door and replaced it with a cheap shower curtain with an outline of an arm wielding a knife and red splotches. All that stood between her and the mess out there was Psycho. Nice.
