by Fawkes, Sara
“You really think we should get one of everything?” The specials page looked like it held at least
fifteen different dishes. Josie would need to be hauled out in a wheelbarrow if she ate as much as she
wanted.
“How about you pick for us, Madge?” Alex asked affably, his face friendly with a smile. “You
know better than anyone how to please the crowd.”
Her tight prune face lit up and she patted Alex on the cheek. “You're just like your grandfather.
You always know how to butter up an old lady.” She zipped off, clicking on her electronic order pad.
“I'd hate to know how those two use butter these days,” Josie muttered.
“I'm going to be sick,” Alex mumbled, picking at a napkin.
Everyone laughed. Mike and Dylan sounded sick, too.
“While we all make jokes and pretend you didn't invite us here to talk about your non-existent sex
life, let's just get it out in the open. Why do you have a non-existent sex life?” Josie asked.
“Ask your best friend,” Dylan muttered.
Mike shook his head, giving Dylan a look of disappointment. “It's not that simple. Something's
wrong with Laura. And it goes deeper than sex.”
“Like what?” Josie had just seen her a few days ago. Laura was exhausted and harried and smelled
like baby shampoo and milk. Wasn't that how all new mothers were for the first year? Josie had held
Jillian for twenty minutes or so here and there, letting Laura shower and go to the bathroom alone.
Then again...from Laura’s effusive praise and thanks—more than Josie had heard out of her own
mother's mouth in twenty years—she should probably have assumed Laura was especially
overwhelmed.
“All she does is sit on the couch, nurse Jillian, and read.”
“What else can a breastfeeding mom do? She's attached at the nipple,” Alex interjected. Madge
appeared with two plates of fried pickles, a pitcher of water, and glasses for everyone.
“Coffee?”
“Yes!” they all hissed. Dylan shoved a pickle in his mouth and promptly spat it out, raking his
palm across the table to grab the water pitcher. Frantic hands poured ice water and he shoved the glass
to his mouth.
“Do I really have to tell a grown man who has been coming to this diner for nearly a decade that a
plate of fried food straight from the kitchen is hot?” Madge said in a disgusted tone.
“Ad dow by tug id bunt,” Dylan whined.
“Whatever. Your tongue will recover. Here's the dipping sauce.” Madge set down two cruets.
“The.Sauce.Is.Cold,” she said slowly to Dylan, then rolled her eyes, marching off.
“Her compathun ith udduhwhemming,” Dylan sputtered.
“Dat waskly wabbit went dataway!” Josie answered, pointing at Madge's rapidly moving form,
now filling another table's coffee mugs.
Alex elbowed her. “Milk,” he said to Dylan. “Some milk will help.” Pushing the cream pitcher to
the poor suffering guy, Alex looked at Josie and said, “Speaking of compassion...”
“It's his own fault!” She pulled the platter of fried pickles closer. “Besides, more for me.”
“Ad least I don't need a fully-functioning tug these days,” Dylan said after cooling it off with
water and milk. “Nod in bed.”
Josie pushed the platter back to the center of the table. “C'mon. That was just mean,” she said,
deflated.
“I know.” Dylan's evil grin made her grab the plate back. No way he was winning this one.
“If you're having problems in bed,” Alex said, carefully dipping one pickle chip in the sauce,
holding it in his hand to cool off, “maybe Laura needs to see her gynecologist in case she's having pain
or dryness issues.”
Josie stuck her fingers in her ears. “Lalalalala can't hear you talking about my friend's vagina like
it's a motor on a car.”
“If it were, the engine would be seized,” Mike said quietly.
“LALALALALALALA!”
Dylan took the mature route, surprising Josie. “Laura already went. Everything is fine. Lube isn't
an issue; we bought practically a 55-gallon drum of it a few months ago.”
“There's a visual,” Alex said, dropping his chip.
“See? You've grossed out an OB-GYN, guys. Congratulations. That takes some effort.” Josie
dipped a now-cooler fried pickle into the creamy green sauce in front of her. The taste was exactly as
she imagined, only a thousandfold better. Who knew you could combine avocado and horseradish and
produce this?
“I never said I was grossed out,” Alex protested. Josie was too involved in the savory delight
assaulting her tongue to argue.
“Is this just something we have to suffer through?” Mike asked Alex. Sad puppy-dog eyes made
her heart go out to him.
Her hand, on the other hand, reached greedily for another piece of pickle.
“Six months postpartum? For some women, yeah – they're still not that interested. Especially if
she's exclusively breastfeeding.”
“She is,” sighed Mike.
“What are we talking about in terms of lack of interest here?” Alex asked.
Josie gagged audibly.
“Once a week?” Alex continued.
Dylan snorted.
“A...month?”
Mike cleared his throat. “We've had sex twice since Jillian was born.”
“HOLY SWEET JESUS!” Josie shouted. Thank goodness she'd finished swallowing, because the
shock of that little detail would have required Alex to perform the Heimlich if she'd still been
chewing. “What on earth is wrong?”
