Chapter 10 #3
“All three of us,” Lucky says. “We thought for a hot minute that our friend Laney’s dad was our dad because he is too, but she took a test, and we went back to square one. Until you popped up.”
She purses her lips and nods. “I’m not. And neither—neither was my mom. We used to eat them as a special treat.”
“We got to eat frog guts for a special treat,” Lucky says.
“Frog guts?”
All three of them grin.
“That’s what our mom calls Chex Mix.”
“Dude, she hated making that stuff.”
“We wanted it all the time.”
“Shit, I want some right now.”
“You think we can find somebody to run to the grocery store and bring us some?”
I watch Margie watching them, her smile softening with every word of praise that they utter about Chex Mix.
Is she faking?
Or is she really enjoying watching the three of them in their natural element?
They’re entertaining as hell on a normal day—clearly—and I doubt she sees this kind of behavior in the boardrooms and offices of her real life.
Which isn’t to say I’m softening toward her.
It’s to say I’m trying to understand her.
There’s a difference.
“Does that one app work here?” she asks them. “What’s it called? MunchieGoGo?”
“Nah, the only driver we had retired after less than a year because people tipped like crap and he made more money flashing his junk on GrippaPeen,” Jack says.
“I didn’t know Theo was the MunchieGoGo guy,” Lucky says. “Why don’t you tell me this stuff?”
“He wasn’t. Derrick Swayman did GrippaPeen too. He made money. Just not Theo-level money.”
“Theo—is that the retreat co-owner with the tattoos and baby?” Margie asks.
Again, like she doesn’t know.
“Yeah, he’s like, super famous in some circles, but he retired from GrippaPeen too when he hooked up with Laney. His wife. They hated each other in high school. You know how it goes. He was her best friend’s bad boy brother, she was the good girl in line to take over the family company…”
“Yeah, Margie knows how that goes,” I agree, since she’s also clearly the good girl in line to take over her family company.
I’ll probably hear about this later, but apparently I’m in a mood for fun too.
Or possibly a mood to keep her on her toes.
She slides me a flat look before rolling her eyes at the triplets. “A man catches you reading a romance novel and thinks he can mock you for life.”
“I’d never mock. I know what you can do to a man who pisses you off.”
She gestures to her face, her smile not reaching her eyes. “Honestly, that’s just the start, now that I know I have a brother who’s an explosives engineer.”
Jack beams at her. “I can hook you up, Margie. Just say the word.”
“Still want Chex Mix,” Lucky says, and I can’t tell if he’s missing the undertones of my conversation with Margie, or if he’s just stuck on thinking about his stomach. “They should serve it here.”
“Rock paper scissors for who goes to get it,” Decker replies.
Jack rears back, no longer happy. “Fuck you.”
Margie and I both glance at him.
Decker snickers.
Lucky grins. “He always loses.”
“Every time,” Decker agrees.
“Usually over changing diapers for our friends’ kids,” Lucky adds.
“I can go make a Chex Mix run,” Margie says.
All three of them immediately object.
Dumbasses.
They’re getting played.
“Rock paper scissors for it?” Margie says over my soft snort.
The triplets once again share a look.
“Whoa,” Lucky mutters. “This changes everything.”
“She’s not our quadruplet, dude. It doesn’t change everything,” Decker says.
Jack frowns at them. “What if she is, and Mom and Dad just didn’t tell us they didn’t want a girl?”
Margie pinches her lips together, but the giggle still slips out. “They let you use explosives?”
Lucky busts up laughing. Even Decker cracks a real, broad smile. “Hell, yeah. Rock paper scissors for the Chex Mix run. She might be worse than you, Jack.”
All four of them put their hands in.
And fucking Margie—fucking Margie—blinks fast and hard.
Because her eyes have gone shiny.
Either she’s one hell of an actress, or she meant that part she said about wanting to get to know her family.
I need to find out more about her sister and parents.
Her relationship with them.
If she might actually be that poor little rich girl looking for a place to belong.
Because that sad little boy that I was twenty years ago when my mom passed—he relates hardcore to wanting a place to belong.
To wanting a real family.
I should’ve had a family, but Felice decided my stepbrother was more her speed.
She wanted me to leave the military and move back home.
She wanted to get engaged, but then couldn’t pick a wedding date.
We finally picked a wedding date, and then she couldn’t find the right venue or the right flowers or the right cake.
But it wasn’t the wedding.
It was me.
She didn’t want me.
She wanted my stepbrother.
The stepbrother she’s already married to, barely a year after she was supposed to finally marry me. The stepbrother whose baby she’s expecting early next year.
The stepbrother she was probably cheating on me with for most of our prolonged engagement.
Margie and the triplets shake their fists three times before picking their plays, and then Decker, Lucky, and Margie all play paper while Jack plays rock.
Jack howls in outrage while Decker, Lucky, and Margie dissolve into laughter.
“You planned that!” Jack bellows.
“Dude, no,” Decker gasps.
“Couldn’t have—not that good,” Lucky agrees.
“I’ll still go get the Chex Mix,” Margie says. She’s laughing so hard she’s wiping her eyes.
And she does exactly what she’s offered.
With a smile on her face still, even when she gets back twenty minutes later.
Glowing.
Happy.
With a bag of Skittles that she offers to me, like she’s noticed that I always grab myself a bag from the staff vending machine to eat on my way home.
Fuck me.
I know it’s equally likely that she ran to the store herself, or that she had her security guy bring her the Chex Mix and the Skittles, but the way her entire body softens as she watches the triplets grab their own bags, and then the way she includes me in her smiles when I take the bag of Skittles—I can’t deny even to myself anymore how much I think I like this woman.
Lies and secrets and complications and all.