The Complete Series Boxed Set (21 page)

It occurred to
her
, suddenly, that the same was true for
her boss,
Laura. Hmmm.

Her
cell phone buzzed. A text. Ignoring it,
Darla
kept Callie on the line. While Laura and Josie had told
her
the business could lose money in the first year—it
wasn’t
like Dylan and Mike didn’t have enough cash to buy
her
hometown ten times over—it was a matter of principle for
Darla
.
She
wanted to succeed. Clients meant success.

And Callie wanted what Good Things Come in Threes sought to succeed in: nonjudgmental love that happened to use a relationship math that society didn’t necessarily understand. Like being metric in an
imperial
world.
Or being Darla at a Pilates instructor convention.
 

You didn’t really fit in.

But that didn’t mean you couldn’t exist. And thrive.

“I understand,” was the best
Darla
could say and remain honest. In some tangential way
she
did understand. If
she
had been searching for what
Darla
had with Trevor and Joe,
she
’d have thought it impossible to find. And would never even try. Because why torture yourself with dreams of something that was so inconceivable that all you did was abuse your heart with so much wishing?

A smile played on
Darla’s
lips as
she
explained how the company worked to Callie.

Making dreams work was
her
job.

It sure beat working at the gas station back home in Ohio.

After a few minutes of explaining how the registration process worked to Callie, Darla got off the phone and sighed, taking a
handful of
moments to process what she
had just done
.

T
alk to a woman about her desire to find two men as life partners for a perm
a
nent threesome?
Check.
 

Gently persuade the woman to sign up for a trial of their service?
Check.
 

Explain that the company
wa
s so new they d
id
n’t have many matches and it could take mon
ths (ahem…a year at the current trajectory) to begin to make matches?
Um…
 

Yep. Unfortunately. And so Darla felt like a big old fraud.

Then again, lately she felt that way all the time.

The phone rang again. Pushing her own emotions aside, she geared up for another call. Josie and Laura never saddled her with quotas, but she knew they weren’t twiddling their thumbs running this bizarre business either. She had to earn her keep, and it was a good enough keep that it helped pay for a lot of her
mama
’s issues back home.

Picking up the phone, she realized caller ID labeled this call from:

“Laura! How are you?” An instant sheen of sweat broke out all over Darla’s body like liquid heat, except this wasn’t that nice, blazing feeling you get when you catch an unexpected picture of Joe Man
ganiello
appearing on
F
acebook.

This was pure nerves. Wh
en
the owner of your company calls out of the blue, you freak out, right? Because they only call like this for one reason.

Because you did something wrong.

“Hi, Darla. How’s business?” Laura had a breathy voice that was pleasant to listen to but had an undercurrent of iron to it. Darl
a
admired the flat accent, which was like a linear line without a single deviation. Darla’s own voice sounded like
S
illy
S
tring coming out of a can.

“
I signed up a new client!” Darla crowed, thrilled that fate threw Callie her way today. That was the first client in four days, and of all the days and moments to report back a success, well…
 

“You did! Male or female?” They needed more men. Lots more men. Well, double more men than women, at least. And a few extras, because sometimes women asked for three men, which made Darla feel exhausted. Two were enough for her.

“A woman. Very nice. Nervous,” Darla said with a giggle.

“Aren’t they all?”

She could feel Laura’s kind, calm smile through the phone. But there was something more in her voice. A hesitation. The kind of sound you definitely don’t want to hear in your boss’s voice.

T
he sound of trouble. Darla’s mind raced through the past three weeks, since her last sit-down with Laura. She hadn’t done anything wrong, had she? A mental inventory of all of Darla’s responsibility left her with nothing. Nada. Zippo. Running the register at the convenience store and gas station back home had been a job that she’d mastered and could do in her sleep, but being the
o
perations
a
ssistant with Good Things Come in Threes required skills. Attention to detail.

A major bullshit detector.

And, ideally, someone in a permanent threesome.

