The Hero Next Time: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 4)

Chapter Nineteen: Lauren, Friday

Session two. 

"I'd like to make a complaint," Joe said. "My wife is now asking my lover to have a three-way with me, and I'd like her to cease and desist."

"Oh, God," Lauren groaned, hiding her face in her hands. "I told her not to tell you, I was just throwing out ideas for how we could get close again."

"I'm not interested," Joe said, "so get that out of your head. You know what my condition is for us getting close again."

"Time out!" Penny Watson shouted, making the T with her hands. "What the hell are you both talking about?"

"On Monday, I called Joanie to check into something for me as a police officer," Lauren said, peeking out between her hands. "Joanie asked how the house hunting with Rachel and Al was going. That got us on to you and me," she said, turning to Joe. "I was trying to even the score, you know, with our relationships."

"This isn't a f... this isn't a game," he said, catching himself before using profanity, remembering Penny's admonition from last time. "I don't care about how many you've had or I've had. This is about trust, and my issue with Al isn't that you've had him and that I haven't had another woman in compensation." He shook his head in disgust. "Jesus, both you and Rachel now have offered this--"

"Rachel?" Lauren asked, surprised. "When did she offer this?" She really didn't want to talk about her ill-fated conversation with Joanie on Monday, but this revelation made her curious. Rachel had never told her she'd offered Joe anything.

He grunted in frustration. "Oh, you know, back in August, before I moved out. We were driving together to Barnet Marine Park to meet the police and get Logan back. She'd just confessed to me that the three of you had been together, and thought I might feel better if I did something similar, even offering herself to me in whatever way I wanted, either threesome or one on one. This is how much she loves you, Lauren, that she's willing to offer herself to me to keep me with you, as f... as screwed up as that logic is."

Lauren felt sick to her stomach. This was not how she'd envisioned starting this session today, which she'd booked earlier in the week to keep the momentum going, because she'd thought the last one had gone so well. "I never asked her to do anything of the sort," she said. "I wouldn't even want that."

"Oh, you don't want her being with me?" Joe asked, with a kind of triumphant smugness that made Lauren hate him a little. "Maybe that'd be wrong? Like you being with him?"

"No, it's just... okay, maybe it's a little like that... but what I really wouldn't want is her offering herself to you out of some duty to me. Good Lord, that's about the very last reason she should be having sex with you."

Joe harrumphed and said, "The way she framed it, I don't think she would have considered it a terrible imposition. Our time together out there in the wilderness still resonated with her, as evidenced by that and other conversations we've had out of your hearing."

Lauren felt gut punched. It was hard for her to breathe at the moment. "Why are you saying these things?" she asked, feeling tears in her eyes. "Is it your intention to hurt me?"

"You're asking that as if it was a picnic listening to you last week, talking about how you suddenly couldn't keep your hands off Al, and discovering I was an unwitting participant in those shows. Did you think I wasn't hurt?"

"I don't know..." she said weakly. "I was just explaining how it all came about. You asked me why I could do what I did when I was supposed to love you. I was honest. I'm sorry I hurt you, that wasn't my intention."

"No, of course it wasn't," Joe growled. "That's what's so infuriating about all of this. You never mean to hurt anybody, because you don't think of anybody when you go after what you want. You just think that, because you're so damned cute, no one will deny you anything, no matter the pain it causes them."