by J. L. Beck
Yet instead of living in a dorm or a sorority or something else typical, I was living with my brother. I doubted that made me seem like a sexy, attractive adult. I sighed, and then heard footsteps.
I was prepared to face weird questions on why I was sitting cross-legged in the hallway. This was a pretty nice place, and they tend to be hostile to people doing weird things like I was.
Luckily, I didn't need to think of how to explain my predicament.
Instead, I was dealing with a sudden desire to swoon and faint in awe. Or whatever it was those dainty women did in old movies.
Joel and Logan. The twins.
Fuck, they got hot.
Hotter.
Whatever.
They'd always been older than me, and I’d always had a thing, but now they were damn near model quality. They’d filled out, taking cute, dumping it, and running full-on screaming into handsomeness.
I scrambled to my feet in front of them. I realized I had the stupidest look on my face. "Um, uh, yeah, hi," I managed to stumble over in the least cool fashion ever.
"Tate," Joel said. "My, my, hasn't little sister grown up?"
Blood rushed through my cheeks. "Um, maybe a little."
"There's nothing little about you," Logan added, his eyebrows waggling at me, and the direction of the eyes themselves told me it definitely wasn't a comment about my weight.
"Um... uh... yeah..." I couldn't make eye contact. They came in swinging, dropping lines like that on me. They always did this. It really riled Jeremy up for them to be hitting on me. Part of me knew it was a joke, but all the same, there was always that part that told me there was a kernel of truth in their teasing and that they liked what they saw.
Maybe it was all wishful thinking.
"So, my brother isn't here to let me in."
"The Jerm?" Logan said, walking up to the door, pulling out a key, and turning it. "Yeah, he told us he wanted us to be the welcoming party. Help you get settled in. He's kind of missed you."
"We've kind of missed you," Joel added in, a Cheshire cat-like grin taking over his face.
They led me into the apartment, and Jeremy definitely wasn't doing poorly for himself. This place was nice. He could have used the word penthouse or something to describe it. Huge windows with a beautiful view. A fully featured, huge kitchen. Carpets that made the hallway carpets feel like sandpaper in comparison. Jesus, the place was just huge.
I stumbled through it, just taking it all in awe.
"I bet this is a hell of a lot nicer than any dorm or sorority house you could stay in," Logan said. "Plus, you get to hang out with us. Can you really top that?"
"Aren't we full of ourselves?" I responded, heaving my bag around. Damn, this thing got heavier the more I carried it.
Hanging out with them seemed as if it would be more of a challenge in not jumping their bones than anything else. Four years was a big deal when you were both teenagers. When you got older, that gap seemed smaller and smaller.
An eighteen-year-old and a fourteen-year-old getting together was yuck. A twenty-two-year-old and an eighteen-year-old? Not so much. In the eyes of the law, we were all legally adults, free to make our own decisions, however stupid they might end up being.
It was silly. They were just fucking with me, and not in the way I dreamed about. That I could seduce one of them as a timid little virgin was crazy enough, but both of them? My imagination had a way of getting the best of me, I guessed.
"So, would you know what room is meant for me?"
"Yeah," Logan said. "It's my bedroom. It's not in this apartment, though."
Joel proceeded to shove an elbow right into his brother's gut. Logan just laughed it off. "It's the one to the left. The one with just a bed and a dresser. You should probably put your own touch to it so it looks less depressing."
I just shook my head in Logan's direction and gave Joel a nod. "Thanks."
Some time alone was exactly what I needed. Stop thinking about them. Maybe lock the door and look up something dirty to try to get my mind off them.
As I carried my bag down the hall, though, I glanced back. Getting my mind off them was a whole lot easier said than done.
Chapter Two
JOEL
"Dude, don't you think you're laying it on a little thick there?" I turned to my 'younger' brother, arms crossed, and loomed over him. "I know we always give her shit, but Jerm's not even here to get pissed off at us doing it. I thought we agreed that was most of the fun."
Logan had grabbed a beer out of the fridge. He was the rare weirdo who actually liked beer for it's taste, so if he wasn't going to be doing anything like driving or making serious, life-altering decisions, it was bottoms up. "You can't seriously tell me you aren't tempted when you see that."
"What, Tate?"
"Who else would I be talking about? That girl has turned into a fine-ass woman. Man, she's like, perfect now. Everything's just the right size." He did some comical gestures all around his chest and ass, as if he was trying to show me how he liked it and how Tate had shaped up.
"You know Jerm has always told her she was off-limits."
"Well, yeah, when she was underage. She was always an age bracket lower than us, bro. Although not to sound like a friggin' pedo or something, I'm pretty sure I remember the hints of a fine-ass woman back when she was fourteen and we were about to take off for the city."
I let out a breath. "I doubt everything changes just because she's legal now. Jeremy didn't call us over to fuck his sister. He just wanted us to let her in, make her feel welcome."
"I don't know about you, bro, but a good, solid fucking would definitely make me feel welcome."
