Her Billionaires_ Boxed Set(108)

Control? Hah. Control was an illusion. Awareness? Fuck that.

The ache that grew its own voice and began keening within him was what hurt most. Why had he listened to Dylan? Why hadn’t he blurted out the truth to Laura when he’d been ready? Trusting Dylan had been such an enormous mistake. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he berated himself as he drove the quick hop from Laura’s place to Josie’s, her triple decker near a baseball field and a large playground, the typical setting for dogs off leash and an impossible parking situation.

Rules? Who cared. They’d broken most of them already. Why not add a ticket? When Dylan objected to the parking job he’d shut him down fast. It felt good. Whatever made Dylan go silent, Mike needed more of that.

As for anger, there was an unlimited well inside him, as if he’d struck the rage vein, uncharted territory as he became a fireball of pure instinct, driven by the need to fix this, to go back in time, to have been honest and open with Laura and to—

To have Jill tell the truth.

That thought came out of nowhere, whispered in his mind like a snake hissing secrets. He stopped as they walked toward the three-story house Dylan said was Josie’s, as if struck in the face by a falling acorn or a random stone. What? What about Jill? Why would—

“Hey. You ready?” Dylan’s voice was clipped and nervous as he worried a button on his work shirt. Work? Joe fired him? He wanted to know more about what had happened, but didn’t have the bandwidth right now to listen. Without warning, his hands began to shake, the feeling deep and visceral, his chest bones rattling. Completely out of his control, his body seemed to be releasing emotions he didn’t know he possessed.

“Uh, uh, um,” he stammered, feeling like an eleven year old asking for a first kiss, giving a first speech, talking to his new stepmother and realizing she couldn’t stand him. “Sure,” he chirped out, the sound pushed between his teeth by an ever-expanding tongue, his body feeling like it was swelling and shriveling all at once.

The bell on Josie’s door made a buzzing sound. He heard an “Eep!” and then an old calico cat appeared in the bay window right next to them. A flurry of curtain movement, then a face that was unmistakably Josie’s.

“Shit,” Mike heard, her voice muted but discernible. Then whispers. He and Dylan exchanged looks of rolled eyes.

“Hah!” Dylan hissed, then pumped his fist. Don’t crow too much, Mike thought. We are still so screwed.

Ding dong! Dylan pressed the buzzer again and stepped back on the concrete steps, which were fairly shallow. He almost fell backwards. A flurry of scuttling sounds and whispers, and then Josie’s voice through the door.

“Go away.” She hollered. That woman could project. Who knew such a tiny body could hold such a mammoth voice?

“Please,” Mike said loudly. “We want to talk to Laura and explain.” Please say yes. A massive wave of déjà vu hit him. How ridiculous this all was becoming. Inheriting this money wasn’t his idea. All it had brought was problems.

“Dylan already said everything. He was quite clear.” Josie’s voice was caustic, like battery acid in voice form. Mike just blinked, over and over, trying not to react to everything, and as he turned his head toward Dylan all he could think was, Don’t kill him. Don’t kill him. Don’t kill him.

“What did you text back to Josie, Dylan?” He could feel the threat in his voice, like lead and cyanide, and knew his poisoned tongue would morph into pounding fists soon.

“I just texted back ‘It’s always complicated’ and a little smiley face.”

Holy shit! “And you thought she wouldn’t take that the wrong way?”He enunciated, every word spat out through gritted teeth, his jaw aching with tension and his mind reeling. Stay calm.

Deadly calm.

Clearly shaken, Dylan flinched. “Well, yeah. I was being light-hearted.”

“You have the instincts of a drunken frat boy when it comes to anything emotionally delicate.”

“Is that supposed to be an insult?”

Instead of beating Dylan by ripping out his ego and dropping it on his head, thus flattening him to a pancake from the sheer mass of it, Mike stepped forward and pounded on the door. “Please, Laura, we just want to talk.”

“Go away,” Josie warned, even louder. The woman could do a decent imitation of a foghorn.

“Only when we hear it from Laura,” Dylan shouted back. “Otherwise, we’re going to keep trying until somehow you let us in.”

“Ah, God, Dylan, don’t say that,” Mike groaned. Two dog owners at the park across the field turned and looked at them, their animals playing on the baseball field. It was a hot August day and already his shirt clung to him. The dogs frolicked and the owners were talking to each other and pointing at them.