“He's a whackadoo.”
“Well...” That he would somehow track down Josie's cell phone number meant he was serious about finding her. She had zero desire to see either of them right now. Zero. They really had shredded her life, and what she wanted most was to turn the earth backwards, like in that old Superman movie, and make all of this go away.
No. What she really wanted was two men who could be honest and open and tell the truth about themselves so they could all live happily ever after. Was that too much to ask? Jill had died and turned out to have gobs of money that she passed on to the guys. They hid that information from her because –
Her blood ran cold, stomach twisting.
Because they didn't trust her.
“Oh, God,” she muttered. “Josie.” Her friend sensed the shift in her voice and came closer, curling her legs under herself on a small, faded, orange velvet chair.
“Yeah? What is it.”
“They – they,” she stammered, her chin quivering now, eyes filling with hot tears and throat salty and thick. “They never trusted me. They wanted the money and a woman but couldn't tell me because they didn't trust me. They just – I don't know!” she wailed, her volume increasing as her pulse raced and her mind raced even faster.
“Oh, Honey,” Josie replied, reaching for Laura's hand. “You are so trustworthy and so not into money.”
“I know, right?” Laura screeched. “It's laughable.” Maniacal laugh. “They couldn't have picked a worse thing to be worried about, right? I'm the girl who shops as much as possible at vintage and thrift shops to save money. I drive an older car and I put money in my stupid 401K every paycheck and I pay my student loans on time and I follow all the rules.” Her voice rose. “All the f**king rules, right? I do everything right. Everything! And this is how the universe repays me? Seriously. I feel like I got a galactic shit dumped on my head this morning.”
“You did.”
“A billion dollar shit!” Her voice was like a gospel preacher, the intonation more revival than revulsion.
“Yes, ma'am!”
“And if those two f**kers thought they could have the best sex ever with me but couldn't bother to tell me the truth about something this big, then they don't deserve me!”
“Indeed.” Josie sat back down and leaned forward. “Billionaire bastards.” Laura shot her a harsh look, wondering if she was poking fun, but she wasn't. The words mattered, and they were true. Both men were such steaming a**holes she couldn't believe it, the urge to start hyperventilating competing with the desire to punch them both in the face, even if she'd need a stool to reach Mike.
“I can't believe Dylan tracked you down like that,” Laura chuckled.
“Should I reply?”
Blinking, Laura came to a screeching halt in her mind, the question jarring. Should Josie reply? What would she say? What should she say? No etiquette manual was designed for this. Dan Savage needed to write one. How should your best friend reply when one of your threesome boyfriends turns out to be a billionaire and stalks you to try to make up?
That would be popular.
Laura smoothed her sweater over her belly, which pooched out enough to send some sort of a cat invitation to Dotty. She plopped down on Laura's lap and turned into a furnace, which was great in January but horribly warm in August. Get used to it, Laura, her mind said. It's the only touch you're getting for a long time that doesn't involve plastic and batteries.
For some reason, that made her finally break down and sob. Not the sheer humiliation in the work lobby. Not the rage that claimed her so easily on the staircase, her feet still aching from that howlingly stupid move. And not the thought that once again, as with Ryan, as with so many guys in high school and college, as with Dylan and Mike the first time they made love, she felt tiny and cheated and shamed and grotesque because nothing had turned out as planned, and her own blind naivete meant that here she was sobbing and racked with grief, her best friend stroking her shoulder and nothing had changed.
She was the same Laura this happened to, time in and time out, a decade and more of falling for guys who cared less for her than she cared for them, respected her in a way that made her queasy with doubt, and who managed to give her just enough hope such that when it all came crashing down what hurt most was that they ever gave her any.
It would have been easier to become a cat lady who never bothered, and she was about to do just that. As soon as it was safe to go home. If Dylan was hunting down Josie's number and texting her, then she damn sure couldn't go home right now. Weak and addled, her mind might play a game of sabotage on her, believing whatever smooth line he came up with to try to convince her that she should get up once more, strip nak*d before them, and let them ridicule her pure, loving heart.
Nope.
Done.
“Josie,” she announced, her voice sounding like a drill sergeant's. Wiping the tears with the bottom hem of her sweater, careful not to get cat hair in her eyes, she sniffed and demanded, “you are going to text that motherfucker back.”
“Yes, Ma'am!” Holding her phone, Josie looked expectantly at Laura. Hmmm. Now what? What could she possibly say to Dylan that would make him stay away? That would make him just evaporate, with Mike, and let her go on and live a life that didn't have so much pain and wonder in it? Were there magic words she could fit in a text that would do that?
She had to try. “OK, so type, 'If you say it's complicated I'll cut your balls off and put them on the warlock waitress.'”
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 f**king a**hole 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.