Complete Bliss (Her Billionaires #5.3)(29)
Author: Julia Kent

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 she 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 hand 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. It’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 variety, 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,” Laura finally said. “If Lydia could be happy with just 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 shot her a shit-eating grin.

“Aw, hell no,” Darla drawled. “You 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?” Her 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—”

“Pantry, Madge! The woman said pantry!” Alex choked out, grabbing Josie’s hand. “Not panty!”

The four men at the other table gawked at them. “I want 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.

“This is not going exactly how I thought it would,” Laura groaned, picking through the remnants in the sundae dish and stuffing a chocolate 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 Orgy 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.

Laura

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 extravaganza.

“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, Laura 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 uncle.”

“The one you haven’t heard from in years?” Laura had told Mike about her Uncle 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.