And maybe that was part of the problem here. Two very real, very alive men breathing next to her, both with heartbeats and fingers and raspy stubble and soft smiles. Both in love with a woman who had died not quite two years ago, someone they had spent early adulthood loving. Surfing and skiing and forging a very unique relationship that few would ever dare to try.
They had ten years of this to draw on.
She had a handful of hours. And was competing with a dead woman.
She wasn’t feeling stifled for no good reason. And Josie saw something in her face, could read Laura so well, because before Laura could open her mouth to fumble through an explanation, Josie stood, ushering Mike away from the edge, and kicked Dylan in the shin.
“Hey! What was that for!” he shouted, rubbing his leg bone.
“Out. Give Laura some space.”
“But I—” Her glare cut him off. Rolling his eyes, he huffed—but moved. Biceps flexing under that Rush t-shirt, Dylan’s body moved away, leaving a vacancy, a coldness where he’d been, that made her feel a little bit abandoned. Ping-ponging back and forth emotionally like this wasn’t her style at all, and she was weary. Just wrung out and ready for this night to end.
The sun blinded her out of the blue, the restaurant’s windows unshaded. Madge went down the line lowering the blinds. Laura checked her phone. 6:07 a.m. Time to put the night to rest.
Scooching over, she stood, Mike’s arm inches from her, his eyes purposefully not meeting hers. She smiled at Dylan and he took it as an opportunity, stepping closer to her until Josie blocked him with an arm the size of his—
Josie shook her head slowly, piercing him with her stare. “Don’t be that guy.” She looked up at Mike, tipping her head way, way back. “Those guys.”
As the sun radiated through the filthy glass and illuminated Jeddy’s, a renewed sense of...something struck Laura. She lacked the right word for it, but knew the feeling. Not hope. Not promise. Not quite possibility.
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.