by Leanne Davis
“It’s definitely Damion’s baby. We’re both sorry, but it happened, and it made us realize that we have strong feelings for each other.” Statement of fact.
My head whipped up, and I stared in disbelief at Ireena. She was watching Devon, but she glanced at me and then at Damion, who was oblivious to her. He seemed so sad, all hunched up in a ball of shame.
“Bullshit.” I said loud and clear as I accused Ireena with a stern glare. I intended to stay out of this, but not after hearing her blatant lies. “It’s been… what? Five weeks since you two hooked up? You have no idea who the fucking father is! Ireena doesn’t have a clue who the father is, and she can’t just choose who she wants it to be. If you had sex with her in the last six weeks, then it could be yours just as much as it could be his.”
Ireena nearly incinerated me with her glare. I narrowed my eyebrows in disgust at her. I still hate her. Devon’s mouth opened, and he glared hard at Ireena. I knew they had sex regularly.
But then Devon mumbles, “Funny, no. We haven’t had sex… since about Planet X. It isn’t mine.”
Surprise shuffles through me. But relief too. He wasn’t having a baby with Ireena! But Damion was. Wow, how things had gone off the rails.
Devon just sat still, looking so stunned he couldn’t seem to think straight. Damion lifted his head. His stricken gaze made my stomach heave. He was so upset; it was hard to even look at him. “I’m sorry.” He shook his head as if he refused to believe any of this happened. “I’m sorry.”
“You fucked my girlfriend?” Devon inquired as if the conversation never progressed beyond that to a damn baby. But he finally seemed to process it.
Damion flinched. Shame filled his eyes as he slowly nodded. “It was a mistake. I know… I’m so sorry… I—”
Devon launched himself at Damion. One moment, we were sitting there, all four of us, making a small square in the living room, and Devon was quiet. We assumed he was in shock until he sailed across the space and went after his brother. It was that fast and furious. He sprang up and over him in a calculated leap. He went directly for Damion’s throat. What was he trying to do? Strangle him? Devon caught him and pulled him down and then smashed his fist into Damion’s face. He connected with his cheek and caused Damion’s head to lurch backward, then forward. It took Damion a second to realize he was hit. Ireena and I both bolted to our feet, except, unlike Ireena, I jumped toward the boys while screaming, “Devon! Stop! Stop it!” I grabbed his arm and pulled. Useless. I couldn’t move him. “DEVON!” I screamed louder but eventually fell back when someone’s leg upended the small, flimsy coffee table.
And still they went at it with a litany of thuds and grunts, pummeling fists slammed into flesh as their legs sprawled and entangled and kicked and kneed each other. Amidst all the groans and my screams, I heard Ireena screaming, too.
“Stop it!” I said almost hysterically. I was worried for both of them when I rushed out of the apartment and went next door. I knocked and knocked, hoping Devon’s neighbor was home. He regularly worked from home and was big enough to help. When he answered the door, I gasped, “Devon and his brother are fighting. I need your help to pry them apart.”
He followed me and hurried toward the fighting, sweating, grunting men. Grabbing a waist, which turned out to be Devon’s, he lifted up and pulled. I slid right between Devon and Damion, probably the only reason they stopped. Devon prepared to slip free and attack Damion again who was just as wound up. Both men shook as the sweat poured down their faces.
But I stood there unflinching. “You’ll have to take me out first.” I warned him with an undaunted glare. Staring hard as I could at him, I watched him wipe off his bleeding mouth before jerking his arm away from the neighbor.
The neighbor asked, “You under control now?”
“Just leave, Damion! Go, Ireena. Go!” I yelled as I caught Devon’s eye. He glared at me as the neighbor wrenched his hand higher behind his back. Only when the door shut behind them did the neighbor let Devon go.
Devon didn’t thank me, but I was still glad I did that. I stopped him from hurting his brother and getting hurt himself. Damion is much stronger than Devon because he lifts weights and Devon doesn’t. Despite the power imbalance, I believe Damion held back because, well, shit. His twin brother was coming after him. The same one whose girlfriend he slept with.