"Dude, chill it. She's like a little sister to us."
Logan just started to laugh. He set his beer down and came over to my side and threw his arm around my shoulder. "Be honest with me here. When you stepped off that elevator and came along to see Tate, you weren't taken aback about how hot she was? How the Jerm's little sister suddenly became sex on two legs."
I grunted. I really did hate when he was right.
"You want her too, bro. If there's anything I've learned, it's that we share a lot of the same taste in women. Maybe it's part of our genetics or our upbringing, whatever. If I find a girl hot, you probably find her hot."
"Whatever you say. You just know that Jeremy isn't going to be on board with us trying to lay the moves in on his sister."
That caught Logan a bit off guard, but only for a moment. A devious grin formed on his face. "Maybe it's time we show him that his little sister is all grown up now and can take care of herself, eh?"
"You're not seriously considering putting the moves on her, are you?"
He laughed. "If the opportunity presents itself, I'm not going to let big brother get in the way of me showing little sister a whole new world of delights."
"Dude, we've been friends with Jeremy since the first grade."
"Yeah, we have. If he doesn't want us to be happy and doesn't want his sister to be happy, he really isn't that much of a friend after all, is he?"
I looked his way. God, thinking of Tate…yeah, it did things to me. She was always cute, and I knew she was going to become something special. I’d readily admit that I thought of a grown-up version of her now and then in my fantasies. If it was another era, it would have been a given. People married their friend’s sisters all the time. Hell, I was pretty sure it still happened.
Maybe it was just Jeremy's problem. He wanted to be big brother and Daddy all rolled into one, and that put him on edge sometimes. At the end of the day, though...
"I can't forbid you, and you wouldn't listen to me anyway."
"Now you're talking."
"Yeah, just, you know, make sure she's on board with it. I'll kick your ass myself if I hear you doing anything ungentleman-like."
"Why, Joel, I am the perfect gentleman." To prove his point, he did the worst curtsy I had ever seen. "Besides, my gut says you'll be right there along with me."
"You want to corrupt our best friend's little sister and give her the tag team? Jesus, you're a filthy, filthy man, Logan."
"I try. I really do."
Chapter Three
TATE
I managed a quick nap, too frustrated to do anything about my dirty thoughts. The idea of having them in the next room was a bit too much. I was hoping that they would leave, but when my brother said they hung around a lot, he wasn't lying. It was still just the twins, too, surprising me that my brother wasn't back.
I checked my phone. No notifications from him. I supposed he really was as hard a worker as he said he was.
Hiding in my room all night wasn't really an option. I had to eat something at some point, and it wasn't as if I had any real reason to be scared of them. They weren't predators; they just made me blush and generally be nervous as all hell.
Building up some courage, I turned the knob and walked out of the room, ready to face down two hot guys who I had been objectifying for years.
I wandered into the main area of the apartment, feigning a yawn.
"Well look, it's Sleeping Beauty. Guess your trip took a lot more out of you than you thought?" Joel was standing at the stove cooking something.
I blinked his way. "Well, jet lag and all that." I shook my head then looked at his knife work. "You're cooking here? Are you sure you two don't live here?"
Joel chuckled. "No, no. Logan and I are firemen. We spend a whole lot of time on long shifts at the department. Being on edge. Working out. Eating Chili. You know the score."
"What, you live there?"
"No. We have our own place, just that we sorta went the opposite direction of Jeremy. He doesn't have much time yet rents this majestic place, while Logan and I rent a one bedroom where I take the bedroom, and he takes what's supposed to be the living room."
"Running into burning buildings doesn't pay the best, huh?"
"Eh, it gets better with more experience. For two bachelors, though? It's more than enough, and with Jeremy Megabucks here taking the load off, we can put a lot away."
My brother had entered the most boring field possible: finance. He was lured in by the big paychecks, and everything else was really secondary after that. I mean, money was nice, but wasn’t everything.
Hearing that the twins were fire fighters? Well, that just added to their charm. Literal professional heroes. There was something about the responsibility they were showing, too. Like, fiscal responsibility wasn't exactly what got my panties wet or anything, but there was something that just made them all the more appealing.
Like, even if they weren't surrounded by books and computers, they were still pretty damn smart. It's someone who could take care of you, who would be an anchor, and wasn't just about fast cars and shiny new toys.
I started laughing out loud. Me, the eighteen-year-old virgin, looking at these two and pondering marriage prospects and a future for my unborn children. That was entirely too responsible for me. I had to be at least a decade away from even considering something like that.
Logan turned from the couch. "What's so funny?"
I realized that I had broken out into laughter with no real indicator as to why. Apparently, I needed to come off as a crazy person to ward them off. "Nothing, nothing. Just had some weird thoughts is all."
"They about us there, babe?"
I stared his way. They weren't psychics, were they? I’d heard about the whole psychic twin thing, but I thought that they could only talk with one another or something. It was all crazy anyway, wasn't it?
