Page 89 of My Brother's Best Friends
Janet’s eyes go wide. She puts a hand over her mouth as she digests the news. “Consider me stunned.” She pauses and gives me a curious look. “Hold on, they’re identical, right?”
“No, they’re not exactly the same,” I explain, sipping my drink. “Oscar is a workaholic. He tries to be relaxed, but he really shines in the boardroom, and he knows it. Kellan is very laid back. When I first saw him in the hot tub, he was naked, and apparently that’s a big bone of contention between him and Oscar.”
“A big bone, huh?”
I swat her shoulder. “Janet!”
“It was right there,” she chuckles. “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. And while I’m impressed that you can discern the personality differences between them, it’s not what I was asking about.”
“You asked if the triplets are identical.”
“Not in character, sister.”
I stare at her for a while, then burst into laughter. “You dirty-minded beast.” I laugh so hard tears spring to my eyes. “For your information, they’re not entirely identical in that department, either. They have some… decidedly individual features.”
“Decidedly individual.”
“Stop laughing.”
“You’re making it very hard for me to sit here and not laugh, Mac.” Janet shakes her head slowly. “Did you have a good time?”
“The best time of my life,” I breathe. “Though I swear I had no idea I’d be doing any of it when I hopped on that plane. It just… happened.”
“One thing led to another,” Janet reminds me with a playful wink.
I nod again. “Precisely.”
“So why aren’t you still there? Why on earth did you come back here if you have three gorgeous and not-that-identical hunks waiting for you in Sweden?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I mutter. “Things didn’t go well at the end, and I had to leave before my heart was completely broken.”
“I’ll kill them,” Janet swears. “Just buy me a plane ticket and a revolver and I’ll finish them off one by one.”
“That’s sweet,” I reply. “But totally unnecessary. I’m over them. It was fun while it lasted, but I have a lot of work to do, and I don’t have time to dwell on what could have been.”
“Was it another woman? Or another set of triplets?”
“No, it was just one other woman, and she was horrible,” I admit, lowering my gaze. “I mean, I could see why they’d be drawn to the likes of her.”
“The obvious?”
“Tits and ass,” I mutter unceremoniously. “They said it was in the past, that it didn’t matter anymore, but it’s not what she said, and the way they kept things from me… I don’t know. I really don’t want to dig any deeper into any of it, right now.”
Janet gives me a soft, sympathetic smile. “The wound is still open, huh?”
“And still bleeding,” I press my eyes shut for a moment, waiting for the tears to subside. The last thing I need is crying over theAnderson triplets when I’ve got other, more important things to distract me. “I don’t regret any of it, I just… I just wish they’d been more honest with me, that’s all. We were friends before everything else, Janet.”
“I get it. Some men think that if they hide the crap under the rug, you’re not going to notice. But then you trip over the lumpy carpet and… guess what, you’re hurting, and the stuff still comes out in the end.”
I smile, draw a steadying breath, then take a generous gulp of margarita to jump-start my engines. There’s a reason why I asked her to meet me, and it wasn’t just to vent about the Sweden debacle.
“I actually asked you here to run a proposition by you,” I begin, hoping she won’t refuse. “I know you hate your job, and I’m grateful every day that at least two managers buffer you from the creep who used to be my boss. I just hope you’re not dealing with the same level of crap I did, though I know the environment there is still toxic.”
“You’ve got that right,” Janet agrees.
“So, what do you think about switching to remote work and coming to Napa Valley with me?” I ask, holding my breath just in case she says no.
“Napa Valley?” Janet repeats. “Like… to your family farm?”
