The Complete Series Boxed Set (52 page)

Wow. What a mouthful of manure. She wondered how he could stand himself.

“You’re leaving? For good?” She didn’t even try to keep the hope out of her voice.

“Yes, my dear. Kiss that baby for me and know that you are a very good mother. Just like your own mother was.”
Click.
 

That
wa
s it?

That was
IT
?

“What,” she snapped at Dylan
as she set her phone down on the couch
, “did you do to Frank?”

“We didn’t hurt him,” Dylan protested. “We just met with the lawyer and decided that maybe Frank needed some incentive to get out of our lives.”

Her eyes narrowed. Dylan wasn’t telling her the whole truth.

“
Incentive? You mean money?”
 

“Something like that.”

“AND THIS IS WHY YOU TWO DRIVE ME NUTS!” Laura shouted, feeling like her flesh was going to rip off her bones and strangle Dylan all by its fluffy self.

“I thought you just said you wished you could have
an
overprotective husband!”

“Don’t throw my words back at me!”

Bzzzz
.

Laura’s phone.

“Hey, chickie,” Josie said as Laura picked up. Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it behind her eyeballs. “What’s up?”

“I’m pregnant and I can’t marry my husbands and now they’re making fun at me and—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Josie said swiftly. “
T
hat’s a lot to handle! You need me to come over?”

“No!” Laura wailed, completely disgusted with herself. She knew she was out of control, knew she was behaving like a completely raving idiot, and yet she couldn’t stop. “No! I want you to meet me at
J
eddy’s.”

“Of course you do,” Josie said sourly. “Can’t we meet somewhere else, for once?”

“Can I just have one thing I want”—
s
ob—
“
f
or once?” Laura gasped.

“Yep. You’re
definitely
preg
n
ant,” Josie declared. “Congratulations!”

“Jeddy’s.
I
n an hour. No men. Do not bring Alex. Do you hear me?”

Click
.

Laura shot Dylan a look designed to set his hair on fire, grabbed her purse and keys, and stormed out of the house.

Men.

Can’t live with them, can’t marry both of them.

The phone was slick against his ear, nerves making him sweat.

“Thank you, Alex. The jeweler is right there next to the hospital, and if you wouldn’t mind getting the ring…”
Ring
. The word felt funny playing on his lips, like it was tickling him. “I can’t make it there before they close.” Mike checked the time. No way.
 

“No problem, Mike. Happy to do it.
I can zip over there now and once I finish this paperwork, I’ll get it to you.
”

“
Great.
”

“Congrats.”

Mike could hear the wistful tone in Alex’s voice, and his smile turned from elat
ion
to something a bit more introspective. Poor guy. He and Josie would have their time someday.
Mike didn’t say a word about Laura’s suspicions of pregnancy. He knew that Alex wanted a family with Josie, and maybe engagement and a new baby would rub it in a little too much.
 

“
Thanks.
So, the ring? Where should we meet to get it? I want to do this sooner rather than later.” Mike and Dylan had talked about this—how they wanted one ring to use when they proposed to Laura. one ring with a beautiful pearl in the center, representing
her
.

And two big, billionaire-sized diamonds flanking it.

They planned to propose at the sex cabin, under the summer’s moon, with champagne and rose petals, the whole romantic scene. A
sk
her to marry them—in their hearts. Offer a big ceremony for close friends, perhaps in an exotic
Caribbean
location. Or Hawaii. Or Thailand.

Who cared?

Just being married—in spirit—as a triad was what Mike wanted.

The fact that Laura was probably pregn
a
nt made the timeline move up. If he and Dylan proposed now, it had more meaning. More grace.

More…just
more
.

“
Want to meet at Jeddy’s?” Mike asked.
 

Alex groaned. “
I
f Madge sees me walk in with a jeweler’s bag she’ll have another heart attack from sheer glee.”

“I don’t want to be responsible for killing Madge,” Mike said dryly. “That old bat would haunt me through five more lifetimes if I did that.”

