Party of Three (Sunday Night Dinner Club #1 (7 page)

“Yeah? Right back at ya.” Spencer collapsed into the same couch and relieved Levi of the bottle.

A minute later, Levi took it back and glugged down a healthy mouthful. “This tastes like shit.”

“Then get yourself a damn beer and leave my drink alone.”

“Technically, it’s my drink.” He poured a generous sip down his throat. The stuff still burned. “I bought it.” The biggest damn bottle he could find.

“Technically—” Spencer took the scotch and drank, “—you’re an asshole.”

“Technically—” he took it back, “—you fucked my woman.”

“Technically…technically….” Spencer slammed his fist into the arm of the couch. “Technically, Barr-o, she’s a freaking ten out of ten.”

“In bed too?”

“We never got anywhere near a bed. But, yeah. She was a full ten.”

Levi shoved a finger in each ear, almost slamming the bottle into his cheek in the process. “I don’t want to hear.”

“You asked.”

“Can’t hear you.” But he could, because he’d had to take the finger out of one ear to direct the bottle back to his mouth.

Spencer took the scotch back the second he lowered it. “I’ve never had a full ten before. Not even Becca.” The last love of Spencer’s life. He’d given her a nine and a half. An incredibly generous score for the numbers man. The highest Spencer had ever awarded a woman—until tonight.

Levi shoved his fingers back in his ears. “La la la. I can’t hear you.”

“I could fall in love with her.”

“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.”

“I think I may already have fallen in love with her.” Spencer’s voice penetrated straight through Levi’s useless finger-ear block.

He chanted louder. “If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?”

“But I can’t deal with the fact that I love a woman who’s falling in love with my best mate.”

“She sells sea shells on the seashore.” Crap. He couldn’t remember the rest.

“I swear to God, thinking about tonight’s making me hard again.”

Levi switched chants. Fast. “Betty bought a bit of butter to bake a batter of biscuits.” He had no issues when it came to discussing sex with his mate. None at all. They’d discussed sex since they’d discovered the meaning of the word.

But he had a huge fucking issue discussing sex
with Chelsea
with his mate.

Spencer turned to glare at Levi. “Then I think of her thinking about you, and bam. Soft all over again.”

Levi glared back. “But the butter Betty bought was bitter, so Betty bought a better bit of butter, making Betty’s bitter batter better.” Maybe he should get some bitter butter—and shove it up Spencer’s ass.

Er, hell no. He wasn’t putting his hand anywhere near Spencer’s ass. Not with the huge bulge in his mate’s pants. “You’re hardly soft, dickhead. You’ve got a boner bigger than my kayak.”

“You’d also have one if you’d done what we’d done.”

“Yeah? Well, I didn’t, so fuck you.” He grabbed the bottle and drank.

“Yeah, well, you could have if you’d wanted to, so fuck you too.”

Levi frowned and offered the scotch to Spence. “I could have?”

“Jesus, yeah.” He accepted the offering, bent his neck back and tipped the bottle into his mouth, shaking out every last drop. “She’s fucking crazy about you.” He turned the bottle upside down. “It’s empty.”

Wordlessly, Levi walked to his fridge, grabbed a six pack of Heineken and returned to the couch via the bar. He helped himself to a beer and gave Spence a fresh bottle of Glenlivet.

Spencer twisted it open and put it to his mouth.

“She’s crazy ’bout you too.” Levi sighed. “Told me so this morning.”

“Well, isn’t this just great? Crazy about you when she’s with me, and crazy about me when she’s with you.”

Levi did in half the beer. “What are you gonna do about it?”

Spencer shrugged. “Dunno. Walk away. Maybe. You?”

“Dunno. Walk away. Maybe. Or cripple you with my kayak oar.” He slugged down the rest without taking the time to appreciate the fine European taste. “Whichever I find the energy for first.”

“Mate, you couldn’t cripple a cockroach with your kayak oar.”

Levi belched loudly, crumpled the empty tin, tossed it over his shoulder and took another. “Yeah? Well, I probably couldn’t walk away either.”

“Me neither. Don’t wanna walk away. Like her too damn much.” Spencer stared at the scotch.

