By some miracle, George was gone before I returned. Something about a meeting. I couldn’t care less. I was just glad he was gone. There was absolutely no reason for him to treat me that way. At least it was in front of an audience. He usually tried to save that crap until you were alone so it was your word against his. Not that I’d do anything about it, but it was nice to have the option.

I had a to-do list a mile long and, before I knew it, it was quitting time, and I practically flew out of work. Not only did I want to be there less than pretty much anywhere, I had guys to get ready for. My apartment was small and tidy, but it could use a quick vacuum and fresh towels. Not to mention that, while I was sure he was just being an asshat, George’s comment about my body odor had me needing to take a shower. If I was going to snuggle up on the couch with the guys, I didn’t want to repel them with any unsavory odors. And darn me for letting that jerk get under my skin like that.

I was halfway to the bus stop when my phone began to buzz. A smile bloomed across my face as the name Curtis stared back at me from the screen.

“Hello,” I answered with my best sexy voice, or at least my best attempt at sexy.

“Hello, Maddie, it’s both of us.” The echoing and voices coming through the speaker phone were awful, almost as if they were in a mall.

“Hey, guys. Looking forward to tonight.” Probably a little too excited given the low-key plans, but the idea of spending the evening with just them sounded better than anything else my brain could conjure.

“That’s why we are calling.” Curtis’s voice was off. Crap, they changed their mind. I stopped at the corner, not wanting to cross just yet. “Something came up back at home.”

“So you’re leaving.” I knew from the first night that they were temporary, so I should’ve been more prepared than I was from the way my stomach dropped.

“Only for a few days,” Parker echoed in my ear along with someone shouting about a cheeseburger. “We’ll be back before you know it.” It was a promise, not a nicety. They would be back.

“We wouldn’t leave if we didn’t have to,” Curtis added as if he feared I didn’t believe him. The truth. Always. That was what we decided. Silly man. “A drunk ran the stop sign and drove into the front of our house, and we need to take pictures, file paperwork, and such.”

“That’s awful.”

“It could’ve been worse. We were here and not sitting on our couch when it happened.” I envisioned Parker doing just that and squeezed my eyes shut, willing the vision to go away, the horror of it too much, just too much.

“So much worse,” I mumbled as I pressed the walk signal, the sounds of gate something or other being announced filling my ears. Shit. They were leaving right then and there. “You’re already at the airport.” I failed at schooling my disappointment.

“We are.” Parker sounded just as saddened by it as I was. “We didn’t want to call you during work because of what happened earlier.”

“Never let George change your mind about anything.” He was such a little turd. “He’s not worth it.”

“He’s your boss.” Curtis the Logical. Not that he was completely wrong. Curtis was right, but hopefully not for long.

“I was actually hoping to change that. A promotion opened up in another department.” I didn’t quite meet the qualifications but had double the experience desired and was in-house, so I had a shot.

“They’d be fools not to select you.” Parker was too stinking sweet.

The speaker squeaked again. The whole speaker phone thing in the airport was less than ideal. We’d have to think up a better way to three-way conversation in the future. I was sure my techy beau could whip something up.

My. I thought of him as my guy, my beau. Both of them. They were mine. Mine. It rolled around in my mind again as the speaker squeaked yet again.

“That’s us. We have to go. Stay safe.” Curtis mumbled to someone before a beep filled my ears. They were boarding.

“I plan to. You also.” The thought of something happening to them, amplified by the knowledge of the accident at their house, hurt.

“Rain check?” they both asked at the same time, and I smiled, wondering if Curtis put Parker up to it or the other way around.

“Absolutely.” To be cashed in the very second they returned if I had anything to do with it. “We were talking about getting a month-to-month rental there when we got the call. No pressure. Just wanted to be upfront.”

They were in. Like all in. Apartment-on-this-side-of-the-country in.

“I am more relieved than pressured.” It was the truth. That one little nugget of knowledge meant so much more than anything else they could’ve said.

“Because it meant we really were coming back?” Parker’s question caught me off guard. They had been so upfront with their intentions, had I been holding mine back too much?

“Something like that.” More like everything like that. I needed to make all things clear during our next date. I owed them the same courtesy they gave me. “Did they just announce seat belts?”

“Maybe.”

They totally did. Parker’s coyness only solidified it.

“Shoo and let me know when you get there safely.”

“We will. Night, beautiful.”

“Night.”

I hung up just as the light to cross changed. I was in so much less of a hurry to go home now that it was to an empty apartment.