Famous by Association

by Leddy Harper

  “That!” He pointed to the yellow dish gloves that came halfway up my arm.

  “They were the only ones I could find.” I tsked at him, grabbing his foot with both hands. “Do you want me to rub your feet or not?”

  Finally, he calmed down and allowed me to give it my best. Which, as it turned out, was not that great. But then again, what did he expect from someone who had never done it before? For my skill level, I thought I was doing a pretty fantastic job.

  As soon as I finished his left foot, my phone rang from the coffee table. A simple glance at the screen had my heart racing and my chest tight. Ty. I hadn’t spoken to him since leaving the shopping trip with the girls earlier. Once Jacoby showed up, demanding his foot rub, I forgot all about the situation with my sister. But seeing Ty’s name brought back all the anxiety from before.

  I quickly snatched off a glove and grabbed my phone. “Hello?”

  “Hey, you got a sec?” He didn’t sound worried, though he didn’t sound calm, either. There was no telling which way this call would go. “I just got off the phone with Tiffany.”

  I glanced at Jacoby, and apparently, something about my demeanor put him on alert. He sat up and leaned forward as if ready to strike at a moment’s notice in my honor. I simply pulled one finger to my lips and returned my attention to the question I’d been asked. “Uh, yeah. What’s up?”

  “I wasn’t lying before when I said I don’t know very much about your sister’s transgressions. For someone who enjoys the spotlight as much as she does, she’s really secretive about her personal life. I had my suspicions, but I never had proof, and she certainly never copped to anything. The most I’d get from her was a dismissal. It wasn’t until you agreed to this charade that I got a non-admission admission, I guess you’d call it. That’s when she told me that it’s over, it was never a big deal, and no one knows anything.”

  “Okay…what are you trying to tell me, Ty?”

  “I just wanted to reiterate that before I tell you anything else.”

  I rolled my eyes, even though he couldn’t see it, but I wouldn’t doubt that he heard it in my voice when I said, “All right, I believe you. I never said I didn’t. Now get on with it. What did she tell you? What do I need to know?”

  There was a long pause before he cleared his throat. He certainly was doing a lot of that today, and it was on my last nerve. “She said that Serenity is completely bluffing, that there’s no way she would know anything. Apparently, if anyone knew, it’d be Jeannine, and as long as she’s not smashing your face in, then no one knows.”

  Without moving, I cut my eyes to look at Jacoby. I wasn’t sure why, considering he had nothing to do with any of this, but for some reason, the sight of him was calming, almost reassuring. He didn’t even have to know what was going on to settle my nerves—at least enough to allow my thoughts to make sense of this information.

  If Jeannine was the only one who would know anything…

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I was on my feet without even realizing that I’d stood. And as if my legs were acting on their free will, I began to pace. “Jeannine’s the only one who’s genuinely nice to her.”

  “Listen, that’s all she told me. We don’t know for sure if it was—”

  “Oh, don’t be dense, Ty. Of course it was.”

  His heavy huff filled the line, followed by, “Either way, it doesn’t matter. It has nothing to do with you or your job here. Serenity was blindly fishing, and since you knew nothing at that point, then you shouldn’t have given her any reason to keep digging. But under no circumstances are you to say anything about this to anyone. Do you understand, Tasha?”

  I managed to get out, “Yeah,” through gritted teeth.

  “Good. Well, I’ll let you get on with your night. Let me know if you need anything.”

  I didn’t even bother to say anything else. I couldn’t say anything else. The only thing I could manage was a mmhmm, and then I promptly disconnected the call. My head was all over the place, replaying every encounter I’d had with Jeannine. My thoughts bounced between the confidence Serenity had today when mentioning my sister’s side pieces and the bombshell that just landed in my lap. However, the one thing that had slipped my mind was that Jacoby was still here.

  “Do you need another hot chocolate?”

