Willingness.
Mike took a microstep toward her. “When you’re ready,” he said, echoing his earlier words.
“Can we make you dinner some night this week?” Dylan asked, pushing—ever pushing.
She made a mirthless laugh. “Last time Mike did that, dinner wasn’t just dinner.”
“We swear,” the men said in unison.
“Unreal,” Josie muttered.
Laura grabbed the rubber balls from the table, where Josie had propped them up against the jukebox. Fishing a quarter out of her purse, she leaned over, giving anyone who walked by a nice money shot of her ample ass. She knew both men were staring and she cared—more than she knew.
Plunking the quarter in and making a choice, she turned and attached the balls to the cardboard cutout’s crotch. Giving them a squeeze, she and Josie sauntered out as the opening chords of “Call Me, Maybe?” wended their way through the early breakfast crowd.
Calling in sick was the best decision Laura had made in the past five days. Not that this was a week for exhibiting stellar judgment, though. As her fingers punched in the number for her boss’s personal cell phone, though, she felt legitimately ill. So ill, he just said, “Do what you have to do to recover” and made sympathetic noises.
Off the hook for the day, she stared dully at the back of her front door. “Do what you have to do to recover” was easier said than done.
Josie came out of the kitchen using one talon to peel a clementine. “And?”
“I’m off for the day.”
“Cool. I don’t work until three, but I need some sleep.” Yawn. “For once, I won’t ask you to make me coffee.”
Laura was too tired to smile. “Help me, Josie. What the hell do I do?”
“You’re asking the woman who hasn’t been laid for seven months for romance advice?” She shoved a wedge of citrus in her mouth. “I’ll tell you what I would do.”
“That’s what I’m asking!”
“I would hear them out. Let them make you dinner. Spend time with them—together. Don’t fuck them, though.”
“Josie!”
“You can’t blame me for saying that, Laura. ’Cause you did. Fuck them. And it freaked you out. They caught you off guard and I’ll bet it was the hot Italian dude who made it all happen.”
Laura’s face must have revealed all, because Josie pointed and said, “I knew it,” as she shoved the rest of the clementine in her mouth, standing and crossing the room to throw the peels away.
“He’s a charmer,” Laura answered. Choke. Not that Mike wasn’t, but Dylan. He could talk the pants off a prison guard.
“And the other one—Jesus, Laura. Did you need stilts and a stool to fuck him?” Josie cringed and held up one hand, fingernails radiating from her palm like a metal sun sculpture. “TMI. Don’t answer that.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Because I have no filter. Duh. You’re my filter. And I have no filter when I’m talking to my filter about her positions when fucking a guy the size of a streetlamp.”
Laura pretended to mull that one over, then threw a couch pillow at Josie, who seemed to know it was coming and ducked well ahead of time. “Dinner? Really?”
Josie blinked hard, rubbing one eye. “Yeah. I think you need to just get to know these guys. Spend time with them. Not the kind of time where you sit there, all anxiety-filled, wondering when you’ll end up in bed. I mean the pal-around, cuddle on the couch, watch a movie and cook dinner for each other kind of time.”
“That’s called a date.”
“Yes. You need to date them.”
“Date them. Double date by myself?” Both laughed. “Josie, I don’t even have a language for this!” she wailed.
“That’s the problem, hon. No one does. And I think,” she added, pensive suddenly, “I think that’s why they care so much about you. Because you are the first person they’ve met in a long time who is even willing to learn whatever rare language they speak. So far, most people don’t even view it as words. Just offensive gibberish.”
“I find it lovely,” Laura whispered. Yawn.
Josie laughed quietly, grabbing another clementine and her purse. “I know you do, sweets. But right now the only language you need to speak involves a lot of zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Go to bed.”
“I need a shower.” Laura sniffed one armpit. “God, that bad?”
“Sleep first. Shower after.”
By the time she heard the door click as Josie left, Laura’s living room was spinning, the air washing before her like waves of water, her eyes heavy and lids drooping. As she heard footsteps waning down the hall, before she knew it she was fast asleep, vulnerable now only to whatever her subconscious conjured for her in her dreams.