by Lily White
That’s what I learned in the time I spent with the twins, those weeks when they were my boys and nobody else’s.
There are many differences between them besides the freckle, you just have to know them well enough to see it.
Where Ezra is darker in personality, more serious about things, Damon is the lighter side, his outlook on life far more easygoing.
But this?
How we’re positioned right now?
This is more than playful.
It’s dangerous.
Planting my hands against his chest, I smile at the humor in his eyes, but also know just how loose his trigger is. I don’t want to hurt him. I care about him more than he’ll ever know.
He’s just not Ezra.
Unfortunately, my efforts to shove him off are useless. Damon is much stronger than me. Much larger.
“I’m good, but I’d be better sitting up,” I tease, hoping like hell he’ll catch the not-so-subtle hint.
Something I can’t interpret flashes behind his eyes, quickly there and gone again before he nods his head and rolls off me, allowing me to sit up.
When his hand catches mine, I glance down at him.
“Why are you here?”
Another flicker of something, and it’s enough to tug at my heart.
I did this.
I caused it.
Nobody can be blamed but me.
“Because I thought things were good between us.”
He gives me that damn crooked smile I love so much.
“After what happened at the party, I thought the three of us could try this again.”
The three of us.
That’s the kicker.
It was never supposed to be the three of us in the end.
Only two.
That’s the promise I made.
The mistake I made.
It was one or two slip-ups, if you can call them that. Moments when I should have thought better about what I was doing.
Moments like now.
There’s something else about the twins that’s so unlike each other.
While both are feral, wild in their own way, there’s a distinct temperature difference in the way they function.
Ezra is much colder than Damon. He’s power and control and domination, while Damon is hot, his actions always overtaking his thoughts, his instincts driving him without concern for the consequences.
Cold and hot.
Calculating and spontaneous.
Night and day.
Colorless and a broad spectrum of rainbow prisms.
Everybody thinks they’re the same.
But they’re not.
Not when you know them like I do.
And that’s how I got myself in trouble.
I was having fun. I was shrugging off obligation. And I was fooling myself to believe that we could protect our hearts.
We couldn’t.
“That shouldn’t have happened,” I finally answer him as I fight to bat away all the memories rushing me now.
“It was fun,” he laughs, his fingers tangling tighter with mine when I attempt to pull away. He pulls me down so that I’m practically on top of him, his hand reaching up to trap my chin.
Voice a soft purr, Damon searches my eyes when he asks, “Why not? Are we not good enough for you anymore? I heard you traveled the world. How many men did you find who could compete with us?”
None.
There’s the simple answer.
Not one of them had the same electric shock, the same spark that short-circuits me whenever our eyes dance together.
Not one.
But then, it wasn’t Damon I was comparing them to.
And that’s the problem.
Damon shifts and he’s above me again, our eyes locked, a question rolling through his expression that I’m silently begging him not to ask.
I love him.
You have to know that.
This man holds a piece of my heart.
But I’m not in love with him. And that’s the distinction that caused the fallout between all of us when our weeks of just fun were over.
His fingertips trace the line of my jaw, the touch so soft that I close my eyes to feel it. I’d given my heart away to these two men, and they tore it apart without meaning to.
“It could be just like old times. Things haven’t been the same since we left for college, which really doesn’t make sense. We only had you for a short time, but-“
His voice trails off. Not that he needs to finish that statement. I remember exactly what we were.
How can fun turn into our names being seared into each other’s souls? How can it warp and twist so easily until unrecognizable?
Somehow it did.
And we’re all scarred because of it.
“This won’t work,” I tell him, leaving it at that simple statement because the reason for my answer is something that would hurt him.
Damon made a confession to me ten years ago that was wholly unexpected.
Not even Ezra knows the truth.
His lips thin as his eyes trap mine, old wounds reopening.
“It was never me, was it? It will never be me.”
“Damon...”
He shakes his head and pushes away from me, a shroud of rejection wrapping him, the truth always so loud and clear.
Damon was never the one I wanted to be with.
That didn’t mean he stopped fighting for it.
Stopped wanting it.
Stopped needing me to dance with him, both of us consumed by his blinding chaos.
Before I can sit up, he’s on his feet and across the room, his gaze holding mine as he leans against a far wall and crosses his arms over his chest.
“It won’t be either of you,” I say, “not after ten years. We shouldn’t have done what we did. It was a stupid mistake, something we promised to do when we were kids that never should have happened. I got carried away, and I was so happy to see both of you, but I should have been the one to stop it.”
“It’s fine, Red. Don’t let it bother you.”
Except it’s not fine. The pain I clearly see behind his eyes is wiped away when he blinks, just the corner of his mouth curling up. I know better than to buy the act he’s putting on that this isn’t affecting him.
