like this. The shower head hung on its hose now, the spray aimlessly pointing here and there, Bob resting on its side, half dead, buzzing uselessly against a metal drain circle it could never make come.
She slouched down and pulled her knees against her bare, wet breasts. Hands combing her long, wet hair, she sighed.
When she really could have both Mike and Dylan right here, right now, like this, what on earth was she doing with such pale imitations? Was that part of Josie's point? Reality was scary. Far safer to whack off in the shower and imagine it all.
Reality, though, had given her this – the most intense shower experience of her life. Drawing on what she knew was real, was possible, was achievable had made her – well, it had made her want the real thing.
God damn it.
She hated when Josie was right.
The phone rang. His phone never actually rang these days; just texts. The ring tone was so unfamiliar he ignored it the first three times, then realized what it was. A comedic moment of bumbling to fish the phone out of his pocket, then he answered.
"Hello?"
"Mike?" Laura. Ah, Laura's voice. It had been a week and they were trying to find a time they could all get together. Fall was approaching and ski prep was in the first slow, languid stages. Ad campaigns and supply orders and a host of issues he'd never dealt with as just an employee were keeping him busy on the mountain. Man, did her voice sound nice.
"Hey, there," he answered, voice going low and sultry. Lots of parts of him felt sultry suddenly. Good thing he'd already run a quick six miles today.
"How're you guys doing?"
"Dylan's working out right now. Lifting. I don't know much about his schedule beyond that."
"Where's he lift?"
"At the Y in Cambridge."
"That's not far from my apartment." He'd never seen her apartment, he suddenly realized. His admin brought him a spreadsheet with a bunch of numbers and pointed to a place for him to initial. Tucking the smart phone between his shoulder and cheek, he listened while he scribbled.
"Yeah? Maybe you can go catch him and outlift him." Laughter greeted that one.
"I'm pretty fair at it, but no way I can match him."
"Can you bench your weight?" Few women could.
"Nope. Close, but nope." She hesitated. He could feel some sort of change in the conversation's tone, from light-hearted and just touching base to something more guarded. Was it something he said? Weightlifting didn't seem to be emotional minefield territory, so he doubted it was that. Why did everything these days have to be so rife with issues? Breathe, Mike. Breathe. Just wait her out.
His silence provoked her. "I can bench about fifteen pounds less." Again, that weird hesitation. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair and pointed a delivery guy with boxes on a dolly to his destination. This sort of split attention drove him nuts. Focusing on one thing at a time was key to feeling more grounded, and right now he needed to be centered. Whatever was going on in some subtext he didn't understand with Laura, he needed to be on his game.
"I used to bench double my weight," he added, then stopped short. Weight! That was it. They weren't talking about abstract numbers here. She thought he expected her to say how much she could bench? Which would clue him in to her weight? Women really were that sensitive some times. Diffuse it, Mike. Diffuse it.
"Dylan can bench about a thousand pounds," he said, grinning.
"What?"
"Yep. Carrying that ego around..." She laughed. Score.
"It's almost a fourth partner," she joked back. Warmth spread through him, unexpected and welcome, his throat thick with emotion. If she was going to make threesome jokes, this was deepening nicely. Jill had told him a long time ago that she began to really accept their relationship when she could wisecrack about it.
"Hey, Mike? The wax guys are on the line – they said there's a problem with the order," his admin, Shelly, interrupted. Full-figured, energetic, and highly opinionated, she was only nineteen but had been in the back office for three years, practically running the show. Now she tapped her foot and managed somehow to convey urgency and ignore him all at once as she worked on her smart phone. "Seriously," she added. "They won't talk to me. Only you."
He held up one finger in Shelly's direction. "Shit," he muttered. "Sorry, Laura – I've got a work problem here."
"A work problem? As in, you have no snow and can't work?"
"No, a supplier needs some attention."
"I didn't know you were so heavy into the business side of things."
You have no idea. "Oh, I help out with inventory sometimes," he explained. Shelly shot him a "what the fuck" look and he started to feel unmoored. This was veering into dangerous territory, fast. He wasn't ready to tell Laura about the money. Soon, but not just yet.
Torn, he paused, wishing he could just take a thirty-mile run and think. Think it all through. Telling her was the obvious, right choice, so why not just say it? What was holding him back? A part of him feared, deeply, that he would regret this one day. That she would find out the truth and hate him.
That these secrets were eating away at his soul.
"I'll hurry then – I just need a few seconds more. Can you and Dylan come over to my place for dinner tomorrow night?"
The warmth returned. "Of course," he gasped, surprised by the offer.
"I'm not as good a cook as Dylan," she added. Shelly twisted her wrist in repeating circles, pushing Mike to get off the phone. Hell of a time for this!
"Whatever you make, we'll savor," he said. "What time?"
"Seven?"
"We're there. See you tomorrow." As he said the words, Shelly reached up and plucked the phone from him, slamming the red button to end the call.
