The Complete Series Boxed Set (34 page)

“Weird?”

“Like you two,” Madge said, pointing to La
u
ra and Darla.

“We’re not in a relationship.” Laura giggled.

“I mean how you two are each with two men. Lydia’s got that now. Two men.” Madge paus
e
d and looked Laura over. “Two billionaires, actually.”

Laura looked like she’d been slapped.
Slowly, like an interrogator who is receiving a confession from a serial killer and can’t quite believe the turn of events, Laura leaned across the table and grasped Madge’s weathered, bony hand.
 

“You have a granddaughter,” she
said
quietly, “who is in a threesome relationship with two billionaires?”

“Yes.”
Madge frowned. “At least, I think they’re both billionaires.
Their names are Mike and Dylan,” Madge
said dryly
.

Darla and Josie couldn’t help but laugh. Laura didn’t.

“That’s not funny. The Mike and Dy
l
an part is, but lying about your granddaughter and making fun of me and Mi
k
e and Dylan isn’t—”

“I’m not lying. Lydia’s with Mike Bournham.”

“
The
Micha
el
Bournham?” All three of them gasped.

“
The
. Yes. And Jeremy.
His best friend.
”

“And they’re both billionaires? I mean, I know Michael Bournham came close, but who’s this Jeremy guy?” Darla asked. The Bournham scandal was the talk of th
e
town.
T
he guy had be
e
n caught with his pants down—actually,
off
—on camera fucking some admin at his company and—

“Was she in the sex tape?” Josie asked. “The one who got her reality television show?”

Madge’s face closed off in a marked manner, and Darla knew that look well. That
wa
s the look of a mama bear who
wasn’t
letting no one mess with her cub. “No. Not her.” Something about the
way Madge’s eyes turned to two dead stones made Darla stop moving, as if she needed to blend into the background before the world ended.
 

Because
Madge
could take a person
down
.

“Oh.” Josie’s simple answer said it all. Laura held her breath. Ribald laughter broke out at the table next to them. Darla wanted to look, to call out and ask what the joke was, but she didn’t want
M
adge’s eyes on her, as if Medusa
m
ight turn her to stone. Clearly, asking about the sex tape had been about as bad as asking a pregnant friend if she’d used protection.

You just didn’t ask.

“She’s traveling in Thailand with both of those boys right now,” Madge explained, as if nothing had just happened, as if she hadn’t sucked all the available oxygen out of the room and left them emotionally gasping for air. “Lydia’s always been so independent. A feminist. And now she has no job and they’re gallivanting all over
S
outheast Asia checking on Jeremy’s ‘investments.’”

“You sound skeptical,”
L
aura
said
.

“I am skeptical. That boy’s probably got a poppy farm and a string of opium dens. He’s a bit of a free spirit.” The skin around her eyes looked like a smiling elephant’s. “But he does love her dearly. So does the other one.”
Madge waved one hand dismissively and tensed her whole body, her thigh connecting with Darla’s, transferring energy in a very bad way.
 

Something about that phrase—“the other one”—thrown out so casually, and with a kind of dismissal that bordered on contempt, made Darla’s hackles rise.

“That’s like ‘you people’?”

“What?”

“You throw it out there, like she has one real boyfriend and ‘the other one.’ Sounds like you disapprove. Here you are, Ms. Old Lady Dom with a
b
utt
p
lug fetish, tricking out with Alex’s grandpa and being all badass, and you’re judging your granddaughter for being in love with two men at the same time?” Darla could feel the curve of her neck extend, could taste the bile in the back of her throat, and as the air slid into her body slowly through her nose, inhaled like a battery charge, she knew that it was on.

Death Match at Jeddy’s.

News at eleven.

La
u
ra and Josie’s eyes flew wide open in alarm as Madge turned slowly to her, a look of condescending disgust on her face, and said, “You’re judging
me
? I sh
a
t pieces of corn
this morning
older than you.”

“
When you act like the life your granddaughter has chosen for herself out of a drive for love is something to sneer at, you bet your flat ass I’m judging you, lady.”
 

