Her daughter deserved a dad who knew her.
Knowing this time to wait a few minutes before biting into the piping hot shrimp, Laura just sat and took a few deep breaths. The scene outside was a lovely November New England day, sunnier than usual and unseasonably warm. Thanksgiving was two weeks away and Christmas decorations were already in some shop windows. Her lightweight shirt had lasted since August, when she'd bought it. Soon it wouldn't fit, and the weather would turn to snow, perfect ski weather.
Ah, Mike. She sighed. Half hoping last summer that come winter he'd teach her how to ski, her eyes filled with tears yet again for what was lost. Stupid to think of that when she was holding back the most important news the guys had ever had in their lives. She assumed. Maybe Jill's death has been more important.
Both seemed pretty significant. What was she doing comparing them, anyhow? Ridiculous. Bottom line, though, was that after this meal she would go home, take a nap, and prepare to call them both tomorrow and face what she'd been putting off for three months.
“Mmmm,” Josie groaned as she munched on her coconut shrimp. Laura plucked one off the plate and took a bite, sinking her teeth in. Instant pleasure. The next ten minutes were a feeding frenzy as Madge brought out their sausage, foccacia, and the grand peanut butter cake.
“You eat more than a high school football team these days,” Josie said, incredulous, as Laura asked Madge for another plate of shrimp.
“I have the sex drive of a high school boy, so that's not inappropriate.” Munch, munch.
“TMI. I sooo did not need to know that.”
“My batteries need batteries.”
Josie shoved her fingers in her ears. “Lalalalalalalalalalala.” Laura laughed maniacally and started to feel full. One more shrimp on the plate, she speared it and dipped it in the aioli. Heaven. Pure heaven.
“So you're going to talk to them now, right?” Josie asked quietly, prodding without being negative. Pushing her plate of friend green tomatoes away, she smiled at Laura, an encouragingly sympathetic look.
Laura pulled her unfinished plate into her zone of consumption. Mine now. Stabbing a tomato, she tried the tiger sauce. Horseradish. Was it worth the reflux?
Yes! Mmmmm.
“You're right. I'll talk to them. The baby is one of theirs and it's time.”
Cupping one hand over her ear, Josie leaned across the table. “Say that again.”
“I'm telling them.”
“No – the part before that.”
Laura made a sour face. “You're right.” Time for dessert! She dumped all the caramel and hot fudge all over the peanut butter hulk smash cake and sneered at Josie. “And no cake for you!”
“You think I'm going to try to take a bite of that from a horny pregnant woman? I'm not suicidal.”
Laura's laugh carried through the diner, turning a few heads and yielding bemused smiles. Ah, it felt good to laugh, deep belly chuckles that came from relief and calm and goodness and light. The baby kicked again.
“She likes the cake,” Laura said, shoveling in another piece, following it up with ice cream.
“She's a gourmand. What are you going to name her?”
A long look at her plate. “Hulk Smash. Hulk Smash Michaels.”
“Oh, that's totally a porn name.” Laura threw a wadded napkin at Josie, who ducked.
Finally full, Laura pushed her clean plate away. If she overate, she'd regret it later. Pregnancy was no different from non-pregnant life, with the exception of evil reflux. “I don't know. Whatever we name her it needs to be a collaborative effort.”
“Like the conception.”
Laura snorted. They were shifting into uncomfortable territory. “Yeah. Except no matter what, it's only one of them who is the father.”
“Happy paternity testing.” Josie shot her a sardonic grin.
“Go ahead,” Laura sighed. “I know you're itching to say it.”
“What?” Josie batted her eyes innocently.
“Just do it in a whisper.” Laura reached for her purse and fished around. Her bladder announced its presence and she stood, hips clicking and left leg screaming in pain.
“Maury, Maury, Maury,” Josie obliged, looking particularly pleased with herself.
“I'm suffering from sciatica and you're chanting baby daddy cultural references.”
“And you still love me.”
Laura flashed her a middle finger as she waddled off to the bathroom. “You're totally not my type!” she called back.
Madge happened to walk past. “Not my type either,” she said, frowning at Josie.
Josie sighed. “I get that a lot.”
“I'll bet you do.”
He wasn't a stalker. Really. No – really.
Mike kept finding creative – and not so creative – reasons for driving past Laura's apartment building and Jeddy's. If he had to meet with the resort's tax accountant on some issue that went beyond what his onsite CPA could handle, he just routed himself through Somerville, because – why not? And sometimes he found himself really craving those fried green tomatoes and a toffee caramel peppermint sundae from Jeddy's, so no harm, no foul if he stopped by – right?
Right?
The past three months had nearly killed him. So finding himself on the road right in front of Jeddy's stuck at a traffic light, neck craned to the left to stare in the restaurant's main window wasn't out of the norm. He made this drive once a week or so.
