“We didn’t lie,” Dylan sputtered. Mike tried to shut him up with a look but Dylan wasn’t having any of it. “We just didn’t tell her everything.”
“You Catholic?”
“How’d you know?” he asked, bewildered.
“You have the Irish-Italian Catholic look. So you know the difference between lies of comission and lies of omission.” She said it flatly. It wasn’t a question. Mike pinged between the two of them, a confused look on his face.
“Yeah.” She had him. Omitting the truth was as bad as telling an outright lie.
“Fill me in?” Mike asked, waving at them both. “Lapsed Lutheran here.”
“You guys didn’t tell her the truth,” Josie said, exasperation coating her words. “You have a lot of trust to regain. A lot.” She screwed her face into a disapproving look that was a bit too reminiscent of those nuns Dylan dealt with back in elementary school. “I don’t see how you ever thought that was a good plan. Date her separately and then assume you could just shift into threesome mode?” Hissing the word “threesome,” Josie twisted her head back and forth, making hard eye contact with each. “Not the smoothest of moves. Who came up with that one?”
Both men dipped their heads, suddenly entranced by the silverware, Mike fingering a fork while Dylan polished his spoon with his old t-shirt.
She snorted. “Yeah. Well, whatever led you to surprise her like that—don’t do it again. Not if you hope to get her back.”
“Any ideas?” Mike asked, a half smile trying to coax some allegiance from her.
She shook her head. “Don’t stalk her?” As she stood to walk back to her and Laura’s booth, Dylan caught a glimpse of a blonde pony tail, Laura’s face down as she hurried back to her booth.
“We didn’t stalk her,” Mike protested. “We just wanted Jeddy’s as much as you guys did.”
“Everyone has a big appetite after a menage,” Josie joked. Madge appeared, arms laden with plates of hot sausage and more, just as Josie spoke. Plates delivered, Madge pivoted three steps, stopping.
“Menage, huh?” Madge muttered as she filled salt shakers the next table over, pointedly taking in Dylan and Mike. “I wouldn’t mind surviving that.” She shot Josie a sideways look. “They must have crushed you to a pulp.”
Laughter filled the restaurant as Josie plunked the rubber balls in front of Dylan and Mike and walked back to her friend, leaving Dylan with no appetite and a million questions. Go slow? How do you go slow after...
Madge waggled her eyebrows. “You boys ever need a third, you know where to come.”
Ewww. Dylan’s pants loosened instantly. “Uh —”
She threw an arm around the warlock waitress. “I meant him. Her. It.” A choking laugh carried down the aisle as she shouted back, “Sorry, boys. I’m taken.”
Laura hyperventilated in the bathroom stall. Calling it a stall was a bit of a stretch. Years ago, someone had removed the metal door and replaced it with a cheap shower curtain with an outline of an arm wielding a knife and red splotches. All that stood between her and the mess out there was Psycho. Nice.
Crying on the toilet felt like an accomplishment. Hell, just walking down the aisle into the bathroom was a victory, her legs shaking from nerves and anxiety and panic. If her heart rate was any indication of what those two men could do to her, she should be in an ambulance on the way to a cardiac center for immediate surgery to fix...to fix...
Whatever they’d broken in her heart.
This was not how she’d envisioned seeing them next. If at all. No, Laura. Stop it. She hadn’t even gotten to the point where she could think about whether she wanted to see them again after what they did to her. With her. In her...
Gah! Now motormouth Josie was out there spilling all her secrets. She knew Josie well enough to know what was happening out there, and that it was useless to try to stop her. The tongue lashing those two were getting from her friend—
OK. Bad choice of words. The nagging lecture Mike and Dylan were likely getting would turn them off her anyhow. She chuckled through the tears. Served them right. They knew each other? Were double-teaming her in every sense of the word? Had planned this big threesome night without telling her the little, trivial detail that oh! hai! I can haz menage?
And they were together? But not gay? Neither had touched the other—not once—during their lovemaking. So how did that work? It was complicated enough to figure out one guy’s needs, his wishes, his quirks and such. In a hetero relationship.
Two guys? Double the fun and double the trouble, and then the dynamic between them that would mean—what?— for her? If she were in some sort of permanent relationship with both men, would they always have sex together? Or would they pair off and rotate nights? Would it be like something out of Big Love but in reverse—with Laura the one they shared?