“It doesn’t matter,” he finally mutters to himself as he runs a hand through his hair. “That’s not the only reason I’m here.”
Here it is.
I know it.
Can sense it like the question is floating around in my own head begging to be asked.
And sadly, for as much as I want to give him an honest answer, I can’t.
“Why did you do it, Red? Without one fucking word. Is it really out of sight, out of mind with you?”
He has no idea his fist is around my heart right now, that he’s crushing the organ between cruel fingers, squeezing every last drop of blood out until it’s left crushed and hollow.
Damon doesn’t have the first clue how hard it was to stay away from them.
And because of the reason why I had to do it, I have to sit here and pretend that I’m not suffering just as much as him. That I’m not breaking right in front of him.
If I can make him believe it was me who wanted things to end, then I can prevent the twins from blaming - or hating - each other.
“Our weeks were up. You two left, and I knew I was leaving the country for a while. We never intended it to be more than that.”
“What you’re saying is bullshit, and you know it.”
Breathing out heavily, I pretend to be exasperated instead of choking on the knot of regret in my throat.
“It’s been ten years, Damon. Both of you moved on. We’re all adults now-“
He rushes forward and grabs me by my shoulders to lift me up. I’m on my knees now, our foreheads pressed together and his eyes no longer concealing that wild temper he can never control.
Everything is hot with him. His anger. His love. His passion.
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His pain.
“I refuse to believe that. It’s not you, Em. I know you better than that. What we all had was different.”
“It was only a handful of weeks. You two don’t even know me anymore. I don’t know you,” I argue, all while fearing the argument is bullshit.
Damon grins, his body tense as he reins in control.
“No. I won’t accept it. The second we had you in that room, you were back to yourself again. You might be able to deny it with words, but your body doesn’t lie. You’re right, though. What we did was a mistake. Because it reminded me what has been missing for the past ten fucking years.”
Tears sting my eyes because he’s not wrong.
His gaze tracks one of those tears where it rolls down my cheek. Catching it with the tip of his finger, he grins again.
“See what I mean? Your body tells the truth.”
And then he kisses me. Like a man who hasn’t breathed in years. Like a soul taking its first and last taste of everything good in this world. He kisses me with every ounce of the wild passion inside him that always drives me crazy, and I can’t help but kiss him back.
Because I do love him.
Just not enough.
Not like I love Ezra.
A buzzing sounds from his pocket and Damon breaks the kiss, heavy breath pouring over both of our lips as he pulls his phone out and glances at the screen.
I recognize what rolls behind his eyes.
And I sure as hell don’t like it.
“Who is it?”
Rather than answering, he backs away from me and heads toward the door.
“I have to go.”
“Damon! Who is it?”
Stopping with his hand on the knob, he stands silent for several seconds before finally answering.
“It’s my dad.”
He glances over his shoulder, and I see nightmares in his eyes that he attempts to disguise with a cheesy smile.
“I told you your body doesn’t lie, Red. And that kiss? It was the truth.”
“That can’t happen again, Damon.”
Rejection flashes across his expression. Damon attempts to hide it, to disguise the thoughts that might as well be screaming between us.
It was never him.
“We’ll see.”
He lets himself out and closes the door before I can say another word, and I’m left sitting in place with a crushed heart in my chest and no idea how I’ll fix this.
What’s worse is that the look I saw on his face as he walked out of here is the same one I used to see in high school.
The same one Ezra had at the engagement party after talking to his father.
The same one they both had when they would come back from those weekends I hated so much.
The weekends that left them bruised.
That left them scarred.
That left them broken.
Ezra
Two weeks before the last time I saw Emily, we took a trip out to a beach house my family owned.
It was a three-hour drive to reach it, but the property was expansive, and you could do whatever the hell you wanted out there without worry of someone finding you.
I’d wanted it to be just Em and me, but we couldn’t leave without Damon, and then Shane tagged along because he was being a little bitch and didn’t want to be left behind.
It wasn’t a problem having Shane around. He often partied with us and knew what we were doing with Emily. He wasn’t the type to give a damn about it or say a word.
Not that I cared if anybody knew, but Emily had to keep up appearances. If it ever got back to her parents what she was doing, they’d lock her down until the day she was marched down the aisle to marry Mason.
The trip was nothing more than an opportunity to get away and be alone. I hadn’t expected much more than the usual.
Emily would get to be herself for a while, Shane would most likely drink himself stupid, and Damon and I would have the entire night with a girl who’d somehow managed to carve her name into our bones with an ease that left us both stunned.
Maybe it was something as simple as like recognizing like, but six weeks with her somehow became a lifetime...and a lifeline.
For me, at least.
Damon enjoyed being around her. She calmed him down as much as she did me. But it was my leash held constantly and comfortably in her hand, even when she didn’t know it.
