Finding Middle Ground

Part Three - Stuck in the Middle with You

Summary: did I mention, my favorite writer plots by the "what's the worst thing I can do to these characters?" rule.

Location: an illegal sublet, etc. etc.

Mood: country music. The music of pain.

Rating: NC-17 for the way kids today talk when MM isn't around.

Her cell had collected five messages -- Tyler, Lacey, Tyler, Tyler, and Lacey -- in the two hours she'd been away from it. She didn't have the courage to play them. It took all her battle-hardened, Sensei-Ping-trained nerve to go home at all instead of hijacking a plane to Cuba.

Noser was tuning up on the landing outside the elevator, as usual. "Hey, Wendy Watson."

"Hey Noser." She almost never took a turn at Stump the Band. Torn between two lovers. "Feelin' like a fool."

His Zen calm rattled. Noser shook his head regretfully. "Breakin' all the rules."

"Yeah. I got that." Wendy hoped against hope that she could be alone with her first-person-shooter for a while.

Some chance. "Dub-dub!" Lacey hit her just inside the door with a cross between a hug and a flying tackle. Wendy managed not to respond with Leaping Water or anything equally lethal.

Lacey let go, grinning a mile wide. "So, are you nervous or excited? You look excited. You should see your aura, charkas lit up like Broadway. What are you going to wear?" She paused for breath. And kept pausing. "He caught you, right? Tyler?"

Not inside the MiddleQuarters he didn't. Wendy's jaw dropped. "Lacey, the hell?"

"You got the messages, right? I know, surprise. But he couldn't resist telling me while we were hanging around waiting. So he's at work, he goes Wendy is into sushi, maybe I can afford the good stuff now. And Manservant Neville goes, I have a corporate account at a great place, in Osaka, and Tyler goes …"

"I am a total shit." Wendy shed her purse and jacket. "God, I am evil."

Lacey took a step back. "You didn't get the messages. The struck-by-lightning vibe. It isn't one thing to do with Tyler, is it?"

"I didn't mean to." She sat down on a plastic milk crate. "Okay, I meant to but I didn't think he'd take me up on it. I thought I was kidding. Sort of."

"You cheated on Tyler."

Damn best-friend telepathy, anyway. "I cheated on Tyler. Or I've been cheating on him, with Tyler, and I didn't know it. Oh man…"

Lacey knelt down beside her. "Wendy. Tell me the truth." She locked eyes. "God. Pillow Lips."

"They're not all that pillowy close in, just medium really …"

"You cheated on Tyler with Pillow Lips."

"I kind of rocked him like a hurricane, to be honest…"

"Uh-huh." Not Lacey's voice. Not even close.

Wendy sat up, heart pounding. Tyler Ford had a tuxedo. And a bottle of champagne in his hands. And a look like she'd shot him in the gut.

He moved out of the doorway, the muscles in his jaw working. The sweet-starving-musician hurt look shifted. Then Tennis-Bracelet-Guy was glaring at her, and Wendy wondered if he was in charge for good. "I like how you like your job. I even like how you like your boss. But I'm pretty sure don't fuck him was understood in there somewhere."

Wendy stood up. "Okay, I had that coming."

"I know I don't fuck my boss, and he's a pretty nice guy too…"

"Tyler."

"Pays well, and truth is I think he may swing a little bi, the rumor mill…"

"Tyler, I'm sorry."

"Yeah?" He clutched the champagne bottle like a grenade. "Which sorry is that? 'It was crazy, it was once, I just quit my job and I'm never going to see him again' sorry? Or 'you're a nice guy, you'll find somebody better, we can still be friends' sorry?"

Lacey had both hands over her mouth, backing away, eyes streaming tears. Neither of them knew she was still there. The silence stretched.

"Gotcha." Tyler set the bottle down on the floor, fingers working with the effort of not throwing it. "Sorry you got caught sorry."

"I wasn't going to lie. I hadn't figured out how to tell you."

"Yeah. Get the words just right and it won't hurt. Monica said something like that too." The musician was back in his eyes. "Doesn't work. Do me one favor, though. Don't give me the pity-sex offer, about we don't have to be exclusive. I never wanted to play well with others. Definitely not from the minute I saw you."

Neither would he. Wendy's eyes were blurring. "I know you don't deserve this."

"Good for me." A sick grin. "Mind if I keep the wine? He probably doesn't drink anyway."

Tyler wanted a way out besides a breakup, she knew. He'd forgive her in a heartbeat, really forgive, if she'd choose him. But that would mean saying goodbye to the Middleman. She wouldn't be able to work side by side after this and be a good girl. Goodbye to the work. Wendy was surprised to find that the decision was already made, and that work had tipped the balance.

Tyler read it in her eyes; he knew her too well. Still. Always. "Maybe if you'd met me first," he whispered.

Maybe. She loved him as much as ever, and it would be sheer cruelty to say so. "Goodbye, Tyler." It's got to be goodbye. Otherwise we'll kill each other.

Then he was gone. Wendy's composure held after the door closed; ten seconds, twenty. He'll be out of earshot by now. She sank down, on her hands and knees in her good work clothes, weeping.

Cool arms around her. "Dub-dub, sweetie." She buried her face in Lacey's shoulder. "Men suck, all of them. They aren't worth it."

"Yes they are." Wendy sniffled and hugged Lacey back.

"Well, don't tell them. Not even Pillow Lips. They can't handle the truth."

She felt a different trickle of fear, just as cold. "You were interested in him, too." If I lose one more person today, I'm jumping off a cliff.

Lacey pretended to think about it. "Yeah. I was going to ask, what about that no-dating policy at work?" But she grinned. "That is a world-class chest. And considerate ... lots of pretty on the inside, too." Lacey shook her head. "But he's not all pretty, is he?"

The mobster's face had gone crunch on the side of the car, while her new boss babbled like the Milk Marketing Board. "No. Honest, brave ... not all pretty."

"I could see him keeping things back, trying not to scare me off," Lacey said. "But you're not afraid."

I'm getting dangerous too. Wendy looked down at her hands. She hadn't done it yet, but she knew sixty sets of moves for killing an armed man with them. She wondered if Lacey would see the change when it happened, fear her too. "No. Never afraid of him. Maybe for him."

"Better you than me, then." Lacey gave her a companionable shove on the shoulder. "So. Breakup survival plan number three, ice cream and Reaper Madness?"

"Out of ice cream." Wendy felt a bit more like herself. "Two-A?"

"We watched Hugh Grant last time. Plan one?"

"I think Noser has our Willie Wonka disk. Brand new plan. Sangria punch, hold the punch, and Manos the Hands of Fate."

"You're right. You're evil." Lacey patted her cheek. "Maybe with a box of kleenex. Movies of that suckitude might make us cry a little."

"Nothing wrong with a little." Thank God for best-friend telepathy. "I'll make the punch," said Wendy.

Author's Notes:

1. Never ever throw a bottle of champagne. I wasn't kidding about the grenade metaphor. The combination of compressed gas and glass shrapnel has killed people, no lie. Tyler of course had no such intentions.

2. God bless the Laceys of this world. How would any of us survive the date-and-breakup cycle of post-college life without one?