And the damn gallon jug of coconut shampoo.
“Gotcha.” Mike relished the drive back to the cabin, knowing she was there. Dylan had put dinner in the oven before they left, a slow-cooking roast, and tonight would be the first night they would all spend together.
As a family? The thought went through his mind so fast, like a blink, that he didn't dare dwell on it. If he did, it might not happen.
Please let it happen. For the first time in months, the drive up the mountain felt like he was really coming home, Dylan singing along to some '80s Christmas song, the late-autumn sun warming his skin as the prospect of creating a true home with Dylan, Laura and their baby warmed his heart.
“I still think you are nuts. And not warlock waitress nuts. Crazy. Cray cray. The baby needs to have a father on the birth certificate.”
Laura sat on the sectional sofa, butt sinking deep into the soft leather, a warm red down comforter keeping her toasty. Getting up would be harder than getting comfortable, but she had Josie to help. And, soon, Mike and Dylan. Snuggles moved a foot along the top of the sofa, chasing a patch of sun.
“Well, hello to you, too, Miss Merry Sunshine,” Laura cracked. She gratefully accepted the cup of decaf Josie offered.
“They'll be here soon and this is the first chance I've had in a week to talk openly with you. Those two seemed to have had a schedule for making sure one of them was always there in the hospital.”
“They did.”
Josie's face was agog. “All so I couldn't talk alone with you?”
Sip. “I don't think that's why.” Sip. “Just, you know, because we're – ” What words were supposed to come out next? Together? Were they back together? Laura didn't know where they stood, actually. Five days in the hospital had been long enough to learn that she was fine. The baby was fine. The polyhydramnios had actually improved a bit, though it wasn't gone. She would need constant monitoring for the rest of the pregnancy, but they hadn't found any problems with the baby that explained it. Being extra-big with added fluid would make it harder to move around, and could make the delivery a bit risky, but they'd ruled out birth defects.
Which had been the best news Laura had received in – well, ever. Diana had reviewed her chart with Sheri and the supervising obstetrician, Dr. Kalharian, and they'd agreed on a schedule for follow-up care.
Her orders: go home, rest, hydrate, recover.
Easier said than done, because she'd had no home. Until Mike and Dylan had offered her one. Josie, too. Deciding had been hard and easy at the same time. Josie was the easy choice, and her friend seemed to assume Laura would pick her.
But her heart, her gut – her womb – told her to go heal in the mountains.
She figured out pretty quickly that the guys would respect her, would treat her like a queen, and would wait on her hand and foot if she stayed at the cabin. Dylan had told her, with a quiet serenity and troubled demeanor that was so unlike him, about his and Mike's...fight? Breakup? What word do you use when there isn't one to describe the relationship in the first place?
So many strands of the relationship between the three of them had been snapped by someone deciding not to tell a simple secret, the kind of information that really wasn't a deal breaker, but that can become one if withheld for too long. Dylan and Mike really cared about her – she knew that, and knew that by screaming at them that day at Josie's months ago, she'd created a rift that needed mending.
And yet she absolutely was not the only one with some guilt to work through. The guys hadn't told her they knew each other, and she was still uneasy, in a tiny place deep inside, about how they had come to her, orchestrated that wonderful first night. Getting over that had been hard, but not impossible. Could she find a place for their other secret?
Staring around the room, she suspected she could. The vaulted ceilings, the knotty pine, the startling view of the snow-covered ski trails, and the cozy fire burning in the fireplace all made her feel like she could –
“ – eat shit?”
“Huh?”
Josie stared at her. “I still don't get why you didn't tell Mike and Dylan they could just go and eat shit, but I respect your decision.” Her tone of voice made it clear she did not. “How's little Josie today?”
“You mean little Laura?”
“Whatever.” Bzzzz. Laura found a text from Mike: “Need anything at the store? Ice cream and pickles?”
She read it aloud. Josie softened. “That is really sweet.”
Laura typed back: “Nope. Thanks! <3”
“You're going to regret that at midnight when you want salted caramel ice cream.” Josie stood and reached for her purse.
“You're leaving?” Panic fluttered in her chest. Or was that the baby kicking again? Touching her belly, she shook her head slightly, to herself. Nope. Panic.
“Four – er, five,” she pointed to Laura's midsection, “is a crowd.”
Reckoning. This would be it. Mike and Dylan would come back and they'd wash her things and she would need to find a rhythm here as she recovered, the three of them settling in to – what? What, exactly, were they to each other? And then there was the issue of –
“ – who the father is.” An expectant look covered Josie's face.
“Huh?”
“The baby is sucking your brain right out of your head, Laura.” Josie laughed. “It's like you're not listening to anything I say.”
“And that's new because...” she joked.
“Ha ha.” Josie shrugged into her leather coat. She looked like Captain America when he was little. “You'll talk to the guys about the birth certificate issue?” They'd cooked up a scheme they thought the guys would accept. Even Laura realized that as sweet as it was to share the baby, and for whichever man wasn't the bio dad to act as if he were, the practical legalities needed to be respected. Someone's name needed to be on the birth certificate.
