Home? Where, exactly, was home anymore? Laura was home, where he felt comfortable and important and where the three of them, together, could do or be anything.
Including a billionaire.
Driving Mike's Jeep made him appreciate his Audi, the Jeep too high, the steering imprecise. He managed it, driving without thinking while on autopilot, not even bothering to turn on music. The route he chose took him past Jeddy's, ironically, where he and Mike had inadvertently been successful in getting Laura to look past their clumsy error and to give them another chance.
If only he could have an another accidental meeting with her. Maybe if she weren't on her guard he could talk to her openly, apologize profusely, and at least tell her how much he loved her.
Good thing he was at a red light and at a full stop, because the words loved her made his brain smack against his skull. Love? Where did that word come from? He didn't throw it around lightly. Being a charity auction bachelor and a bit of a cad meant he had his share of women, and he liked it that way – having his share. His slice. His percentage. Love? Love was something he'd saved for Mike and Jill.
And now, apparently, for Laura.
The woman he'd just driven away.
The rest of the drive was a blur until he parked the Jeep in Mike's spot, then made his reluctant way to the apartment. When he walked in, he found the last thing he ever expected to see.
Mike. Beet red, veins bulging, shirt completely soaked and arms flexing, neck expanded as if he'd just been doing deep squats with twice his weight on the bar. Huffing from exertion, Mike wouldn't look him in the eye. Pacing, he walked back and forth down the entrance hallway, a hulking mass of nervous energy.
“How did you beat me home?” he asked, puzzled. At best, he was twenty minutes ahead of Mike's top marathon speed.
“Cab.”
“Why'd you take a cab? I thought you were running it out.”
Silence. This Dylan could handle; he knew what to expect when Mike withdrew. But walking into the living room gave him a scene he was wholly unprepared to encounter.
Glass. Shattered glass everywhere. On second thought, it wasn't nervous energy Mike emanated.
That was rage.
The smoked-glass coffee table was a heap of shards and broken footings. A fifty-pound dumbbell lay cock-eyed in the middle, books piled on it from the collapse.
“Mike, what the fuck – ” Sheer terror consumed him as he turned to find Mike holding the other fifty above his head, not pointed at Dylan but rather at a small end table next to the leather couch. The crash was splinteringly deafening, the sound of Mike's grunt as he exuded enough effort to pitch the dumbbell in a perfect, parabolic arc combining with the breaking glass to create a noise that made Dylan's teeth rattle.
Jumping back, he avoided getting hit by shrapnel. His mind raced. Was he in true danger from Mike? Mike? His partner for more than ten years, the gentle man he'd admired and respected, who was always so compassionate and –
Mike stormed out of the room and started throwing objects in his bedroom, the sound of drawers opening and closing, loud thumps and thick cracking sounds making Dylan follow him, wary and ready to protect himself if needed. Entering Mike's bedroom, which has always been minimalist and sparse, the sight before him was jarring. Everything he owned was everywhere – clothes spilling out of drawers, his closet ransacked, candles rolling in jars on the floor and pictures face down. Mike was standing near his bed, wildly shoving items into a hockey duffel bag, head down and muttering to himself.
“What happened? Were we robbed?”
Mike snorted but didn't look up, robotically grabbing a blue sweatshirt, then a pair of torn jeans, then flip flops, all going in the bag by rote movement. “Yeah, Dylan. I was robbed. Of Laura. By you and your stupid, fucked up ideas.”
“Hey, man, you can't pin this entirely on me.” His own rage swelled inside, ready to match Mike's molecule for molecule. “You're the one who primed her not to trust us in the first place.”
The look Mike shot him was pure evil. His heart sank as his ire rose. That wasn't a look you give to someone you care about. That was a look you get when someone you love turns cold. Turns off. Views you as no one.
It was worse than indifference. And it was a look he had only received once before, from an old girlfriend, and it had made his balls crawl into his throat, his soul shrivel into a shrunken mess, and he had resolved never, ever to let anyone in who could do that to him.
So far he hadn't.
Until now.
“I fucked up,” Mike huffed. “I own it. But dammit,” he shouted, smacking his dresser top for emphasis, his wallet and change cup falling off the right edge. “We fixed that! She took us back in! And you – you! You wanted to waste all that because you're so fucking afraid that taking Jill's money means you accept her death or that you loved her less of whatever fucked up emotional process you have buried deep in your ego. I can't even look at you,” he added.
Stunned, Dylan couldn't form a coherent thought to respond. Who was this man? He looked like Mike but might as well have been some psycho twin, come up from the dead to steal Mike's spirit and destroy their relationship. Mike was never mean. He could be firm, and he could be sarcastic (though rarely), and he knew how to take a stand and hold firm, but he was never, ever an asshole. Had losing Laura really driven him to some sort of psychotic break?
Or was Dylan just way, way off in estimating how much he had hurt Mike by wanting to wait to tell Laura about the trust fund? Was this more about him than he realized – and not in some self-centered way, but more in an “Oh, shit, this is all my fault” kind of way?
Mike strode angrily to the front door, then stopped cold. “Where are my keys?”
