Page 145 of Pretend Girlfriend

Theo held up a hand without turning to look at us. “One second. We’ve almost beaten this level.”

“Been at it a while,” Austin said in that wonderful Texas drawl. “I won’t sleep tonight until we beat it.”

“You guys want drinks?” Landon asked them.

“Whatever you’re having,” Theo said. Austin held up two fingers to signal he wanted the same.

“What are they doing here?” I asked Landon in the kitchen.

“What do you want to drink?” Landon asked, avoiding the question.

I peered into the fridge. “Actually, that bottle of Chardonnay sounds good.”

Landon frowned at me.

“What? I actually acquired a taste for white wine while pretending to like it for Danicka.”

“You acquired a lot of new tastes on that trip!” Theo called from the living room.

I snatched a granola bar off the counter and hurled it into the living room. It sailed over Theo’s head, but struck Austin in the arm.

“What’d I do?” Austin asked.

“Damnit! You made me die!” Theo said, putting down the controller.

“Good,” I replied. “Now you can explain what you’re all doing here.”

I realized that the three of them hadn’t been together since Jamaica. I’d been dating them all individually. There had been times where I wondered about combining them together; the insanely hot threesome from Jamaica was still fresh in my mind, and we had never gotten a chance to repeat it. But the guys never suggested it, so I didn’t, even though I desperately wanted it.

Seeing them all in the same place was refreshing. Especially since they had organized whatever this was.

I sat down in the chair across from the couch and sipped my wine. “Well?”

Landon joined the other two on the couch. It was almost funny, having them lined up in a row like this. As if this were a reality show about dating, and I had to give one of them a rose.

“We had lunch together yesterday,” Theo explained. “The three of us. To talk about you.”

“To hash it out,” Austin added.

“All three of us agreed that this has gone on too long,” Landon said. “It’s been two months… we need to figure out where to go from here.”

“We needed to figure out which of us care about you the most,” Theo said. “Which of us loves you the most. And we realized that we’re at an impasse.”

“None of us want to back out,” Austin said fiercely.

Theo nodded. “We talked a bit, and argued a lot. It quickly became apparent that we all love you too much to back off.”

“And,” Landon said slowly, “we think you love each of us, too.”

There it was. They had said the L-word out loud several times, both in reference to how they felt and how they assumed I felt. The moment I had been avoiding was finally here.

“I love you, Joanna,” Theo said with a big, genuine smile. “Even if we might disagree on the whole kids thing.”

Landon nodded, his face serious. “I love you, Joanna.”

“I’ve loved you for a while now,” Austin admitted. “I think I knew it in the first two weeks after we got back from Jamaica.”

To say I was shocked would be an understatement. Having a man say I love you for the first time was a rare, heart-numbing moment. Especially when you loved them back.

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