“She’s right. You are being an asshole. Something wonderful happens that you can’t understand and you’re automatically trying to find the worst-case scenario and make that your reality. I feel sorry for you, man. I really feel sorry for you.”
“But no way could this be happening!”
“Yes, way, it can and did. There’s no denying it happened. Who the fuck cares why it’s happening? I don’t. All I care about is this woman was brought into our lives and we might actually have had a chance to be happy with her until you just went and fucked it up.”
Brad turned, near tears himself, and headed downstairs.
Chapter Ten
Torn and confused in addition to being frightened out of his wits, Ellis looked at the closed bedroom door before looking at the stairwell. No, he didn’t know what was going on. And yes, his brain had latched on to it being some sort of scam on Mandaline’s part.
He’d never dreamed how wrong he was about possible motives on her part. And now, even though he did think she was attractive, now she was convinced he hated her.
He closed his eyes. Fuck. I don’t think I could have screwed this up any worse if I’d tried.
He followed Brad downstairs. Brad wouldn’t even look at him, much less talk to him, so Ellis gave up trying. They rode home in silence.
At the house, Brad stopped by the kitchen to take his meds before heading up to the attic and closing the door behind him. Ellis heard the TV come on and knew Brad wouldn’t be making an appearance downstairs again anytime soon.
He locked himself in his room and undressed before crawling into bed. He felt like a real shit.
I need to apologize to her.
But the sensation of the hallucination repeating there in her kitchen, the same one he’d experienced earlier with Brad, had freaked him right the hell out.
He heard the attic door open and the sound of Brad coming downstairs. But instead of stopping and going into his room, Brad continued down to the first floor. Then he heard the sound of the side door opening and closing.
“Brad?”
He got up and went downstairs. He stuck his head out the side door, but saw no sign of him. “Brad!” he yelled into the darkness.
After a few minutes of indecision and mosquitoes trying to come into the house and bite him, Ellis closed the door. He left it unlocked, unsure if Brad had his keys or not.
He went back up to his room, feeling even worse. Not only did I hurt Mandaline, who’s done nothing but try to be nice and helpful, not to mention been through hell the past week, but I’ve also hurt my best friend.
He went back to bed and knew sleep would be a long time coming, if at all.
* * * *
Brad angrily stewed as he walked. In his back pocket he carried the folded-up drawing. He needed to talk to Mandaline, alone, and see if there was any chance whatsoever of salvaging a relationship with her.
For the three of them.
He knew, given time, Ellis would apologize. He wouldn’t leave the angry words he’d said hanging in the air for all times as the final statement. If Brad knew anything about his friend, it was that Ellis hated hurting people’s feelings.
Especially in a case like this.
Whether or not Mandaline would allow them in her life again remained to be seen. Julie had begged him to get up and go see her tonight, to walk there, not to call her and give warning he was on his way. He couldn’t ignore her plaintive requests.
He also knew he couldn’t pursue a relationship with Mandaline that didn’t also include Ellis. He couldn’t force the two of them together.
He walked into the night, his anger fading as he left the house farther behind him. Ellis was in a lot of emotional pain. Over what had happened to him in the Middle East, over the accident. Guilt Ellis refused to put down despite Brad’s repeated attempts to get him to do just that.
He wanted Ellis to be happy. He knew they could be happy, all three of them together, with Mandaline at the center of their lives.
He’d seen the vision in the kitchen, too. His dick had immediately hardened against Mandaline’s ass as the vision hit. He’d hoped for a few seconds, until Ellis had his meltdown, that their evening would end in Mandaline’s bed.
Something finally occurred to him as he walked. “Did you make me get the condoms?”
Julie, however, remained aggravatingly silent on that matter.
He sighed. He couldn’t force her to answer him any more than he could force Mandaline and Ellis to mend fences and try again.
* * * *
Mandaline waited twenty minutes, until after she’d finished cleaning up the kitchen and the dishes, to walk Pers. She also turned her phone off in case Brad tried calling or texting her.
She knew Ellis damn sure wouldn’t.
I get my frakking hopes up about a guy, hell, two guys, and look what happens! Just more proof to her that she should have stuck to her guns in the first place.
Eschew love.
That was the safest bet. To keep her heart protected. If there was a guy willing to work himself through her defenses, he would.
He damn sure wouldn’t do something as ludicrous and offensive as accusing her of drugging him and being a gold digger, to boot.
She locked herself in and set the alarm after Pers finished his business outside. At least she’d decided how to finish her evening. Up in the kitchen, when she looked in the fridge, she found an opened bottle of blueberry wine in the back. She and Julie had started the bottle three weeks ago, each of them having a small glass with dinner one night.
She fished it out of the back of the fridge, popped the cork, and carried it back to the bedroom with her.
Fuck the glass. I’m drinking alone. I can get drunk alone in style.
She undressed and crawled into bed, with Pers on one side and Damiago on the other. She propped herself up with pillows, started channel surfing, and took a long pull straight from the bottle. It only took her twenty minutes to empty the contents. She tipped it up, letting the last dregs drip onto her tongue before she set the empty bottle on her nightstand.
