by Mari Carr
“Three tiaras in your desk drawer at work and the fact that you packed one—”
“Two,” she interjected.
“Two,” he continued, “for your trip to Baltimore, does not constitute ‘teeny-tiny.’”
She smirked. “I regret nothing. Apologize for nothing.”
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Do you really think your Pop Pop and Tris would try to scare me away from you?”
She shrugged, then admitted, “Not unless they didn’t like you.”
“Have they ever done that?”
Fiona nodded. “Last Christmas. With Brock. And only because the manly-man intimidation tactics hadn’t worked the few times Mr. Big Gesture had come home with me before that. I think they were getting desperate and decided to take a different approach. Guess I should have seen the writing on the wall about Brock then.”
They had just reached the hotel and Fiona stopped walking. “So, if they weren’t warning you away, what was the advice about?”
Before Asher could reply, they heard someone calling Fiona’s name.
“Fee! Fiona!”
Fiona glanced back toward the direction they’d just come, her eyes widening. “Mom? Dad?”
“Tris said we might catch you if we hurried,” Teagan said breathlessly.
Fiona turned away from Asher, her question forgotten when her parents jogged up to them. She was clearly equal parts surprised and delighted.
“There’s my girl,” Sky said, giving her a big bear hug. “I swear you look more like your mom every day. Beautiful.”
Fiona rolled her eyes, making it clear her father made that comparison often, then she recalled Asher was there.
Asher had spent quite a bit of time with Sky and Teagan in the past, going out to dinners or chilling with them at Fiona’s place whenever they came for visits.
Her mom hugged him after releasing her daughter, and Sky shook his hand.
“You were just here for Mia’s memorial. I thought you had a show in New York,” Fiona said.
“We did it. But I didn’t get enough time with either of you girls last week.”
Asher recalled Fiona saying her parents were in the midst of a mini-tour, so they had only been able to stop in for the day of the memorial, taking off that night for a big show at Madison Square Garden.
“Besides,” Teagan added, “there was no way we were missing everyone’s big TV debut at the pub.”
Fiona looked uncomfortable and a little bit panicked. “You know you two can’t be in the show, right? You’re too big, too recognizable. We didn’t write parts for you. If Sky Mitchell and Teagan Collins show up on Wild Winters, we’d have to rewrite the whole thing.”
Teagan rolled her eyes. “We’re not here to crash your show, sweetheart. We were hoping we could watch with you during the filming. Al let us do that the last time we were in California. I didn’t want to wait until the show came out to see Pop deliver his big line. Every single time we talk on the phone these days, he runs through it for me a few times.”
Sky groaned. “Then he makes her hand the phone to me so I can analyze it. I’m a singer, not an actor.”
They all laughed. “We’ve both heard him say it a few thousand times too,” Fiona added. “To pretty much every patron at the bar. It’s a good thing it’s not a major plot spoiler, or he would have given the whole premise of the show away.”
“Are you guys still working tonight?” Teagan asked.
Asher shook his head. “No.” He lifted the takeout. “Late dinner. We’re finished with the script tweaks. Nothing more to do until the cast arrives and read-throughs and rehearsals begin. We just hang around the set, in case anything falls flat and we need to rework lines.”
“So you’re free?” Teagan asked Fiona. “I was hoping I could convince you to spend the night with us on the bus tonight for a laugh.”
Sky grinned widely. “Your mother is going through some sort of delayed empty-nest thing. All she could talk about on the way into Maryland was how much she misses all the times you girls used to curl up on the big bed in our room and watch romantic comedies as we barreled down the highway.
“I pulled out a few for tonight,” Teagan said. “Thought we could do a Meg Ryan-a-thon. You’ve Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle.”
Fiona glanced back at Asher, obviously torn since the two of them had made plans for dinner—and then after-dinner plans that included burning off what they’d just eaten.
He let her off the hook easy. He knew how much Fiona missed her parents. Their visits were always highly anticipated as they were too few and far between.
“Go spend the night with your parents. It sounds like a lot of fun.” He gestured to the food. “Leaves more for me.”
Fiona wasn’t as easily convinced. “Maybe you could hang out with us a little while.”
Asher shook his head. “Nope. It’s obviously girls’ night. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Because he didn’t know how much her parents knew about the two of them, he gave her a quick, friendly kiss on the cheek, then waved, saying goodbye before Fiona could continue to protest.
As he walked to the elevator, he decided he was actually glad her parents had shown up. Life had been a whirlwind since his arrival in Baltimore, and he thought it might be nice to have a few quiet hours to reflect on what was happening.
Tris and Patrick had given him a lot to think about.
Then his cell phone rang. A glance at the screen showed it was Owen.
“Hey, Owen,” Asher said when he picked up the phone, walking into the suite at the same time. “How was the audition?”
“It was amazing.” For several minutes, Owen filled him in on all the details and how good he felt about it. Asher was thrilled for his friend, but he found his thoughts constantly drifting back to Saturday night in Fiona’s bedroom.
He considered bringing it up, but this wasn’t a conversation for a phone call. If it went south, Owen was on the opposite coast and too far away for Asher to fix it.
“About the other night—” Owen started.