I didn’t think the reality fully registered in Devon’s mind of what Damion did. Did he really sleep with Ireena just because they saw each other in the same bar? Just because two drunks fancied each other? What a weak method of reasoning and what a lame excuse. I knew Devon could never be the same. Right off, I knew it would twist his guts painfully, along with his emotions and thoughts. He couldn’t emerge on the other side of it without being unfazed.
Devon glared at me. Looking visibly ruffled and sweaty, he came down from the shock and hormone rush. He was not himself.
I shook my head and said, “She never deserved you. You’ll see that someday. Damion is just a fucking fool.”
His head dropped forward, and all the fight seemed to slip away at once. I hated to see him surrendering to so much grief but fighting his brother wasn’t the answer. So I quietly let him be as reality sunk in.
“I can’t believe this.”
“I can’t either.” I stepped forward and put a hand on his arm. He jerked back instantly, but when I tugged him towards me, he ended up hugging me. We eventually pulled apart, and he asked me, “What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. What the hell should I have said in this awful moment? I can’t believe it. It might as well have been a bomb that detonated between Devon, Damion, his family, and me. It was so upsetting and unexpected.
Then it was all about me and Devon. I stayed with him for days. We drank quite a bit of alcohol and catalogued the nastiest things we could say about Damion and Ireena. We purged all the venom, hate, and ill will we both shared and wished would befall them.
But Devon never got better after that fight. It has been a long, slow road.
Ireena and Damion got married. It was only a courthouse wedding, but it was still such a bad, low day for Devon. His family refused to participate, being torn between the twins’ ongoing feud and their conflicting loyalties.
After Dayshia’s birth, the Willapana family accepted Damion again and forgave most of the indiscretion. Dayshia became the glue that bound them all together. Even me. She helped me forgive Damion after getting so upset on Devon’s behalf. But I never felt the same about Damion again. My deepest hatred, however, is reserved exclusively for Ireena. That is my right, my privilege, and my pleasure.
She tore apart an entire family. Two brothers. Twins. And she never apologized or said why she did it. I never saw even a trace of remorse from her.
Chapter 2
DEVON
Walking into my mother’s house should not have made me feel so awkward. It should have been an easy and ordinary occurrence. But not now, not anymore. I’d been home over the last year, but always with the explicit promise that Damion wasn’t anywhere near there or planning to show up. I am very clear on this. I’ve even threatened to disappear from their lives for good if they trick me.
Little did I know it would be that pixie Claudia Tamasy who dropped the hammer on me. She might look like Tinker Bell, but she is a freaking Cruella de Vil. I had no idea she had it in her. I never expected her to be like that. She’s so… shrewish. I sneer at her when she walks inside. It makes me feel better when I’m so snide and small. Why? Because I know she isn’t like that. This must mean a lot for her to pull out the boss card and threaten to fire me. She’d never do that. I feel sure of it. But her threat saves my pride and gives me an out. I have to be here now because of her, right? Even though I should go, I don’t know how to face a room full of people. Not when everyone knows the story of how Dayshia came to be. I don’t want to be the odd man out. Damion has a wife and a kid and I’m all alone. How ironic, since I thought
I’d be the one to marry Ireena fucking Monroe.
How do I handle everyone staring at me and them? Naturally, I dread the worst of it: the pity. The sad but understanding looks. Everyone knows I lost. I’m the loser. The twin that was rejected.
I never think about the twin she picked. Not anymore. He was once my other half, and he still looks it, but he’s not my brother. Nah. I pretend he’s dead, not a bad thing in my imagination. I don’t miss him. I never wonder what he’s doing or how he is.
When I used to let my thoughts wonder about him, I easily cured it by concentrating on him fucking my girlfriend.
Sometimes, a suffocating rage climbs up my throat and I have to do something different. Anything is better than contemplating the two people who betrayed me. I never knew anyone could do what Damion and Ireena did to me.
