A Couple is Three: The Beginning (book 1 & 2 Completed)

Chapter 3 - The Plan

Samantha couldn't believe what she was hearing. "These poor guys," she thought to herself. She often grew frustrated with her fellow females when they continuously harped on the treatment that women received at the hands of men who thought that any female's body was up for grabs yet they seemed to not care when women were doing the same thing to men. They felt that these actions were justified since women had been putting up with it for so long. It drove her crazy. No one should have to put up with their body being touched without their permission. It was something that she was very passionate about considering her history.

Calling out sexual innuendos or catcalls didn't bother her. She thought that they were crude and rude, but relatively harmless unlike the touching. People liked to have personal space for a reason. Even though she was a touchy feely type of person with her friends, having a stranger touch her without her permission gave her the shivers.

To think that Josh and Jake were experiencing this made her mad on their behalf. She could tell that it was weighing on them and destroying something that they loved. Her anger gave way to compassion and concern as she realized that she was still holding onto each of their forearms. Here she was touching them without their permission yet they had both continued to return her gesture as if they knew that she was not like the others. She wanted to do something to help them, but what?

"If you both want, I can run interference for you this weekend," she suggested.

"How would you do that?" questioned Josh, as relief flooded him. He was so happy that she hadn't run away thinking the worst about him and Jake when they told her what was bothering them.

"I don't know," she voiced with uncertainty.

"If it were just one of us, you could pretend to be our girlfriend," suggested Jake slyly. He looked over her head to Josh and saw that his eyes had popped open wide as he shook his head no.

Josh knew exactly what Jake was trying to do and while the idea excited him, they had talked about it for the last few months, he didn't want to scare Samantha away. He wanted time to get to know her first.

Jake just smirked at him while his eyes pleaded with Josh to trust him.

"That would work, but it would only help one of you," Samantha acknowledged. "There must be another way," she thought as a light bulb went on in her head. "Why don't I just pretend to be with the both of you?" she suggested.

Both Jake and Josh tensed underneath her hands, and it scared her. Maybe she was being too forward or presumptuous in suggesting it, but it was only going to be pretend for one weekend. It wasn't like she hadn't held onto two boys hands at the same time before. The majority of her friends were male and when she had lived in Europe, she often did things like that with two or more of her males friends. It didn't bother her, but this was Canada and she remembered too late that her interactions with her male friends here were very different.

Josh and Jake couldn't believe their ears. She was offering to pretend to be both their girlfriends. They looked at each other again over her head and broke out into huge smiles. This was what they had talked about for months now; they wanted to find a girl that they could share. They hadn't come to this idea easily and they didn't know if it would work, but it was something they wanted to try.

"Are you sure that you would be okay with that?" Josh questioned her gently while holding his breath awaiting her answer.

"It doesn't bother me, if that is what you are worried about," she replied. "I don't tend to care what other people think about me unless I know them really well. Even then I weigh what they say vs what I feel before I think of making any possible changes. What about the two of you? Would you be okay with it?"