  I dropped my hands away from my face and looked at him. The compassion pouring out of his deep-green eyes let me believe that everything would be all right. The obvious need to help, which was written all over his face, pleaded with me to give him this. I resumed my seat, the yellow gloves now discarded on the floor at my feet, and shook my head. “This is beyond rum.”

  “What comes after rum?” While sincere, there was a note in his voice that warned of his intention to lighten the mood. “If it’s tequila, I’ve got you. But if we’re talking narcotics or any sort of illegal substance, then I’m sorry to say that you’re on your own.”

  My soul wanted to laugh, yet all I was able to do was smile. Granted, it was probably the most pathetic, sad, unconvincing smile he’d ever seen, but at least it was better than nothing. Especially considering how mixed my emotions were right now.

  “Pizza,” I said, wishing Dave was here. Jacoby was great, and I appreciated him so much, but there were things that Dave just knew to do or say. I didn’t have to tell him. And when I’m in a mood, the last thing I want to do is explain what I need. However true that was, it wasn’t fair to Jacoby, so I conceded and allowed him the opportunity to step in and take on the role of my best friend. “A big, greasy pepperoni pizza with extra cheese.”

  He wasted no time taking out his cell, and without a word, he slipped out of the room, likely to place an order. Suddenly, I was all alone. Normally, being by myself in this type of situation made me feel better. I felt like I could breathe easier, like I was free to express my emotions in any way I saw fit. If I wanted to cry, I didn’t have to worry about someone’s need to hug me. If I wanted to throw something, then I could without the guilt of my actions causing anyone else discomfort.

  Except now, when I should’ve enjoyed the space, the freedom to move through my emotions, I couldn’t. I didn’t want to cry or break anything. In the rare times that neither of those would suffice, there were always video games. If I wasn’t ready to deal with a problem, then I’d ignore it by losing myself in whatever game fit my mood. But as I stared at the console below the massive TV screen anchored on the wall, that didn’t appeal to me, either.

  Jacoby appealed to me, though.

  His presence was all I craved. His company was all I needed.

  When and how did this happen?

  12

  Jacoby

  Tasha was on her back with her arm slung over her face when I returned. Her legs were straight out in front of her, and her mouth hung open. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought she was asleep. But since I’d only been out of the room for two minutes, I knew she wasn’t.

  “Pizza will be here in fifteen to twenty minutes,” I said, plopping onto the cushion next to her feet. Without waiting for a response, I grabbed one foot and began to knead my thumbs into her heel. She didn’t have to tell me that she liked it, I could tell that by the way her body instantly relaxed.

  She lifted her arm and rested it behind her head while regarding me with an unexpected emotion in her eyes. I’d anticipated returning to find her in the same mental state as when I left—which was slightly better than drooling on herself while rocking back and forth in a corner. However, the woman staring back at me now seemed filled with awe, consumed by gratitude. And I had no idea why.

  “This was your plan all along, wasn’t it?” I teased, doing my best to lighten the mood in the room. “To get me to rub your feet. You did this on purpose; don’t even try to deny it.”

  Her face lit up in genuine awe. “You caught me.”

  “I knew it. I bet that phone call was completely staged.”

  “Dang, I’ve got to get better at acting. Ex-sp
ecially since I’m supposed to convince everyone that I’m someone else.” Her exaggerated pronunciation made me laugh, but as soon as she started talking again, my laughter died on my lips. “And now that I know about my sister’s infidelity, pretending to be her is going to be way harder.”

  “Wait. What?” Not that it came as any surprise, but the way she admitted it shocked me.

  “Yeah. One of the girls made a comment today that didn’t sit well with me. She didn’t say it in front of anyone, but it was just the way she said it that had my stomach in knots. Then, on my way home, I called Ty to see what he knew about it. Turns out, she wasn’t wrong. Except it’s much worse than I thought. Tiffany didn’t just cheat on Adam…she cheated on Adam with one of the other girl’s husband.”