Madge le
a
pt to her feet. “Fat ass?
You
are calling
me
‘fat ass’?”

“I said flat.
Flat
. The Gravity Fairy done visited you
r backside
plenty of times,
huh
?
Looks like Kansas back there.
”

“And the Oreo Fairy visits you twice a day, it seems.”
Madge craned her neck ostentatiously to pointedly look at Darla’s admittedly lush ass.
 

“I have a Knuckle Fair
y
who’d like to—”

“Enough!”
L
aura shouted. “Both of you! I’d expected it to come to fists today, but not at
this
table!”
The women all looked over at the guys, who were huddled and laughing, looking like something out of a Polo Ralph Lauren ad.
 

“Jesus Christ,” Madge muttered. “
I break up enough fights. Don’t need to flatten some pissant little shit like you and bring on more trouble here.”
 

Darla’s heart
threatened to shatter her breastbone like the giant pitcher of Kool-Aid crashing through the fence.
 

“Then quit denigrating your granddaughter’s relationship with her boyfriends while claiming to be nonjudgemental. Be
c
ause all you’re doing is shaming her behind her back.”

Madge looked like D
a
rla had just whacked her with a coffee pot.

Good
.

Laura tilted her head, and Josie watched them with narrowed eyes, a look Darla knew all too well. She was ready for a throwdown if need be. Back home, Josie had her back. Not that Darla routinely g
o
t into catfi
g
hts with eighty-year-old waitresses in dive bars.

Okay, maybe once or twice. And maybe she won.

Most of them.

Madge was a tough old bird, but a reasonable one. Her face sagged with sadness as
s
he turned to Laura and asked, “Is that shaming? What I said?”

Laura’s eyes filled with tears. Darla fought hers back, too, because the genuine befuddlement and caring in the old bat’s voice made it clear she deeply loved her granddaughter.

Laura reached for her ha
n
d and looked at her. “Yes, Madge. When you call one of her boyfriends ‘the other one,’ it strips him of an identity. She has two boyfriends. Two. Both are as important as one.”

“But I didn’t mean it that way.
I
t’s just a joke.”
Maybe Darla had been to quick to anger.
 

“
Just ’cause you think it’s a joke doesn’t make it funny,” Darla fumed, conflicted inside.
 

Madge ignored her and focused on Laura. Darla’s field of vision began to speckle, a
furious
cloud of rage taking over. If she wasn’t careful, she’d end up charged with assault, hauled off in handcuffs, humiliated for beating down a woman old enough to be her great-grandma, and she’d lose her job.

Add a surprise pregnancy and a dead dog and she’d have a really boring country music song.

“I don’t understand why you can’t just be kinky and have one guy. Why two? Why does my granddaughter Lydia need two? Two at once, no less. I get wanting some var
i
ety, but that’s not a buffet. It’s an overloaded plate with all the different delights touching each other, blending into too many flavors in one bite.”

The food metaphor went over Darla’s head. “You’re comparing threesomes to a buffet? I ain’t all you can eat.”

Josie broke out into a nervous, barky laugh at that one. Even Laura giggled.

“That’s not what I meant!” Darla protested, though Madge started snickering, too. Alex gave them a weird look, and Darla’s balloon of anger popped,
a slow hiss deflating her.
 

“Madge,”
L
aura finally said. “If Lydia could be happy with j
u
st one of them, she would be. It’s not like we choose to love this way. It just is. Society turns it into some shameful thing, but not us. If we could be happy with just one of them, I think…” She shot Josie a helpless look.

“Why are you looking at me?” Josie squeaked. “I’m the one who’s living with one man, and he’s a pantry hog.”

“I heard that,” Alex said casually, then stood
and looked at Darla. “You and Madge done? Because I’ve been here on the periphery ready to jump in and protect you.”
 

“Me?” Darla exclaimed.

Josie and Laura gave her a sympathetic look as Alex said, “Yeah. You. Who do you think would win in a hair-pulling contest?”

