Lucas had a similar bracelet that he’d often worn. In fact, he’d been wearing that night. Stupid tears threatened as I wondered what had happened to it. I hoped his parents had gotten it, and now I wondered if that was it or if they had them matching.
Carefully, he turned to place the guitar in the back seat of the truck. From behind, if his hair was longer, he could have been Lucas. My heart tripped again.
Jesus, I need to get a grip.
Come on, brain, convince my heart—convince each other. He wasn’t Lucas.
He. Was. Not. Lucas.
In despair, my heart imploded at the reminder, and my chest literally ached.
“It’s fine,” I finally managed to squeak out, much too late for an appropriate response. Eyes filling again, I lifted a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that I would be able to maintain my composure. At least long enough to get back to the house.
Suddenly, I had a feeling it was going to be a very long three weeks.
What had I been thinking?
“We’re here,” he announced as we arrived at their parents’ home. The afternoon sun was only starting to wane.
The house was an older two-story home that had been well maintained. It sat on the side of a hill with the carport split under the first story and the deck off the right of the tall, sort of narrow-looking structure.
It had a certain charm, one that’s only found in older homes that have had new life breathed into them over the years. Painted a smoky blue with navy trim, it has a large picture window that looks out over the street and toward the sound. A set of stairs went up the hill on the right to the deck I saw as we pulled up.
Levi parked his truck behind what must be his mother’s SUV on the left side of the carport. Turning to me with a kind but questioning expression, he shut off the engine. For a few moments drenched in silence, we just sat there.
“You ready? I don’t want to rush you, but I figure you might like to go in and get settled. Maybe take a nap before supper? Mom said you had an early start.” He took a deep breath as he faced the house again and rested his forearms on the top of the steering wheel, his fingers tapping nervously on the dash.
“Look, Poppy, I know this can’t be easy for you. And I wanted to thank you for doing this for my parents. They’ve really been taking this hard, and I think it would’ve killed my mom to have to go through his things. Not that I can imagine it was easy for you. I guess that’s why I wanted to thank you. I know it couldn’t have been easy, and yet you did it anyway.” He closed his eyes for a minute before he glanced at me with a strange look in his eyes. Then he rushed out of the truck to get my bags.
Blinking back my tears, I climbed down from the truck. After grounding myself, I followed him to the door at the back of the carport. It led into a mudroom of sorts with a washer and dryer framed by cupboards, and a rod with clothes drying on it.
We climbed the stairs and came out onto what was the second story, but essentially the first full story. Stepping into a bright kitchen, I was assaulted by warm vanilla or something sweet that had been baking. I inhaled the calming scent.
“Ma! We’re here!” He hollered. Lucas’s voice.
Rapid footsteps descended the stairs, then a woman in jeans and a red hoodie came around the corner with a nervous smile. Linda was even prettier than FaceTime showed. As she came closer, I noticed laugh lines at the corners of crystalline blue eyes. She’d obviously passed the striking color on to her sons.
She reached out and embraced me like I really was her long-lost daughter. My arms tentatively returned her hug and I found myself once again fighting back tears. When will this feeling end? She pulled back, framing my face with her hands.
“My beautiful Poppy. I pray you’ll still consider us family even though—” Her voice caught, and I saw her eyes well with tears.
She took a shaky, fortifying breath and spoke softly to me again. “My Lucas may be… gone… but I feel certain his job on this earth was to bring you to us. From the moment he told me about you, I felt like I had known you all my life. Like you were finally being gifted to us after so much waiting.” A tear slipped free. Brushing it way, she laughed, a tinkling, nervous laugh. From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Levi clench his jaw, but then it was gone so quickly I was sure I must have imagined it. Was he angry at me now?
“I’m sorry, sweetie, I’m rambling and I don’t mean to. Levi, honey, will you please show Poppy up to the guest room? I need to put the lasagna in the oven to bake. I figure she’ll want to get freshened up and maybe rest a bit.” She raised her brows in question.
Nodding, I worried my bottom lip between my teeth before answering. “Thank you, Linda. Please just let me know when it’s ready. Are you sure you don’t need my help with anything first?”
“Goodness, no!” She waved her hands to shoo us along as she bustled over to the refrigerator.
Levi had already started down the short hall. He’d turned to start up the stairs by the time I hurried after him.
There were four doors once we reached the top floor. He pointed out the bathroom as we passed it. The room I was using was to the left, where it looked out over the front of the house and the street. In the distance, I could see the sound.
“It’s a beautiful view,” I said as I held the sheer curtains to the side to better gaze at the vista. Rain had begun to drizzle down, distorting the scenery as it ran down the glass. “Was this your room, then?”
That rich, beautiful voice poured over me as he spoke softly. “No. This was Lucas’s room. Since he was the first to leave home, it became the guest bedroom. I’m not sure if Mom thought about that. If you don’t want to sleep in here, you can use my room. I can stay in Logan’s room so you won’t be putting me out. My and Logan’s rooms aren’t as nice as this one, though….” He trailed off as if he wasn’t sure what else to say.