“So what we gonna do about it?” Levi knew he was starting to slur his words, but he didn’t particularly care.

“Beats me, mate.” Spencer gave up staring at the scotch and lifted it to his mouth.

“You realize I’m gonna take out a hit on you in my next chapter.”

Spencer looked at him in surprise. “You’d write me into
Willful
?”

“If you die a particularly nasty death?” Levi nodded. “Yeah.”

Spencer’s eyes got misty. “Seriously, Barr-o? You’d do that? Give me a starring role in your book.”

“It’s not a compliment, asshole.”

“Yeah. It is. I’d get to be part of a
USA Times
bestselling book.”

“A dead part. And it’s
New York Times
, not USA, asshole.”

“I’ll take any part. You’re the best, man. A true friend.”

“Can’t say the same about you. You fucked my girl.”

“I did, didn’t I?” He took a long, slow drink. “And it was awesome. Ten out of ten. You should try it sometime.”

“Yeah, I fucking should.” Levi sought solace in the depth of another beer.

For a long time, neither man spoke. Spencer stared at his bottle again, as though it held the answers to the world’s problems, and Levi timed how long it took to finish another can. Or he tried to anyway, but by the time the first sip was swallowed, he’d forgotten what his watch had said when he started it.

“Know what would be the ferpect solution?”

Levi looked at his friend through one eye. The other was blurring. “Ferpect?”

Spence nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“Go ahead.” He attempted to gesture generously, but his arm was too damn heavy to lift. “Tell me.”

“If we both fucked her. At the same time. Me on one side. You on the other and Chelsea between us.”

Levi closed his eye. Pointless leaving it open, because it had gotten all blurry too. He yawned hugely and slouched down in the couch. “And that what be a ferpect solution?”

“Yeah, mate.” Spencer’s voice sounded like it was coming from a million miles away. Maybe it was. “It would be fucking perfect.”

Chelsea cast an anxious eye at the front door, wondering if she had the nerve to get out of her car and ring the bell. She was a mess. A confused, aroused, hormonal mess, and she had been for the last two days.

Had forty-eight hours ever gone by so slowly before? The time since Spencer had methodically cleaned up, pulled on his clothes in her office and packed away his computer had dragged on.

He hadn’t ignored her exactly. No, he’d taken the time to explain the forms were almost complete and he’d get them finished and sent off to the tax man, ASAP.

He’d kept his word, emailing her the next day to say the forms had been submitted. But that was all he’d said the entire time.

He hadn’t responded at all when she’d finally found the wherewithal to speak about Levi. He also hadn’t stayed for the dinner she’d prepared for him, which was ridiculous really, because the meal could well have been Chelsea’s best accomplishment ever.

Could have been, but she’d never know, since her appetite had died the second Spencer’s back had stiffened when she’d brought up Levi’s name. Her lunch customers, however, had thoroughly enjoyed the lamb, rosemary and mint pie special the next day.

See? She was a mess. She couldn’t even keep her mind focused on one idea. Her thoughts bounced around like tennis balls—and mostly came to rest on Levi, Spencer or both of them.

She hadn’t heard from Levi either, but then what had she expected? She’d kissed one and told him she wanted the other, then fucked the other, and told him she wanted his best friend.

What else could she have done? Lying hadn’t been an option. Honesty had always been her best policy. Her only policy.

Any woman in her right mind would quit while she was ahead. She’d appreciate that she’d had the opportunity to taste Levi’s tantalizing kisses, and she’d relish the memory of Spencer’s gifted mouth and body—and the three or four thousand orgasms he’d given her. Then she’d assign it all to her past and move on.

But not Chelsea. Oh no. She had to go and obsess about the men she’d desired for a year, had for a day and then, quite devastatingly, lost forever.

She stared hard at the front door.

Or had she lost them?

For the gazillionth time, she questioned whether she should have handled things differently. Should she have said no to Spencer’s offer to help? Refused to run with Levi?

Should she have said yes to one man and no to the other? And if so, which one should she have refused?

That last question was the one that continued to stump her. Which one should she have refused?