After one week with her, I would have done anything she asked, which is why I was panicking as time ran out. Our six weeks of fun with no strings attached was all too quickly bound by chains that I knew I’d never break.
I couldn’t let her go.
I knew it.
Yet time was running out for me to do anything about it.
Later that night, we’d built a bonfire on the beach. Shane and Damon had gone a little too far with it, and the flames were high enough to torch the stars, the fire so hot it was melting the sand into glass.
Emily laughed to see it, her pale face angled up to watch the flames lick the sky.
A song she liked came on, and she already had a few drinks in her, so she’d stood up from where she was sitting next to me to dance around that fire.
I’d watched with unbreakable fascination.
She was nothing more than a dark silhouette against the fire, her crimson hair flying around her shoulders and her body moving in a tease.
Emily, in those rare moments, revealed herself to be a queen.
One strong enough to hold me in place.
One fearless enough not to worry about the beast that kneeled at her feet.
Of all the girls in school, none of them - not one of them - could stand beneath the pressure Emily did and still manage to laugh and dance.
She was free, unweighted by obligation, unbound by her bullshit good girl reputation, so fucking wild that I realized while watching her that it wasn’t just friendship I wanted from her.
I’d fallen in love.
I also knew that I couldn’t let her go. Not after the six weeks were over and not after I left for college.
Who the hell knows where Shane and Damon had gone at that moment? Most likely up to the house to get more to drink. But I was alone with her for what felt like forever as she danced and danced and danced.
I snapped my leash after a while, unable to sit still while she weaved her magic around me without the first clue what she was doing.
I think that’s what made her even more irresistible.
Emily didn’t try to lure me in.
She just did.
Lunging forward when she got close enough to grab, I grinned at the squeal on her lips as I pulled her down, my body pinning her to the sand before she could wriggle away to escape.
Her red hair covered her face, and I brushed it away to find big turquoise eyes staring up at me, round and soft. Her lips stretched into a grin that was seared into my memory.
There was no point dancing around what I wanted.
“I need you to promise me something.”
Laughter coated her voice. “Okay. If I can.”
Her words lit me up inside.
“It’s not about if you can. Just tell me you’ll give me what I want.”
The roll of her eyes made me grin.
“Fine. What do you want?”
“Promise me you’ll still be mine after I leave for college. Only mine. Just me and you.”
Her brows tugged together, and I knew an argument was coming. The second her mouth moved, I shut her up by pressing my thumb to her lips. That touch meant a hell of a lot more between us than anybody realized.
“Don’t argue with me. I know you’re supposed to marry Mason. I know we were only supposed to do this for a few weeks. I know we have every barrier in the world set between us, but I don’t care. If I can figure out how to work around all of that, then will you promise me that it’ll just be us when school ends and I leave? I can’t let you go, Em. I fucking refuse. So if I can figure this out, will you make
me that promise?”
We stared at each other for what could have been hours. At least that’s how it felt, the silence so tense that my jaw ached from clenching my teeth, my thumb pressing against her lips harder.
Eventually, Emily did the one thing that always broke me.
She cupped my cheek with her hand, a silent gesture that I somehow knew meant she was right there beside me.
No matter what.
The tension bled away instantly, every muscle in my body relaxing as I leaned my face into that touch like a beaten dog who was experiencing kindness for the first time.
She owned me with that touch.
Slowly, I pulled my thumb away from her mouth to wipe at a tear that slipped from the outer corner of her eye.
“Say it,” I demanded.
Sorrow lined her expression, but she didn’t let me down. I knew she cared about Damon, but there was a deeper connection with me. You could see it in the way she looked at me. In the way her body melted every time I touched her.
Emily could breathe easier every time I was near.
“I promise,” she finally answered, a smile tugging at her lips that she tried to hide.
I wouldn’t let her.
“Say it again.”
Her lips stretched into a full smile then. “I promise.”
I pressed my thumb to her mouth one more time and cocked a brow. When her teeth caught the tip and bit down, that tiny amount of pain shot through me like lightning.
“That’s my girl.”
Her promise was all I needed.
It’s too bad she broke it as soon as we packed up and left for college a few weeks later.
I never heard from her again.
I took that to mean she didn’t believe in me, that she couldn’t trust I was strong enough – or determined enough – to tear down every barrier that stood between us.
The queen didn’t know her beast would destroy the world if that is what it took to have her.
Every time thoughts of Emily ran through my head after that night, I saw her by that bonfire. I watched her dance. I heard her voice speak two words that were etched on my soul.
I always dreamed of her dancing.
Like now.
Unfortunately, the dream shatters as soon as some asshole smacks me upside the head, a deep voice yanking me from that beach, my teeth grinding and my arm swinging out to beat down whoever is fucking bothering me.
“Whoa, Ezra. Try not to shoot the messenger. You need to get up.”