Mike had no idea what he was supposed to say as he stared at the chat window. This was so out of his element and Laura seemed so out of his league, but he knew he needed to do something. He couldn't let Dylan be the one in charge of yet another woman. They were supposed to share her – that was the entire plan.
So he had typed,
"lolol, yeah don't be afraid, we could just go for a hike if you want.
Oh, I think I just asked you out.
Yeah I did" .
And when she typed “Yes,” he couldn't believe it – and panicked. Now he actually had to step forward. Dylan had always gone out and found the women and had been the one to find Jill, and no matter how desperately they both missed Jill, Jill was gone and they had to accept that.
Laura was pretty much the opposite of Jill, but he could see what Dylan saw in her. That was a sweet smile. She seemed accomplished, and there was something Mike couldn't put his finger on, a genuineness and authenticity, but he and Dylan were not exactly the most conventional package.
So he worried that maybe a business analyst at Stohlman Industries wasn't going to make the cut – or maybe he was more worried that they wouldn't make the cut with her. The office cubicle type wasn't exactly eager to go out on the slopes or to even watch him at mile marker twenty during a marathon, in his experience.
But Dylan was giving it a good try and Mike had to, too. The problem was that Mike had to do it in secret. He typed in a few more words, they scheduled the hike, and then she disappeared, off to whatever corporate job she had on whatever floor of whatever giant skyscraper downtown. That world was so alien to him; he worked at a ski resort, and in fact he was missing it already.
You don't just work there anymore, a voice inside him said. You own it...
The season hadn't started yet, but he looked forward to it. He always did every year and when he wasn't skiing he was running. Between the two he kept his sanity somehow, for over the years he had learned that the endorphin kick that came from running and from the massive double diamond trails in the winter were what he needed most. Jill had fit in nicely with his life and with Dylan's life, spending time running with him. Man, was she an ace on the slopes, too.
She and Dylan had an affinity for action movies, for cooking and...he let himself get nostalgic, even let his eyes well up with tears. Letting the memories flood him was dangerous, his mind tipping over from nostalgia to deep grief, a mourning he'd only recently been able to emerge from, the slam of Jill's inheritance making him ache all over again.
His body was consumed suddenly by grief at her loss. It hadn't been running, it hadn't been skiing, it hadn't been any of Dylan's crazy antics like sky diving or parasailing that had killed Jill.
It had been one cell that mutated and mutated and mutated until finally it had taken over her body, the lymphoma wasting her away and neither of them had gotten over her death from eighteen months ago. In some ways Mike had gotten over Jill even faster than Dylan, though Dylan had been the first to go out and find somebody to sleep with. Mike hadn't gone out and broken that physical barrier yet, replacing the memory of Jill's body with someone else's – he just hadn't. Couldn't.
Eighteen months, though. It had been a long dry spell and he was getting frustrated. Now he finally felt emotionally ready to at least give this a try, and he was more than physically ready. Who knew what the hike would bring? All he knew was that he had to try, and he had to try on his own. He couldn't be the tag along with Dylan. That had complicated their relationship with Jill for far too long. It wasn't until it was too late that Mike realized that it actually hadn't mattered. He had loved Jill. Jill had loved him and they both loved Dylan. And the three of them had made it work, somehow, in their own crazy way.
Now the question was, could the three of them – this time with Laura – make it work? He was getting ahead of himself. All that mattered was having one hike with the woman. He just needed to see if this could be his future – their future.
She had never gone on a date like this – hiking? Meeting Dylan last night had been a very public affair, even if it ended in the very private way. She thought about it and realized that she needed to call in some reinforcements, so she texted Josie:
Hey, Jose, I have a date tonight. Can you help me?
Josie texted back:
Oh, cool, the firefighter? Awesome.
Laura winced and answered:
Well, no, not the firefighter. Someone different.
What?
Yeah, it turns out I'm popular on that online dating site.
Josie texted:
Hold on, I'm five minutes away from your house – why didn't you tell me earlier? Thought you were late for work.
I am, but who cares. You have time?
There is no way you can have that kind of date like last night and now a new date and not give me the juicy details before work.
Laura walked over to the coffee maker, put the basket in, dumped in some grounds and started what she knew was going to be the first of many cups of coffee today. As promised, Josie arrived within five minutes, barreling through the front door and plopping down her suitcase-sized purse on the kitchen table, eyes ablaze with curiosity.
"You slut!" Josie said it with a tone of admiration, not condemnation, and the expression on her face was so comical it made Laura burst into laughter.
"Well, thank you, I guess."
"No, no, I just mean – damn. So, how does this work? What the hell happened with the firefighter?”
“He's married. Or has a girlfriend.” Josie's face fell, shifting from eager curiosity to self-righteous anger on Laura's behalf. What a great friend. Laura almost laughed at how bulldoggish Josie looked.
“How do you know?”
“Because I woke up in his bed at three in the morning and there were pictures of her everywhere. It wasn't hard to figure out.”