“No, this will be fine. Thank you, though. It makes me feel somehow closer to him. Maybe it sounds silly, but….” I was suddenly exhausted and at a loss for words. My legs folded under me as I dropped to the edge of the bed. Feeling the texture, I ran my palm across the hand-stitched quilt sewn in various shades and tones of blue.
Levi cleared his throat. “Okay, I’ll leave you to get settled in. If you need anything, I’ll be downstairs.” His gaze silently rested on me before he softly closed the door.
My energy completely sapped, I fell back on the bed and kicked my shoes off. In agony, my body curled up on top of the quilt. The tears I’d been holding in fell in a flood across my nose and over my cheeks and down to the bed. As I cried, I started to feel so damn tired.
Drained.
Physically and emotionally.
Right as I was drifting off to sleep, I could have sworn I felt Lucas smooth my hair as he had done so many times before.
“Darker Side of Me”—The Veer Union
Clutching the banister so tight my knuckles whitened, I hung my head in shame.
Poppy. My brother’s fiancée. The person I considered my friend. Honestly, the only person I wanted to talk to when I had the rare moments that I could call someone. Not my twin. Not my parents. No one but her.
Sure, I’d called my parents, but if I’d had limited time or limited calls I could make, it was Poppy or Lucas I called. No one would have ever known it was her, not my twin that I wanted to talk to.
When I found out she was still coming up to Seattle, I regretted taking leave beyond the memorial. It was not wise to be around her, I’d told myself over and over. It would have been easier if I’d stayed at Fort Lewis. But I didn’t.
I needed to see her. I needed to physically touch her. Even though it was a terrible idea.
We’d started out as friends. Despite my initial draw to her that first time I saw her, I’d been so happy that he was happy.
Poppy and I had only emailed each other at first. Lucas had given her my email so she could introduce herself and get to know me. Then she’d sent care packages. Not just to me, bu
t stuff for the other guys too. Those who had no one back home, she always made sure they had something.
That fucking sweet girl. So thoughtful. So kind. So not mine.
So yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ve been in love with my brother’s fiancée since the first time I heard her voice call me by my brother’s name. Or maybe it was just sparking then, and it was after her emails and the first picture she sent me of her and Lucas. Their laughter frozen in time at whatever the photographer was saying or doing.
Shit. How do you explain that? How do you justify feelings like that? What I did know was she had tugged at something deep inside of me from the first moment I saw her. Then that picture, with that smile…. I’m ashamed to say I cropped Lucas out of it and kept a copy of it tucked inside my Kevlar.
I must be fucking sick.
Hell, I was probably the biggest piece of shit alive. Because when I picked her up at the airport, I’d felt a wave of possessiveness sweep over me. I’d had to tell myself she was Lucas’s fiancée, not mine. She had loved my brother, not me.
Fuck.
My brother. My fucking twin brother. My other half. Even thinking about him shredded my soul. Even though I’d been mad at him for leaving, I’d fucking loved him more than life itself.
Growing up, we’d finished each other’s sentences. Sometimes people were freaked out because often we communicated without words. How the hell we did that, I don’t know. We just knew. It was hard to explain it to someone unless they were a twin. I still couldn’t believe Poppy hadn’t stopped to think about the fact that we were identical twins. What a mindfuck that must have been for her. The expression on her face when she’d looked at me was awful; like she’d seen a ghost.
Motherfucker.
Despite the bond I had with Lucas, like I said, my calls had been directed mostly to her. When I spoke to her, she made my mind a brighter place for the few moments I could hear her voice. The laughter that was always hovering in her words pushed the darkness down deep in me. Gave me a brief respite from the clawing shadows.
However, no matter how I felt about Poppy, neither of them would have ever known. I’d never have slipped. Lucas meant too much to me. His happiness was more important than me and my twisted thoughts about his girl.
So instead, I’d silently coveted her. I’d absorbed her light, consumed every flicker I could. But I never thought I would lose Lucas. If anything, I figured with my life—my career—it would be me who would be the one to die young.
It would have made more sense. There was no woman in my life. No kids.
Just me and the guys.
Dominic, Aiden, and I had all been assigned to the JSOC in Afghanistan together. We’d shared several missions and some of the same downtime, which was where I really got to know Aiden. Yes, we were in three different branches, but we all had our specialties that they needed for certain missions.
We’d all recently agreed this would be our last enlistment. We’d decided we would get out and then we would finally start our band. But a band didn’t compare to what Lucas had had. He’d been on the precipice of an amazing future with her.
I’d done reprehensible things. Things normal people not only don’t think about, but don’t even know we do. We did the dirty deeds behind the scenes. We’d constantly been sent out in small teams to do the shit our country didn’t want to admit we did. We maintained the status quo, with the citizens of this great country none the wiser. Regardless of whether it was simply me or them, I’d taken lives without remorse.
It should have been me.
Instead, that day was etched in my memory. Burned in my chest.
The worst nightmare of my life began when they broke the news. I’d been living in it ever since.
There wasn’t much time left on our rotation. I’d have been home soon, but because of Lucas’s death I was sent back a few weeks early on emergency leave. I’d been torn, though. It didn’t sit well with me to leave everyone there in that hellhole while I flew home. Home to bury my brother.