Stupid shmuck that I am. I cringe when I imagine how naive I’ve been. So in love with the bitch that I was thrilled when I saw how well my girl and my twin brother got along. I could ram my head against a wall when I picture how I pushed them together. I told them to go out for drinks if I knew I’d be late. Whenever I saw them talking intimately and being close, well, I became the stupid asshole. Oh yeah. I loved seeing how they got on so well. I envisioned the years passing and all of us spending our holidays and vacations together. Naturally, I intended to make every effort to befriend the woman Damion would pick.
And whom did Damion pick? I never predicted he would select my girlfriend. He wanted to fuck the same girl I was fucking.
I was in love with Ireena. Ring-ready in love. I wanted to ask her to be my wife… until I found out—
I shake my head. I still can’t picture it. The images. The words. The hurt. The weight of their betrayal makes my heart hurt as if it’s dropping out of my chest like an anchor to the damn floor. Who would ever suspect that my own twin brother would conspire with my girlfriend behind my back? A brother I don’t remember ever fighting with in my adulthood. A brother who was my best friend and mirror image.
I glare at Claudia’s butt, which is right in front of me. I rarely look at her lately. She’s no more than another cousin to me, someone I was close to growing up. She was terribly annoying—always getting in my way and interrupting me—but nonetheless my little cousin. Tagging along with Damion and me only because we were closest to her in age, she drove me nuts most of the time. Taking clumsy to the point of barely managing to walk straight when she was sober, we had to regress in all our sports to accommodate her slow, uncoordinated participation.
She was always smaller than everyone and ridiculously skinny until she was sixteen. That was when her body seemed to burst into full bloom. She doesn’t realize how beautiful she is, especially to guys. I won’t be the one to tell her. It’s too weird. Like how a creepy, old uncle might regard his cousins’ wives. Wyatt and Wesley both have totally hot wives, but I could never think about them like that.
That’s all Claudia is to me.
As for her unexpected appearance in my bedroom? That was too much. Lying buck naked beside—as it turns out—Shannon, the awkwardness of waking up without a clue about her identity or what we did the night before was even further expounded by the disquieting presence of Claudia Tamasy.
Claudia shows up without any invitation early in the morning, all bright and cheery, glowing and fresh, as always. Her deliberate choice to be a happy morning person sometimes makes me grapple with the irrepressible urge to take my pillow and suffocate her.
Now, I follow her tight ass clad in a pair of dark jeans and a shirt. Her bright blonde hair swings in her signature ringlets that reach her shoulders. She never learned how to tame them, and I can’t imagine what she would look like if she did. She just wouldn’t be Claudia. In the same way, she could not pass a day without smiling or being nice, sweet, and empathetic. She is a far better person than me. But being in the custody of someone who lives her life completely by the rules and acts so prissy, I wasn’t ready to face her after a hard night of drinking and anonymous sex. It could only have been worse if my mother were the one who walked into that situation. With a glaring spotlight, I realize how much I suck. My whole life sucks. Meanwhile, Claudia continues to excel in everything she attempts before she successfully goes on to the next endeavor. Ever smiling and ever Claudia.
I’m sure the party isn’t being held at Damion’s house because of me. Everyone knows I wouldn’t go in their apartment. But at the house I was raised in? Yeah, duh. I’ll go there. I spot my parents, grandparents, Aunt Tara, and Uncle Ryder. Then I see my cousin, Wyatt and his wife, Jacey, along with Wesley and his wife, Dani. A few friends of the family look familiar to me from over the years. I sigh. We are the last to arrive of course. I so desperately failed in my effort to miss the party altogether. Actually, I never had any intention of coming. Multiple calls from my mom, my dad and even Grandma Adaline, were all deliberately ignored by me. I brushed them off. I had embarked on a campaign of guilt and told most of them to screw off. In a nice way, of course. Actually, it was a stern brush-off and a series of noncommittal answers. I never expected Claudia Tamasy to issue a nuclear threat regarding my employment. First for everything, I guess.
My gaze goes back to Ireena. My hands fist at the same time my jaw clenches. Down on her knees and tending to the baby lying on the floor, she is not the Ireena Monroe I knew. It isn’t the role I ever imagined for her. Last I knew, she didn’t want kids. Ever. Turns out, she just didn’t want mine. My twin’s kid? Sure. Why not? It’s bitter to be dumped for an asshole that looks exactly like you. People often do a double take when they see us, and if we’re together, they have to ask us to identify ourselves.