“Here.” Dylan tossed them in an arc, Mike's hand reaching up to catch them. Palm facing Dylan, the movement precise and clipped, like an athlete who had done it hundreds of thousands of times to reach perfection.
Grabbing the doorknob, Mike was halfway out the door when Dylan called out. “Where are you going?”
“My cabin.”
“What about this?” Dylan shouted, sweeping his arm out, indicating the mess.
“Hire someone to clean it up and replace everything. Bill me. I can afford it,” he scoffed, then slammed the door. A muffled shout: “I'm a fucking billionaire!” and then the fading sound of footsteps.
Chapter Five
“Wakey, wakey, sleepyhead!” Josie shouted, yanking open the curtains in Laura's bedroom, the pink cloth swaying in a pattern that made Laura's stomach queasy. Ugh. Bad enough she was exhausted; did Josie really need to make her nauseated, too? The coarse sun blinded her with too much, the glare off the world striking her as so harsh, too unyielding. Give her a nice, grey day with white cloud coverage so she could dip herself back into life.
Let her suckle her depression, for it gave her so much comfort. Being a victim meant never having to think through your own actions, not reflecting on regret, and it definitely gave her ample excuse for eating entire pints of ice cream and wallowing in “It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia” marathons.
It had been a month since the guys...well, there wasn't an easy word for what they'd done to her. The Big Reveal? The Big Not-So-Reveal? Laura's Public Humiliation? Whatever you called it, a month had passed and somehow she'd survived, each day an exercise in how not to fall apart.
Grabbing as many sick and vacation days as her boss would allow had given Laura the time she needed to just sit with everything that had happened with Dylan and Mike and process it all. She hated how confusion and hurt made her bitter, had made her scream like that at the very end.
Regret wasn't quite the word for what she felt now. The never-ending depression seemed appropriate, her days filled with a dragging, a constant loop of sadness in her thoughts, and with no appetite. Not enjoying food troubled her; her stomach seemed to hold all her tension now, a shift she'd never experienced. Reading novels over the years, she'd always been jealous when a character lost her appetite, wishing that were a by-product of her many heartbreaks.
Now she understood. It really wasn't all she'd thought it would be. The grinding nausea that worsened with any stressor – and who didn't have stress? – made her curl up in bed and sleep when she could.
“What are you on? The all-orange diet?” Josie had found the remnants of Laura's dinner, all she could manage these days. Baby carrots, cheese enchiladas and oranges.
Depression really wasn't the word for what she had been feeling for more than a month, but she didn't have a better phrase that conveyed how deeply sad their actions had made her. All of the support at work certainly helped, with her boss providing her with plenty of leeway, and friends coming in at times for pep talks. More than anything, she appreciated their steady guidance, with various women running interference with Debbie, who kept finding new ways to ask her to help her hook up with "the other one. You know, the one who looks like Thor."
Sigh.
"Look, Laura, you can't keep doing this." Josie was giving her the hairy eye. "I know you have the day off, but staying in bed and doing the sick thing isn't helping. And the orange diet is just disgusting. What's next? Circus peanuts and Cheetos?"
Her stomach decided to swivel a hula hoop around it. "Oh, God, don't," she begged, holding her hand over her mouth.
The hairy eyeball got hairier. "You never get sick like this."
"Sure I did. in college. Hangovers."
"Yeah, but you didn't get drunk last night."
"Maybe it's the flu." Laura really didn't have it in her to argue. The sunshine felt like little daggers scraping against her eyeballs, and her brain was dulled down. Lately, she couldn't watch real television, her brain only capable of reality TV shows. If she watched another season of The Biggest Loser she was going to start dreaming about Extra Chocolate Mint Ice Cream gum and Subway.
"A month-long flu?"
Laura sat up, propping herself with pillows and holding her breath, wincing as a wave of nausea made her feel like she was puffy and drained at the same time, the sensation so damning she wanted to die. "It can happen."
"Not – well, no." Josie went into Laura's kitchen and she heard her rummaging through the fridge. Please don't bring me food, she thought. A quick glance at the leftovers from her dinner made bile rise up in her throat. Scooching back down, she reclined again, flipping her pillow to let the cool side touch her sickened face.
Carrying a tall glass of water with bubbles, Josie reappeared. "Drink this." Laura didn't want to obey, but she did anyhow. There was a tone in Josie's voice, the professional nurse giving medical aid and taking no shit. Do this because it's good for you.
Because I said so.
With crossed arms, Josie watched guard over her, as if Laura's not drinking the sparkling water would constitute a personal affront. The first sip was almost painful, then the next easier. About halfway through the glass she felt an enormous bubble fill her throat, the resulting belch so unladylike she might have roused a standing ovation from a group of truck drivers in a roadhouse bar.
Josie's polite golf clap didn't quite cut it. "Feel better?"
To her surprise, Laura said, "Yes." And she did. The nausea wasn't gone, the exhaustion was still so all-pervasive she could feel it in her bones, like poured, wet concrete seeking a low point. But the cloud of doom and sickeningly sour stomach was alleviated, even if fleetingly.
