Page 14 of The Best Trick

Odin started scrolling around on his phone. “The website for this Airbnb mentions romantic balloon rides as something people visiting the area like to do. He knew about it before we got here. This is definitely the surprise.”

“Why this?” I asked. “It could be almost anything.”

“Goddess, don't you remember? You said it was your dream last year,” Thor said. “You said, ‘it would be so amazing, floating through the clouds. Perfect silence. And with all of us together, it would be even better.’”

“I said that?” Sure, I could see myself saying something like that, but I definitely didn’t remember it.

Odin nodded his head. “Yes, you said it last year in New Mexico.” He turned to Thor. “But I believe she used the phrase, ‘perfectly quiet.’”

“No, it was ‘perfect silence,’” Thor insisted.

“I just can't believe you two remember that much detail,” I said.

“We remember everything about you,” Thor said. “How could we not?”

I just sat there grinning stupidly, heart overflowing with love. Being in a relationship with three hot guys who remembered my every word and acted as if my every whim was a command engraved in stone was better than all the hammocks and curly fries in the world.

Most of the time.

I studied the brochure some more. All the pictures were of couples. “Maybe this balloon guy’ll bend the rules for us.”

“This man's entire business model is based on couples. Rides for couples. Two seats in the balloon. I don't see him bending the rules, do you? Who has ever bent the rules for us?”

“But look,” I began hopefully. “There's not even enough room in this balloon for five people! Zeus will see that!”

“There’s room if one of those people is holding a gun,” Odin said.

“Harley could refuse to drive it,” I said hopefully.

“Zeus and I have a dozen different types of flight licenses between us,” Odin reminded me. “Zeus could take that thing up drunk and blindfolded with both hands tied. I know I could.”

I frowned, trying to picture exactly how either of them could possibly fly a hot air balloon in that condition. “Would it be wrong to ask for a demo of you guys doing that for my birthday?”

“Be serious. Zeus is going to want this for you, goddess,” Odin continued. “This has to be the surprise. ‘Surprise not at the Airbnb’—that’s how he phrased it.”

“Forewarned is forearmed,” Thor said. “We’ll talk to Harley. We’ll ask him to cancel Zeus’s reservation. Maybe we’ll buy up Zeus’s time slot, make it worth Harley’s while. Maybe we can get Harley to call Zeus and tell him that the balloon’s broken. Zeus'll never know it was us who put the kibosh on it.”

“Right, good,” I said. “Zeus would’ve made the reservation under Theo Talbott,thatwe know.”

“This is why I hate surprises—this,” Odin grumbled. “Fucking-g balloon ride.”

“He just wants to fight for our relationship,” I reminded Odin. “Fighting for our relationship is Zeus's love language.”

“My love language is whatever doesn’t result in a hassle with a stranger followed by a state-wide manhunt,” he grumbled, with a dark look at Thor. He was talking, of course, about the infamous “couples’ massage” incident which, to be fair, Thorhadstarted when he pointed out how terrible it was that all four of us couldn’t have a romantic couples’ massage together.

“I didn't know he'd go crazy about it,” Thor protested.

“Yes, you did,” Odin said.

I looped an arm around each of them, there on the couch. “We protect each other's dreams,” I said, reminding them of our wedding vows. “As well as each other’s right to be totally messed up if we wanna be,” I added, which was not in our wedding vows, but was something we sometimes reminded each other of.

Thor smoothed a lock of my hair—my natural red hair, shoulder-length these days. “I love us, too. I love you,” he said, smoothing my hair some more, but not in the scurvy-cure way this time.

“Backatcha,” I said, resting my head on his shoulder.

We were all four a little bit messed up. It’s why we worked as a gang—we loved each other's messed-up-edness. We protected each other’s messed-up-edness from the world.

Odin got up to make snacks. Thor and I followed him to the kitchen.

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