by Emilia Finn
Rob
It’s Not What It Looks Like
When a guy is drunk for about eighteen hours straight, gets dragged out of the shower by his ballsack, and then thrust into a filthy club late at night, only for his brother to drop a beautiful woman into his lap with a go get ‘em pat on the shoulder and a pocket full of condoms, he could be forgiven for feeling a little sheepish when the sun comes up the next morning.
My ass is numb, my toes tingle, and my back aches, but I remain sitting on the floor in front of my closet, in exactly the same position I’ve been in since this woman – Kelly – and I stumbled out of Rhino’s last night somewhere around eleven o’clock.
Still drunk enough to agree to leave with her. But not even close to drunk enough to share a bed with her.
Kelly’s name is uncomfortably similar to Dr. Kelly’s, the OBGYN who’s gonna grit his teeth and feel bad for the gullible would-be dad when he finds out his patient was telling lies about the baby’s DNA.
Kelly – the female one – is nice, witty, smart, and though she’s an insatiable flirt, she also has a strong sense of girl code. I spilled my guts two seconds after meeting her, told her about Emma, Grace, the baby, and everything else in my life, also known as a shitshow. And so, instead of being a one-night stand the way Luke intended, she became a type of therapy for me while we walked back to the apartment.
She asked questions, she gave her own anecdotal answers, and when we got back here, I let her have the bed, I sat my ass on the floor, we stayed up talking for a couple hours more, and this is where we ended up; I have a new friend, a confidant who lives on the other side of the country, I didn’t have sex, though it’s doubtful anyone would believe me if I said so, and my brother has a guest tiptoeing along the hall.
My ears are trained to hear the almost silent pat-pat-pat of soft feet sneaking out of a guy’s room after a night of fornication and regret.
Kelly lays on my bed now, asleep and fully dressed, and though last night, she appeared to be a pillar of confidence and elegance, right this moment, she starfishes my mattress and dribbles onto my pillowcase.
When the sound of footsteps leaves the hall, I push up from my place on the floor, groan at the ache in my newly blood-filled limbs, then I hobble my way to the door and into the hall to catch sight of a redhead ducking into the kitchen.
She doesn’t have the bright red that most people think when someone says ‘red hair’, but something darker, a little more evil-queen.
Ah, my dehydrated brain dredges up, Luke mentioned this chick a week or two back while we were working on fixing up the old pier at the lake.
Luke having community service, which is not at all surprising, means I have community service too. It’s just the way it is. Where one goes, the other is dragged along against his will to carry out punishment he never earned, but must, because the other is too lazy to do it on his own.
The girl in the kitchen moves slowly, mumbling nonsensical things under her breath, but when I catch a whiff of my clothes – cigarette smoke, alcohol, and a dirty club are all infused in my shirt – I move away from her, and veer into the bathroom, swap my jeans for a pair of sweats, toss my shirt away, and lift my arm to take a sniff of my armpit.
Not repulsive, I guess.
Heading back into the hall, I approach Luke’s door and poke my head in to find him passed out on his bed. He sleeps much the same way Kelly does – everywhere, using up as much space as possible. And he drools, because I guess everyone I know is classy like that.
Closing the door again, I follow the sound of our guest and her surprised squeak when the coffee machine clicks on automatically. She jumps defensively, lifts her hands the way we know in our gym, but hers is less muscle memory and more… Jackie Chan movies.
The girl moves further into the kitchen so that the wall shields her from my view, but she’s the chick Luke has been talking about, and he never talks about anyone in particular. That makes her special. So I remain silent and stop in the doorway while she grabs a chair from around the table and takes it to the cupboard. Miss Dixie’s ice cream statue stands right beside our fridge, but beside him, Chester the llama sports a cute purse and a pair of shoes I don’t recall seeing when Kelly and I walked in last night.
Chester is here, which means my brother broke the law again, but not only that, he brought the evidence of his crimes back to our kitchen.
My silent vigil continues as the woman stands on the chair and grabs a mug from the cabinet. She stares at it for a moment, like it takes her brain especially long to read the Griffin branding on the side, then climbing down in almost silence, she considers her mission complete in total stealth mode, only for her eyes to come up to mine and blow wide.
