Page 14 of Friends with Benefits

“Tripp!” came a high-pitched call. “Come here.”

“Almost done,” I answered.

“We want you to read us a story,” came another voice.

“I’m sorry,” said Ember as she appeared at the end of the hall. “I tried to convince them I was perfectly capable of reading a story, but they want you. According to Molly, you do the voices the best. There wasn’t any telling them different.”

I dried my hands on a dishtowel and put the leftovers in their Tupperware containers in the fridge. “You don’t have to do that. I don’t mind at all.”

She retrieved her daiquiri and drank deeply despite all the ice being melted. “Proceed at your own risk,” she warned. “They seem like they’re nice little girls, but they can be pretty demanding.”

Ember screeched when I flicked the dishtowel at her legs. “Sounds like they take after their big sister.”

“Hey!” she protested behind my back.

I laughed on the way down the hall to the room she shared with the twins. That’s another thing I admired about her. She didn’t have anything of her own and didn’t whine about not having any luxuries. She even shared her room with the twins without complaint.

Somehow, they’d managed to cram a small set of second-hand twin bunk beds in the tiny space along with a large dresser and double bed for Ember. Her bed was technically a mattress on the floor. She’d admitted to me that when the twins outgrew their cribs, she’d sold them and her bed frame in order to get their bunk beds.

“They deserve to have as normal a life as possible,” she’d explained when I asked why she was sleeping on a mattress.

It never ceased to amaze me how she did without when other women her age always seemed to want more—especially from me.

“Tripp!” the twins greeted. They were both snuggled together on the bottom bunk in matching, albeit slightly small, cartoon pajamas.

Molly held out a book. “Here, read this one,” she said.

Goodnight Moon.

My mom had read this to me when I was younger. I wondered who had read it to Ember? Somehow, I couldn’t see either of her parents reading her a bedtime story.

The twins made room for me to sit beside them, and damned if it didn’t make my heart melt the way they had their arms wrapped around each other. How their parents could fail so spectacularly when they had such wonderful children, I didn’t know.

I began to read, and by the end, their eyes were already drooping. “Again!” they demanded. I didn’t mind. At the end of the second read through, they were fast asleep. I carefully got to my feet and tucked their blanket around them. They were still snuggled together, inseparable even though they could each have their own bed.

“They do that so easily for you,” Ember complained from the doorway. She must have snuck up during the second read-through. “They always fight sleep when it’s me.”

“It’s my charming demeanor,” I told her.

“Right,” she drawled. “Speaking of, shouldn’t you be out somewhere on a date or something?”

“And miss Tequila Tuesday? Not a chance.”

“I thought it was Taco Tuesday this time?” she said quizzically.

“That was for the girls. I brought the tequila for grown-up time.”

She smiled, but it faltered. “You could always go now,” she said softly.

I snorted and went to the counter to make more drinks, this time with margarita mix and a healthy dose of tequila. I thought we both needed it. “There isn’t anywhere else I’d rather be,” I said.

She shook her head but accepted the drink I handed her. “I don’t get you.”

“What’s there to get? I’m not a complicated man.”

A blush painted her cheeks. “Never mind.” She drank deeply from her margarita. I tried not to stare at the way her tongue flicked out to lick away the salt on the rim of the glass.

Instead of thinking about it, I mixed up my own and did the same.