Mike noticed and called her off. She gave in with an irritable groan and lay down by my feet.

Conversation through dinner and dessert wasn’t heavy, we didn’t share life stories and I didn’t tear up again. We talked (mostly about our kids), we laughed (mostly about our kids) and he proved again he was easygoing and easy to be around.

Then he took my bowl, ordering me to fill up our wine glasses and he left the room. I did as he ordered and was taking a sip when he got back. He sat down beside me, took my glass out of my hand, set it on the coffee table, put his hands to my pits, dragged my ass across his lap and over then I was on my back and he was on top of me.

Then we were making out on his couch.

I wasn’t certain how I managed to get myself into these situations, fucking Joe on his couch that morning, making out with Mike on his that evening. But I was certain I wasn’t doing a lot to avoid them. I figured, partially, it was because both, in their own way, were pretty freaking magnificent. The other part was that I liked being with both men. I liked it in entirely different ways, but I still liked it.

His mouth moved from mine and his face disappeared into my neck. I felt his tongue trail from the back of my ear down the line of my neck where he stopped and while I shivered, he asked, “Where’re your girls tonight?”

“At home, hopefully not throwing a wild party with boys and kegs.”

His head came up and he was grinning when he looked at me. “That something they would do?”

“Kate, no, Keira, yes, once she figures out kegs exist. Kate would be running through the house trying to get people out or cleaning up and fretting the whole time that someone would break a glass or knock over the TV. Keira would be in the kitchen, not a care in the world, shot gunning beers.”

He was still grinning when he asked, “Yeah?”

I grinned back and shook my head. “No, they’re both good kids. They’re probably watching a movie while Kate texts Dane, who’s out with his friends tonight, and Keira texts everyone in three counties. But I know Keira, there’ll come a day when my house will look like the day after in a 80’s Brat Pack movie.”

“Weird Science,” he said on a smile.

“Sixteen Candles,” I one-upped him.

“You need to get home?” he asked and I looked at the clock on his shelves.

It was eight thirty. I didn’t need to get home and, even though it made me a terrible person, being on the couch with Mike who I liked too much in a way that was so confusing I couldn’t unravel it in a million years, I wanted to be home late, just in case Joe was watching for me.

“No,” I replied when I looked back at him.

“Good,” he muttered and his head came back down.

We made out more and it got heavy, mainly because we both liked it, but the progression was slow, natural, strangely like we’d fooled around on his couch hundreds of times before and when we did it, we always knew we had all the time in the world. This was a change from Joe, a nice one but one that reminded me of Tim, who also took his time, and I’d liked that too.

Eventually Mike’s hand curled around my breast and his thumb slid over the fabric of my blouse at my nipple.

I sucked in breath against his lips and arched my back to press into his hand.

“Sweetheart,” Mike called and I realized my eyes were closed so I opened them.

“Yeah?” I whispered, his eyes got soft, his lids lowered and his mouth touched mine as his thumb slid back across my nipple and I inhaled again.

“I wanna fuck you, honey,” he said quietly and I held my breath, wanting him to and not wanting him to, both at the same maximum strength.

He went on. “Right here or I take you to my bed. But before I do that, we gotta talk.”

“Okay,” I whispered, unsure about this talk because I was pretty sure what this talk was going to be about.

His hand left my breast and he fell to his side, rolling me to mine with his arm around me and he got up on an elbow, head in hand and looked down at me while he tangled his long legs with mine. I decided to get up on my elbow too and I rested my other hand on his chest.

“You ready for this?” he asked softly and I closed my eyes, drew breath into my nostrils and remembered he was a really good guy.

I opened my eyes and replied, “I don’t know.”

“We can go fast, we can go slow, I’m good with both. What I’m not good with is us goin’ fast when you wanna go slow but you not sayin’ anything, yeah?”

I nodded.

Then he spoke again and my entire body went solid because what he said introduced the part I knew he wanted to say.

“I’m also not big on sharing.”

“What?” I asked even though I knew exactly what he meant.

“Cal was at your house today.”

Shitshitshit!

I tried to be casual. It wasn’t like it was 1890 and I had to make sure no one saw my ankles. These days, women played the field just like men.

Right?

“Yeah, he was,” I affirmed, even though he was there, Joe was there and I was there when Mike asked me over for dinner.

“What was he doin’ there?”

“Fixing my garage door opener.”

“He do a lot a shit around your house?”

“Um… just the alarm system and the garage.”

“Things still complicated?”

The answer to that question was, more than ever.

Except, after that afternoon when Mike asked me to his house right in front of Joe and Joe didn’t blink, he didn’t freaking care, not even a little bit, maybe they weren’t.

I just didn’t want to admit it yet, even though I knew at the back of my mind and at the bottom of my heart, I knew.

I also knew, when I uncomplicated things, it would hurt a lot more than it should and more than I could take right then.

“He’s wound you up,” Mike said on a sigh.

“What?”

“Cal, he’s wound you up. Women get like that with him.”

“They do?”

“Yeah, the whole history… women love that shit.”

“What whole history?”

Mike stared at me then he asked, “You don’t know?”

“Don’t know about what?”

“About Cal, his wife, his Dad and his kid.”

I felt my body twitch and I whispered, “His kid?”

Mike stared at me a second then muttered, “Fuck.”

“Fuck what?”

Mike didn’t answer.

I got up on a hand and looked down at him. “Fuck what, Mike?”

Mike pushed up too then, with his arm around me, he pulled me further up the couch to the armrest. He leaned back against the couch and pulled me to him, into his arms, my chest pressed to his, his hand in my hair.

