Triplets Make Five

“You didn’t answer me. What do you say to coming back to my place?”

“I’m not coming back to your place. No way.”

“Why do you say it like that? You had a good time here. You could have a great time there.”

She rounded on me. “Is that all you ever think about—having a great time?”

“No. All I ever think about is you. I told you that, and it’s true.

If you don’t come back to my place and spend the night with me, I’ll be thinking about you the whole time until you do. I’ll never leave you alone. Is that what you want?”

She snorted. “You’ll never leave me alone either way.”

I put my arms around her. “You’re right. I can’t get enough of you.”

She pried herself loose. “You were fine without me for the past seven years. I think you can go back to that with no trouble.”

I froze. “Why do you keep saying things like that? What’s bothering you?”

“Nothing’s bothering me.” She picked up her coat. “Everything’s just fine.”

‘Everything’s just fine’ my fucking ass. Everything’s just fine as long as I don’t look at her or come near her, and now that we just did it in the coat closet, she was getting weird again. I couldn’t figure it out for the life of me.

She popped the door lock to walk outside, but I held her back. “At least wait until I check the coast is clear. We don’t want anybody spotting us, especially not Charlie.”

I went out first. When I saw the hall empty, I signaled her to come out after me. I would have put my arm around her and kissed her again right there, but I stopped when I saw Charlie coming the other way. “There you two are. Come on down to the living room. I need your help with this wedding.”

“Don’t you have the whole thing planned out?” I asked.

He shook his head. “We have a taste test with the caterer tomorrow at the venue. Mandy has to go to the dress shop, and we need some more opinions at this tasting. I have my tux fitting in the morning. Could you two go together?”

She started to say something, but I jumped in first. “Sure. We’ll go. I’ll give Victoria a ride in my car.”

She glared at me. “I can’t go. I have to go to the dress shop with Mandy.”

“I already cleared it with Mandy,” Charlie replied. “She’s already got the other five bridesmaids going with her. Besides, this is just a fitting. You were already there when she picked out the dress.”

“But…” Victoria started, but Charlie interrupted her.

“Guys we really need people we trust at this tasting,” Charlie said. He looked straight at me. “Don’t make me pull the groomsmen card on you.”

I laughed, but she pursed her lips. “I’ll do it for you,” I said.

“Great.” Charlie pinched her arm and hurried away.

Victoria bared her teeth at me. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I didn’t have to offer to help your brother? Now you’re not making any sense.”

“You didn’t have to offer to take me in your car.”

“What was I going to do—take you on the handlebars of my bike?”

She took a step toward me and hissed through her teeth. “Don’t start making your stupid little jokes. You knew I wanted to go with Mandy, and I just said I didn’t want to see you again.”

“You never said anything of the kind,” I shot back. “You said you didn’t want to spend the night with me at my place. If you really don’t want to see me again, you’ve got a strange way of showing it by fucking me in the closet back there. If you didn’t want to see me, all you had to do was say so.”

“You knew I planned to go with Mandy tomorrow,” she spat. “Now you’ve ruined everything.”