Ireena’s gaze is fastened on mine. She straightens her back and then chickens out. No surprise there. Dropping her gaze, she idly fiddles with the baby’s hand, purposely dipping her chin down so I can’t directly see her face. Does she feel any shame? I wonder. Can she? Or is she simply mortified to be front and center for me and everyone else in the family? After all, this is the first time. Everyone is well aware of what Ireena did and what subsequently happened to Damion and me. So, shit. Yeah, she should feel embarrassed and ashamed. But for some reason, I seriously doubt it. More like she’s a little ruffled. Maybe slightly uncomfortable. But destroyed? Gut-sick and awash in guilt and anxiety over what she did? Nah. And let’s be clear: what she did was irreparably tear apart a family. She came between two brothers. Twin brothers. Best friends once.
The baby? In a word, she’s lovely. Dayshia is the spitting image of Damion as a baby and therefore, she looks like me. Strong genes we have, from our burnt umber skin tone to our long-lashed eyelids. I cringe when I remember being a young kid and how strangers fawned over us, gushing over our long, thick eyelashes. It looked like Mom glued fake eyelashes on us, they were so thick and feathery. She used to claim how much she wished they were hers. As we got older, we did not share her sentiment. Both Damion and I hated them until our late teens. That was when all the girls noticed how “beautiful” our eyes were. We both ran with the look after that.
On Dayshia? Hell, I love them. And I could so easily love her. Her hair is plaited in two braids with bright pink ribbons woven through each. A small headband with a giant rose is jutting from her forehead. She’s busily trying to clap her pudgy, little hands together. She takes another try and her palm hits her fingers. It’s impossible not to smile with amusement at her, even if I secretly imagine myself laser-killing the woman now playing patty-cake with her.
Claudia passes me and helps lessen the tension. She sets down a brightly wrapped box with an explosion of multi-colored ribbons on top of it. Sitting on her knees, she leans in and kisses Dayshia’s round cheek. “Hey, sweet girl! Happy birthday!” Her inspirational tone is bright even if it is a little babyish. She tickles Dayshia’s chin and Dayshia’s eyes focus on Claudia. Her instant recognition flares and she reacts with even more eagerness and squirming as little spit-bubbles escape from her mouth.
“This is from Devon and
me.” She glances at Ireena as she speaks. Why is she giving me credit for a gift I had nothing to do with? We never discussed it. I didn’t even give it the slightest thought. I shift my weight and start internalizing. It was malicious and petty of me to forget to buy my one and only niece a gift for her very first birthday. Did Claudia foresee that? And she rescued me? She did do that. I immediately glimpse the truth and realize she did this all for me. Dragging me here, at considerable length and knowing she’d soon incur my wrath, she even remembered to bring a gift to say it was from me. I have so many things to atone for. Maybe I will with her. Perhaps.
Grinding my teeth, I watch her smile and interact with Ireena. No! Claudia’s my friend. She doesn’t need to be civil to that backstabbing bitch.
But she is.
Why? Because that’s how Claudia moves through life.
Then someone rises from across the room and catches my eye.
Damion.
My fucking twin brother. There he stands, virtually announcing to me where he is. He worked loading and unloading the cargo ships on the docks of Vancouver and I work at an office job. Damion’s chest is more toned than mine, which irritates the living shit out of me at this moment. But finally, I have nothing else to do right now but look straight at him. For the first time in eighteen months, I glare at my brother. There he is, across the living room we both grew up in. The same space, yeah, but now it feels like all the air got sucked out of it. It feels like a new place to me. An unfamiliar place. An unpleasant place. The room quiets. My mom steps out from the kitchen when she realizes I’m there. Damion and I are standing together in the same room. The last time this occurred, we ended up on the floor locked in combat. A stranger finally managed to separate us. We were balls-out and making it real, not the faux-fights we engaged in all through our childhood. Driving our mom nuts with our constant thumping, bumping, headlocks and wrestling but never using all of our power or strength. It was never meant for real.