Which meant Darla was perfect for the job.
Calm down
, she told herself.
You’re not getting fired. You’re not.
 

“Darla, I’m wondering if we could get together for lunch some time.”

Darla’s heart leapt into her throat and began drowning in the puddle of tears that filled her lary
nx
.

“Talk?” she choked out. Talk? Laura wanted to talk? Talking meant concerned looks and deep discussions about failed metrics and unfilled goals and a bunch of corporate-speak that
was so full of fail it made Darla cringe. Joe talked that way when he discussed business law, and it always made her laugh.
 

Then again, most of what came out of her mouth made Joe laugh, too, so they were even.

“Yes. Talk.” Laura sounded so restrained. Embar
r
assed, even. This was getting weirder and weirder, and Darla knew weird. Lived weird.

Invented
weird.

“Josie suggested—”

Ah. The source of the weirdness.

“—that I reach out and invite you to lunch because you and I have so much in common.”

In common? Laura was a well-edu
ca
ted former financial analyst for a massive corporation that wouldn’t emp
l
oy Darla to change the urinal cakes
i
n their executive bathrooms. Laura was blond and curvy and sweet and feminine. Darla was a wild, untamed
mare
with a mane about as tangled and unkempt
as a ‘70s porn star bush
.

In common?

The only thing they had in common was—

“Ohhhhhhhh.” The sound came out of her mouth before she could think and use impulse control (
hah! What was that?
) to stop it.

Laura let out a long sigh, like a bal
l
oon being slowly emptied of air. “Yeah.
That
.”

Darla blinked about a thousand times,
then said, “Huh. Josie’s right. I don’t know nobody else who has two boyfriends.” Wait—that sounded so stupid, because Mike and Dylan weren’t just Laura’s boyfriends!
 

“Er, two
baby daddies
, I mean. Not that I don’t know plenty of people back home with two baby daddies. Hell, one of my friends from high school is my age and has four of ’em, each baby with a different man, and…” Her mouth just detached itself from her head, running off like it was at the start line of the Boston
M
arathon,
blah blah blah blah blah
, spewing toxic waste along the way.

“Darla! Darla!” Laura’s insistent voice cut through the floating sense of horror Darla had about her mouth.

“Yes?” She shut herself up
b
y slamming a fist in between her teeth.

“You okay?”

“It’s just—”

Darla paused, trying to figure out how to behave here. As usual, she had no idea, so she blundered through it. Truth was an absolut
e
defense against stupidity, right? Wasn’t that part of law school Joe and
Trevor
talked about?

“Are you going to fire me? Because you never call and ask to—”

“No! No!” Laura exclaimed, laughing. “God, no. You’re fabulous. Josie and I don’t know what we’d do without you!”

“Then does that mean I get a raise?” Darla blurted out.
Jesus, woman
, she chided herself.
You do not know when to stop.
 

L
aura laughed again, only this time she sounded more secure. “We’ll talk about that a different time. This time, though, I’d like a chance to talk about—”

“Threesomes. And bein’ in one. And how fucked up it can be.” Darla felt more comfortable now.
Not getting fired. Not getting fired
.

“Um, I might put it a bit more diplomatically…”

“Laura.” Darla snorted. “You’ve met me. ‘Diplomatically’ isn’t in my vocabulary.”

“Is
Jeddy’s
in your vocabulary? Josie says I should take you there for lunch.”

Darla paused, mouth drooling without prov
o
cation. “Are you serious? Lunch
with
the boss at Jeddy’s to talk about being in a threesome relationship with two men? When did I bang my head and go into this dream about work?”

“Not a dream,” Laura said,
laughing gently
. Darla could feel the relief in her—
in both of them. Her brow tightened; this felt like the tip of some iceberg Darla didn’t know was underneath deep ocean waters
. “How about next week? Thursday? I have limited babysitting for Jillian, but that day is open. We can do it on one of your work days.
I
t’s on the clock.”

