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Brandon wears a face of concern. “Your mother won’t marry me if she doesn’t have her daughter’s consent”, he jokes.
I take a seat back at the table, Jack standing to help me into it.
“I had no idea”, Jack says, as though feeling the need to confirm it for me. “I barely knew Dad was dating someone.”
“I guess whirlwind romances are really a thing”, Logan says.
“Three months isn’t exactly whirlwind”, Mom says, taking a moment again to admire her ring. “And anyway, it was love at first sight.”
“Ten thousand meters in the air”, Brandon adds jovially, as though he’s worked through the line before.
I try not to wonder whether they’ve joined the mile high club but my imagination isn’t as kind to me.
Mom pours the new bottle of champagne, refusing to allow me to refuse any.
“Do you have a date already set?” Logan asks.
Mom’s eyes twinkle while she pauses dramatically again. Once more and I’ll be convinced she’s doing amateur theatre on the side. “We didn’t see the point of waiting”, she says.
“What does that mean?”, I ask her gravely, unable to hide the concern in my voice.
“Don’t look so worried, Penny!” Mom says. “You look like I’ve just told you I’ve got six months to live.”
“I just want to know how long we’ve got”, I say, without being specific about what I’m referring to, “to prepare, I mean.”
Brandon jumps in. “You don’t need to worry about the money, or taking time off work”, he says, “I’ll be paying for everything so all you need to do is relax and have a good time.”
Mom claps her hands together like an excited schoolgirl about to receive a chocolate. “It’s so exciting!” she declares, a message that seems superfluous considering her animated behavior.
“Are you going to let us know the date”, Jack asks, “Or shall we just expect a call on the day?”
“March twenty five”, Brandon says. “Put it in your diaries. Oh, and Katie tells me you have a friend who works in floristry, Penny.”
“That’s three weeks from now”, I say in panic. “Three weeks.”
“I told you we didn’t want to wait”, Mom says proudly.
Logan, Jack and I share a terrified look, and then Mom goes and ruins every chance any of us have got to keep our dream alive. “You guys will then be stepbrothers and stepsisters, how neat is that? Penny always wanted a brother to play with when she was growing up.”
I shudder visibly, the word stepbrother leaving an acrid taste in my mouth and a horrible churning sensation in my belly, that’s not the delightful tingle I’ve grown accustomed to in the presence of my identical husbands in waiting.
“What’s the rush?” Logan asks. “Why not leave it a little bit longer.”
Jack and I are nodding together in agreement like two marionettes under the control of a parkinson’s sufferer.
“Why wait if now feels right?” Mom says, as though the question were absolutely redundant because the answer is obvious for everyone to see. “Brandon and I love each other, and getting married just seems as natural a step in our journey as waking up in the morning together.”
“You two look just as shocked as Penny does”, Brandon adds. “This is supposed to be a celebration, and I thought you’d be happy for us both.”
“I am happy”, Jack says. “Sorry, Dad, it’s just-. I guess I wasn’t expecting it either.”
“That’s the whole point of a surprise”, Mom says, her cheeks even redder now than they were before. “It wouldn’t be much of a surprise if you saw it coming in the first place.”
Three weeks before these incredible twins become my - no, I still can’t bring myself to say it. What if Jack and Logan decide they want to end it now? What then? Sitting on my hands doesn’t help, neither does rearranging every single item of kitchenware on the table. I have to start tapping, and when I start tapping, I know it’s bad.
“You’ll have to get a dress, Penny”, Mom says. “Do your hair up, get some nice shoes.”
It’s real, it’s really real and there’s nothing I can do to avoid it.
“And suits for both of you boys”, Brandon adds, “As much as I know you love dressing up like Indiana Jones, Logan, I’d really appreciate it if you made an effort to scrub up this time.”
Logan shrugs. “Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll be able to find something suitable. A fedora, a whip, a pair of desert boots.”
Brandon ignores him, and Jack and I are both still too stunned to make light of this horrible situation. Any other time I would have given him the giggle that joke deserved.
“So I guess that’s it”, Mom says. “Our news.”
Brandon raises his glass, encouraging us all to do the same. “A toast”, he begins. “To my fiancée and future wife Catherine, Jack and Logan, my irreplaceable twin boys, and Penny, my future stepdaughter. If anyone gathered here today knows of any reason why Katie and I can’t legally marry-”,
“Keep it to yourselves”, Mom cuts in, and while the two of them suppress their giggles, Jack, Logan and I reluctantly chink our glasses together.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I’m pacing again, just like Poiret. Up and down Jack’s open plan living room, through his dining room, around the island in the kitchen and back again, past the sofa where Logan is slouched flicking absentmindedly through a magazine, in front of the armchair Jack is sat contemplatively in, his finger tips pushed together like a philosopher about to declare his latest theory.
“That’s not going to help”, Logan says.
“It’s helps Poiret”, I insist. “He can’t solve anything without a good pace.”
“There isn’t anything to solve”, Logan says. “Your mom and our dad are getting married, that doesn’t change our situation at all, if anything it just makes it a little bit stranger. It doesn’t change the way we feel about each other, right?”
“No, but it does change everything else”, I shout from the kitchen. “It was difficult enough before, right now, it’s going to be impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible”, Logan says. “You should know that more than any of us. Look at what’s happened already, you dreamt it and we came.”
“It’s not the time for field of dream’s quotes”, I say, “I’m seriously worried about this. Your dad is getting married to my mom, we’ll be-.”
“Stepbrothers and stepsister”, Logan says, making me visibly shudder. “And so what? I’m sure we won’t be the first step siblings in history to get down and dirty with each other. It’s not like we’ve grown up together or anything, it’s just a weird piece of bad luck that your mom and our dad are getting married. We can’t help that, if anything, we should be happy for them.”
“How can you be so chilled out about this?” I say, my rhythm around the circuit I’ve just invented refusing to decrease.
Logan finally puts the magazine down. “There’s nothing we can do about it”, he says. “As much as we want to change the situation, we can’t, which gives us two options. One, we stop seeing each other because there is some kind of unwritten rule somewhere that says even if you want the opposite, you can never fall in love with your stepbrothers.”
“And two?” I cut in, my voice echoing around the dining room, careful not to agree or disagree with the suggestion I might be falling in love.
“We carry on as we are”, Jack says, finally coming out of his trance.
“That”, Logan agrees, before laying back down on the couch. “Either we tell them or we don’t, but it’s not something I think we need to worry about now.”
