You can be our sweet ending, he almost said. The rice noodles were perfect, flavored with the right touch of fish sauce and something spicy, red flakes mingling with crushed peanuts, chicken and shrimp. It was pad Thai like he’d never had—fresh and flavorful, without that bogged-down, MSG feeling. He ate three plates full, giving Mike a run for his money.
“Hungry?” Laura asked, agog at his appetite.
“It’s so good!” he groaned.
Mike nodded, working a bit slower through his food. “It could use a nice white, though,” he pointed out, referring to his wine glass. “I’ll bring some next time.”
She grinned. “Rosé would be fine. I have a feeling you’ll learn to enjoy my pink.”
Whoosh. Dylan felt his eyes go wide. Mike bit his lips. Laura seemed to realize her double entendre and everyone avoided eye contact for a few seconds until Mike let out a little snicker. He poured the last of the wine into their glasses, giving each a few final ounces, before peals of laughter and an uncontrollable folding made Laura slip to the ground in a crouch, her body shaking with mirth and giggles.
Now that was the kind of pink he could get behind. Er...now he lost it, too, until all three huddled on the ground in a cluster of jovial hilarity. Laura wiped her eyes and resumed her gigglefest whenever she looked at either of them. Mike dragged himself to standing and tried to shake it off. Long ago, Dylan had given in, abs aching from laughing so hard.
It was nervous laughter, but from a place of truth. And now, now was the test as he slid his hand up her back to her neck, the touch decidedly sensual and a complete change in tone from where they all were, ensconced in chuckles that belied the underlying tone of sex and hope and desire in her innocent joke. Dylan would be the one to reveal it, because Dylan was the only one in this breath who could cut through the worries and the hesitancy and the what-ifs and get to the heart of what they all really wanted.
The only sound they heard was Mike’s deep breath as he watched, enraptured, his eyes on Dylan’s hand as Laura arched her neck just so, responding to the intensity of this searching caress. Would she? Would she not? Hers to answer, the question hung in the air like a fourth partner, needing to be included and welcomed, answered and accepted.
Like Laura.
Like all of them, really, for this was what spoke to the center of their beings, the need to find someone else who understood, who cared, who could navigate the slippery emotional landscape of want and love and need that was so fraught with confusion. In this space, though, as his hand lingered on her neck, now sliding up to feel her cheek, his torso twisting to face her, open and ready, the negative side of it all washed away, and they were just three people in an apartment, alone, forging their own reality stroke by stroke, caress by caress, look by look and breath by breath.
That the word love was beginning to seep into his subconscious mind when he thought of Laura, when he considered the three of them, made his heart soar. In a few short weeks he had found her, courted her, lost her and won her back—they both had, he and Mike working as the partners they always had been and always would be. Love wasn’t a word they used lightly, and he wasn’t ready, consciously, to use it just yet. Instead, it hovered, watching and observing, taking in their new dance, their interactions and hopes and dreams, and he hoped that soon love would join them and help them, too, to create something new and wondrous, as delicious as her hand on his now, on her open face, searching and warm, asking him questions with her eyes that he and Mike could only answer with their hands, their mouths, and other parts that yearned to be used and included.
Laura had to take the lead now, though—and when she reached over and her lips brushed his, it unleashed a wellspring of, oh, everything that had been pent up these weeks, of wondering and hoping and assuming and thriving. Her lips were soft and eager, testing and nipping, tongue slipping between his lips and prying more out of him. She didn’t need to ask twice; he used his mouth to take more of her, hands embedding themselves in her hair, stroking the soft waves roaming over her shoulders and down her back, palms filling with hot flesh he needed to squeeze to own.
She pulled back, breathless, eyes dark and serious, and stood, walking over to Mike. A tentative smile from her, a contemplative piercing look from him, his hands reaching out to make the first move, hips leaning toward her as he embraced Laura, their waists touching first, hands almost an afterthought. Dylan halted himself, sensing he shouldn’t walk near them just yet, that this was Laura’s sequence, her lips and mouth and hands and body needing to pursue, to test both men separately before meshing with them as one.