Both.
If only there were a way she could have both.
“Too bad you can’t have both.” Josie elbowed her in the ribs. Laura slid sideways, giving Josie an evil look. Had she read her mind? Had Laura said something she was thinking aloud? Was Josie baiting her to see if she could get a rise?
“Both?” Laura laughed lightly.
Shrug. “A girl can dream, right?”
A vision of her fantasies in the shower hit Laura, surreal and stifling and shaming.
“Some dreams are just a little too farfetched, Josie.”
Plunking the peel in the trash can, Josie spoke through a mouthful of juice wedges. “No such thing.”
“What?”
She swallowed, her voice clearer now. “No such thing. That’s why they call them dreams. If they were supposed to be not farfetched, we’d call them plans.”
“When I said I had a plan, having you go to Laura’s office and fuck her on her desk was most decidedly not part of the plan. Not.Part.Of.The.Plan.” Mike stretched his neck, turning it so hard that something popped. Twice. It felt good—he needed to release something other than his foot up Dylan’s ass.
“Yeah. Uh, well, I always said I’m a ‘pantser.’” At least Dylan had the decency to seem sheepish. Cocky and sheepish. How the hell did he pull that off?
“How about you try working on being a ‘keep it in your pantser’?”
Dylan bit his lips and did an “Aw, shucks” gesture, staring at his toes and kicking the floor lightly. Good try, buddy. Like you’re Opie or something. “I’m sorry, Mike. It really wasn’t planned.”
“I know.” He softened a bit, knowing Dylan was telling the truth. He never lied; that was one part of their relationship that made sense.
Shoulders relaxing, Dylan perked up. “So the good news is that she likes me again!”
“The bad news is that she still has no idea what we really want from her.”
“And the billionaire thing.”
“Yep.” They sat in a stony silence, the weight of too many unresolved issues smothering them. Mike felt a sudden sadness, a depression out of nowhere. Dylan got Laura today, and he was genuinely glad, if conflicted.
Dylan bit his lips.
Mike could feel his eyes rolling hard in his head as he stared at Dylan, and finally he said, “Whatever. At least you’re back in her good graces now, and maybe we can find our way through this one and not scare her off.” What Mike wanted to ask, and what he knew he couldn’t ask, was Had Laura said anything about him? Because if she had, and still slept with Dylan, that meant one thing. And if she hadn’t, and slept with him, that meant something else.
He wasn’t sure what either option meant, just that it meant something.
Dylan was staring at him, head cocked, eyes slightly narrowed, his arms crossed over his chest, bunching up his t-shirt. “You want to know if she said anything about you, don’t you?”
Shit. It was like the guy could read his mind! Then again, after ten years together, maybe he could sometimes. “Did she?”
“No.”
The silence that hung between them meant something too. Damn it. Mike knew it. But knew what? All this meaning and no clarity made him confused, overwhelmed, frustrated. Time for a run. This one might require a half marathon. “Hey man, I’m going to go do a half. Are you in?” Might as well invite him along.
“Thirteen miles? Are you crazy?” A loose thread on Dylan’s t-shirt caught his attention and Dylan played with it, slowly twirling the thread tight, nice and taut, and then snapping it, removing it. He flicked it into the trash can. Then he leaned back against the kitchen counter and stared at Mike. “You’re trying to pound the pain out of yourself.”
“How’s that any different from what you do? You just lift yourself into oblivion.”
“No, lifting is different. It builds strength. What you do just saps you.”
“Running centers me, it doesn’t sap me!”
Dylan thought about that for a moment. “Aw, what the hell. I’ll do five with you. But that’s it, man. You are not talking me into doing thirteen.”
“Yeah, well, far be it for me to ask you to say one thing and do another.”
The look on Dylan’s face told Mike that the barb had hit its target. “Come on, Mike. Don’t be like this!”
“Be like what?” Mike could feel himself stiffening, steel pouring into his body, making him tight, in control, immutable.
“Look,” said Dylan, “we’re not competing here. We’re not enemies here. We have the same goal, and the goal is to find somebody we can both love. Find somebody—”