“Mrs. Harper St. John?” he quizzed as he extended two boxes.
“Um, . . . sure. Thank you, let me get you a tip,” I said, knowing there was no sense in arguing with the boy. He didn’t know one of the two mad men ping ponging in and out of my life had ordered the pizza without my knowledge, and he didn’t need to hear the sordid details.
“I’ve already been tipped. I was told to make sure you knew that.”
“Well, thank you again,” I said, accepting the boxes.
I closed the door and walked the boxes over to the kitchen table. Sure enough, there was a cheese pizza. The smaller box contained lemon pepper wings.
“Go wash your hands, Cam,” I told my son as I walked over to the counter to get my phone.
It took a minute for me to find Jordy’s number in my call log, but when I did, I hit his contact. I opted to text him since I didn’t want Cam to hear our exchange.
Me:
I don’t need you to feed us, Jordy.
JoJo:
I think the correct phrase is thank you, Harper. Has my baby forgotten her manners?
Me:
I haven’t forgotten anything. That’s the problem. And there’s no Mrs. St. John here.
JoJo:
Do you prefer Mrs. Doctor Jordy St. John? I actually do, but you’ve been known to refer to me as possessive.
Me:
I’m not playing with you right now. Goodnight, Jordy. Thank you. You really didn’t have to do that.
JoJo:
Anything to lighten the load. You and our little genius enjoy.
I sighed as I put my phone down. I could already see that this was about to be a musical chairs event of them taking turns showing up to wear me down. The crazy part about it was, I was almost intrigued to find out what happened next.
I pulledup in front of Harper’s grandmother’s house just in time to see the taillights of my brother’s car racing down the road. What the hell was he doing here? I could only imagine how salty he was after I told him Harper and I were having dinner tonight. He didn’t let on, as usual, but I saw the way the fire danced behind his eyes. I loved this shit.
I knew how he felt about Harper, which was why I stood down, for the most part. I’d met Harper first, but in an attempt to get out of tutoring, I sent my brother in my place. Who would have known he would fall for the same girl that I was trying to get with? After a couple of weeks of back-and-forth, we discovered that we had both been seeing her. Not only that, but she also thought we were the same dude.
When JoJo confessed that he was in love with her, I didn’t know what to do. I had fallen for Harper too. Unlike my brother, I wasn’t exactly in love, not at first anyway. That didn’t mean I wanted to let her go. I still wanted her. For a while, I blocked like hell, making sure I was always there when she came around and being a third wheel.
There was something about Harper that I couldn’t get enough off. She was feisty but sweet. She was smart but still kind of street. She wasn’t from our neighborhood where all the girls were stuck up and hell bent on marrying rich. Harper was down to earth and didn’t give a damn that we came from a little money.
Even at eighteen, her pretty ass had us wrapped around every one of her fingers. She made me and bro treat her like the queen she was, and I loved that shit. I admit I pretty much forced them into a three-way relationship. It actually worked for us and lasted right up until me and Jordy were about to graduate from med school.
Our thing worked for us. We weren’t just lovers. Together we were a unit built on late night study sessions, inside jokes, and shared secrets. Forcing Harper to choose would have meant breaking us all.
JoJo and Harper were exclusive, but she and I had more of an open relationship. For some reason both JoJo and I got off on watching Harper with each other. We fucked women together over the years, but no one was like Harper.
She made me want to be good and do good by her. She respected that I liked my freedom, and they both agreed that as long as I kept it clean, I was good with stepping out now and then. My girl wasn’t jealous because she had JoJo when I wasn’t around. We made sure of that. Harper was the only woman I would ever take seriously, so anything I did on the outside didn’t matter to me.
Over time, she went from a girl I liked to a woman I loved and cherished. It didn’t matter that she and my brother were madly in love. I loved her, too, and she loved me just as much as I loved her. I was prepared to let JoJo have her. I planned to let them live happily ever after without my interference after our last hoorah.
Jordy wanted to marry Harper. He wanted the whole family and children thing that I knew I wasn’t built for. After the shit that went down with my parents, I knew I never wanted to get married. I just wanted to show my brother a good time one last time before he made the plunge. My stupid mistake cost both of us the woman we loved.
