“All seven?” Jack says, and they’re off again, demanding to know how and when and which continent is Rhys’s favorite.
It’s fun watching them interact.
The triplets, I mean.
Studying their relationship with each other. Spotting the places they have inside jokes and shared stories, and the places where they’ve done their own things.
Daphne and I have more stories of doing our own things, especially the past decade or so, than we have together.
But she’s still my favorite person.
Just like you can tell the triplets are each other’s favorite people.
The evening passes too quickly, with me liking my brothers more and more with each passing minute, and before long, Decker’s asking for the bill.
I reach for my wallet in my back pocket—for cash, of course—but he gives me the annoyed look of a man who doesn’t want tohave to tell me he’s got it for me to know I need to put my wallet away.
And that makes me suck in a smile.
Not because I can afford to pay for dinner and drinks tonight, but because I swear that’s likely how I look every time Daphne has offered to pay for lunch out or the bill at her favorite cheese shop in Athena’s Rest when I’ve gone to visit her.
“Thank you,” I murmur instead of any of the number of other things I’d like to say.
Like no, really, it would be an honor to get this tonight.
Or I’d like to pay rent for your cabin.
Or can we do this again every night?
“No rock paper scissors for the bill?” Rhys asks.
“We let Mr. Big Bucks handle it and pay him back in other ways,” Jack replies.
Lucky grins. “Like being on call when he has a hypochondriac moment.”
“Which is all the time,” Jack mutters.
Decker flips him off. “Isnot.”
“Lucky, look at my big toenail. Is it a different color from my other toenails?” Lucky replies, falsetto, sounding nothing at all like Decker.
“I dropped a kettlebell on it,” Decker shoots back.
“How do you pay him back?” I ask Jack, who’s rolling his eyes at the other two.
“Research assistant when he gets super geeky in his novels, sometimes indulge his never-gonna-happen plans about accidentally shooting a firecracker at the neighbor’s house.”
“So… I should offer to clean his house?” I ask.
“Only if you want to learn more than you ever wanted to know this fast,” Lucky replies.
Jack nods vehemently. “On top of the wall of fan mail that’s honestly embarrassing, he has some weird collections that youdon’t want to stumble upon without actually liking him for who he is and also hearing the backstory, which he won’t share until you pass like seventeen more tests.”
“Thanks, guys,” Decker says. “Appreciate knowing who I’m sacrificing dating for.”
Jack and Lucky both grimace.
I glance at Rhys, who’s glancing at me, a little bit ofyeah, they’re sometimes a little far gonein his expression, which makes me swallow another smile of my own.
