Page 89 of Third Wheel

“I… I shouldn’t have yelled at Zach in the street.” That was one she was pretty sure Morgan couldn’t argue with.

“Sounds to me like he deserved it. And you were upset.”

“Yeah, but I also wasn’t thinking.” Amy rubbed her face. “I should have thought about the fact that Kincaid was out on a run. That he might be back soon. That anyone could hear us.”

“You weren’t thinking because you were upset.”

“That’s no excuse,” Amy said stubbornly, even though she knew she’d say the exact same thing to any of her friends.

Thankfully, she was saved by the bell.

“That must be the others,” Morgan said with a sigh of relief as she got up to go answer the door. Amy had texted the group chat, and Morgan had immediately told her she could come over. She’d been the first to respond. Carolyn had been second—she was out of town with her husband. Marissa hadn’t responded at all, but she was also on the other side of the country. Sam had texted back that she wanted to come help, but she was with Iris, Avery, Rae, and Domi… could she bring them?

After the humiliation at her wedding, such a small audience was hardly going to faze Amy. She’d said, ‘sure.’ Plus, she’d realized how nice it was to have so many people supporting her when she’d burned her wedding dress. She felt like she neededthe support even more now, as crazy as that was, especially with both Carolyn and Marissa being unavailable.

When everyone came in, all of them immediately moving to her with sympathy and hugs and greetings, her heart felt so happy and warm, it was hard not to feel calmer. The support, even from newer friends she hadn’t known for as long or as well, bolstered her in a way that she desperately needed right now.

“Okay, honey,” Sam said, sitting Amy back down on the couch beside her, with her arm around her. Morgan was back on Amy’s other side, and the others all arrayed themselves around the room with sympathetic expressions. “What on earth happened?”

Amy took a deep breath and started from the beginning—this morning when she’d started gardening with Zach and Kincaid had gone out for his run. Thankfully, everyone at the club knew Kincaid and Zach’s history, so there was no need to explain any of that. They all listened quietly until Amy got to the part about Zach’s parents showing up and being told that she was his girlfriend.

“No…” Iris gasped.

“What did you do?” Domi asked.

“What was I supposed to do? Out him to his parents?” Amy wrung her hands. “I don’t know, maybe I should have.”

“No, you definitely shouldn’t have,” Rae said, shaking her head.

“Might have deserved it for making Amy his beard,” Sam muttered. Then she shook her head, too. “No, because he’d just slapped your ass, right? And you were over his shoulder. They saw that.”

“Kind of hard to claim ‘just friends’ after that,” Avery agreed. “Though he could have still tried if he really wanted to.”

“Do you think he didn’t want to because he does want you to be his girlfriend? I mean, not just his, but his and Kincaid’s,”Morgan hastily added on the second part when everyone turned to look at her. “Sorry, that’s probably wrong. I’m not good at reading people.”

“Oh, I think you might be better than you think,” Sam said slowly. “I could totally believe that’s part of it.”

“Y’all, I do not need you to give memoreproblems,” Amy said, shaking her head. “Besides, I don’t think that’s true. Even if it was, I’m not done. I started yelling at him as soon as his parents left when I should have just let us go inside to talk about it… but I was so mad?—”

“Were you mad because you wanted it to be true?” Sam interjected.

Amy elbowed her in the side and ignored her, even though everyone else’s expressions appeared to agree with her assessment.

“And while we were yelling, at some point, Kincaid showed up. And we didn’t notice him.” More gasps around the room. Iris actually lifted her hands to cover her mouth in shock. “I have no idea how much he heard, but enough to know that Zach told his parents I was his girlfriend.”

“Oh, no…” Domi breathed out the words. Her husband was Kincaid’s best friend, so she probably knew him pretty well. “What did he do?”

“Started yelling at Zach, which is when I realized what I’d done, and I ran into the house to get my stuff and get out of there before I could cause any more damage.”

“And… whatdidyou do exactly?” Avery asked, looking confused.

“Other than moving in and ruining their lives with my very presence, you mean?” she asked, throwing her hands up in the air.

Morgan looked pained. “See what I’ve been dealing with? I don’t understand why she thinks it’s her fault.”

“Because she always blames herself for everything that goes wrong,” Sam said. “Don’t look at me like that. You do. You even blamed yourself for Jeremy being a huge jerk and leaving you at the altar.”

“I should have realized he was a huge jerk before we ever got to the altar.”

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