“OK. $50. I'm lap dancing for two, after all.” She wiggled her belly. Mike groaned and Dylan winced. Topic change.
“Whatcha cooking?” She nosed over Dylan's shoulder. A big slab of delicate meat surrounded by carrots, potatoes, onions, and something unidentifiable. “What's that?”
“Celeriac.”
“Sell airy what?”
“Celeriac. It's kind of like the root of a celery plant. Sort of. It's really savory and complements the meat nicely.”
“Mmmmmkay, Rachel Ray.”
He looked offended. “I'm Gordon Ramsay all the way, babe.” Arms reached around her, his face nonplussed as he couldn't make it, the belly in the way. “Don't you forget it,” he joked, pulling back, bemused.
“More like the rat in Ratatouille,” Mike said, droll and patient.
“You two are getting Kraft Mac n Cheese if you don't stop.”
Her stomach growled audibly. Dylan pointed at it and said, “The baby speaks! She defends me!”
“Are all audible bodily functions a commentary on you, Dylan? If so...” Mike bit his lips, holding back.
“Let's just eat!” Laura declared. Her stomach growled again. “I'm starving!” No one had cooked her a homemade meal in, well – not since Dylan's meatballs. It felt good to be pampered, cared for, taken care of.
And the food was divine.
So was the company. Somehow, the three of them fell back into an easy banter, talking and laughing with abandon, yet comfortable with silence. So much to say. So little pressure to say it. Time might heal all, she thought, if they never said a word. Just living and being and coexisting might do the trick.
Not really. She could hope, though. Food, though – food had a universal language that said, “Dig in. Eat. Relax. Enjoy.”
And she did.
Beep! Something that sounded like a clothes dryer went off. “Oh! Your quilt!” Mike said, jumping up from the table and walking down the hallway.
“My quilt?”
“Your grandma's quilt. Mike's washing it a few times. Part of your stuff we hauled home.”
A grateful warmth filled her. Blinking back tears, she said, “Thank you.”
“Don't thank me. Thank Mike.”
She reached for Dylan's hand and squeezed. “No. Thank you. You saved me. Saved us.”
He shook his head, eyes serious. “I almost ruined us. And I hurt you deeply.” Hearing it from him made a difference; she had tried to convince herself it didn't matter, but it did. Mike returned to the table, a look of puzzlement, then alarm, on his face.
“Everything OK?”
“We're getting serious,” Dylan muttered.
Mike's face shifted to dawning understanding. “Oh. Got it.” He pushed his plate back and leaned forward on the table, chin in hand. “Is this the part where I get down on my knees and beg Laura to forgive me for being such a ridiculous, cravenly afraid a**hole?”
“That's my role!” Dylan protested. “I look really good eating humble pie. Lately, it's my specialty. Shows off my good side.” He tilted his face to the left, a sad smirk coloring the discussion.
“You can both play that role,” she joked. Except she wasn't joking. They all knew it. “No,” she added, shaking her head. “All three of us can play that role, because I did to you what you did to me.” She winced. “With higher stakes.”
No one argued. That made her feel even worse. Here we go, she thought. Cards on the table. Hearts on sleeves. It was now or never, and clichés aside, if she wasn't brutally honest with herself and with them, she could never, in good conscience, forgive herself.
Which was the most important person she needed to extend forgiveness to.
“Can I say something, Laura?” Mike interrupted. He stood slowly, with great deliberation, inch by inch rising to stand over her and Dylan, the table miniscule and unimportant, the air filled with intent.
“Sure,” she squeaked.
He looked at Dylan. “I need to say this to you, too.” Dylan looked askance, uncertain and a bit worried, mirroring Laura's own internal state.
Mike sighed. “I love you both.” He bent down and touched Laura's belly. “And I love her, too. We have lots of words we could utter and exchange, decode and expunge, but none of those words matter as much as these: I'm sorry.” He looked deeply into her eyes, then Dylan's. “I love you.” Again, at both, careful and measured, meted out equally. “I love this. I've missed this.”
His hands swept over the table, gesturing at the room, trying to capture the love and laughter and comfort in his hands. Laura knew he couldn't, because it wasn't a thing. It was something the three of them created when they were together, an alchemy they couldn't force. It just was. “I want it all, for the rest of my life.” He bowed his head, releasing Laura's swell. “I don't have any better words.”
“There aren't any.” Dylan's voice was thick with emotion as he stood. He and Mike moved to Laura, who volleyed between them, head bouncing left and right to take this all in. With one on each side of her, she struggled to understand what was going on as they both knelt down.
“I don't know what to say,” she admitted. And she didn't. Nearly five months of wants and needs and luscious thoughts poured into her now, less from passion and more from a knowing love. A place of goodness and completion, of welcomed desire, of being treasured and assured not by words or by touch but by presence.
“Say you'll stay. Say you'll let us take care of you.” Dylan touched her belly. “Both of you.”
She frowned. “Take care of?”
