Page 47 of The Pocket Pair

“Why don’t you let us help you find someone? Someone we actually like for you. Someone who would be good for you.”

“Liza is good for me,” Collin says. But he sounds more stubborn than sure.

“What about Val?” James asks this question in the kind of voice that’s TOO innocent. It’s the voice kids use when they’re trying to kick over a hornet’s nest worth of trouble. “She’s single.”

I drop a handful of chips on the table with a clatter but refuse to look up. I’m too busy grinding my molars into dust.

Pat claps his hands. “Well, then, there you go! Can you imagine? Three brothers dating women who are best friends? Epic.”

I can imagine. And I don’t like it even a little bit.

“Val’s pretty,” Collin says thoughtfully, and I just barely manage to keep from starting the second physical fight of the night. “But I don’t know her well.”

“Then break up with Liza and ask Val out. Get to know her,” Pat urges, and the urge I had to punch him the other night comes back even stronger than before.

I wonder if I could possibly take on both Collin and Pat at the same time.

“Unless,” James says thoughtfully, drawing out the word, and now I’m wondering about a three on one. “Unless anyone here can think of a reason he shouldn’t.”

Collin and Pat just give him looks like he suddenly sprouted a tree branch from the middle of his chest. I’m glaring when James’s gaze pins me with a deadly look.

“Anyone at all.”

“She’s moving to Costa Rica,” I say, trying to sound casual and not like I’m over here trying to prevent an aneurysm.

James waves a hand. “Temporarily. She’ll be back.”

“You could write letters,” Pat says, eyes bright. “Women love that kind of thing. You were always the Shakespeare out of all of us.”

Collin snorts. “Just because I wrote one poem that made it into the high school itinerary magazine—”

“A sonnet,” James corrects. “You wrote a sonnet.”

A freaking sonnet? Do the Grahams really have to do everything well?

“Women swoon for sonnets.” Pat wiggles in his seat, resembling a giant, overgrown, annoying puppy. “So, don’t worry about the distance.”

“Any other objections?” James asks, still looking right at me.

I say nothing at all. I’m too busy picturing Val with Collin, holding hands. Val, opening letters full of sonnets from Collin, a beaming smile on her face.

Val, coming home to Sheet Cake and running right into Collin’s arms.

“Should you be thinking about this when you currently have a girlfriend?” If I sound a little rude, well—too bad.

Pat looks smug when he points at Collin. “He’s right! And the fact that you’re even entertaining the idea of someone else should tell you everything you need to know, brother. If you really wanted to be with Liza, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

James says nothing, but I can almost hear him telling me we also wouldn’t be having this conversation if I spoke up and said … what? What would I say?

It’s not like I’m going to throw my hat in the ring or stake some claim on Val.

If Collin were to ask Val out—after breaking up with his current girlfriend, of course—she’d be a fool to turn him down. The Grahams are like the gold standard of men.

While I am … I’m just …

I’m …

NOT IN THE RUNNING. Because I’m not going to date Val. I don’t do serious. I can’t do serious. I won’t do serious—same difference. Period. The end.

---