“Dammit!” She presses a hand to her chest. “You scared the shit out of me! The coffee machine started on its own, so I…” She waves the mug around as though to emphasize her point. “It just started,” she says when I clamp my lips shut.
She thinks I’m Luke, her one-night stand and bed-buddy, which means I get three minutes, tops, to play with this before she figures it out.
“I didn’t touch it,” she indicates toward the coffee machine. “I guess it was on timer. So then I…” She shakes her head when I continue to stare. “Whatever. I need to drink some of this. Just one mug, then I’m going, and we can pretend none of this happened.”
“What’s with the llama?” I glance over at Chester. “He belongs to Miss Dixie.”
“I don’t…” She shakes her head and scrunches her eyes when the movement hurts. “I don’t know. I don’t remember it, but he’s wearing my shoes, and holding on to my purse, so I suspect that cements my culpability in the matter.”
My brows wing up high. “You stole it?”
The woman, I’m certain her name is Allyson, fills her mug with steaming coffee and tries really hard not to look at my bare chest. It’s cute how she peeks from the corner of his eyes, how she plays coy, and still has no clue that I’m not the guy she spent the night with.
Leaning against the counter, she brings the mug to her lips and hisses at the burn as she sips too fast. “I guess,” she finally answers and glances over at the llama. “Though there’s no way I carried that thing by myself, so it’s not all my fault.”
I glance to the table, littered with shot glasses and an empty bottle of Jäger. “You drank all that? You need to go to the hospital to have your stomach pumped, or…?”
“Um…” She presses a hand to her belly, and frowns. “Perhaps. I might wait it out for a minute and see what happens.” She looks around the kitchen. “You have any bread?”
“Er… in the fridge?”
I enter the kitchen and make my way to the fridge door. Allyson’s eyes follow me for every step. Pulling the door open, I swipe a half-empty loaf and offer it to the woman who I think is suffering the motherlode of all hangovers.
“You keep bread in the fridge?” She accepts my offer with a scowl. “Why?”
“Because if we leave it on the counter, it goes moldy before we can finish it. The fridge helps it keep for an extra couple of days.”
Allyson considers me for a moment, narrowed eyes, shrewd expression, then opening the bag, she digs a hand in and pulls a slice out to shove into her mouth. “Soak up the alcohol,” she explains around her mouthful as I back up to the doorway.
When she wakes a little and realizes she’s speaking to a stranger, she’s going to flip her shit. So I give her that space, I minimize her trauma – something, my aching heart reminds me, I haven’t done for Emma when it comes to Grace.
“Where am I?” Allyson looks around my kitchen. “Like, what part of town?”
“Not so far from Main Street. A couple of blocks.”
“A couple of blocks which way?” she asks. “If I can get back to Main, I can reorient myself and get back to where I’m staying.”
I tip my chin in the direction of Main Street. “That way. Two and a half blocks, and you’ll be able to see the police
tape from your crimes.”
Allyson bites off a chunk of bread. “Police tape?”
“The statue?” I nod toward Chester. “The ice cream man has been a fugitive and on the run since I was a kid. The llama…” I shake my head. “I fear you’ve brought the end of times down upon us. Miss Dixie’s gonna look, and when they immediately think to ask us, since everyone blames every crime in this town on my brother and me, the cops are gonna find not only the llama, but the other one too. Years of hiding and training, wasted. We’ll never live it down if both statues are discovered on our watch.”
“Ya know what?” Allyson swallows down a hunk of bread, and chases it with coffee. “You just said a lot of words, really fast. And my brain is just…” She drops down onto the chair she used to stand on just a moment ago, slumps in on herself, and groans. “I feel sick.”
“You need water,” I tell her. “Not coffee.”
“Coffee has water in it.” Leaning across the space between where she sits and where her heels hang out by Chester’s feet, she almost topples from her chair before snagging the pair and pulling them back. “I need to go home and shower. I feel really…” She bounces her shoulders with a whimper. “Gross.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate, and not at all a compliment for my brother.”