God-fucking-damn, I missed him like I’d miss a limb. It was like I was walking around with a gaping hole in me. Or half of my body just gone. Can you imagine what it’s like to have someone take a big fucking eraser and make part of you vanish? Poof.
I kept telling myself it shouldn’t be this fucking hard to deal with. I mean, fuck, throughout my career I’d been through a lot of traumatic shit. Seen things that would make a sane person vomit. Through it all, I’d persevered. Hardened myself and moved on.
Learning my twin was dead? It devastated me.
I never shed a tear, but I came fucking unraveled.
Being Special Forces definitely had its advantages. For one, I’d hardly taken any leave so I had a lot banked, both leave-wise and financially. For two, I’d been able to get my paperwork pushed through quickly. Though I knew my chain of command hated to see me get out, I was ready to go home. I’d seen more than I ever imagined, and done things I hoped I could forget.
Thankfully, my ETS date (Expiration of Term of Service—when I was supposed to be done with the Army) was approaching and my shit was in order. Before I knew it, I would be heading back, I’d finish clearing post, then I’d start my terminal leave.
Fuck. How was I going to get through the next two weeks with her in my space? Especially since I had promised Mom I would show her around, since I had the time. Damn me for extending my leave. All I could think was at least I wouldn’t be there for the full three weeks she’d be in Seattle.
In all honesty, I would have preferred to completely avoid her, because I didn’t know how I was going to handle being so close to her and yet not able to touch her. My twin brother was barely cold in his fucking grave and I couldn’t stop lusting after his fiancée. It made me sick to my stomach and I was ashamed of myself.
He, Logan, and I had been so goddamn close growing up. With us being twins, it really shook me up when he decided to move to Florida. All through high school he’d said he was going to Washington State. Then suddenly he was not only going out of state, but to fucking Florida.
I had been so angry at him and I never completely comprehended why he felt he needed to go. He’d said it was just something he had to do. That he needed to “be himself.”
Be himself? I’d never understood what he meant by that and I’d been too angry to ask. He’d left me incomplete. After all, we’d never been away from each other for any length of time.
Because I knew college wasn’t for me and I would need money to buy the equipment to start a legit band, I said, “Fuck it,” and joined the Army. Dominic and I were supposed to join together. Instead, he joined the Marine Corps because the Army recruiters pissed him off. Dumbass. Even in different branches, we had figured it would be a steady paycheck and we could live cheap enough to save up over the three-year enlistments we signed up for.
What I hadn’t counted on was making rank quickly and being recruited into the Special Forces. Selection was brutal, but I made it through and was selected. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d excel at something like that. I’d always been a daredevil as a kid, though, so maybe that should have been a warning that SF would be right up my alley. The adrenaline rush from a mission was indescribable. I’d miss that, twisted as it may sound.
I left for Basic Training a month after we’d turned eighteen. At first I’d told myself Lucas would be back after he graduated and got Florida out of his system. So I dealt with the separation from my twin, with the demands of the military.
Insanely, I’d volunteered for deployment. Then, when Lucas said he wouldn’t be moving back right after college, I’d signed up for another three years, then another two. The adrenaline rush had become an addiction and I couldn’t walk away. The band went on the back burner.
Dominic had done the same thing, so he couldn’t hate on me. For him, like me, it had started with wanting to save up money for the band, but also to help his mom.
Logan was pissed at us when we’d reenlisted the f
irst time and had played with another local band while we were gone. Eventually the music called louder than the adrenaline, and I’d decided enough was enough.
Fuck, I was so ready to lose myself in the music. There’d been too much negative shit in my life. Too much death. Truthfully, it had become too easy to do—too easy to kill. Too easy to put my life on the line. I turned twenty-six last week, and Lucas’s death had shown me life was too fucking short. It pissed me off that I’d been so close to getting out when I lost Lucas forever.
Not only did most people not know what I did, my own family had no idea what I really did. No idea that I wasn’t in Afghanistan the whole year I was supposedly deployed. I hoped they never did, either.
It was bad enough that I’d been shot once and blown up another time. Trust me, I thought about not telling them. Can you imagine how that would’ve gone over? Those were actually the two times that were officially documented. I’d had a few other “incidents” that didn’t show up in my record. No biggie. I didn’t give two shits about having any more purple on my uniform. Didn’t want what I had. No one wants that.
Anyway, let’s just say that when we were back at the FOB we jammed a little and wrote a few songs together. Talked a lot about ideas for the band. It lit the music fire in me again.
Aiden was a pretty cool dude. A little cocky, but I think we all were. The best part? He was a-fucking-mazing on the guitar. Words, melodies, rhythms, they flowed between the three of us like water downhill.
Yeah, some of our shit was dark. Look at what we lived. But regardless of what songs we played, it was good. Music calmed me. Quieted the demons that thrashed in my head. Grounded me.
I think it did that for all of us.
Dominic and I had talked extensively while we were there about how we’d both let time and the rush from our jobs lead us away from our end goal. The money was decent and we’d both saved up a good amount. The three of us all had reasonably similar end dates for our military contracts. It could work. The timing was right.
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