  I didn’t have any words. Not because I thought that Tiffany was some standup individual who’d never cheat on her fiancé. It had more to do with how I viewed Tasha, and considering she was impersonating her sister, it left me with a bit of a confused reality.

  “I just don’t know what to do. I don’t feel that my sister should get away with it. And what’s worse is she’s basically profiting from being a horrible person. But I can’t say anything. I can’t do anything. My hands are tied, and it makes me feel gross.”

  As I continued to knead the soft arch of her foot, my mind spun with thoughts and ideas and suggestions that could help her out of this. I truly hated that she was in this situation, and there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t give to get her out of it. “What if you didn’t say or do anything, but at the same time, didn’t do anything to deny it?”

  Tasha took a deep breath, and on her exhale, she shrugged. “I guess it would depend on how that happens. You know? As long as it doesn’t come back to me or could be proven that I had knowingly done something wrong. But I don’t see what I could do—or not do—that wouldn’t come back to me.”

  While waiting for the pizza to arrive, we tossed around a few ideas. I continued to massage her feet, and she continued to look at me like I’d hung the moon. If I’d only known that a foot rub had this kind of effect on her, then I would’ve purposely lost the bet. This was way better than watching her squirm while finding excuses not to touch my feet.

  “Please don’t be mad at me, but I’m not really in the mood for pizza anymore.” The way she regarded me with a furrowed brow and pleading eyes made her look like a child scared of getting in trouble for spilling juice on the carpet. It made me laugh.

  “Why would I be mad?”

  “Because the only reason you ordered it was because I asked you to.”

  “So? It’s just pizza, not a diamond ring.” As soon as I said that, I couldn’t help but glance down at the rock on her left hand. She’d briefly explained it before, shortly after I had discovered the truth about who she was. It was a replica of the one Adam had given her sister when he proposed, which had been made specifically for her since Tiffany refused to let her wear the real one.

  Tasha must’ve caught me staring, or maybe she noticed a subconscious thought written across my face, because she quickly flashed the cubic zirconia in front of me and laughed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that pizza cost more than this piece of plastic.”

  “Is that really the same size as Tiffany’s?”

  She flattened her hand on her thigh and regarded the shiny stone. “I honestly have no idea; I’ve never seen it in real life, but based on what it looks like in pictures, I’d say so. Not to mention, I doubt they would’ve gotten an imitation ring that didn’t look identical to the original, much like the imitation Tiffany.”

  I swept the pad of my thumb over her cheekbone and followed it around her ear, brushing her hair away from her face. “I think you got that a bit backwards, babe. More like you’re the original, and she’s the fraud.”

  “No need to go that far, babe. I never said I was a fraud,” she teased, likely trying to avoid the compliment. She didn’t seem to take them very well, always dodging them without making it obvious that’s what she was doing. “Either way, Tiff was born first, so technically, she would be the original.”

  “How does that work exactly? Keeping identical twin babies separate, I mean,” I asked right before taking a bite of pizza. Just because she didn’t want it anymore didn’t mean I’d let it go to waste.

  “I asked my mom that when I was a kid. She said that we had hospital bands on our ankles that had our names on them. After that, we either wore different clothes to tell us apart, or we were separated—like not in the same crib, not changed at the same time, that sort of thing.”

  As if blindly following my lead, she grabbed a slice from the box. But then she picked off the pepperoni, which confused me considering she was the one who requested it to begin with, but rather than ask about it, I wanted to finish the conversation we were in the middle of. “So you two were never dressed in the same outfits? I thought that was a tradition for twins.”

  “Oh, I’m sure we did. My parents have one photo of the four of us when Tiff and I were only a couple months old. She and I were in the same clothes, and our parents wore colors that matched us. And I remember when we were little, maybe five or so, Mom always dressed us alike. She said people always got us matching dresses for gifts.”

  “It just seems to me that it’d be hard to tell you guys apart.”

