A Kiss For Three

chapter 4

I don’t keep social media. No handles, no soft-focus brunches, no geotags for someone’s intern to triangulate. If you want me, you get a number that changes and a voice that doesn’t. That’s the point: I’m the observer, not the exhibit.

Almost a week blurred past, days stitched by lies spoken through different voices on different phones.

At night my desk turned into a small command center: two burners glowing like twin lighthouses in the dark.

Kate lived in one—wide-eyed, newsroom-wet behind the ears, the girl who tripped into Adrian Cole’s orbit.

Enola lived in the other—conservatory whimsy and bow-calluses, the girl who breathed music near Nico Moreau in a box at the opera.

With Adrian, talk came easy. He feeds on attention: light flirting, clever questions, the theater of being impressive. I gave him newsroom grind and rain-slicked chases, editors barking, a first-byline hunger. Mundane enough to feel true, polished enough to be bait.

With Nico, I trimmed away small talk. He hates it. We spoke about the way a section breathes, about bow tilt, about crossing strings clean without biting. Sometimes I texted blurred photos of my hand on the violin’s neck (my real hand, real instrument; I’m an amateur, not a fraud). He replied less, but when he did, he wrote like a man who only spends words he means.

Still: two best friends, two lies. One thread could unzip everything. Which to push first—Nico’s solitary magnetism or Adrian’s appetite for conquest?

The answer came uninvited. A message lit the Kate phone just past midnight.

Adrian: Movie night tomorrow. Cinema 7 p.m.

Typical. Low effort, dark room, implied permission. Predictable. Useful.

I answered cheerfully and briefly, then set the phone face down. If a man insists on walking into a snare, you open the door.

The next evening, I built Kate again: black wig, loose curls tuned to flattering; brown lenses to dim my natural blue; a dress neutral and tailored. War paint for a clean kill. The theater was velvet-worn, the air the exact mix of buttered popcorn and expensive perfume that lets secrets feel cinematic.

Adrian arrived with that easy aura of command and dropped into the seat beside me, mouth cut into a practiced smile. I parted my lips to let Kate’s honey voice out when a shadow took the seat on my other side.

Nico slid in, grin near-wicked.

My pulse ticked once. Adrian’s date on my left; Adrian’s best friend on my right. Two worlds, one row.

Popcorn rustled. Their banter jumped across my lap like flat stones on a lake. Nico leaned close, breath a warm thread. “So, how are we enjoying the show?”

I gave him a light laugh. “Still deciding who’s acting.”

Adrian caught it and smirked. “We could pause the movie if you need… clarity.”

Inside, every nerve tightened. Outside, I let the projector’s glow do my blushing and kept the ingénue posture—small, attentive, pliant. I also tested the current: my fingertips drifted to the armrest, a brush that could be an accident.

Adrian’s knuckles didn’t move away. On the right, my knee tilted a degree toward Nico. His leg stayed where it was, heating a steady line, not retreating. Barely anything. Just enough to say: we notice.

I could seduce them both if I wanted. It’s my profession. Seduction is just a method acting with better lighting.

The credits climbed. Lights came up. We flowed into the lobby with the other civilians still blinking night out of their eyes. I braced for jealousy, a pissing contest, maybe a tidy rupture I could use.

Instead, they cut clean through the pretense.

Adrian stopped beneath a poster frame and faced me square. His voice came blunt, unsweetened.

“We know who you are, Iris.”

The name landed like a knife slipped under a seam. My face didn’t move. My brain did: how? Shared texts? A tail? Daniel Duhan, hired back at me? The tree of possibilities branched fast.

Nico added, amused rather than cruel, “And we’re not mad.”

That unsettled me more than the unmasking.

Adrian’s mouth softened. “Despite the act and the lies, we actually liked you. Kind of.”

I narrowed my eyes, weighing angles. Not confrontation. Negotiation.

“Not to offend you in any way, but you're… not quite the typical woman, if you can put it that way, Iris,” Nico bites back a snicker. “You're smart. Clever enough to almost fool both of us, you know. Almost. I’d call it impressive.”

“I’d call it very impressive,” Adrian corrects him.

I raise an eyebrow, tense, careful, yet still sarcastic—seems to be my nature, anyway. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

Adrian lowered his voice until it belonged to the three of us. “Here’s our proposal. A truce. Friendship. Strict boundaries. No shame games. No more lies—with us.”

Nico’s eyes lit with mischief and something steadier under it. He didn’t wink. They were joking—but they were also telling the truth: they’d tailed me, they’d guessed fast, they’d decided to play. Nico tipped his head.

“Keep your covers with Serena and Camille. Do your job for them. With us—be honest. No masks.”

I studied both faces like suspects under a white lamp. My instincts hunted for the snare. All I saw were two men standing together—aligned, unhurried—offering me the one thing my work never gives me: a room where truth isn’t a liability.

I crossed my arms, iced my voice. “You want me honest in a profession built on lying.”

Adrian: “Honest with us.”

I hesitate. Being honest with the two men who I'm supposed to sell out to their own wives sounded even more ridiculous. But… what options did I have? Caught red-handed, at risk of losing my career. At this rate, a silly friendship offer didn’t sound so bad.

The lobby’s sound swelled and ebbed around our small island of quiet: soda hiss, shoe squeak, a burst of laughter from someone who still believed the happy ending on screen.

Nico held out his hand, the smirk gentled. “Friends, then?”

My pride wanted to sneer. My pragmatism counted doors this could open. I placed my hand in his. “Friends—for now.”

His grip was warm. When I pulled away, my fingertips grazed the base of his thumb—a ghost of a touch that could be an accident. He didn’t flinch. On my other side, as we turned to go, my shoulder skimmed Adrian’s. He didn’t step away. If anything, the angle invited closeness for a heartbeat and then released it. Not a promise but a possibility.

Later, at home, the wig lay on the table like a snake I’d shed. Both phones glowed against the wood, patient beacons.

Serena: update tonight?

Camille: any progress?

Adrian: a pin and two words: Tomorrow. Rooftop.

I looked at the trio lined like dominoes. Cold as I keep it—and I do—I could feel a small, dangerous spark in my ribs. They’re handsome. They can play. That lights a fuse I know well. If they want to be seduced, I won’t mind obliging. It’s work. It’s also sport.

I tapped the last notification, thumb hovering just long enough to feel the heat under my own composure.

“Open map,” I said to the room—and caught myself imagining the brush of two hands at once, almost nothing, almost everything.