What was out of the norm was the sight of Laura and Josie in a booth, eating and laughing. All the air in his lungs froze in place, the red light now the only entity keeping him here so he could gaze upon Laura's face. Glowing. She literally glowed. The restaurant's facade was a split set-up, the bottom half of the outer wall wood, the top half glass, so he could only see her and Josie through the window, her chest and arms and face animated as she threw a balled-up napkin at her friend, her mouth open and head tipped back in giggles and fun.
Relaxing, his entire body went liquid, the first time in months he felt grounded, the incongruity of keeping the Jeep running, foot on the brake, and counting out the seconds before the light changed somehow ignored by his nervous system.
All he wanted to do was to stare at her from afar. She looked so, so happy. Being apart from him and Dylan seemed to have done wonders for her, red cheeks and dimpled smile deeper and fuller. His own face stretched into a loopy grin, the first in far too long.
Beep! Shaken out of his moment of joy, he realized the light had turned green. With great reluctance he took the left turn, watching for as long as was safe, her face a beacon of hope.
Then gone.
That day at home four months ago, after leaving Josie's apartment, after Laura had screamed – screamed – that they should buy the building if they wanted in had been the coldest, hardest day of his life, like watching his own death in slow motion, his heart torn out and thrown to the wolves. What had they done to her? How had he and Dylan taken such an open, gentle soul and turned her into a screaming banshee? What evil lurked in them that this could happen?
His run home had been fruitless, his need to escape Dylan at all costs greater than the desire to pound it out. All he could think of when he'd arrived home was a great red wall of anger within, and destruction made more sense than trying to be good. Everything he had worked for went to shit that day – everything – so shattering the glass in the room was like shattering his bond with Dylan.
It made sense through the pure hatred he felt for himself at hurting Laura so deeply.
Now? Not so much. For four months he'd lived apart from Dylan, his cabin a refuge that slowly had turned into a prison. An entire adulthood spent living with Dylan could not be undone so easily; in his rage, he'd missed that point. He felt as if he were missing a limb, the phantom remains of a leg or an arm feeling real and visceral, yet truly gone. Mike had banished himself from Dylan's life, ignoring the text messages and voice mails that had been plentiful that first week, then tapered off in the second, finally ending with a plaintive, “When you're ready, I'll be here.”
Mike hadn't been ready. Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
Seeing Laura like that, thought – a gut punch. Flooding memories of her, of Dylan, of the three of them – and most of all, of the great promise they'd represented, of a lifetime together. Double gut punch. He maneuvered the car into a parking spot at the skyscraper where the tax adviser's office resided and put his forehead on the steering wheel, taking time.
Breaths.
Awareness.
So full of life! Laura had never been so radiant with them. Perhaps she'd really moved on, finding a new person – persons? – to be happy with. The way the pink and white and green of her shirt had highlighted her hair, her eyes shining and bright, and how Josie had even seemed happier than her normal self all made Mike wonder if he and Dylan were just poison for poor Laura.
Maybe not telling her the truth, though vicious and unfair, had somehow been the right thing in the end. Beating the steering wheel with one fist, he let himself feel. Not react. Not withdraw.
Feel. Fuck fuck fuck. How had his life come to this? Alone in his enormous cabin, designed to be filled with friends and laughter, it was now inhabited by Mike the Monk. Mike the Idiot.
Mike the Lonely. And he was, for the first time in his adult life. Not alone – alone he understood. Alone he could handle, could even enjoy.
Lonely? Lonely was a form of self-abuse he couldn't escape.
Not that he hadn't tried. Running ninety miles a week, though, didn't get him any further from his messed-up self. How had he turned into such an animal that last day at the apartment? What was buried deep within and unleashed at that moment, so all-powerful he'd gone into a near fugue state and been so violent? It had scared him. Badly.
Maybe he should stay away from Laura. Even Dylan.
Perhaps being lonely was his new normal. What he deserved. Because whatever was going on in Laura's life, from the looks of her countenance in the window glimpse, she was swelling with glee and enjoying life.
Without him.
Screech. A BMW took a corner too close in the cement-floor garage, tires filling the cavern with too much sound. The clock told him he was late for the meeting with the tax attorney. Climbing out of the car and grabbing his briefcase, he smiled at the memory of her. Once his, once Dylan's, once theirs, she had morphed into just Laura.
Which was, all along, what she'd really needed.
Tears choked his throat. He ground a fist into his thigh, willing the unexpected rush of very unprofessional emotion away. Tax attorneys weren't therapists. He was here to talk numbers. As he cantered to the elevators, though, one number rang mournfully in his head, buzzing.
Three.
“You see that? Mr. Money strikes again.” Dylan flinched but didn't say anything. The guys working the night shift were all crowded around the television, the same local morning news show that had featured his doom...er, his billionaire status four months ago.
“Some guy with more money than he can burn,” Murphy added. The morning anchors were babbling on about some unnamed philanthropist who had come to the aid of burn victims from a local warehouse fire, then mentioned another incident last month where the same donor may have contributed $100,000 to help victims of an unexpected October ice storm.