She almost floated up the stairs and into her room. Full day ahead of her, she thought, but God, she wanted to chuck it all and just flop down on the bed, kick her heels at the ceiling, and wallow.
Couldn’t be done, but she could wallow in a long, long hot shower. She stripped off her damp clothes, hung them over a towel bar, pulled out the hair clip she’d dug out of her purse to handle the mess of it. Still grinning, she stepped under the hot spray.
She was basking in the steam and the scent when she caught a movement outside the glass door. It amazed her the scream she ripped out didn’t crack the glass.
“Jesus, Laurel, it’s just me.” Mac opened the door a crack. “I knocked, then I shouted, but you were too busy singing to hear me.”
“A lot of people sing in the shower. What the hell do you want?”
“Not a lot of people who are us sing ‘I’ve Got Rhythm’ in the shower.”
“I wasn’t singing that.” Was she? And now it would be stuck in her head all day. “You’re letting out the heat. Go away.”
“What’s taking you so long?” Emma demanded as she came in.
“Parker?”
“Gym,” Emma answered Mac. “But I told her what’s up.”
“For God’s sake, has it escaped the notice of you morons that I’m taking a shower?”
“Smells good,” Mac commented. “You’re clean. Get out. We’re having pancakes in honor of the anticipated sexy breakfast story.”
“I don’t have time for pancakes.”
“Mrs. G will make them.”
“We just had waffles.”
“Oh, you’re right. Omelettes. We’ll have sexy breakfast story omelettes. Ten minutes,” Emma ordered. “The men are banned from breakfast.”
“I don’t want to—”
But Mac shut the shower door. Laurel pushed dripping hair out of her eyes. She could sneak down to her own kitchen, but they’d just come in and nag her. Resigned, she got out and grabbed a towel.
When she walked into the kitchen twenty minutes later, she found Mac and Emma already there, the table set, and Mrs. Grady at the stove.
“Listen, I have a really full day, so—”
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” Mac said piously.
“So speaks the Pop-Tart Princess. I really need to get started.”
“You can’t hold back.” Emma wagged a finger. “We shared ours, and Mrs. G’s already making sexy breakfast story omelettes. Right, Mrs. G?”
“I am. Might as well sit down,” she told Laurel. “They’ll nag your ears off otherwise. And since I’m told you didn’t get home until about thirty minutes ago, I’ve a mind to hear about it myself.”
As she gulped down juice, Laurel tracked her gaze from one face to another. “Do you all have some sort of radar?”
“Yes,” Parker said as she came in. “And if I’m getting called down before I’ve had my shower, this better be good.” In sweat shorts and a loose T-shirt, she went over to pour herself coffee. “I take it Del didn’t bolt the door and turn you away.”
“This is just bizarre.” Laurel took Parker’s coffee. “You know this is bizarre.”
“Traditions are traditions, even when they’re bizarre.” Cheerfully, Parker got another cup. “So, what happened?”
Laurel sat, shrugged. “I lost the bet.”
“Yay!” Emma scooted in beside her. “I lost it, too, but some things are more important than money.”
“Who won, Parker?” Mac wanted to know.
Parker sat, frowned into her coffee. “Malcolm Kavanaugh.”
“Kavanaugh?” Since it was there, Laurel took a piece of toast out of the rack. “How did he get in on it?”
“Somebody told him, and he cornered me at the ball game. I said no, bets were closed, but he’s pushy and persistent. Plus he said he’d put two hundred in as a late fee, and he’d pick July fifth.”
“You mean he nailed it on the button?” Mac demanded. “Lucky guy.”
“Yeah, lucky guy. I figured he didn’t have a chance anyway, as we were all going out, all going together. I didn’t expect Laurel to jump out of the van and make a run for it.”
“It was romantic.” Emma smiled. “All rushed and flushed and urgent. What happened when you got there?”
“He opened the door.”
“Spill,” Mac insisted and pointed a finger.
“You can’t be uncomfortable because he’s my brother. You and I have been friends nearly as long as Del’s been my brother. So it’s a wash.”
“Eat,” Mrs. Grady ordered and served the omelettes.
Laurel obediently took a bite. “I’d worked out the math.”
“What math?” Emma asked.
“About what days didn’t count in the given thirty. It’s complicated. It’s a formula, but I’d worked it out. Once he caught up with me, logistically, he agreed it made sense, but thought we should just forfeit the bet. So we did.”
“Weekends, right?” Mac shoveled in some eggs. “I thought about that. Weekends don’t count.”
“Exactly. And the first and last days don’t count. It gets more complicated, but that’s the gist. But in all fairness, since we didn’t set those terms, we went with the forfeit. Then we ...”
Bizarre or not, these four women were her women. “It was wonderful. I had this place in my head that worried I’d be nervous, that we’d be awkward. But I wasn’t, and we weren’t. He wouldn’t rush, and wouldn’t let me rush, so it was slow and sweet. He was ...”
When she trailed off, Parker sighed. “If you think I’d squirm because you’d say my brother is a good lover, a considerate one, you’re wrong. It’s not just skill, you know. It’s also a sign of respect and affection for his partner.”
“He made me feel that there was nothing else that mattered but the two of us, then and there. That’s all there was. And after, I could sleep with him, feeling absolutely safe, absolutely natural. That’s always the hardest part for me. Trusting enough, I guess, to sleep.”
Emma rubbed Laurel’s thigh under the table. “That’s a really good sexy breakfast story.”
“We had a little tangle this morning.”
“A sexy tangle?”
“That, too, One-Track Mind,” she said to Mac. “I needed to find my clothes in the dark so I could call a cab and get back. Full day. But he woke up, which led to a sexy tangle even though I had bed hair.”
“I hate that,” Emma muttered. “There should be an instant cure for bed hair.”
“Then he insisted on driving me home.”
“Of course.”
Laurel rolled her eyes at Parker. “The two of you have this unshakable code of conduct. Why should he have to get up, dressed, drive me when I can get myself home?”
“Because you were in his home, that’s number one. Second, you were in his bed. Good manners are just that, and don’t threaten your independence.”
“Brown Rule of Thumb?”
Parker smiled a little. “I guess you could call it that.”
“He did. Well, that’s going to have to hold you, because I have to get to work.”
“Don’t we all? I have half a million lilies coming in this morning to be processed. And the crew’s starting today.”
“Here, too?” Laurel asked.
“Here, too, according to Jack.” Emma glanced at her watch. “Any minute.”
“You will now live in interesting times,” Mac told her. “And noisy ones.”
“It’ll be worth it. I’m going to keep telling myself it’ll be worth it. Thanks for breakfast, Mrs. G.”
“It was a good story, so paid in full.”
“If things get too crazy in my space, can I shift some of the work in here?”
“You can. Emmaline and Mackensie, you called for the story. You’re on dishes. I’m going to take a walk around the garden before the hammering starts.”
Parker walked out with Laurel. “Happy’s what counts. Remember I like seeing you and Del happy when you feel weird about it again.”