“Or you could.”
“But my bed is really great,” he argues. “It’s big, firm but not hard . . .”
I immediately see where all our future problems lie: we are both stubborn homebodies. “Yeah, but I want to get in my own bathtub and use every single bath product I own and have missed for these past ten days.”
Ethan kisses me again and pulls back to say more, but his eyes flitter over my shoulder and his entire demeanor changes. “Holy shit.”
The words sound echoey, from a distance, multiplied. I turn to see what he’s gaping at and my stomach absolutely plummets: Ami and Dane are standing only a few yards away, holding a WELCOME HOME FROM OUR HONEYMOON! sign. Now I understand what I’ve heard; Ami and Ethan spoke the same words, at the same time.
There is a riot in my brain: just my luck. I’m temporarily unable to decide what to process first: the fact that my sister is here, that she saw me kissing Ethan, that Dane saw me kissing Ethan, or the reality that—even eleven days after they were knocked down by a toxin—they both still look positively horrible. I think Ami has lost over ten pounds, and Dane has likely lost more. The gray sheen to Ami’s complexion hasn’t entirely gone away, and her clothes sag on her frame.
And here we are, tanned, rested, and making out in baggage claim.
“What am I seeing?” Ami says, dropping her half of the sign in shock.
I’m sure I’ll examine my reaction later, but given that I can’t tell whether she’s excited or angry right now, I let go of Ethan’s hand and take a step away from him. I wonder how it looks to her: I left for her honeymoon, paid almost nothing, suffered not at all, and came home kissing the man I was supposed to hate—and never once mentioned any of this to her on the phone or in texts. “Nothing, we were just saying goodbye.”
“Were you kissing?” she asks, brown eyes saucer-wide.
Ethan tosses out a confident “Yes” just as I state an emphatic “No.”
He looks down at me, smirking at how easily that lie came out of me. I can tell he is more proud of my smoothness than he is annoyed by my answer.
“Okay, yes,” I amend. “We were kissing. But we didn’t know you were going to be here. We were going to tell you guys tomorrow.”
“Tell us what, exactly?” Ami asks.
Ethan takes this one readily and slides his arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. “That we’re together.”
For the first time, I get a good look at Dane. He’s staring directly at Ethan, his eyes narrowed like he’s trying to beam words into his brother’s cranium. I try to tamp down my reaction, knowing it’s probably just my own read on the situation, but his glare looks a lot like What did you tell her?
“It’s cool,” Ethan says calmly, and my resolution to mind my own beeswax returns, heightened by the potent mix of adrenaline in my blood.
“Everything is very cool,” I say, too loudly, and give Dane a dramatic, and probably ill-advised, wink. “Super cool.”
I am a maniac.
He bursts out laughing and finally breaks the ice, stepping forward to hug me first, and then his brother. Ami continues to stare at me in shock, and then slowly shuffles over. She feels like a skeleton in my arms.
“Dude, are you two really a thing now?” Dane asks his brother.
“We are,” Ethan tells him.
“I think I can approve it at this point,” Dane says, smiling and nodding at each of us like a benevolent boss.
“Um,” I say, “that’s . . . good?”
Ami still has not relaxed her expression one bit. “How did this even happen?”
I shrug, wincing. “I hated him until I didn’t?”
“That’s actually a very accurate synopsis.” Ethan slides an arm around my shoulders again.
My sister shakes her head slowly, gaping at the two of us in turn. “I don’t know whether to be happy or horrified. Is this the apocalypse? Is that what’s happening?”
“We could totally trade twins sometime,” Dane says to Ethan, and then erupts into a fratty laugh.
My smile droops. “That would . . .” I shake my head emphatically. “No thank you.”