Quadruple Duty

“Yes, trying,” she reiterated. “We obviously need to know if we’re compatible. Hell, you might not even like me. Or I might not like you...”

She looked at Ryan when she said this, as if making her point. Damn, I prayed he didn’t screw this up for us. Despite getting off on the wrong foot with each other, I was hoping he would at least give her a chance.

“So you’ll move in?” asked Kyle.

“Yes. I’ll grab some stuff. Stay here for the week.”

Ryan’s arms were still crossed. “And what exactly happens during that week?”

“I’m your girlfriend,” Sammara said with a shrug. “We hang out. Do things. You take me out, we make conversation, we laugh and have fun… you know, boyfriend girlfriend stuff.”

My body stiffened, and I couldn’t hide my grin. I liked the sound of all of that.

“But no sex,” said Sammara.

Awwww shit.

“At least not for the first week,” she went on. “With all that pressure taken out of the equation, we can find out if I’m a good fit for you. And if you’re a good fit for me.”

Kyle grinned. “But I already know I’m a good fit for you.”

“Oh you shut up,” she smirked back at him. “You know exactly what I mean.”

I had to laugh. I could tell she liked Kyle, and Kyle liked her. At least that was a good start.

“So you’re our girlfriend…” Ryan offered snidely, “but you’re not our girlfriend. We can’t touch you. We can’t kiss you—”

“Oh you can kiss me,” Sammara replied sweetly. She walked over to Ryan again and I winced. “You can kiss me all you want.”

She leaned into him. Looked back at him again, just as she’d done before.

“You just can’t have me,” she told him, face to face, nose to nose. “At least not yet...”

I was still marveling at how overall incredible she was. Physically she was stunning; long beautiful legs and the smoothest, most unblemished ivory skin. Her face was beyond pretty, but stopped short of angelic innocence beneath two intelligent, arching brows that were three shades darker than the rest of her hair.

She reminded me of Emma, actually — a girl I used to know back home. Moriches was a small town lost in a big place, but in that part of Iowa everyone knew everybody. Emma had always caught my eye — a ball of sarcasm peeking out from a big blonde mane very similar to Sammara’s.

I’d just never gotten around to asking her out, though.

And I’d always regretted it.

“So that’s the first rule,” she continued. “The second one is that you bear with me. Obviously I’ve never done this before, dated more than one guy. Much less three or four…”

Her face was flush with what I knew was excitement. That was good. It was a great sign.

“I don’t know how many other girls have answered your ad, but—”

“Other girls?” I laughed. “What ot—”

Kyle kicked me as Sammara’s back was turned, ending my sentence. He shot me a deadly look, then held up a closed fist indicating I should stop. So I stopped.

Other girls?

As crazy as it sounded when Kyle first brought it up, the whole idea of sharing a girlfriend was exciting to me. I’d shared just about everything else with these guys, including the places we’d lived. We’d traveled together, fought together, bled together. So why not share the same woman?

In theory it made sense. Especially when you considered our track record for past relationships. Kyle and I had toured Afghanistan together, both in the same unit, with basically the same job. We’d also both returned State-side to the same thing: our girlfriends (or in his case, his fiance) had moved on while we were gone. Run off with someone else, leaving us high and dry.

And hurt. Don’t forget hurt.