Then he said in a way I knew he didn’t want to say it, “The story is ‘burg lore so someone’s gonna tell you, might as well be me.”

I waited.

Mike spoke again. “You know Feb and Colt’s story? How they were the big item in high school, even before, everyone said they were born to be together?”

I nodded.

“Well, Cal and his ex-wife, Bonnie, they were that way too.”

I blinked, not believing that, not for a minute. Not about the emaciated, lank-dirty-haired, filthy-slutty-clothed Bonnie who crashed to the floor after offering the tall, huge, strong, amazingly beautiful Joe the opportunity to take her up the ass if he paid for it.

“That can’t be true, I’ve met Bonnie, she’s –”

I stopped talking when I saw Mike’s face register out-and-out shock. “You met Bonnie?”

“Yeah.”

“Cal’s Bonnie?”

I didn’t like to think of her that way but I still answered, “Yeah.”

“Jesus, how’d you meet her?”

“I was over at his house, she came over.”

“You have got to be shittin’ me.”

I shook my head and said, “No.”

“You sure it was Bonnie?”

I nodded my head and said, “Yes.”

Mike looked away and he muttered, “Jesus Christ.”

I was confused and I explained why. “It wasn’t pleasant but I got the impression it happens a lot. She was asking for money.”

Mike looked back at me and he looked pissed. I’d never seen him look pissed and it was kind of scary. Not Joe-pissed-scary but still, pretty freaking scary.

“She came to Cal’s house and asked Cal for money?”

“She was wasted, and high, a total mess.”

“She wanted money for drugs,” Mike surmised.

“Or booze.”

“No, Violet, she wanted money for drugs,” Mike stated firmly and I stared at him.

“Okay,” I replied slowly.

“She’s a junkie,” Mike informed me.

That wasn’t surprising, she definitely looked and dressed the part, not to mention acted it.

“I guess so.”

“No, she is. Look up junkie in the encyclopedia, sweetheart, Bonnie Wainwright’s picture is right there. The bitch has been a mess for years.”

It seemed out of character for Mike to refer to anyone casually as a bitch so I started to get scared.

“Maybe you should tell me the story,” I suggested.

“Nab our wine, honey, we’re gonna need it,” Mike ordered, I didn’t take that as a good sign but I twisted out of his arms, nabbed our wine off the coffee table and came back, giving him his and taking a sip from mine.

Mike shifted a leg under me so he had one foot to the floor, his thigh angled on the seat, me mostly in his lap, partly between his legs, his other leg the length of the couch, still tangled with both mine.

This was a comfortable position, one of safety, togetherness.

It didn’t register on me as I braced for Mike’s story.

“Like I said,” he started, “Bonnie and Cal were an item, like Feb and Colt. But Bonnie’s Dad was an asshole. Big wig at the church, holier than thou, but not so holy, he didn’t go home and beat the shit outta his wife and kid.”

I closed my eyes and dropped my head.

“Yeah, sucks normally but this was bad and I mean bad. Asshole didn’t try to hide it. Both of ‘em on a regular basis walked around with their eyes blackened, lips split and swollen, arms in slings, limpin’, holdin’ themselves funny. Christ, I was a kid, one year ahead of Cal at school, we went to the same church and I saw ‘em all the time and even I knew what they caught at home.”

I opened my eyes and looked at him.

Mike kept talking. “Everyone knew but those two were so cowed, they never called the cops, no one could do shit about it if they didn’t report it and they didn’t. She was pretty back then, Bonnie was, God, beautiful. All the boys thought so, even young, in junior high. But she only had eyes for Cal and he only had eyes for her. They started it when they were young, twelve, thirteen, somewhere ‘round there. Never apart. Always together, Cal and Bonnie, after they hooked up, I never remember seein’ one without the other.”

Mike paused and I didn’t say anything mainly because I couldn’t say anything so he went on.

“Cal was helpless to save her from her Dad, drove him crazy, he acted out, got trashed, did shit, got into trouble, lots of it. She wasn’t with him, he was carousin’. But Bonnie was somethin’ else. Minute she hit high school, she went wild. Partying, out all the time, missin’ school, drinkin’, smokin’ pot, doin’ anything she could do to forget home. Started with that, got worse, acid, coke, crack, whatever she could get her hands on. Cal was her boyfriend and he turned into her bodyguard. He cleaned up his act, drove her where she wanted to go, looked after her while she had the time of her life, got her home safely. It was like he knew she needed that escape, her rebellion, and he was gonna give it to her but make sure she was safe while doin’ it. The minute they graduated, they got married. They got married the same fuckin’ day. Drove straight down to Tennessee and did it. Came back, moved in with Cal’s Dad, she never went back home, far’s I knew. Even if she wanted to, Cal wouldn’t let her. Everything he was was about protectin’ her from that shit and gettin’ her clean, he acted like it was the only reason for him to breathe.”

My mouth was dry and I needed to blink but I couldn’t. I was frozen, staring at Mike but he wasn’t done. Not even halfway.

“Cal’s Dad was a wreck, lost his wife when Cal was a kid. When she was gone, he lost his will to live. He held down a job by some miracle since he was drunk most the time. Loved her, though, people still talk about it, especially with what happened with Cal and Bonnie, how ole Joe and Cal are cut from the same cloth, one-women men. Joe lost Angela and his world caved in, he didn’t have the strength to dig his way out. Cal lost everything and he dug himself out, walked away but he’s never goin’ back.”