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Mario and Pauline are just lounging together on his bed when Luigi walks into their apartment with Trish.
"I had fun." Luigi tells her, who smiles as she says, "Me too.", then leaves.
"What was that?" Pauline asks, startling Luigi.
"What was what?" Only Mario knows Luigi's not playing dumb.
"You and Trish?" Mario tries to help, snorting when Luigi nearly falls over himself denying,
"What? No! Come on." Luigi shakes his head, then grabs one of their cannoli from the plate on the bed and calls, "We're just friends!" behind him as he walks into the kitchen.
"That was my cannoli." Pauline whines.
"Oh relax, I have more." Mario says. "Or I should say, had more, cause my little brother's stealing those too."
"Hey!" comes the call, as Pauline gets up from the bed with the empty plate.
"You want me to try and steal one back for you?" she asks Mario, who shakes his head.
"Nah, I'm fine." Then he pulls up his laptop. "But before you do that, come back for a second."
She comes back over to the head of the bed, as Mario pulls up a file on his laptop.
"We're showing Irene and Lydia our designs." He says. "But before we do that, we wanted to ask for your brutally honest opinion."
"Pretty please?" Luigi chimes in, coming back from the kitchen with a plate stacked with uneaten cannoli. "I said he had to ask you 'cause he's your boyfriend."
"Of course!" Pauline says instantly, smirking as she grabs a cannoli off the plate, then pulls the computer closer.
The room is quiet as she scrolls through both portfolios, and now and then, she zooms in on certain details.
When she finally looks up, all she can say is, "Phew!", but when she sees the brothers clutching each other in anticipation, she playfully scolds,
"Alright, boys, settle down, would you?"
She turns the laptop back around. "These are awesome."
Both brothers light up and cheer, hugging each other.
"When are you showing them?" Pauline asks.
At that, the brothers pull away.
"Soon." Mario says.
"Very, very soon." Luigi emphasizes.
"You sure about that?" Pauline asks, crossing her arms as she gets up from the bed again. "Aren't you two almost done with your current projects?"
"Yes." Both brothers say at the same time.
"So you're right at the point when they're gonna be looking for people on the next one." Pauline points out as she walks to the kitchen. "If you want that to be you, you gotta act now."
"She's right, Lu." Mario tells him, ignoring the call from the kitchen,
"That means you too!"
"Hey, is it my fault I can't sell myself?" Mario asks, prompting laughter from both the kitchen and next to him, to his confusion.
"What?"
"Okay, there's no way Mario 'Cornell-or-bust' Mario just said that." Luigi says when he can finally speak.
"That was applying to college!" Mario defends. "Not putting my entire plumbing career on the line!"
"Listen to your brother." Pauline advises as she comes back to the bed. "If you're gonna save Brooklyn, you need guts."
YOU ARE READING
Best Days We'll Never Know
General FictionOn the eve of high school graduation, Mario and Luigi's life diverges into two parallel realities: one in which they get accepted and move into Cornell's dorms to pursue their careers, the other in which they don't get accepted into Cornell and must...