“That's not quite true,” Dylan said, turning to Mike. “There were a few blow jobs – ”
“STOP!” Josie ordered, just as Madge delivered plates filled with cannoli, a crock pot of what
must be the mac 'n cheese, and an array of delights.
“Blow jobs, huh?” the waitress cracked. Alex turned beet red. So cute he could blush under
circumstances like this. Josie wasn't sure if he could get any sweeter.
But right now she wanted to kill him as he so dryly talked about Mike and Dylan's penises as if
they were commodities. And Laura's vagina were a department store shelf.
An empty one.
“TWICE?” Josie couldn't get over that one. Sure, she'd had dry spells herself. But not while living
with Thor and a guy who looked like a romance novel cover model.
“Nothing wrong with two blow jobs,” Madge muttered as she walked away.
“See why we called you?” Dylan said plaintively. He reached for the ice cream sundae and stuffed
a spoonful of creamy cold sweetness in his mouth, closing his eyes. Josie imagined it was the closest
to sex he'd come in, well...a lot longer than she'd imagined.
“Poor Laura.”
Alex looked at her like she had two heads. “Poor Laura?” He gestured to Mike and Dylan. “How
about poor them?”
“Poor everyone,” she conceded.
“Not poor me,” Alex whispered, his hand snaking around her waist, sliding up her ribcage to –
“Hey!” Dylan snapped. “No PDAs.”
“What is this? Catholic school?” Josie snuggled up against Alex's warm form. Scrubs were thin
enough to show that he was pretty warm for her form, too. She patted Alex's hand. He took hers and
put it on his thigh. Nice and high. Then squeezed. Twice in six months? Try six times in one week.
Even that wasn't enough these days, with Alex's crazy work schedule. Mike and Dylan
had every right
to look so sad, but now Josie was on high alert about her best friend. Time for an intervention of some
sort.
“Might as well be,” Mike grunted. “We're celibate.”
“And not by choice,” Dylan added, now halfway through the sundae.
“What are you doing about it?” Josie demanded. “Do you give her breaks? Compliment her? Take
her out for nice dinners? Give her massages?”
“Buy her a nice new sex toy?” Alex added.
Josie's turn to blush. “That doesn't work for everyone.”
“Works for you!” he said. “Snaps you right out of a bad mood. That fourteen inch – ”
Mike put both palms out flat in a gesture of halt! “We get it. And yes – we tried that. No go. We've
sent flowers. Chocolates. Gotten extra cleaning and errand help. You name it. All she wants to do is
play with the baby, nurse, and read.”
The group went silent as they ate their way through two continents' worth of plates filled with
amazing culinary feats.
As they picked at the remainders of the desserts, Josie had an idea. “You said she just reads all
day, right?”
“Yep.” Unison. The frequency with which those two answered the same word or phrase was eerie.
“What's she reading?”
Mike's face folded into an expression of consternation. “No idea.”
Dylan shrugged, eyebrows coming together as he frowned, near-perfect muscles attuned and
thinking, all focused on her question. He might be an arrogant ass but he was a damn attractive one.
Shaking his head he looked at Mike. “Me too. I can't say.”
Josie chuckled. “I think,” she said, scooping the last dregs of truffle shavings out of a tall sundae
glass, “you might find some answers on her eReader.”
Alex crossed his arms over his chest, then groaned, removing his arms and placing a flat palm on
his full stomach. “What do you mean?”
“Don't you think that knowing what she's doing for most of her waking hours could help Mike and
Dylan to understand what she's feeling?”
All three men bent in, leaning toward her, as if she were divulging the secrets of the Dead Sea
Scrolls.
“Seriously, guys? The woman spends eight or ten hours a day reading and living in a fantasy land
in her head and you didn't even think to ask her what she's reading?”
Mike blinked rapidly, his strong, Nordic jaw set in concentration. Piercing blue eyes met hers,
buried under a brow furrowed in understanding. “She is living in that little machine. And in her head. I
never thought to ask what she's reading, frankly. I just ask about her and the baby.”
Dylan sighed, his face so different from Mike's, dark and swarthy, yet no less concerned. He was
also the scruffier of the two, with a torn t-shirt from some '80s band covering his toned body, and a
face that hadn't been shaved in a good three weeks. “Beard” wasn't quite the word for the train wreck
of whiskers that covered his face and neck.
“No, I didn't ask either.” He ran a frustrated hand over his face. “Jesus. How could we miss that?”
“Because you're men,” Josie declared.
Six eyes stared at her, gone to stone.
“It's true!”
“You're saying women are smarter than men about relationships?” Alex asked, his voice fighting
to stay neutral. Her heart soared. She loved a challenge.
“Do you have a penis?”
“You know damn well I do.”
“Then yes.”
“You realize that you're the one who was so terrified of my monster of a mother that you – ”
“HEY!” Mike growled. “This is our relationship mess we're deconstructing. Not yours. Go book a
slot on Dr. Phil if you want to untangle your mess.”
“We're the ones who should be on that show,” Dylan grumbled.
“You're better suited for Maury,” Josie said.
“Who?”
“Nevermind.”