She had a nice buzz going.
Fuck both of them. They could have had me screwing their brains out tonight.
She’d drifted off to sleep to M*A*S*H reruns when something woke her up.
She sat up, wobbling a little under the grip of the wine’s influence.
Pers also sat up, ears cocked.
“What was that?”
He let out a bark and bolted out of bed for the stairwell.
“That’s it, Lassie,” she said. “Did Timmy fall in the well again?” She let out a drunken snort.
Then she heard it, a pounding sound, like someone knocking on the back door.
She stumbled out of bed and grabbed for the wall as the world spun around her.
Oh, yeah. This is why I don’t drink. She had an extremely low tolerance for alcohol.
Yep, definitely someone knocking. She barely remembered to grab her bathrobe and pull it on before carefully making her way down the stairs with a death grip on the railing for support.
Whoever it was wasn’t going away. Now downstairs, she could hear the muffled sound of a man’s voice calling her name.
She lurched for the back door. “Who is it?” she yelled.
“It’s Brad. Please, Mandaline. I need to talk to you.”
Oh, she wanted to talk to him, all right! To give him a piece of her mind. She almost forgot to turn off the alarm before she fumbled the door’s locks and got it opened.
He stood there in the light of the almost-full moon.
“He better not be with you.”
He shook his head. “He’s not. I walked. May I please come in and talk to you?”
She snorted. “Fine.”
She stumbled as she stepped back. He caught her.
“Are you okay?” He helped her back to her feet.
“I’m fine except that men are assholes!” She poked him in the chest. “Even cute ones lik
e you. And…and him.”
He frowned. “Are you drunk?”
“Betcher ass I’m damn drunk!” She shut the door and locked it. She meant to dramatically whirl around and yell at him, but she overshot, her feet refusing to cooperate as she nearly smacked face-first into the door.
“Whoa, hold on there, kiddo.” He grabbed her and scooped her into his arms and carried her toward the stairs.
She poked him in the chest again. “Fucker thinks I drugged him? Whaddafuck’s wrong with him?”
* * * *
Upon seeing her condition, Brad felt horrible.
“She can’t handle her alcohol,” Julie sadly said. “She’s in a lot of pain.”
He carried her upstairs as Mandaline drunkenly raged at him. “I didn’t ask fer dis ta happen! I didn’t ask to fall fer two hunks or have…have great make-believe sexy time with you…or…or…” She burst into tears. “Or fer my best friend to get murdered!”
He tried to hold back his own tears. Even he could feel the waves of emotional agony washing from her, finally unleashed by the liberating effects of the blueberry wine Julie told him she’d drank. When he carried her back to her bedroom, he didn’t even feel the slightest bit surprised to realize it was the bedroom from the latest visions.
She sobbed against his shoulder as he gently put her on the bed and lay down next to her, shoes and all. He’d spotted the empty blueberry wine bottle on the bedside table from the light of the TV.
Ellis would be ready to be committed if this was him.
For his part, Brad now took anything Julie told him as a matter of fact. He refused to deny what was happening.
He refused to make excuses.
Mandaline clutched at his shirt as sobs wracked her body. He held her close, his face buried in her hair and his arms securely wrapped around her. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “I’m here. I’m not leaving you.”
So much for the conversation he’d wanted to have with her. He’d wanted to show her the drawing, tell her about the trip to the store for condoms.
Obviously, like Ellis, she had things bubbling below the surface, waiting to explode. The night’s events had pushed her past her breaking point.
She cried herself to sleep in his arms. He knew he couldn’t sleep. For one thing, despite the circumstances, his cock remained hard and straining against the front of his jeans. In her sleep her bathrobe had fallen open. He had a perfect view of her left breast and the dark pink areola topped by a deliciously perky nipple he longed to wrap his lips around.
Pers stared at him from the other side of the bed. “Where’s the remote?” he whispered.
The little dog’s ears perked up. He cocked his head at Brad. Then he burrowed into the sheets next to Mandaline. Brad heard the dog’s claws scratch against something plastic. Carefully, Brad reached over Mandaline to where the dog was digging and found the remote.
“Thanks, buddy,” he said, a smile finally breaking through.
The dog wagged his tail and let out a soft chuff before settling down.
Damiago glared at them from where he’d moved to the far corner at the foot of the bed. He lay curled nose to tail, one half-open green eye shooting him a baleful stare.
Julie laughed. “He likes you.”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“He didn’t try to claw you or growl at you. He likes you. Trust me.”
“If you say so.” He flipped through the channels until he found the DIY Network and settled in for the duration.
* * * *
Mandaline dreamed about Julie, about turning around in the front of the store to see her friend standing there, healthy and whole and alive.
She let out a happy cry and threw her arms around her, tears streaming down her face. “I knew you weren’t dead!”
Julie smiled but didn’t address that. “You need to give him a second chance.”
“Who?”
“Ellis. You need to believe.”
“Screw Ellis!” She grabbed Julie’s arms. “You’re alive!”
