“All she does is sit on the couch, nurse Jillian, and read.”
“What else can a breastfeeding mom do? She’s attached at the nipple,” Alex interjected. Madge appeared with two plates of fried pickles, a pitcher of water, and glasses for everyone.
“Coffee?”
“Yes!” they all hissed. Dylan shoved a pickle in his mouth and promptly spat it out, raking his palm across the table to grab the water pitcher. Frantic hands poured ice water and he shoved the glass to his mouth.
“Do I really have to tell a grown man who has been coming to this diner for nearly a decade that a plate of fried food straight from the kitchen is hot?” Madge said in a disgusted tone.
“Ad dow by tug id bunt,” Dylan whined.
“Whatever. Your tongue will recover. Here’s the dipping sauce.” Madge set down two cruets. “The.Sauce.Is.Cold,” she said slowly to Dylan, then rolled her eyes, marching off.
“Her compathun ith udduhwhemming,” Dylan sputtered.
“Dat waskly wabbit went dataway!” Josie answered, pointing at Madge’s rapidly moving form, now filling another table’s coffee mugs.
Alex elbowed her. “Milk,” he said to Dylan. “Some milk will help.” Pushing the cream pitcher to the poor suffering guy, Alex looked at Josie and said, “Speaking of compassion...”
“It’s his own fault!” She pulled the platter of fried pickles closer. “Besides, more for me.”
“Ad least I don’t need a fully-functioning tug these days,” Dylan said after cooling it off with water and milk. “Nod in bed.”
Josie pushed the platter back to the center of the table. “C’mon. That was just mean,” she said, deflated.
“I know.” Dylan’s evil grin made her grab the plate back. No way he was winning this one.
“If you’re having problems in bed,” Alex said, carefully dipping one pickle chip in the sauce, holding it in his hand to cool off, “maybe Laura needs to see her gynecologist in case she’s having pain or dryness issues.”
Josie stuck her fingers in her ears. “Lalalalala can’t hear you talking about my friend’s vagina like it’s a motor on a car.”
“If it were, the engine would be seized,” Mike said quietly.
“LALALALALALALA!”
Dylan took the mature route, surprising Josie. “Laura already went. Everything is fine. Lube isn’t an issue; we bought practically a 55-gallon drum of it a few months ago.”
“There’s a visual,” Alex said, dropping his chip.
“See? You’ve grossed out an OB-GYN, guys. Congratulations. That takes some effort.” Josie dipped a now-cooler fried pickle into the creamy green sauce in front of her. The taste was exactly as she imagined, only a thousandfold better. Who knew you could combine avocado and horseradish and produce this?
“I never said I was grossed out,” Alex protested. Josie was too involved in the savory delight assaulting her tongue to argue.
“Is this just something we have to suffer through?” Mike asked Alex. Sad puppy-dog eyes made her heart go out to him.
Her hand, on the other hand, reached greedily for another piece of pickle.
“Six months postpartum? For some women, yeah—they’re still not that interested. Especially if she’s exclusively breastfeeding.”
“She is,” sighed Mike.
“What are we talking about in terms of lack of interest here?” Alex asked.
Josie gagged audibly.
“Once a week?” Alex continued.
Dylan snorted.
“A...month?”
Mike cleared his throat. “We’ve had sex twice since Jillian was born.”
“HOLY SWEET JESUS!” Josie shouted. Thank goodness she’d finished swallowing, because the shock of that little detail would have required Alex to perform the Heimlich if she’d still been chewing. “What on earth is wrong?”
“That’s not quite true,” Dylan said, turning to Mike. “There were a few blow jobs—”
“STOP!” Josie ordered, just as Madge delivered plates filled with cannoli, a crock pot of what must be the mac ’n cheese, and an array of delights.
“Blow jobs, huh?” the waitress cracked. Alex turned beet red. So cute he could blush under circumstances like this. Josie wasn’t sure if he could get any sweeter.
But right now she wanted to kill him as he so dryly talked about Mike and Dylan’s penises as if they were commodities. And Laura’s vagina were a department store shelf.
An empty one.
“TWICE?” Josie couldn’t get over that one. Sure, she’d had dry spells herself. But not while living with Thor and a guy who looked like a romance novel cover model.
“Nothing wrong with two blow jobs,” Madge muttered as she walked away.
“See why we called you?” Dylan said plaintively. He reached for the ice cream sundae and stuffed a spoonful of creamy cold sweetness in his mouth, closing his eyes. Josie imagined it was the closest to sex he’d come in, well...a lot longer than she’d imagined.
“Poor Laura.”
Alex looked at her like she had two heads. “Poor Laura?” He gestured to Mike and Dylan. “How about poor them?”
“Poor everyone,” she conceded.
“Not poor me,” Alex whispered, his hand snaking around her waist, sliding up her ribcage to—
“Hey!” Dylan snapped. “No PDAs.”
“What is this? Catholic school?” Josie snuggled up against Alex’s warm form. Scrubs were thin enough to show that he was pretty warm for her form, too. She patted Alex’s hand. He took hers and put it on his thigh. Nice and high. Then squeezed. Twice in six months? Try six times in one week. Even that wasn’t enough these days, with Alex’s crazy work schedule. Mike and Dylan had every right to look so sad, but now Josie was on high alert about her best friend. Time for an intervention of some sort.
“Might as well be,” Mike grunted. “We’re celibate.”
“And not by choice,” Dylan added, now halfway through the sundae.
“What are you doing about it?” Josie demanded. “Do you give her breaks? Compliment her? Take her out for nice dinners? Give her massages?”
“Buy her a nice new sex toy?” Alex added.
Josie’s turn to blush. “That doesn’t work for everyone.”
“Works for you!” he said. “Snaps you right out of a bad mood. That fourteen inch—”