Allyson’s brows wrinkle the more I speak. Her lips screw together like she tastes something disgusting, but while she does that, she works on her heels.
Sound behind me in the hall brings me around to Kelly’s smiling eyes. My head isn’t all that straight this morning, and my body aches, but despite that and the humiliation of my secrets bared for her to know, my lips still quirk into a smile.
“Hey.” I pull Kelly in for a gentle – platonic – hug, but in the kitchen, Allyson snaps straight with such speed that it’s audible.
“Wow!” She jams her left foot into a sexy heel and goes to work on the clasp with enraged movements. “Wow!” she repeats and shoots to her feet with a growl. “Are you serious right now?”
I watch Allyson’s meltdown with playful curiosity coursing in my blood.
“What the hell is that?” she demands with flying hands that remind me of Mom when she loses her shit. “You’re not even gonna wait for me to leave before bringing another woman out?”
Because I know what’s happening here and Allyson does not, I merely watch her with laughing eyes and let her dig herself deeper.
Maybe if she embarrasses herself, my problems will pale in comparison.
“Where’d you hide her? In the fucking closet? Is she your—” She stops and looks into Kelly’s eyes. “Are you his girlfriend? Because he and I slept together last night.”
“Er…” Kelly’s gaze comes to mine, as though to make certain this isn’t the Emma she knows about. Or hell, is it Grace? So when I shake my head no, she looks back to Allyson and snickers. “Not his girlfriend. We met last night.”
“Well, I met him a week ago!” Allyson declares. “I was in first.”
“Wow.” I cover my smile and try not to laugh.
“Wait,” Kelly says. She’s playing with Allyson, just as much as I am. “You slept together last night? Seriously?”
“Well,” Allyson hedges. “I mean, we slept together. Like, actual sleep. There was no…” She lifts both hands, makes a circle with the fingers of one, then pokes her other pointer finger through the circle. “We didn’t do that… but we slept!”
“Well, if you get a chance with the,” Kelly points her fingers to make the penis, “I totes recommend. Good size, amazing girth, endurance for days, and not at all selfish. He didn’t come until I was up to, what?” She looks up at me. “Third, fourth orgasm? Then we showered and did it all again. He didn’t once say his legs were cramping.”
My face aches from my attempt to repress my smile. “I wonder if I should create a Yelp page for reviews. Because that was solid feedback.”
“Ten out of ten, would totes recommend,” Kelly adds. “And I’m heading out now anyway. So, I mean… you do you.”
A knock at the front door makes all three of us jolt.
Allyson spins so fast that she almost topples over, but my attention is on the statues, and the possible police visit to investigate whatever it is Luke did last night once I stopped supervising.
With a belly full of retribution, Allyson bolts to the door, so I race across the kitchen to cover the statues. Something. Anything to stop our fun from being discovered and destroyed. I toss hand towels over the llama’s head in the same moment Allyson opens the door, but then I’m pulled up short when it’s Em’s eyes I see, and not those of the boys in blue.
I skid on the floor, my stomach drops, and for just a second, my eyes go to Kelly as though searching for support.
“Wow!” Allyson completely misreads the tension in the room, and spins on me. “She’s yours too?”
Emma ignores Allyson’s declaration, and steps into the kitchen in a sundress and perfect heels. She looks amazing, like the sun after months of cloudy skies.
“Fuck,” I breathe out a sigh of relief. I have a million reasons to be relieved she’s here, and not one of them has to do with Chester. “Emma. You scared the piss out of me. I thought it was the cops.”
Her sparkling blue eyes scour me from top to toe. My bare chest, my sweatpants, and then me alone with two other women in my kitchen.
I want to scream that this isn’t what it looks like. I want to shout that I love her, and beg for a minute of her time, but she beats me to speaking, and lifts a brow at the mess in here; Jäger, women, and a llama.
“You guys are getting more and more disgusting every damn day.”