Julie sadly smiled. “They are your future, sister. Promise me you’ll believe.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to understand. Just believe.”
The scene faded, Mandaline helpless to stop it from changing. She now ran through a darkened wood, feeling like she was being chased by an unseen pursuer. As she ran she grew more frantic, more scared, until she emerged in a clearing.
She recognized the house. It was Ellis and Brad’s house, but looking like it must have appeared before they began renovations.
The world felt dark and grey, muted tones, except for the bright flash of red hair Mandaline spotted disappearing through the side door of the house.
“Julie!”
She raced after her, desperate to catch up, no longer looking behind her.
Up the stairs, to the second floor, to Brad’s room. Mandaline raced through the door behind her, but Julie wasn’t there.
“Where are you?” She rushed to the closet door and threw it open, wondering if her friend had hid in there, but she found nothing but a blizzard of sketches and wadded-up paper.
Then she heard Julie’s voice from the back of the closet. “Believe.”
“Julie!” She fought her way through the mass of papers, startled to find herself falling out the other side and into the attic.
Brad’s artwork lay along the walls, but all the paintings looked dark, depressing. She realized she’d emerged in the attic through the little door behind the sofa, which had been pushed out of the way.
Mandaline turned and screamed. “Julie!”
“Believe,” Julie’s voice drifted to her.
Mandaline sat up with a start, gasping, tears still damp in her cheeks.
Beside her, Brad propped himself up on one elbow. “Are you okay?” he softly asked.
Wrenched from the dream, she felt disoriented…and more than a little hungover. “What…what?”
He sat up. She noticed he was fully dressed, and she was in her bathrobe…which hung open. She felt her face heat as she quickly pulled it closed and retied the belt around her waist.
“Are you okay?” he softly asked again.
“How’d you get here?”
“I walked. I pounded on the door downstairs and you came and let me in. You were drunk.”
Ohhhh…yeah. She put a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes, hoping the world would stop dangerously spinning. “How did you get in bed with me?” She carefully cracked one eye open to look at him.
He wore a sad smile. “You were bound and determined to fall over and do hand-to-hand combat with the floor. I carried you up here, you cried yourself to sleep, and Pers and I have been watching DIY Network. I didn’t want to leave until I knew you were okay.”
“What time is it?”
“After three.”
She groaned again. “Give me a minute to wake up and I’ll drive you home.”
“No, you won’t. You’re in no condition to drive. I can walk.”
“At this time of night? Call a taxi.”
He shrugged. “I don’t mind walking. It’s cooler. And safer than in the middle of the day with a lot of traffic.” He gently took her hands in his and kissed them. “I’m really sorry about what happened tonight.”
“Don’t you apologize for his sorry ass.”
“I’m apologizing that you were hurt. That’s not who Ellis really is. He’s scared and desperate to find a logical explanation that isn’t there.”
“Yeah?” she grumbled. “Well, he can go screw himself. I don’t care how cute he is.”
He released her hands and got out of bed. “Do you feel steady enough to come lock me out?”
She didn’t want him to leave. She wanted him to stay in bed with her. To get naked, in bed, with her.
She moved over to the edge of the bed. “Do you have to go?” She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face against his abs. His warmth flowed through her,
but no sexy visions.
And she felt how hard he was.
He stroked her back. “Unfortunately, yes, I need to go. You’re not in any condition for us to talk tonight. And you have the tree planting tomorrow, rather today, and your full-moon gathering.”
She looked up at him. “How did you know about the gathering?” When he didn’t answer, she sighed. “Julie’s talking to you again.”
“Yep.”
“I dreamed about her,” she whispered, reluctant to let go of him.
“I suspected.” He kissed the top of her head and gently untangled her arms from around him before stepping back. “I’ll see you tomorrow. You need to sleep.”
She carefully got to her feet. “I’ll come lock the door.”
“You sure you’re okay? I don’t want you falling down the stairs.”
She felt a little woozy, but not too unstable. “I’ll be okay.”
She followed him downstairs to the back door. He stopped and turned to her, a serious expression on his face. “I really want to get to know you better. I want to make those visions come true. More than you’ll ever know. I also know it won’t work unless it’s all three of us. He’s going to have to come to his senses and you’re going to have to be able to forgive him for how he acted tonight.”
She stared up at him, stunned into silence.
He leaned in close, but not touching. “I know you’re scared. I’m scared, too, more than you’ll ever know. I love you. I know that, even if it sounds crazy and even though we hardly know each other. And I love him. I know you can love both of us. I believe that with all my heart. I also know if you and I try to make this work without him, it just won’t.”
“Believe,” she whispered.
He nodded. “That’s what she told me.” He reached for the door and opened it.
“She?”
She didn’t need to ask. He looked at her over his shoulder, the answer written on his face. “Good night, Mandaline. Lock the door.”
In a daze, she did. She staggered her way upstairs again and fell facedown onto bed. She didn’t even bother turning the TV off before she closed her eyes and crashed into blessed darkness with Brad’s scent lingering on her pillow.