The entrance to Jeddy’s seemed bare without the warlock waitress who wore the pair of balls, but since it had been auctioned off at some autism event, it was probably now sitting in some millionaire’s garage, gathering dust. At least the poor warlock waitress got a chance to retire. Madge, on the other hand, didn’t. She marched right up to the group and then, to Josie’s utter amazement, reached out for Alex, stood on tiptoes, and planted a loud smackeroo on his cheek. The kiss, intimate and friendly, and the kind a grandmother gives her grandson.
“You two know each other?” Josie asked, incredulous.
Ed walked over to Madge and slipped a sly arm around her waist, goosing her hip and laughing when Madge playfully slapped his hand. “You’re the threesome girl, aren’t you?” Madge said, pointing at Josie, narrowing her eyes.
Josie turned into a beet on the spot. A bright red, flaming beet. “What? No, I…what do you…?”
Alex and Ed looked at her with eyebrows practically up to the ceiling. “Threesome girl?” Alex asked, with a half-smile on his face.
“It’s not what you…No, that’s not what I…oh…” she stammered, completely flummoxed by Madge’s comment.
“Yeah, she comes in here all the time,” Madge said, “with this incredibly big, pregnant blonde, and the blonde is pregnant by one of two guys, but not in that Maury Povich kind of way, more in a…Mormon sister wives kind of way, except sister husbands, no…brother husbands.” Madge waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Bah…now she’s got me stammering trying to explain it. It’s all…this quirky thing involving Thor and his little…model boyfriend.”
“Mike and Dylan,” Alex said.
Madge snapped her neck back in surprise. “You know them?”
“Yeah, I was just at Laura’s birth.”
“You delivered the baby?” Ed asked.
“No, but I assisted in the case.”
“Maybe you’ll get a fighting chance at some of those coconut shrimp now that she shat out the football,” Madge laughed to Josie, a conspirator’s smile on her face.
As the four of them stood there, ignoring the growing line behind them, Josie realized that suddenly she was something different to Madge. “How do you all…?” She cut off her own question. “Madge is the sweet thing that you like at Jeddy’s, isn’t she, Ed?”
His smile stretched so wide across his face, she thought it might meet at the base of his neck in the back. “Yes, ma’am, me and Madge have been together for a good long time, and she’s my sweet thing.”
“I thought you meant you had a favorite dessert here.”
“I do,” he said, with a lecherous smile.
Alex just shook his head and pretended not to be there.
Josie cackled. “We’re quickly getting into ‘too much information’ territory here, Ed.”
“When you’re my age, you take whatever information you can get,” he said.
“All right, all right.” Madge batted his hand away. “I need to get you guys seated. Come on.” She grabbed three menus, and Ed followed her, giving her a quick goose on the ass, making her giggle. The idea that Madge was capable of giggling threw Josie for a loop. As Madge showed them to their booth, Josie made it a point to sit across from the two men, claiming her space and needing to get as much distance as possible from both of them, to preserve whatever shred of dignity remained.
The first words out of Alex’s mouth, as he sat across from her and locked eyes, were exactly what she expected. “Threesome. Care to explain?”
“You know what she meant,” Josie retorted.
“No, I don’t,” Alex said skeptically. A smile struggled to stay inside as he grilled her, leaning forward, invading her space as much as possible in an effort to unsettle her. She knew it, and he knew it, and damn if he wasn’t succeeding.
“She called me ‘threesome girl’ because I came in here with the threesome, not because I’m part of a threesome.” She looked down at the menu, knowing exactly what she was going to order, but needing to break eye contact. “I don’t seem to be part of anything these days.”
He frowned, genuine concern pouring into his features. His eyes warm again as he let go of the guardedness. It made her want to let go as well and talk to him openly, rather than play this stupid game that she knew was one-sided, all on her, trying to shut him out.
“You can be part of whatever you want to be part of,” he stressed. His fingers started to tap the tabletop, and she knew that he was purposefully engaging his hands so that he didn’t reach across and try to take hers. The gesture was touching. Every movement and word orchestrated between the two of them as he tried to figure out why she had blown him off, and she tried to pretend that she was still blowing him off, and only here for Ed’s benefit.
That day in the elevator, their heated embrace while Laura was in labor, he had said to her something about games being what people who don’t know what they want engage in. Damn, if he wasn’t right. Playing this game was a reflection of her own internal turmoil, and she really didn’t know what she wanted.
That was the problem. The longer she sat across from him, though, the more she wanted him. He was the real deal. Diving in with Alex would be a mature relationship, one that she knew involved giving it all. This wouldn’t be a 50/50 or a 20/20, which was what she was more accustomed to. This would be a full on, 100% involvement, with each person giving their all. He’d mentioned having a family, and children, and she knew that she couldn’t offer that. That’s what had kept her away, the worry that he really was the whole package and that she just wasn’t. No matter how much Laura tried to convince her that Josie’s insecurities were her biggest obstacle, and that she really had value and was worthy, and could build a life with children and love, and family, and—dare she even think it—Alex, at the core, Josie just couldn’t believe that she could rise above her own fears and take the plunge.
“Coconut shrimp and fried green tomatoes for you,” Madge said to Josie without looking at her as she scribbled something in that little electronic device of hers. “Coconut cream pie and a cup of coffee for Ed…and Alex, I still haven’t quite figured out what it is that you want.”
“I know exactly what I want, Madge,” he said, his eyes boring into Josie. “Unfortunately, it’s not on the menu.”