Page 128 of Gin and Lava

“What does she get?”

“My big dick.”

“She got that before this started. And she could easily ask for it again any time she wanted. It’s not like you play hard to get.”

“When I’m hard, she get,” I say with a pompous shrug.

“You’re making my point,” Ned returns. “I repeat, why did she want you to be her fake boyfriend?”

I roll my eyes. We’ve been over this. He just keeps prying like there’s some magical information he’s going to uncover, when there isn’t.

“If she’s trying to make him jealous,” he posits, “you’re not the holy trinity.”

“Trifecta,” I correct.

“Thank you for that accuration,” Ned says with false generosity.

Accuration is not a real word. But Ned can’t help himself, he loves to use it to throw people off and make them doubt themselves. I’ve seen him do it in court to assert dominance. I’ve tried to look up the word several times, but I never find it. Accurate exists. Actual exists. Accuration, not so much. He loves to pretend to concede to your point, before he obliterates you with the fact that he chose that word for a reason, and you’re the idiot that needs a better vocabulary (or at least the gall to make up your own words to belittle those who don’t know any better).

“You’re right. I’m the opposite of the holy trinity,” I agree, using his tactic and throwing his words back at him. I put my hands together, pretending to pray. “A trifecta like you wasn’t available, Ned,” I snark, unclasping my hands. “Unless you were thinking about giving Olivia a sister wife and exploring the Wild West of threesomes.”

“You’d let me get naked with your girl?”

“She’s notmy girl,” I deflect, knowing he’s just trying to swirl up my emotions then sink his lawyer teeth in my neck. He’d love to prove that there are feelings in this arrangement. I’m the guy who’d normally sell a kidney for a front row seat to a Ned-Olivia-Naomi threesome. But wait, if I had feeeeeeelings for her—oh, well then, I might not want to share her. “I’m not as dumb as you think.” I smirk. “I’ve been friends with you long enough to see all your twisty-turny lawyer tactics a mile away. Plus, I know you’d never let anyone near yourwife.”

Ned narrows his eyes.

“You’re getting soft, Edwin,” I criticize. “That one was too easy. Why don’t you say all the shit you want to say, and get it over with.”

Ned shrugs. Not taking my bait.

“You’ve got this all wrong, I like you and Naomi as a couple,” he says cryptically.

“Hello, one-eighty!” I call him out. “You’ve been against this from the start.”

Ned shakes his head and takes a long luxurious sip from his whiskey. “No, I encouraged this from the beginning. If memory serves, I’m the one who told you to leave my wife’s Nanna alone and hit on someone your own age.”

“Because you didn’t want me embarrassing you in front of your in-laws.”

“Again, incorrect.” Ned leans back in his chair and spreads his arms and legs like a kingpin asserting dominance. “I like Naomi. I think she’s good for you.”

“Because you felt bad for me? Because you thought I needed some out-of-my-league ass to give me a confidence? How condescending, Smurfette.”

Ned shakes his head, biting his lip at that Smurfette comment. He remembers the night he drank too many Blue Hawaiians and puked his guts out. It’s my one trump card.

“Naomi’s not out of your league,” he says.

“Bullshit!”

“If Olivia taught me anything,” he replies calmly, “it’s that no one’s out of your league if you’re in love with them.”

“Oh, wow,” I mock. Ned’s pulling out the big fancy L-word after getting married and living happily ever after with Flambé’s most fuckable hostess. This whole conversation is starting to feel like a punch in the cock. “Did the My-Little-Pony-pixie sprinkle you with fairy dust before chopping off your dick?”

Ned smiles, pointing at my snark like it’s evidence. “There’s Mason,” he asserts like I’ve taken a vacation and he was waiting for my crass-mouth to fly home with a vengeance. “You don’t have to admit it, but there’s only one reason you agreed to this arrangement.”

“Naomi pussy?” I raise my shoulders. That’s been obvious from the start. “Pussy, I happened to devour about an hour ago,” I brag, pointing around the side of the house toward the shed. “And it tasted better than whatever didactic Hallmark bullshit you’re going to spew at me in your next breath.”

“Okay,” Ned concedes. “But you might consider the fact that Naomi, the girlyoutold should only want the holy trinity—”

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