  “Well, when we got older, we obviously knew our names, so when someone would call us by the other, we’d correct them. Except if Tiff was mad at me, then she wouldn’t correct them. Instead, she’d act like a total brat and get me in even more trouble. Really, it’s astounding how many times I’d hear, ‘I didn’t tell you that you could get out of your room,’ when I was never told to be in there in the first place.”

  “Okay, but before you could recognize your name…you have to admit that it’s possible that someone mixed you two up, right? A sitter, a family member, anyone who couldn’t tell you apart and didn’t want to admit that they got you guys confused.”

  She finished the slice of pizza, leaving only the crust, and licked her fingers while contemplating my question. Finally, she shrugged and said, “I mean, sure, I guess that could’ve happened. Why?”

  “Just proving that it’s entirely possible that you were born first, and therefore, the original, and your sister is the imposter. But because someone put you both down on the floor and forgot who was on the left and who was on the right, you became the younger of the two.”

  Tasha laughed, not even bothering to cover her mouth as her amusement filled the room. Such an intoxicating sound. And when she managed to calm down enough to look at me, the sight of her—cheeks pink from her all-consuming fit of laughter, eyes glistening from the sheen of humor-induced tears, smile lines accompanying her curled lips like parentheses—made me pause. I’d never seen anyone so comfortable in their own skin, so content with who they were at their core, and it made me realize one thing…

  The only reason Tasha had a shot at pulling off this charade was because no one truly knew Tiffany Lewis. If they did, then they’d see right through the act. No matter how much Tasha practiced being her sister, she’d never be able to disguise herself as anything less than a woman who knew who she was and owned it.

  “Are you saying that there’s a chance that I really am Tiffany?” Her laughing questions broke through my thoughts and brought a smile to my face. “I think I’d rather be the imitation, thank you. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I knew I was the real Tiffany Lewis.”

  “Well, I meant in name only. Not the personality.”

  She shrugged and grabbed another slice, leaving the crust from the last piece still on the paper towel in front of her. “I don’t mind not being the ‘original.’ It just means I was born with a nicer-shaped head, thanks to my sister paving the way out for me. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with her—maybe she was stuck in the birth canal too long and it affected her brain.”

  I couldn’t exactly argue with her theory.

  “And really, if you think
about it,” she continued while picking off more pepperoni. “The first of anything is usually crap anyway. It’s why you should never buy the first generation of a new product. You have to give them time to work out all the kinks and bugs, which makes the second product superior.”

  “Being the second child myself, I have to agree with you on that.”

  She winked and ate her second slice of pizza. And once again, she ate everything but the crust, setting it down on the paper towel with the other, along with a pile of pepperoni. The way she did this was so normal, as if it were the proper way to eat pizza. I just watched in awe, waiting to find out what she planned to do with it. I couldn’t fathom her not wanting the meat after specifically requesting it on the pie.

  “So back to this plan about my sister and her cheating ways,” she said after swallowing another bite. “Just about everything is on camera, so I’d have to make sure it’s not obvious. And as much as I like your idea of getting Serenity involved, I feel like there’s a hundred percent chance of that coming back to bite me. She just might have my sister beat on the chib-o-meter.”

  She was on her third slice at this point, and I had to admit, I found it rather impressive. Most women didn’t eat like this, and it’d be a lie if I said I didn’t love it. There was just something about watching a woman enjoy her food. Although it might sound weird, it was a bit of a turn-on.

  “You could just wait for her to bring it up again.”

  She lifted her gaze to the ceiling, pondering that while she finished chewing. One eye squinted more than the other, as if animating her thought process, and she scrunched her nose like she just smelled something funky. But then she swallowed and returned her attention to me with a shrug. “What if she doesn’t bring it back up? She was really weird about it when she said something earlier.”

  “Weird how?”

  “I don’t know, just…taunting almost. Like she knew something private about me and was rubbing it in my face. Then she assured me that my secret was safe with her. Tiff swears blindly that no one knows anything, and that Serenity was bluffing, but I don’t buy it. She knows something. I’m just not sure what exactly that something is.”