Page 92 of Third Wheel

Terrible timing on her part, really. She waited for everyone to tell her that she was being stupid or that she was just rebounding, but that didn’t happen.

“Finally!” Sam clapped her hands together. “I thought it was going to take way longer for you to realize that.”

“It took longer than I thought it would,” Morgan said, picking one of the olives out of her salad and handing it to Avery, who immediately popped it into her mouth, smiling approvingly at Amy.

“You three really do seem perfect together from what we’ve seen,” Domi said, gesturing to herself and Rae. “We didn’t want to intervene, though I bet Brian and Mitch finally say something to the boys about it.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what Brian planned to do because he assumed that’s why Zach was texting him,” Rae said.

Amy looked at Iris, who was the only one not jumping in with some kind of opinion. Iris shrugged, raising her hands palms up.

“Don’t look at me. I don’t know any of y’all well enough to think anything.” She paused. “Though you would make a very cute throuple. And if you ever want to talk to another throuple, I know Jessica, Justin, and Chris would be happy to talk to you.”

Well, that was good to know.

Amy looked around the room. Apparently, no one was going to stop her. Fine, then.

“I’m going back,” she announced. Then she looked at Morgan. “But I can still come sleep on the couch if I need to, right?”

“Of course.” Morgan smiled at her. “Any time.”

That was the backup plan; Kincaid and Zach might not feel the same about her.

But maybe the reason she felt compelled to ‘fix’ them wasn’t because she wanted to fix everyone… maybe she felt compelled to fix them because they belonged together, and they belonged to her.

Kincaid

The doorbell rang, causing him and Mitch to pause the videogame they’d started playing and look at each other.

“Were you expecting someone?” Mitch asked.

“No.”

Putting down the controller, Kincaid got up to go see who it was, so they didn’t start shouting through the door the way Mitch had. He peeked through the eye hole, but all he saw was the back of someone’s head, as though they’d turned around after they’d rung the doorbell.

Opening it, he saw that he was correct—and she spun back around to face him as the door opened.

“Amy.” Sheer relief poured through him at seeing her back at the door before a thought occurred to him, and he frowned. “Why are you knocking?”

She bit her lip, shrugging and looking incredibly uncomfortable.

“It felt a little weird just walking back in after… after this morning. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about me coming back.”

Glad. That was how he felt. Glad and more settled, like she was supposed to be here, and now that she was back, at least one piece of the puzzle had been slotted back into its space. She belonged here, as much as he and Zach did, even if it had taken everything falling apart for him to realize that.

“Come on in,” he said, opening the door wider and stepping back. “I’m glad you came back.”

She walked in but came to a halt when she saw Mitch getting up from the couch. “Oh… I thought…”

“You thought…” Kincaid put his hand on her back to keep her from turning and running out the door, subtly pressuring her to keep moving inside.

“I thought Mitch was Zach for a moment.” She sighed. “I’d hoped he’d come back, too.”

“Not yet.” Kincaid still had no idea where Zach was. Not much he could do about that, though. Would he be back? Would things change? He didn’t know.

“I’m going to get out of here,” Mitch said grinning, moving quickly enough that Amy couldn’t protest.

Kincaid wasn’t going to try to. As glad as he was that Mitch had been there to help him through the day, what he needed to talk to Amy about was better done alone.

---