“Nice diversion,” Alex cracked, elbowing her in the rib, “but let's get back to the point. Go read
her eReader. See what she's been reading. Maybe it will give you some ideas and you can go from
there.”
“I can already guess,” Dylan groaned. “Breastfeeding books and baby signs and how to make
homemade baby food. Sew your own cloth diapers. How to make a Maya wrap from leftover moss and
shredded placenta. Shit like that.”
“It's not shit!” Mike retorted. “It's a perfectly valuable way to bond with your kid.”
Dylan rolled his eyes. “Co-sleeping and breastfeeding is fine. But she's going on about sherpa
fleece and buying a sewing machine to make more absorbent cloth diapers and my mind goes
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. And now she's asking about 'elimination communication.'”
“What's that?” Josie was almost afraid to ask. “Like, announcing when you have to pee?”
“OK, she's going overboard,” Mike relented. He turned to Josie. “No – it's not using diapers on the
baby and reading her signals when she needs to go, then holding her over the toilet.”
“Laura is doing that?” Josie's jaw dropped.
“No, thank god,” Dylan exclaimed. “But she's thinking about it.”
“She really has thrown herself into the whole Attachment Parenting thing,” Josie agreed.
“Nothing wrong with that,” Alex said. “Every parent has to pick the approach that works best.”
Silence. That anyone anywhere was holding a baby over a toilet every hour so it could pee was an
eye opener. If Alex wanted that for their kids... Wait. What kids? She didn't want kids! Josie scrubbed
her mind. She needed to focus on Laura.
“But you might want to broaden your expectations,” Josie mused. “I think you're in for a surprise
when you see what she's been reading.”
“You know something we don't?” Dylan asked.
“No. It's just...I'm a woman.”
Three balled up napkins hit her head at the same time.
Dylan
“Are they asleep?”
Mike closed the bedroom door slowly and looked at him, a finger pressed to his lips. Turning the
knob slowly, he managed to close it entirely with just the faintest click. “Yes.”
Finally! Josie's suggestion had been a good one, he had to grudgingly admit, but getting Laura 1)
away from her eReader 2) away from both of them and 3) Jillian away from both of them all at the
same time had proven to be a logistics nightmare worthy of air traffic control at LaGuardia Airport.
What a mess. Ten days after their meeting with Josie and Alex at Jeddy's they finally had their chance.
With Laura sound asleep, and Jillian snuggled up with her, they could take a long look at what was
going on inside Laura's head.
Literally.
The eReader powered up quickly and Dylan zipped his way through the screen to find her library.
Well, now.
Josie was right, much as Dylan was loathe to admit it.
“It's like a giant online porn shop!” Mike hissed. His eyes bugged out of his head as he leaned over
Dylan and held the corner of the machine.
“This one has 'fem dom' in it. What's that?”
“Beats me.”
For the next ten minutes they scrolled through page after page of book covers in full HD color.
Blush by Lauren Jameson. Anything He Wants by Sara Fawkes. A bunch of books by someone named
Maya Banks. He suspected the book Burn had nothing to do with firefighting.
Surrender
by Melody Anne. Bared to You by Sylvia Day. Release Me by Julie Kenner. They all
had tasteful little objects on the covers, with pearls and cufflinks and shadowed faces, but as Mike
opened one and randomly flipped through to what looked like a sex scene –
My, oh, my.
Laura had quite a little kink going on here.
In her mind.
Dylan's pants tightened as his eyes skimmed over the words. Women in bondage. Long, drawn out
scenes that went on page after page. Master/sub contracts. And then...
“Their Virgin Princess! That's the book Josie was joking about at Jeddy's,” Dylan pointed out.
Mike had remained remarkably silent as they stood there, transfixed.
A few taps and they scanned the first few chapters. Three bodyguards for a princess in a land
where three men and one woman was the norm.
“THREE?” Dylan grunted. “Do we need to make room for another razor in the house?” He snorted.
“Then again, it'd be just another guy who won't be getting any.”
“Shhhh,” Mike whispered, entranced. Dylan could see his eyes racing across the page, eating up
the words. And those were some words. You name a descriptor for male and female genitalia, it was
there. And the dom in the story was – whoa.
He made Dylan feel like a wuss.
Butt plugs. Three ex-military bodyguards. A plane crash in the desert – Josie wasn't kidding! That
meant she was reading these books, too. Were all women reading this stuff now that Fifty Shades of
Grey and eReaders had unleashed something? This wasn't his grandmother's romance novel. Noni had
always read bodice rippers, with covers that showed a gleaming man's bare chest next to a damsel
whose dress was pulled down around her shoulders, his mouth pressed to the woman's neckline for a
kiss.
“My stories,” she called them. Noni invested a lot of money in her stories. When she had died,
they'd found more than four hundred paperbacks, mostly Harlequin books, stacked neatly in grocery
bags in her guest room closet.
The local nursing home residents had been thrilled to get them.
Now Dylan wondered what the hell was between those covers. This was like crack for romance
lovers.
And Mike was quickly becoming addicted as he gently pulled the eReader from Dylan's hand and
walked over to the couch, settling in for a good, long read.
Good and long being the operative adjectives.