“Eh, I’m kidding. I’ll just hide the box in my pocket. Sure.
L
et’s meet at
J
eddy’s.
Josie’s at the office working on some late project with her developer, yammering on about regression analysis and correlation for matching people up.
”

“
Sexy,” Mike said with a laugh.
 

Alex joined him. “
N
othing sexier than a woman who can talk math.”

Mike could think of a few sexier things, but wisely kept his mouth shut. “
See you in a few.”
Alex hung up. Good man. Nice to turn to someone other than Dylan when he needed a bit of assistance.
 

Mike put his phone down and stared at the glowing lights of the drugstore. He’d already rushed in and bought four tests—one of each kind they sold—and now he pulled out of the parking lot to race to
R
oute 2 and get into Cambridge. He figured Laura was weepy and Dylan could handle her for the extra time.

This was worth it.

Bzzz.
His phone rang as he got on the entrance ramp. Dylan.

“What’s up?” Mike asked.

“Laura and I had a…I don’t even know what the fuck it was. A fight, I guess.” The poor guy sounded like he’d been hit with a bulldozer. “Anyhow, Laura left. She’s on her way to Jeddy’s.”

“Jeddy’s? SHIT!”

“Why
shit
?”
Dylan sounded alarmed. Mike
felt
alarmed.
 

“Because I called Alex and he’s getting the ring from the jeweler’s and we’re meeting at—”

“Jeddy’s.
Jesus. Can’t we get a little more original?”
 

“I doubt Laura’s going to beg Josie to meet her in the free-weight room at the gym,” Mike said with a snort.

“Only if they start serving coconut shrimp at the juice bar. Damn. You need me to race there right now, don’t you? Get the ring, propose to Laura—at
Jeddy’s
?” Dylan’s howl of protest mixed with the kind of breathless, gasping laughter that Mike felt inside, too, but couldn’t quite express.
 

“I guess so.”

“Let me give Cyndi a quick call and make sure she can keep Jillian longer.”

Mike thought about that for a second. “Why not bring her?”

“Cyndi?”

“No,
doofus
. Jillian. Have her be there. Make it about us. All of us.”

Dylan inhaled slow
ly
, then said, “Done. I’ll be late, but let’s do it.” Mike expected him to hang up, but he stayed on the line, his breath coming in even patterns, his silence saying so much. “You ready to do this?”

“I married
you
, didn’t I? How could proposing to Laura be any harder? Hopefully there won’t be any camera crews around.”

“I’m not worried about that. Frank tipped them off, and he’s long gone, so—”

“Frank tipped them off? You sure about that?” This was news to Mike.

“Yeah. Nick got back to me
damn fast
.
Turns out he knows one of the cameraman—”
 

“You sure
he
didn’t tip them off?”
 

“Turns out Nick’s gay. Went on and on about his own husband and how great it was that we—you know. So…no.
Nick didn’t tip them off.
”

“Gotcha.”

Awkward silence filled the air, and then:

“
He dug around, and it was
Frank
who tipped off the press.
”

“Nice.
He must have done it before we talked to him. Asshole.
Good thing he’s gone.”

“Oh, he’s long gone after the way
we
handled him.”

Mike grinned.
This was what Dylan and Mike had started to tell Laura before she freaked. Going to Frank with a very comfortable figure in the form of a cashier’s check, plus a printout of the outstanding warrant for his arrest in Connecticut, had been blindingly simple. The man had taken the check and the papers, scanned both, and reached out to shake each of their hands.
 

T
hen he’d walked out of Mike’s office.

Simple.

Too bad Laura couldn’t be so uncomplicated.

“
How we gonna do this?” Dylan asked Mike, whose chest was warming with joy as he picked up speed on the highway, careful not to go too much over the speed limit yet feeling pushed by an unseen force to get to Laura quickly. To find her. To look her in the eye and propose to spend the rest of their lives together.
 