On the clock? Jeddy’s? Talkin’ about
threesome life
?

Best. Job. Ever.

“Sure. Lunchtime?”
Darla asked, assuming.
 

“How about two o’clock? We can come after the rush crowd and get a quieter place.”

Laura’s words made her pause. This was intriguing. People didn’t invite her out under such mysterious circumstances. Hmmm…

Less full of people to hear
, Darla thought, but wisely shoved that fist back in her mouth.

“
Two o’clock works for me,” she said evenly.
 

“Yes. Perfect. I’m putting it in my calendar. Want me to come get you at work, or meet at
J
eddy’s?”

“Whatever works for you, Laura.”

“Let’s just meet there, then.”

“Okay.”
Darla’s body relaxed in increments. She wasn’t being fired. She wasn’t having her hours reduced. Everything was right in the world. Laura just wanted to get to know her better.
 

“And Darla?”

“Yep?”

“Thank you.”

Click.

Darla stared at the phone.

Now she had two phone conversations to nominate for weirdest fucking call at work,
ever
.
 

Dylan raced fro
m
the
J
eep into the little sex cabin Mike had built for the three of them last year. “I think we still have a few beers in the fridge!” he exclaimed from the deck, stripping down to just jeans in seconds.

And then nothing at all. Out here in the woods, in the remote mountain area of the ski resort Mike owned, there was no one but the deer and the occasional bear to see all
of
Dylan’s delicious parts.

And oh, how delicious they were. While parenthood had made her a bit squishier in all her curvy parts, Dylan and Mike had stayed the same. Even better in some ways, carved and curved in hard, steely ways that complemented her abundant figure.

Over the past six months she’d worked so hard to let go of her self-conscious inhibitions, and was largely there. For the most part.

Almost.

The sex cabin Mike had built really helped. And so did adding a part-time nanny two months ago.
Cyndi was a doll. A dream. Mary Poppins without the uptight attitude. She didn’t have to be practically perfect, because she was loving and warm and safe and beyond good enough. The guys wouldn’t settle for anything less than the loving grandmother Cyndi was for Jillian, and as their little baby turned into a
walking, jabbering toddler, they’d all done better with a little space.
 

Twenty hours a week, Laura could just be.
Just be
all by herself, while Dylan handled his foundation’s charity work, or while Mike managed the ski resort.
Just be
while she worked with Josie on the threesome dating service she’d created.

Just be
with her e-
r
eader and her imagination.

And now—just be with Dylan and Mike in the sex cabin.

The lost libido that seemed hopeless to try to find six months ago had come roaring back with a
deafening
rush of need when Jillian had turned one
year old
last month. Certain she was meant to enjoy affection and sex but not desperately want it with that gnawing, alarming need that makes the shared release of sexual touch and connection, Laura had found herself blossoming in new ways.

And “blossom” sounded so demure. Prim, even.

She was turning into a fucking animal—and the operative word was “fucking.” This went beyond the mild exhaustion Dylan and Mike had exhibited as her sexual desire reawakened. This ne
w
feeling was like being a
nine
teen-year-old boy.
She hummed with urges and cravings and—oh, my…
 

D
yla
n was naked, on the cabin’s deck, chugging a nice cold one down like something out of a really
fancy
clothing-optional resort commercial.

Not that she’d ever seen one of those commercials, but if t
h
ey ever ma
d
e them, they need
ed
to hire Dylan.

Just like this.

“
Why are you naked?” Mike shouted as he grabbed a cooler of food to put in the cabin’s fridge. Cyndi was back at the house for five hours today, and they intended to take advantage of every single second. Mike’s idea of “taking advantage” was decidedly different from hers and Dylan’s. After the first round of sex Mike would make tenderloin steaks and grilled vegetables on the giant smoker he treated like a second child, while Dylan and Laura would make fun of him and, maybe, have a little round of lovemaking to themselves.