Power Drilled (Roommates, #8)(13)

“Why can’t he?” Reid said, clearly not getting it.

“Because I don’t have one.” Penny’s voice was low and quiet.

“Then why do they think you do?” My older brother could be fucking clueless sometimes.

“Jesus,” Hunter said with a loud exhale. “It’s not rocket science. Her piece of shit ex dumped her for her cousin, and now she’s got to spend the week with them. Can you blame her for saying she’s got a new man?”

Penny nodded at Hunter’s assessment of the situation. “I know I shouldn’t have, but…”

“You were trying to save face,” I said, and she nodded. I probably would’ve done the same thing in her shoes. on that point.

“I’m sorry for your situation, but there’s no way one of us could be away that much.” Reid was resolute.

Hunter rested his elbow on the wobbly table, his gaze unfocused. “There’s no way one of us could be away that much.”

Oh shit.

Reid and Penny weren’t following.

“That’s what I just said,” Reid said.

“It’s too much time for one of us to be away from the project, but what if we took turns?” The gleam in Hunter’s eye meant that his idea was either a stroke of genius or insanity. With him, it was often hard to know for sure until it was too late.

“Absolutely not,” Reid said firmly, like he was our dad, not our brother and business partner.

“It’s worked before,” Hunter said with a shrug.

“Sorry, but what’s worked before?” Penny asked, her head swinging back and forth from Hunter to Reid like she was watching a tennis match.

“We could take turns going to wedding week things with you,” Hunter explained. “And since when do weddings take a week?”

Penny scrunched up her brow in confusion. “But I told them I had a boyfriend, so I’m not just looking for a series of dates. I need—oh.”

I grinned at the doubtful look on her face. “We’ve pretended to be each other before. You may have noticed that we’re identical.”

She nodded but seemed to be lost in thought, perhaps trying to figure out if that could possibly work.

That made two of us.

“Don’t worry, no one will know,” Hunter said. “We did it all the time in high school. Hell, for years, Reid took all of our math tests.” He caught my eye and I couldn’t help laughing at the memory. Every time one of us had a math test coming up, we’d bribe Reid to show up in class to pretend to be me or Hunter and ace the test. It worked perfectly until Hunter and I ended up in the same math class.

“We’re not in high school anymore,” Reid reminded us.

“But… how would that work?” Clearly Penny wasn’t devious enough to conceive of triplet tricks.

“Easy. One of us goes with you to the dance, and the next day a different one of us goes with you to the luncheon or whatever. Your family will never know,” I explained.

“If it’s a dance, obviously, I should be the one to go,” Hunter said, which was fair. He had the best moves out of all of us. I was a little surprised that he’d be interested in attending any wedding-related events, but then again, Penny was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. Ever since the art class, I hadn’t been able to get her out of my mind.

Hunter would probably accompany her to the county dump if she asked. Now Reid, on the other hand, he was going to be a hard sell. And in a way I got it. Our ten-day pushes were no joke, and they left us all exhausted by the end. But the publicity we got helped us set a higher asking price which meant more profit. We were all in favor of that.

“It’ll never work.” Reid looked like he was about to give us a list of reasons why not, but then his phone vibrated, and he pulled it out of his pocket. “Shit, the crew’s here to haul away the kitchen appliances.”

Hunter got to his feet. “I’ll handle it.”

It was the perfect opportunity for Reid to quash Hunter’s plan, but did my brother take advantage of that? No, of course not, because he was a control freak at heart.

“I’ve got it,” Reid said. “I want to make sure they don’t mess up anything else in the kitchen.” Anything that was part of the demolition or the rebuild was under Hunter’s purview, but he wasn’t known for attention to detail. A few months ago, he’d been texting/sexting a girl he met at a party, and the guys had somehow let an improperly secured fridge topple over and take out a faucet, producing a very costly waterfall.

Hunter sat back down while Reid pushed back from the table. “Talk some sense into him, would you?” That last part was directed at me, and I knew from experience that with Hunter, it was usually a lost cause.

“Do you really think the three of you could pretend to be one man?” Penny asked, and it took me a moment to identify why her voice sounded different. There was a note of hope in it.

“Absolutely,” Hunter said, and she gave him a smile that I wished were aimed at me. “We’re good at this.”

“At pretending to be each other?” she asked.

Hunter smirked. “I was going to say at lying, but yeah, that too.”

“It’s a win-win.” I was glad to see that the smile stayed on her face when she turned back to me. “You get a handsome fake boyfriend, and we get an incredible videographer to make us look good.”