Neither, that’s which.

She couldn’t, in a million years, have picked one over the other. Yes, things had progressed a lot faster—and a lot further—with Spencer than with Levi, but only because their time together had been a lot more private. If she’d had the same time alone with Levi, Chelsea had no doubt she’d have gotten as naked with him as she had with Spencer.

Truth be told, she regretted not having the opportunity to get naked with Levi. The only thing she now regretted more was that she’d blown her chance with both of them.

Not that having a chance with both of them was even a remote possibility.

Chelsea pulled on her hair in frustration.

Tempting as it might be to spend half her time with Spencer and the other half with Levi, it wasn’t practical. Not for the men anyway. She might love the idea, but no man in his right mind would ever agree to an arrangement that left Chelsea happy all the time and each of them satisfied only part of the time.

Add the whole best-friends issue to the already bubbling pot of confusion, and Chelsea was slap bang in the middle of an impossible situation.

And damned if it didn’t make her want to weep. Now that she’d gotten to spend intimate time with both men, she only wanted more time with them. Lots and lots more time.

She silently gave thanks to Belinda and Kainano, who, between the two of them, had ensured Chelsea’s mood and preoccupation did not interfere with the smooth running of the restaurant. Belinda’s professionalism and brilliant customer skills and Kainano’s abilities in the kitchen also meant she could sit here now, parked outside Levi’s home and stare longingly at the door.

Under ordinary circumstances, she’d never have come here. But the note that had been left for her at Chelsea’s proved there was nothing normal about these circumstances.

Alongside the address had been the words:

We’ll be here, whatever time you leave the restaurant tonight.

L & S

She would have gone immediately had she not owned the restaurant. Facing up to her responsibilities, she’d forced herself to spend at least an hour at Chelsea’s before finally escaping. In that time, she’d called a customer by the wrong name, delivered table three’s food to table nine and mishandled a bottle of Chardonnay, ensuring that wine and glass smashed to the ground, splattering along the length and breadth of the bar floor.

Belinda, bless her, had subtly suggested Chelsea leave before she accidentally burned down the kitchen.

With her hands trembling, her cheeks on fire and the note burning a hole in her palm, she’d hightailed it to Double Bay—where Levi lived. But that didn’t mean she was ready to get out of the car.

She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to get out of the car.

How could she walk up the front path, knock on the door and face not one but two men she wanted? What if they laughed at her? Or sat her down and explained that no woman would ever come between their friendship? What if they kindly but politely told her she was out of her mind and her league, and requested she never speak to either of them again?

It would destroy her.

On the other hand, how could she not walk up the path?

Levi
and
Spencer waited inside. And God help her, for every fear that haunted her, a million hormones urged her on.

Putting on her bravest face, Chelsea opened the car door.

She could deal with this. She could accept whatever they said to her. She was a grown woman, for heaven sake, and had dealt with dozens of men in her time. Whatever they threw at her, she’d accept with grace. It would be impossibly difficult to say goodbye. Even harder to give up on the fantasies that had kept her company for the last year, but she’d have no choice.

She was strong. She could do this.

It didn’t stop her hand from shaking so hard she had trouble ringing the bell.

Levi answered, looking delicious. Barefoot, he wore a sky-blue T-shirt that clung to his beautiful shoulders and did amazing things to his eyes, and denim shorts she could only assume had once been full-length jeans. They were faded to white in some patches and ended just above the knee in frayed stringy bits.

“Chels,” was his casual greeting.

“Levi.” She nodded in return and hoped he couldn’t hear the deafening roar of her heart.

“You came.”

She handed him the note. “I was summoned.”

His lips twitched. “Invited as opposed to summoned.”

“Okay then. I was invited. Do I get to come inside, or are we going to chat on the doorstep?”

Levi leaned one gorgeous shoulder against the door frame. “Depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether I get a hello kiss or not.”

Her eyebrows about hit her hairline. “You want a kiss from me?”

“You want to come inside?”

Chelsea thought she might faint. From both the shock of his suggestion and the need to carry it through. “I don’t know, Levi. Do I?”

“Give me a kiss, and then you can decide.”