Just like with Allyson, Kelly glances up at me; is this the one? This time, I nod, so Kelly’s eyes pop wide. “Sorry. I’ll just…” She backs into the hall. “I’ll make myself scarce.”
Another knock at the door draws a groan from deep inside my chest.
This shit was funny five minutes ago, but now it’s getting ridiculous.
Allyson doesn’t bolt to answer. Rather, Em spins back and wrenches the door open with a flourish, only to end it with a snarl. “Grace Fucking Risotto,” she growls. “Fuck off, slut.”
“Emma Kincaid!” Grace screeches. “What the hell are you—” Then her eyes go to Allyson, and narrow. “Two of them! Are you fucking serious?”
“There’s one more.” Allyson tosses fuel on this fire, and jerks a thumb over her shoulder. “Big boobs, long legs, she actually seems kinda nice. But still…”
Grace’s eyes snap to mine.
The thing is, perhaps Allyson is unaware of the fact I’m not her companion from last night, but Em knows the difference between us, and so does Grace.
“This is all your brother’s fault!” she shouts. “He’s a snake prick, and you know he did this on purpose to take you away from me.”
“I’m gonna rip your hair extensions out and toss you out the window if you don’t fuck off,” Emma growls. “Then you can blame me for taking him away from you.”
“Fuck you, bitch!”
“Wanna test me?” Emma pops into fight stance, despite the fact we both know Grace is pregnant, and she sure as shit can’t fight back. “You know I’ll be the reason you need a nose job… again.”
“Rob!” Grace’s shouts surely wake half the damn neighborhood. “Why is she even here?”
“Because she’s family, Grace.” I look to Emma, and make the right choice this time. Third time’s a charm, maybe. But it won’t be Emma who is asked to leave today. I meet Grace’s eyes and do it right. “You gotta leave.”
“Rob?” Words finally begin to process in Allyson’s brain. She looks at me, then Grace. Back and forth. “Rob is…” She looks around. “Who is Rob?”
Luke finally enters the fucking room and saves Allyson from a mental collapse.
“Relax,” he murmurs right by her ear. “This is me. He’s Rob. She’s Emma. The bitch at the door is a filthy slut. And when you claimed me earlier, that was hot.”<
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Allyson jolts from his embrace, and slams against the counter with a cry of pain. She glances around like an animal stuck in a trap; me, Luke, me, Luke. “You…” She looks at me. “But he… And then…” She brings a hand up and rubs the pads of her fingers against her temple. “Jäger.”
Luke smirks and points over at me. “Twin brother. I’m older, in case you needed to know who was alpha.” He points to Grace, who remains in the hall with flaring nostrils and a bad attitude. “High school girlfriend, but she rode more dicks than the rest of our high school combined. I’m no saint, and neither is Rob, so we don’t wanna shame people for their friendliness toward the opposite sex, but she breaks my brother’s heart every time she fucks around. Hence, Grace Risotto is a fucking bitch, and never welcome in this apartment while I’m here. In fact…” He strides across the kitchen, passes Emma, bumps me aside, then slams the door in Grace’s face.
With a satisfied smile, he comes around to stand behind Emma, and rests a hand on her shoulders. “This is Emma. She’s family, and she thinks she’s alpha because she’s older than us, but it ain’t true. We all know it.” He plops a kiss on her cheek and chuckles when she smiles. “She’s our best friend. Mostly she’s his best friend, but I claim part ownership since he and I pissed in the same womb at the same time.”
He releases her, and moves back to Allyson. “He’s Rob. He spent the last twenty minutes fucking with you, because you thought he was me, and he gets off on messing with good folks.”
“You’re Rob.” Allyson looks to me in desperation. “You have different tattoos.”
“He also walks different,” Emma inserts with a friendly smile. She’s playing her role, she’s being kind, and best of all, she’s here and hasn’t kicked my face in yet. “And,” she continues, “he has the tiniest scar above his left brow.” She moves closer and slowly reaches up, like she has a million times before, to rub the pad of her thumb over my scar.
My heart soars, and my smile breaks free – Could it be? Is she back? – only for my smile to shatter and drop away when she slaps my forehead instead.