I Hid Your Triplets, Why Did They Crash Your Engagement novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Say No First

The two grandmothers had been arguing about the cake for forty minutes.

"Lemon," my mother said. "It's their birthday. They've had lemon since they were two."

"Chocolate," said Rafe's mother. "Children like chocolate. It is a known fact."

"They like lemon. Rafe's dog likes lemon."

"The dog doesn't count."

They stood on either side of my kitchen table with a bakery catalogue between them.

Teddy watched from his chair with his chin on his fists.

"I think," he said, "that one of them should be lemon and one should be chocolate. Like a vote."

"That's two cakes," Rafe's mother said, appalled.

"It's a good plan," said my mother.

They looked at each other.

A month ago I would not have predicted what happened next.

"Two cakes," they said together.

The kids cheered.

At six, my mother and Rafe's mother took all three children to Lake Forest for a sleepover, in a car with three booster seats that Rafe's mother had bought the same afternoon.

The door shut.

The duplex went quiet, and Rafe turned to me in the hall.

"I want to ask you something," he said. "And you can say no."

"Okay."

"Move in with me. The house, the dog, the three beds. Bring the kids and bring your mother's tuna recipe."

I leaned on the wall.

I wanted to say yes. I could feel it rising in my throat.

Daphne's voice came back to me, thin and sad: Say no the first time.

"No," I said.

He didn't flinch.

"Not yet," I said. "I built this. I paid the rent on this place with my own money for six years. I want to be asked when I'm sure, and I want to choose it. I don't want to be absorbed."

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