Asher sighed. “Listen, Owen—”
“No. Let me say this. I love you and Fee, you know that, right?”
“Of course.”
“You guys and Teddy are my family. I feel bad about what I said at karaoke.”
Asher didn’t reply. Apparently, he’d been thinking about the wrong night. “What did you say?”
“That comment about no one ever looking at me like Fiona’s family looks at her. You guys do. I shouldn’t have sounded like such a whiny dick. You don’t have to share blood to be family. The way you and Fee finished the script so I could do this audition, the way Teddy came back with me to run lines and keep me calm…I’m the luckiest bastard on the planet, and I know it. I’m sorry for what I said.”
Asher had never received a more unnecessary apology. Or one that made him feel worse about what he planned to say the next time he and Owen were together.
“Owen. You don’t need to apologize for that. I feel the same way. You’re the brother I never had. And Fee and Teddy are the sisters—”
He let Owen’s loud laughter drown out the rest of the joke.
“Cool.” With his peace spoken, Owen bounced right back to the audition, chatting another ten minutes about every single thing the casting director had said to him, the studio’s plans for the movie and twenty-seven-thousand other things. He hadn’t heard if he got the part yet, but that didn’t seem to matter to him. There was no denying Owen’s feet weren’t touching the ground.
When they hung up, Asher glanced at the bag of take-out food, but he’d lost his appetite.
He’d made a mistake of epic proportions, convincing himself a threesome was the answer and then plowing headfirst into it, without thinking about what would happen if it went south.
It was then that Asher was forced to admit something to himself. He was a cocky bastard at heart, who didn’t fail often. Typically, he could put his mind to someth
ing and make it work, no matter what.
This didn’t fall into that category, and to make it worse, he wasn’t just hurting himself. He was taking Owen and Fiona down as well. Things were amazing when it was just him and Fiona, but more than a few times, he’d wondered if she was wishing Owen was with them. After her initial nervousness wore off last weekend, she’d been all-in, and Asher suspected she’d regretted it when he’d taken sex off the table.
As for Owen…the guy just said they were his family. After so many years of being passed from one relative to the next, Owen had never felt wanted. How the fuck could Asher make him feel the same way?
He couldn’t.
He walked toward the bedroom, stripped off his clothes and lay down, as one word kept drifting through his brain on auto-repeat.
Shit.
12
Tuesday arrived, but Owen didn’t. Instead, he’d texted to say he and Teddy had read and loved their revisions to the script. As such, they’d decided to fly back to Baltimore with the rest of the cast on the studio’s private plane on Thursday so they could run lines on the flight.
Fiona felt guilty about her happiness in stealing two more nights alone with Asher, wondering for the hundredth time how to broach the subject of Owen and Asher’s threesome dream. In the end, she kept her concerns to herself and took full advantage of the extra alone time.
Tuesday night started with a bubble bath and ended with her tied to the hotel bed, spread-eagle, while Asher did dirty, naughty, amazing things to her. Wednesday’s sexual escapades included a spanking and her vibrator—and Asher, damn him, was actually making her a believer when it came to anal play. Even Happy Clam was starting to be convinced.
According to Asher, the audition had gone very well, so when Owen showed up at the pub with Teddy and the cast on Thursday night, his spirits were still sky-high, and everyone was more than ready to help him celebrate.
Fiona watched the first round of drinks go down, and then the second. Asher pulled her aside.
“He’s happy.”
Fiona was thinking the same thing. “Really happy. Happier than I think I’ve seen him in a long time.”
“Yeah. I know. I was sitting here trying to figure out the last time I saw him like this.”
“That’s easy,” Fiona said. “It was the day we found out the network was optioning Wild Winters.”
“Oh yeah. Owen didn’t land for a week. It was great,” Asher said, smiling as he recalled Owen’s utter ecstasy. “It’s funny. Seeing him now makes me think that lately…”
Asher didn’t finish his statement, but his words matched her very thoughts at the moment. “That he hasn’t been himself the past year or so. I hadn’t noticed it until tonight. Didn’t realize he was unhappy until I saw him really happy.”
“Yeah.”
It was obvious neither of them was sure what to do with that information. Fiona tucked it away, promising to bring it up to Owen when they were all back in California.
Then she considered the other conversation that had to happen first—and she sent up a silent prayer that Owen would still be speaking to her once they returned to the West Coast.
“I think I’m going to spend the night upstairs,” Fiona said, wishing she’d figured out a better reason for doing so than the lame excuse she was about to offer. It had taken her nearly an hour to come up with the stupid “we need our sleep and none of us will get it if I go back with you guys tonight” line.
To her surprise, Asher didn’t ask for an excuse. “That’s probably a good idea. The next few days are going to get nuts around here with rehearsals and filming. Add in the cast and crew and the Collinses, and it’s going to be tough to steal some time just for us.”
Fiona considered Asher’s use of “us,” knowing that most likely included Owen. She needed to talk to them—together—to explain her feelings, but Asher had a great point. They were facing long days surrounded by way too many people, who would all be placing demands on them.
Not to mention…Owen’s happiness.