“We have more money than we can spend in ten lifetimes. Quit your job. Be a full-time mom. Start a business or a charity or whatever your heart desires, Laura. Hang with us. Help me run the ski resort. Become a gym bunny. Open a bakery. Hell, buy Jeddy's and fire Madge,” Mike laughed, his face wide and open, body tense but eyes serene and raw all at once.
“In other words, let us take care of you, because we need you to take care of us,” Dylan said, getting to the point.
Oh, guys, she thought. Her heart should be racing, temples pounding, face flushing and heart swelling, right? Instead, all she could feel was a diffuse calm. An acceptance. An understanding.
And the baby did a somersault right then, her little foot practically poking a hole in Laura's belly. “Holy shit!” Mike shouted. “I could see the outline of her toes on your shirt!” She'd chosen a fairly tight, “slimming” light pink maternity shirt, with a little spandex, and it was pulled snugly over her belly.
“I saw it, too!” Dylan joined in.
“Maybe she was answering for me?”
“Was she?” they asked in unison. Laura closed her eyes, shoulders dropping, her breath even and mature. Yes. Yes yes yes yes.
In later years Laura would try to remember the exact moment she leaned down and took Mike's face into her hands, kissing him gently and with great passion, but try as she might she could never pinpoint it, would never find her recollection precise enough to discern when she made the decision. Like so many other moments in her years with Dylan and Mike it just was, a delicious shift of molecules and energy that moved her body, compelling her toward what her heart wanted.
Regardless, Mike's response was keen and matched, lips connecting, arms wrapping about her waist, sliding up her back as he stood, pulling her to standing, the belly making an awkward chaperone that separated them. Dylan stood back and watched, smiling. He wasn't left out for long, as Laura pulled back from Mike, breathless, and reached out.
The little, doubting voice inside her, the one that whispered insecure comments in her ear at inappropriate times, the saboteur of all that was good and whole in her life, tried desperately to wiggle its way to the surface as Dylan's arms wrapped around her, as his lips touched hers, as his mouth explored hungrily and apologized with little movements and sighs, hands saying "I'm sorry" in ways words and looks could never convey. Laura found herself not only not caring what that voice said, not actively pushing it away, but instead just not listening. Tuning it out like static, like traffic, like the sound of something so insignificant it becomes white noise after a while. You know it's there but it blends in with the rest of the world and takes its rightful place as something you don't need to attend to.
What she needed to give her attention was, in fact, right here, standing before her, both men here, now, for her. And she was here for them, all three together and hopeful and trying to find their way to a new truth. A new honesty. A new vow.
As she warmed to Dylan's caresses, their bodies awkward and accommodating, the reality of their earlier coming together very real – regardless of whose baby she carried – desire roared forth, a huge ball of need and hormones rushing to the surface, her mouth aggressive, hands not backing down. Wanting them both, needing time and pleasure, her skin's memory of the fear of nearly dying now straining for an expression of life, to conjoin and co-mingle with Mike and Dylan, to renew something deep and unspoken as they unveiled a commencement. A beginning of something unspoken but cherished.
Dylan's touch became tentative, hesitant. She pulled back and asked, "You OK?"
Mike's eyes held the same conflict that Dylan's reflected as she looked at them both. "Can we...are you...is this -- " Dylan stumbled.
"Oh, God, yes!" she nearly cried out. "Do you have any idea how much I've missed this?" She stroked his arm. "Both of you." A sigh. "All of this."
"No, I mean, the doctors – can you, you know?" Mike jumped in, hands clearly itching to touch her, but keeping a respectful distance as she was in Dylan's space.
She blushed. "I'm cleared for 'intimate relations,' as the nurse put it, but I don't think they were thinking of what we do," she laughed. Pointing to her belly and hips, she added, "And I think we just have to do this the old fashioned way this time. No room for two at the inn."
"I like old-fashioned," Dylan sighed in her ear, nuzzling her neck. A zing of pleasure made her inhale slowly, savoring the heat of his cheek on hers. Mike stepped back, sweeping his arm toward his bedroom, the same room, same bed, where they'd first been together, what seemed like a lifetime ago.
In a way, it was. This world was theirs to forge, social and emotional rules that they landscaped, shaping it as they wished. No doubting voice, no righteous screeds, no one else could dictate how or whom she loved. So this lifetime that she embarked on felt like her real life. Time to start it.
Start it off right. Nice and slow and easy and luscious. Taking Mike's hand, holding on to Dylan's with her other, the three walked with languid grace, her body hot and ready so soon, so fast, she nearly burst as Mike reached down to kiss her, Dylan stroking her shoulders and back, hands wrapping around her from behind and loving her belly.
Sinking back into him, soaking up Mike's skin, the taste of him, how his mouth was lush and present and fully aware of hers made the scene less surreal. Just...real. As if all of the other moments in her conscious life were somehow just a preparation for this, and that all her worries and concerns were useless, unnecessary.