Chapter 6
My date was sitting at my mother's dining room table.
"This is Troy," my mother said as I stood frozen in the doorway. She popped up from her seat and joined me, wrapping her arm around my waist and gesturing toward him. "I thought this would be a great way for all of us to get to know him. Make it a little easier on you, you know?"
"Easier," I said, barking out a laugh. "This is easier?"
In all of my wildest dreams, I'd never imagined my mother would leap this far into my romantic life. This was several steps beyond swiping and proof that no good deed went unpunished. Not a one.
Agreeing to this experiment was a gesture toward assuaging my mother's concern for me. It wasn't something I would've adopted on my own and now I had to do it as performance art.
And do it while my brothers watched.
"Wait," my brother Ash said, holding up his hand, "I thought it was Trent. Since when are you Troy?"
"I thought it was Trevor," my brother Linden said, shaking his head as he stared into his beer. "Fuck if I know what's going on here."
"And I thought it was Sunday dinner," I said. "Not speed dating."
"It's not speed dating," my mother argued. "There's only one of him."
"Trey," Ash yelled, pointing at the deer in headlights. That deer had the privilege of being my date for this gathering. What a treat for him.
"Travis," Linden replied, barely looking up from his beverage.
"Tristan," Ash continued, still pointing at the dude.
"Triton," Linden said.
"Truman," Ash replied.
"The two of you," my mother called, waving her hand at my brothers. "We have a guest. Stop being a-holes."
There was one thing I knew to be absolutely true about these men I'd shared a womb with: when presented with an opportunity to be assholes, they took it.
"Trace," Linden continued.
"Targaryen," Ash roared, as if throwing down some Game of Thrones made this shitshow more amusing.
"Trapper," Linden said.
"Tracker," Ash replied.
"Treat," Linden said.
"Tremain," Ash added.
"Tremont," Linden said.
My father walked into the room, took one look at the verbal food fight underway and turned right back around. Always predictable, my father. My parents were opposite sides of the same coin. She was outgoing and expressive. He could go days without speaking to anyone.
"Tripp," Ash said.
"Tron," Linden replied.
"Trotsky," Ash said.
"Now you're just being flaming a-holes," my mother said. She glanced to me with a sympathetic frown. "They were fine before you got here. They were talking about hockey."
"Hockey. The great uniter," I mumbled.
"Trader," Linden said.
That stopped my oldest brother. "What? Like, as in Joe?"
My date held up both hands as if attempting to keep the raptors at bay. "It is Troy," he said, sliding careful glances at my brothers before smiling at me. "Hi."
That single word packed many others in with it. There was "Holy shit, are they done yet?" and "What the actual fuck is happening?" and "Can this get worse? Please tell me it can't get worse."
"Hi," I replied, attempting to force a million apologies into that lame greeting.
"I'm Troy," he continued. "I didn't realize this was a family dinner and I thought, well"—he ran a hand down his face—"I thought you'd know about this. I thought I'd been talking to you. I'm sorry. This wasn't, I mean, it's not—"
"It's not your fault," I interrupted with more patience than I currently owned.
"That's a fair assumption." I shot a mildly enraged glance at my mother before smiling at Troy.
"Would you give us a minute?" I didn't wait for a response, instead yanking my mother into the hall bathroom and slamming the door behind us. "What the hell is going on?"
My mother seized this opportunity to tuck my hair behind my ears and rub a saliva-wet thumb over my chin. "I saw Troy on one of the apps and I liked his profile. He seemed like a good catch."
I rolled my hand in front of me, wanting more information. "Based on…what, exactly?"
She lifted a shoulder and then turned her attention to picking invisible things off my shirt. "Nice photos, nice bio, nice job. He likes dogs too."
"What does he do?" I asked.
"Real estate developer. He does very well for himself," she said with the type of self-satisfied head bob that told me I'd have to thank her for this injustice later.
"It's Sunday dinner," I started, "and you didn't mention we'd be having any guests today. Don't you think I would've pulled myself together a bit more if I'd known there was a dude coming to dinner?"
She glanced down at my tunic and leggings and then fingered the unwashed ends of my hair. "You're beautiful and perfect the way you are." She licked her thumb and ran it over my brows. "If he doesn't love you with a scraggly pedicure, then he's not the one."