Or Asher’s, for that matter. Sleeping in his arms had been bliss for her, but had Asher wished Owen was there with them? The more she was with Asher, the more evident it became that his sexual prowess was off the charts. Maybe threesome sex, like bondage, was part of his sexual makeup. Something he wanted…needed, even.
Fiona was in no hurry to potentially hurt either—or both—of her best friends, but she also wasn’t the type to sit around and hold her tongue. If only the timing on all of this wasn’t so shitty.
“So, we party like it’s 1999?” Fiona asked, as Prince’s hit started playing.
“Hell yeah.” Asher grabbed her hand, leading her to the dance floor, where they were joined by Teddy and Owen. The four of them danced with reckless abandon, a pack of lunatics, laughing and shouting the lyrics and living for the moment.
These were the times that Fiona loved best.
Just the four of them.
Young. Free. Wild.
Their joke about waiting for Owen to land held a grain of truth, because he didn’t. The man was a thousand feet high and untouchable. According to Asher, by the time they returned to the hotel that night—sans her—Owen and Teddy took the room with two queen beds, giving Asher the king room. Apart from giving her a hello hug and quick kiss on the cheek when he got in, Owen hadn’t really touched her. More than that, she got a sense he was avoiding her. He was acting like their night together had never happened. Business as usual.
Friday had been a weird day. They had all agreed to sleep in until two in the afternoon in order to “switch their internal clocks” so they were ready for the two a.m. practices starting that night.
Fiona wished she’d managed it. Sleep had eluded her, so instead, she and her parents met for breakfast, then she wound up waiting around for hours, fretting over her love life. It had gone from nonexistent to seriously complicated in the blink of an eye. She had considered talking to her mom about it, but in the end, she held her tongue, simply telling her mom about the breakup with Brock.
By the time the guys woke up that day, Al and the rest of the cast were in the hotel suite, running lines, and Fiona was swept up in the general hubbub. She hadn’t managed to buy any time alone with Asher or Owen. Worse than that was the fact neither of them appeared to even want to sneak away to talk about things between them.
The same thing avoidance mingled with nonstop activity surrounding the show had happened Saturday, and then they’d spent nearly fourteen hours on Sunday bouncing around the city, doing location shots. She was grateful for the reprieve even as she constantly wondered what the hell was going on.
She’d decided enough was enough. She would wait until they filmed the finale and then she was putting her foot down, grabbing both Owen and Asher and making them sit down and talk to her.
Fiona had spent three days praying for Monday, and now that it had arrived, she was a bundle of nerves and nothing was any better. Earlier today, during a meeting with the cast and crew, Owen had asked her, Asher and Teddy to stand next to him and had called them his family, his best friends, and the best things that ever happened to him. He claimed Wild Winters wouldn’t exist without them. Everyone had lifted a glass and toasted the team, and while Fiona was touched by his comments, her gut had churned with all the things they had yet to say.
How would he feel about her after she told him she was in love with Asher?
Just Asher?
And what if Asher wanted all or nothing? What if she wasn’t enough? There was no question she was far more inexperienced sexually than he was. What if he craved someone with more knowledge? Someone like Christina?
The night of filming had finally arrived and instead of being excited, Fiona was annoyed and frustrated. And okay, horny. Happy Clam was no longer satisfied hitching a ride with the Cadillac of vibrators. She wanted Asher.
She hovered by the doorway to the apartment, watching the beehive of activity, unaware she was frowning until Sunnie approache
d her.
“Holy crap. What is going on with you, Fiona? You went from laid and happy to,” Sunnie ran her finger up and down with a grimace, “whatever this grumpy-Gus thing is.”
Fiona looked at Sunnie with a scowl. “Owen and Asher are avoiding me.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know why. We went from getting it on last weekend to this weekend, where neither one of them will touch me. No kisses, no hand-holding. I’m starting to think I misread everything. I thought they wanted a threesome, but now I’m afraid they don’t want anything at all. What if they’re trying to figure out how to break things off?”
That uncomfortable thought hadn’t hit her until this morning when she woke up alone. Again.
For the past couple of days, she’d been trying to figure out how to tell Asher she didn’t want a threesome and Owen that she didn’t…want him. God. She couldn’t even think about saying those words without her stomach doing a million flip-flops.
Now the idea that they might be stressing about letting her down easy was killing her.
Sunnie shook her head. “They’d be fools to do that. You’re the bomb, the best. I bet they’re both just worked up over the finale. Tomorrow, everything will fall into place.”
“Thanks, Sunnie. I hope that’s true.”
Her cousin drifted over to where a large group of their family stood, excitedly talking, all of them thrilled by the chance to be extras. Padraig had returned home that morning, and she was relieved to see that he looked better. The dark circles under his eyes were gone, and he seemed much more like the old Paddy as he smiled and chatted with the others. There was no way he’d ever get over Mia, but it looked like he was maybe starting to find a way to move on.
Fiona didn’t join them. She’d be a buzzkill. While she appreciated Sunnie’s support, she’d had too many sleepless nights since Thursday. She was a woman at the end of her rope. It ended tonight.
As soon as filming wrapped, she was pulling her elusive men away from the crowd and they were talking it out. All of it.