T
he only way they knew how.

Madge had seated her as if she were expected, a quick hug and a carafe of coffee her greeting. The place was half full tonight, filled with a
hodgepodge
of people with vaguely familiar faces and a large group at a horseshoe booth reminiscing about college from thirty years ago.

The hot coffee felt good. Josie’s thigh moved against the white plastic bag she carried, and she looked at it with a mixture of excitement and guilt.

Pregnancy tests. If Laura wasn’t quite sure, it couldn’t hurt to run into the bathroom at the restaurant and pee on a stick, right?

Josie chilled out and drank her coffee, her body relaxing in waves. When was the last time she just sat around? Everything in her world was about Alex or the business. Long gone were the days of curling up on the couch and binge-watching a season of television, or wasting hours listening to music while cooking. Lately, their idea of dinner (when Alex wasn’t gone) was sandwiches and salads, or worse—frozen dinners.

Starting a new business, starting a new life as roommates…lovers…significant others…
whateverthefuckyoucalledthis
—it was overwhelming. No wonder her shoulders were practically glued to her ears
all the time from tension
.

Every time the front door swung open she looked up, like a dog trained by a bell. Not Laura. Not the second time. Third time a group of loud college guys came in, and the fourth—what looked like a small Girl Scout troop.

The fifth bell was—Alex?

He walked in and searched the room, clearly intent on finding someone specific. She knew, though, it wasn’t her he sought.

O
ne eyebrow shot up, involuntary but appropriate. Who was he meeting? Madge? But he hadn’t said anything about seeing Madge and Ed, so—

“Josie?” he called out in a voice that told her he was just as surprised to see her. “What are you doing here?”

“What are
you
doing
here
?” she countered, standing as he drew close.
To be eye to eye she would need to stand on the seat of the booth, and the thought crossed her mind. He wore scrubs and a look of exhaustion on his face, hair messy and eyes tired. He’d just finished up a little more than twenty-four hours at work and she didn’t expect him at home for quite some time. She reached up on tiptoes and he bent down for a great big hug.
 

One that made the inside of her hip feel like it was being gouged by a rock.

“Is that a sledgehammer in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” she joked as her slim little hand reached into his front pocket and pulled out—

A jeweler’s box.

She froze. He was frozen, too, looking over her shoulder
and down behind her
, brows drawn together and eyes ablaze with intelligence and disbelief.

“What is that?” they both said in unison. Her fingers fumbled the box, but she kept hold of it.

This was the size of an engagement ring.

“Oh, Alex,” she murmured, body stinging with cold and hot electric wires that charged at random. “Oh, my God.” Her hand flew to her mouth and she dro
p
ped down on her heels, the feeling like being dropped on her head.

But he wasn’t listening.

Alex had rushed into Jeddy’s searching
for
Mike, to deliver the ring and be on his way, back home for a shower and, he hoped, a late-night frolic with his beloved.

I
nstead, he found his beloved staring at him from a booth, a bit slack-jawed with an expression that mirrored his.

“Josie?” he called out. “What are you doing here?”

“What are
you
doing
here
?” she countered
. He crossed the room and reached for her, that small, warm body like part of his beating heart. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, enjoying the scent of her, eyes opening to pull back and
—
 

What was on the booth in that white bag?

He blinked rapidly, widening his eyes on purpose to make sure lack of sleep wasn’t making his eyes play tricks on him.

Oh. Oh, my.

Pregnancy tests.

T
here were pregnancy tests spilling out of a drugstore bag on the booth next to his girlfriend.

“Is that a sledgehammer in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” she joked as her slim little hand reached into his front pocket and pulled out—

Laura’s ring.

Shit.

She froze. A million thoughts traveled through his mind at the speed of light, most of them involving little brown-haired babies. Josie was pregnant? They were going to have a baby?

His face spread with the most amazing smile he’d ever felt in his life, as if it were connected directly to his heart.