“I will. I promise.” The two hugged, Laura clinging a bit longer than she normally would. As if crossing over into a new life, a new world, she felt unmoored, time starved, and unsure. The baby grounded her in that moment by kicking her, hard, in the cervix.
“See you tomorrow.” Click. The front door closed and Josie walked out on the porch, the same porch where, nearly five months ago, Laura had slunk out, Mike bringing her her purse, her fear so overwhelming it had almost crushed her heart.
Almost. And then...why hadn't they told her? Why? They were billionaires. Her baby's father was a billionaire. Josie had joked about child support (“You could get more than you make in a year. Hell, in a decade, per month. Can I get the other one to impregnate me?”) and Laura reeled from the implications of all.that.money.
Some dish Dylan had in the oven simmered and filled the cabin with a luscious aroma that made her belly start to eat itself. She was hungry.
The guys were on their way. Her stomach dropped. Because this time she'd be alone with them and it was time for some long overdue conversations.
Why was it always, indeed, so complicated?
A palpable tension sat between him and Mike on the car ride up the mountain, a third partner who wasn't nearly as appealing as Laura. Unresolved emotions, unspoken words, and a sense of uncertainty made the air thick, kept Dylan's nerves on edge, and finally forced him to blurt out, “I was a total douche. I should never have made us wait to tell her about the money, and I almost blew it, and now here we are with maybe – kinda – sorta – a chance with her, and I don't want to fuck it up again.”
Cringe.
“If you're a douche, I'm a bigger one. Mega douche. Thor the Douche,” Mike bantered back, his voice jovial, but his face serious. Eyes on the road, he seemed to feel the change in the car. They were talking. Really talking, once again.
“How do we make this right with her?” Dylan's words had an urgency, a plaintive tone he could hear in his own voice and hated.
Mike shrugged. “I think this time we actually listen to her and Josie and do what Laura wants.”
“That easy?”
Mike picked up Route 2 and they prepared for the long drive. “If it were easy, we wouldn't have fucked it up.”
“Twice.”
“Yeah. Twice.” Mike blinked, revving up to sixty-five mph. “Dylan, I'm sorry about the glass and all that.”
“It's OK. You sent that cleaning crew and replaced everything.”
“That's not what I mean.” Mike's jaw flexed and twitched, his stubble glinting in the sunshine.
“I know. And it's OK. As long as we're OK.”
Mike laughed, a sputtering sound of surprise. “We're fucked, man.”
“Yeah. We're about as far from OK as you can get.”
That made Mike swallow and blink hard. “True. But as long as we're not OK together, I think we'll be fine.”
“What if it's not your baby?” Dylan said rapidly, as if saying the words fast would somehow make them less provocative.
“What if it's not yours?” Mike's answer was a growl.
Silence. A dark cloud of confusion and suspicion, with an undertone of something sinister he'd not felt with Mike, ever, slithered about in the Jeep. Dylan decided to let down his defenses and simply said, “I don't care. I care, but I'm not invested in whose she is. I'm invested in loving who she is.”
Mike's head jerked back in surprise. Shoulders relaxing, he drew in a deep breath. “Same here.” He took his eyes off the road for a second and gave Dylan a look that made him fight to hold back tears. “I just don't want to be left out of the greatest love I can imagine.”
Nodding, Dylan tapped him on the shoulder with a gentle fist and said, “Impossible. Because that love can't exist without all three of us.”
“Four. Four now.”
Four.
Laura woke to the sounds of laughter in the kitchen, deep men's voices guffawing and teasing, the room's light telling her it was past sunset and somehow she'd fallen asleep in place, curled up and warm. Her stomach growled and her mouth felt like cotton, parched. A glass of water on a coaster, inches from her hand, was a pleasant surprise. A few quick gulps and she finished it off, yawned, stretched and – ouch! – sciatica flared up, necessitating that she stand and stretch more.
Little muscles in her hips and along her ribcage needed to be treated with kid gloves, stretched slowly and with great care, or she'd have a stitch in her side and a major spasm. Pregnancy really wasn't for wimps, all the blessings aside.
Walking with a slight waddle, she made her way into the kitchen. Mike was making a salad, Dylan checking on a roast, and both turned to her, smiles at the ready, so amused and playful she almost burst into tears at the hope it all inspired.
“She rises!” Dylan exclaimed, drying his hands on a dish towel and planting a kiss on her cheek. Mike kept his space, reaching for the empty glass in her hand. Without asking, he filled it from the water dispenser on the fridge door and handed it back, full.
“Thanks,” she said, looking around, blinking. Both men kept stealing glances of her belly. Obvious and trying not to be. She did a shimmy and said, “Lap dances, $25.”
“You undercharge,” Dylan said, mirth in his voice but something more sensual in his eyes. Her pulse quickened and blood flowed to places that had been deeply neglected by a man's touch.