"Hey!" he shouted, pulling himself up to his full height. Who did she think she was?
Shelly didn't even bother looking at him. "Yeah. Right. Like that'll intimidate me." Her snort followed him as he marched away to talk to the wax dudes. Madge's granddaughter was a chip off the old – well, the old.
What caught Dylan off guard most was how pink her apartment was. He hadn't pegged Laura as one of those pink girls, but the apartment practically glowed. Not in a sickly-sweet Barbie dream house kind of way, but more like IKEA had decided pink was the color of the season and Laura had happened to decide to decorate her entire place that year. Even the bathroom had some shade of pink that dominated.
It wasn't a show stopper. Chuckling as he dried his hands on a pinkish bath towel with blue and lime highlights, he paused to stare at himself in the mirror. This was really happening. Mike had been wrong. Mr. Doubt Everything had come back this morning from one of his killer runs and declared that the situation with Laura was tenuous at best, and that they needed to pour their hearts out tonight at her place and just tell her about the billions.
"You're nuts," Dylan had told him flatly. He was off for the day and ironing work shirts while deciding what to wear that night. The ratty Rush t-shirt or the ratty Dead shirt? Hard to decide.
"Not nuts," Mike retorted. "Sane. Rational, Reasonable. We're skating on thin ice here by not telling her. And if it comes out before we're the ones to sit down and talk about it with her, all hell will break loose."
"How will it come out, Mike? She doesn't know anyone we know."
"The workers at the ski resort figured it out."
"That's because there are financial people there who had to know who owns the place, and they sniffed the money trail back to you. But they don't know about the trust fund, right?" Mike's uncomfortable silence had sent a chill down Dylan's back. "Right?" he said sharply.
Mike had looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. "Someone there knows. They had to. I couldn't buy the entire resort outright and I needed to give financial statements proving the steady income. I'll finish paying it off next year, but there was no way to do this without disclosing it."
"Shit." Dylan hadn't known that.
"So we need to tell her."
Dylan argued back. "Not yet. We need one night to just...be. Last week was perfect. Tonight can be more perfect."
Mike's skeptical look had nearly broken him. Truth be told, he just wasn't ready to look into Laura's sweet face and declare he was a billionaire. That Mike was, too. Oh, yeah, we lied about this one little thing...we make more money than most major movie stars do in a career. Only we make it per year. You'll never have to worry about money again with us.
And – smack. He imagined the slap. Because it felt like one, in his gut. If roles were reversed he'd feel betrayed and pissed and all the things he imagined she had felt until last week. The roller coaster of their relationship was making everyone queasy, and taking a break was helping to settle everyone into a comfortable place where they could just proceed. That's what he wanted more of. Not secrets and reveals and heart-felt explanations and angst-filled pleas.
And sex. He wanted sex. Letting that be secondary had been hard. Hell, he was hard. All the time now. And lavender-scented hand lotion wasn't the best girlfriend these days, no matter how nice it smelled. It couldn't sigh, or groan his name, or dig its fingers into his shoulders at the just perfect moment when –
Damn tight pants. That helped with one clothing decision for the evening – looser jeans.
Mike had accepted that they should wait, though his reluctance was clear. And now here they were, in her homey, pink apartment, ready to take things to the next step. The second he and Mike had entered her apartment the air had crackled with anticipation, the atmosphere a 180 degree difference from dinner at their place the week before. Laura had shifted a bit, wearing something loose and diaphanous, a little more sultry and open than last week.
They were all ready for more.
But not Mike's level of more. Not yet. Having luscious sex with her and Mike in the next hour, spread out and spread eagle and licking and laving and loving and touching and thrusting? Sure.
Bare his soul and reveal the money and experience the unsettling feelings he still didn't know how to cope with?
No way.
"Mmmm, what is that incredible aroma?" he nearly shouted as he came into her tiny kitchen. White tile floor, white formica counters, a cheap kitchen table and vinyl-covered chairs. Red and pink, of course. It looked like any kitchen in any apartment you'd expect a twenty-something corporate worker to live in, especially someone likely still paying off student loans.
You could fix that, a voice whispered. He quashed it.
"I'm no Italian cook," she joked, pretending to be humble, "so I made chicken satay and pad Thai."
"From scratch?" he and Mike said simultaneously, both with an incredulous tone.
She shrugged. "Sure. Just have to follow a recipe."
Could they have found anyone better? She was already the whole package but add in the fact that she made her own Thai food and – wow.
"I, uh – you do like Thai food?" An alarmed look crept over her features.
"We love it," they said.
Dylan looked at Mike. "Jinx!"
Everyone laughed. The pink shrimp Laura was throwing into the noodle dish matched, exactly, one of the stripes of pink on the dish towels. This was getting to be a bit much. He looked at her and realized she was staring at him, eyebrow cocked.