Madge sh
o
t her a shit-eating grin.

“Aw, hell no,” Darla dra
wl
ed. “
Y
ou come to central Ohio and meet Aunt Marlene sometime, Madge. That woman could take
him
down,” she added, pointing to Alex.

Josie’s turn to flush bright red at the mention of her mother and Alex.

His eyebrows shot up, and he looked at his girlfriend. “You’ve told me stories about your mom, but…”

“Mrs. Tucker, the town clerk, had to have plugs put in after she and Aunt Marlene got into a nasty fight over the plumber’s son,
and Marlene ripped half her hair out,
” Darla added helpfully, enjoying someone other than her experiencing the crippling humiliation of this entire conversation.

Josie stood. “You beeped?”
H
er words were aimed at Alex, who was looking at his phone.

“I did.”

“Then let’s go.”

“He beeps and you need to go? You an obstetrics resident suddenly? Need to deliver a baby?”

“Not until it’s our own,” Alex said merrily.

Josie turned the shade of cream
as Laura gave her a look. “Something you want to tell us, Josie?”
 

“He just moved in! Pantry hogger.”

“My Eddie does that, too, sometimes. I find him wearing my panties, one pair around his hips, another one clenched in his fist while he’s—”

“Pant
ry
, Madge! The woman said pant
ry
!” Alex choked out, grabbing Josie’s hand. “Not panty!”

T
he four men at the other table gawked at them. “I w
a
nt to talk about what
they’re
talking about!” Dylan announced. Two people at a table across the way turned, all eyes suddenly on Madge, Darla and Laura.

“
T
his is not going exactly how I thought it would,” Laura groaned, picking through the remnants in the sundae dish and stuffing a ch
oc
olate chip cookie covered in caramel sauce in her mouth. Darla was jealous.

Madge had some weird sort of food radar, like a bat has echolocation, for she picked up on Darla’s thought and raced away, shouting, “One more
O
rgy for the table, coming up!”

“Now I
really
want to sit over there,” Dylan said, struggling to shove Trevor out of the booth. Trevor scrambled out, too, and came over to Darla, hands on her shoulders, kneading muscles made of stone.

He bent down and whispered, “You okay?”

All she could do was nod.

“And you could totally take her,” he added with a raspy voice that made her grin.

Damn straight.

As Madge returned with an enormous sundae that made Laura’
s stomach ache
, her phone buzzed again. Alex and Josie disappeared, and the table was overrun by penises at the appearance of the delectable ice cream ex
tr
avaganza.

“Ours wasn’t nearly as good as this,” Joe moaned as he bit into chunk of toffee brownie.

Worried it might be Cyndi, Laura reached into her purse and retrieved her phone. It was an email, but it looked like the second email from the same address. Weird. While the guys picked the sundae clean, and Darla relaxed with Trevor and Joe on either side of her,
L
aura figured this was as good a time as any to let everyone de-escalate and calm down.

She still wanted more of a talk with Darla—they’d talked about everything but their respective relationships—but the entire group could do with downtime.

The email turned out to be anything but relaxing for her, though. Whatever her face looked like as she read it must have triggered something inside Mike, because he came to her side and touched her arm.

“Something wrong?”

“An email. From my
u
ncle.”

“The one you haven’t heard from in years?” Laura had told Mike about her
U
ncle
Frank. She
hadn’t heard from him since her mom died. And even then, he’d only reached out to her for one thing: money.
 

“Yes. Him.”

“Uh oh.
That’s really weird. I was just mentioning him…
”

“
You were?” she asked in surprise. Frank wasn’t exactly a common topic for discussion.
 

“We were talking about how our parents handled learning about Jill.” Laura reached out to touch him, knowing how painful that subject was. “And Joe asked about your parents. I just mentioned you had a crazy uncle.”

Even Mike knew what this might mean. Frank was, in the kindest of terms, a ne’er-do-well. Her mother had kept him at arm’s length after he’d ruined her credit rating when Laura was in high school.