I swallowed a sigh. "But I don't reveal the scraggly pedicure until date four or five, Mom. It's kind of like seeing each other first thing in the morning or acknowledging that everyone poops. It's not getting-to-know-you material."
She brought her hands to my shoulders with a tight smile. "Let's mix that schedule up a bit, shall we? Worst-case scenario, your brothers arm wrestle over the guy's name and he runs off like his hair's on fire."
"It would be awesome if there was something between respecting my schedule and my surprise date running from our home with his hair on fire." I gave her a manic grin. That I wasn't screaming at her was a victory. "So awesome."
"It's good to want," she replied with a shrug.
"So help me," I said, wagging a finger at her, "if I come for dinner someday to discover I'm a contestant on The Bachelor, I will put you in an old folks' home when the time comes. Maybe sooner."
"You'd miss me too much." My mother opened the bathroom door and gestured to the hallway. "Come on, now. Let's not leave Tiberius—"
"Troy," I interrupted.
"Whatever," she murmured. "Let's not leave him out to dry. Your brothers, they can be real a-holes when they want to be."
"Speaking of which," I said, stopping outside the dining room. "You're welcome to direct any of this matchmaking energy toward them."
She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "They're young for their age. They're not ready for anything serious. But you—you're ready."
With that, she shoved me into the dining room.
"Hi," I said to him, drawing the word out into eight syllables as I planned my next move.
I'd greeted the guy at least forty times now but what else was I supposed to do here?
I exchanged a glance with Ash and Linden as I sat down beside Troy.
They offered little more than innocent shrugs and shit-eating smirks in response. "How's it going?"
My date shifted toward me, smiling, and made a reasonable attempt at giving me a once-over without leering. Ten points to Gryffindor.
"Great, great," he breathed. "Sorry about the confusion. I thought—I guess, I didn't know—"
I held up both hands. "It's fine. Not your fault. Not at all. You have no reason to apologize." I pinned my mother with a harsh glare. "She knows what she did."
"Hush, you," my mother chided. "If nothing else, Trevor—"
"Troy," we chorused.
"—will get a home-cooked supper tonight. Young people don't get enough stick-to-your-ribs meals anymore. Not with all the delivery food and celery juice and chia seeds."
"Okay. Yeah. That's great," Troy said. "Great."
"Everything is great," Ash added from across the table. If the evening continued at this pace, I was going to strain my eyes with all this glaring. "Really great. The greatest."
I shot him a stare before turning back to Troy. "So, Troy," I started, "thank you for joining us today. I hope your family doesn't mind that we've stolen you from them for the evening."
"No worries," he said, laughing. "My parents live in Montana."
"That must make the Sunday dinner commute a lot longer," Linden said.
"Assuming you're beholden to a Sunday dinner routine," Ash added. "Clearly, we are, but we realize this might not be your way of life."
"What with the twenty-five-hundred-mile commute and all," Linden said.
Troy nodded as he considered this. "Yeah, we've never maintained that kind of tradition. I guess—"
"Because ranch life didn't allow it?" Ash asked.
Troy let out a startled laugh. "Oh, that's funny. No, I didn't grow up on a ranch. I'm actually from one of the biggest cities in Montana."
"Is that so?" Linden asked.
"No ranching, then?" Ash asked.
"The man said no ranching," Linden replied.
God help me. There was a reason first dates didn't take place at the family table.
"Common misunderstanding," Ash said. "Not all Montanans are ranchers. Some are city dwellers."
"Very common," Linden agreed.
"Perhaps the most common," Ash said.
"It happens," Troy said, laughing. Somehow, he was grinning. He hadn't bristled under a single moment of this ambush and I had to hand it to him. Putting up with this set of circumstances and smiling through it took a mile-wide sense of humor. He pointed at my brothers. "Excuse me for asking but—"
"No. We're not twins," Ash said.
"We're triplets," Linden announced. He patted his chest then pointed to me and Ash. "The three of us."
"Oh, great," Troy said. "That's so great."
"Really great," Ash added.
"The greatest," Linden said with a snicker.
My mother bustled into the room with my father in tow and set several platters on the table.
My father glanced at the four of us, shook his head, and dropped into his usual seat.
He motioned for Linden to pass the sausage.
If I knew anything, it was that he'd eat, exit, and avoid the shit out of these hijinks for the rest of the evening.
"Dig in, everyone. I'll be back with the rice," my mother called.