“Don’t say what? I mean it.” Dylan plucked his work shirt away from his body. He was sweating profusely now, running one hand through his hair. The sweat made it look slicked back with gel, the sun shining off the blue-black highlights in his thick hair.
“You don’t have any power here right now, you dipshit.” Dylan bristled. Good! The truth hurt.
“Quit calling me names.”
“I’m not calling you names.” Mike leaned in, pulling himself up to his full height. “I’m calling you out.”
The door opened and Laura appeared, eyes red-rimmed and puffy, hair askew, her skirt wrinkled around her belly and covered with white cat fur. Her shoulders were set and one hand clung to the doorway, the other on the doorknob, body language aggressive and dismissive all at once.
Mike’s heart exploded with need and fear. “Laura, I—”
“Go.Away.” Her voice got louder on the second word, cracking a bit, as her eyes narrowed and bored into him and Dylan, her chest heaving and throat choking out her words. “I texted you,” she said, accusation infiltrating every word, anger focused on Dylan, “and asked for one fucking thing. One! Respect. You couldn’t even manage that.”
“But I—” Dylan’s smile warmed and softened as he tried the charm thing. Mike could tell it wouldn’t work. Hell, it pissed him off to see it. He could only imagine what it triggered in Laura.
“You smug son-of-a-bitch,” she said in a cold voice, chin tipped down and eyes tipped up, the look nearly evil in its perfect composure and composition. Dylan’s neck craned back and he took a step away, which rattled Mike. No holding back, she was showing them everything right now, and he loved her for it. Raw and broken, she was peeling back to show her true self and he was torn inside, knowing he’d done this to her—they had done this to her —because they had been too afraid to reveal their own true selves to her.
So had Jill.
“All I asked of you—both of you—” her eyes burning through them, making Mike’s body go cold as she alighted on him “—was honesty and respect. You gave me neither. No—worse!—you withheld both from me. I guess you didn’t trust me? Thought I was some kind of gold digger?”
Huh? “Why would we think you were all about the money when we were the ones who found you?” he asked gently. She relaxed visibly, suddenly, as if he’d said what she’d been thinking. As she closed her eyes and screwed her face into an expression of pain, he wanted to take every action, every touch, every word, every breath where he’d hurt her and make it all dissolve and disappear.
Nothing would make their betrayal go away, no matter how much Dylan wished it away with his charm and sweet talking, no matter how much Mike’s earnest tries came from a place of authenticity.
They had betrayed her to the core.
“You tell me!” she shouted. “Oh. No. You can’t.” Her voice went sarcastic. “You can’t ever tell me anything. Anywhere.” She made a strange, dismissive sound. “Except in bed. Right, boys?” The smirk that formed after that was Mike’s personal embodiment of despair. He was dying inside, and just wanted to pull her into his arms, wanted her arms around him, wanted to lose himself in her lushness, her soft, warm self.
That was gone. Long gone.
He and Dylan had driven it away.
“You’re right,” he said, his voice shaky. “I can’t tell you.” Not the answer she expected; her face fell. “I can’t tell you because I don’t even know. If I knew, I’d pour it out. Whatever explanation I could give you, other than blaming Dylan for saying it wasn’t time yet, would be so weak you’d just get angrier.”
She just stared at him with contempt, cheeks red and eyes bloodshot. How had they come to this moment? How could all three of them be standing within feet of each other and be so blindingly miserable?
“You can’t tell me?” Indignant laughter seemed to strengthen her.
“But please, Laura,” Dylan crooned, “invite us in and we can talk. Out here,” he gestured at the staring dog owners, “we have an audience.”
Thirteen different emotions shifted in her face in rapid succession, most of them negative. She slowly stepped back and shut the door, saying, “No. Just go away” as Mike’s view of her narrowed and then disappeared in a line of metal and wood.
“Laura, I want to come in and talk!” Dylan begged.
“You want to come in?” she screamed through the door, her seething so clear it was like a high-pitched tone that crippled, a dog whistle of heartbreak. “Then buy the fucking building, Dylan, and walk in like you own the place.” Mike saw Josie appear in the window, shaking her head slowly.