Shaking my head, I went with the tried and true fallback of denial. "No, no, just something funny I saw the other day. You know how it is, they pop up in your head out of nowhere and you start laughing for no reason?"
"Rrright."
"You hungry, Tate?" Joel spoke up, taking my attention away from his brother. "I'm making some pizza, since I got access to an actual oven and not a stove top like I do at the station."
"Homemade pizza? What, like your mom used to make?"
"Damn right. You didn't think I left home without that recipe did you?"
"Wouldn't believe it."
The twins’ mother was some sort of wizard cook. The way she made pizza was something amazing. Delivery, fancy Italian restaurants, whatever. None of those places had shit on Mrs. Pierce's pie.
"Going to throw a little house-warming party for you. You want a beer?" Logan asked.
"I'm eighteen."
"Yeah, and we absolutely never touched a beer until we were twenty-one, didn't we, bro?"
"Nope," Joel replied with a cocky grin. "We were perfect, law-abiding angels. Never even broke a law in private, where it's unenforceable, and I'm pretty sure probably has some loophole or something anyway."
Logan shot up, went to the fridge, and got out a bottle.
He offered it to me, and I felt as if I was in some weird after-school special about peer pressure and how if I took one sip, my life would be ruined forever because this was the first step that would lead me to a huge heroin overdose or something.
Again, I chuckled, and took it. I needed it, probably. As nervous as I was around these guys for apparently no reason, maybe the liquid courage was just what the doctor called for.
Taking the bottle, Logan offered a bottle opener and pulled the cap off for me.
A deep breath.
I needed to calm my nerves. For this. For being around the twins. For everything else.
A swig.
I immediately followed it up with a very visual spit take, doing my damnedest to not actually spray beer on Joel or Logan.
They were laughing at my predicament.
"Did...did you just give me a bottle of piss or something?" I spit it out, putting the bottle down and looking for some water.
"No, no. That's what beer tastes like, Tate," Joel said, switching to chopping some pepperonis.
"People drink that stuff? For fun?"
"You get used to it. It tastes better as you go on, and that's pretty cheap stuff, so yeah, may as well be piss."
"Listen to Joel, Mr. Micro-brew Beer snob and all of that."
Get used to it? I guess maybe I would try. I picked up the bottle and carried it with me as I sat down.
We had dinner. We talked. We got along swimmingly. Still no sign of Jeremy.
All the while, I held the beer. Sipping it. Cringing. I knew I didn't have to worry about getting drunk because I was drinking far too slowly for that even to be a possibility.
The night went on. The conversation continued as I chatted along with the brothers. We didn't talk about anything really sexual or about relationships or anything like that. We kept it mostly light.
Until we didn't, anyway.
"You're trying art school, eh? Going the opposite way as big brother, starving artist opposed to his big, successful businessman."
Joel was sitting to one side of me, Logan the other. I was surprised they were still around, but they said they were off duty for a few days.
"Well, yeah. Life's too short to let a dream go unfulfilled."
"That's a good attitude. Your brother could definitely use some of that wisdom."
"What about you two? You've been asking me a million and one questions, and yet you've barely said much beyond pizza, chili, and being firemen, which lets you exercise a lot."
Logan stretched out, and then shrugged. "Sometimes you don't want to be immortalized through your art. You just want to have fun. Live the good life?"
"Find a woman," Joel mused. "House, two-point-five kids, family. Grow old. The whole typical path in life. That sounds pretty good sometimes."
"Find a woman, huh?" I mused. I brought the beer to my lips, caught a whiff of it, and put it back down. Hours later, and it was still about ninety-percent full.
"This where you come out of the closet for us, Tate?"
"No, no, it's not that. I was just sort of echoing the idea. Just... I don't know."
"You don't know what?"
"Well...
I really, really appreciate what my brother is doing for me. Getting the tuition together was really expensive to begin with. Sometimes, though, I feel like I'm going to miss all the experiences that come with being in a dorm or a sorority or whatever."
"Like what?" Joel was leaning on me, pressing the questions, acting like he was my shrink or something.
"Um... you know. The experimentation. The trying new things. The learning a whole lot about yourself that you don't really learn in a place like this."
They both started to chuckle. Logan spoke first. "There's plenty of opportunity to learn, Tate. To learn what you like. What you love. You're away from home. You're an adult. You're a woman. The whole world is open for you, waiting for you to present yourself."
"Really, huh? Presenting myself? Just strut around and wait for a guy to show up and claim me?"
"Why not? There may be people closer than you know wanting to claim a girl like you. To show you everything you're missing."
"Really?"
"You repeat yourself a lot, Tate," Joel said.
"What do you want, Tate? What's this newly liberated woman, who’s sipped a little bit of beer, and who is surrounded by her brothers two best friends going to do?"
"Um." I was blushing hard again. What were they suggesting? That I do something stupid and sorority-like? Run down the street naked? Walk around in a short skirt with no panties?
I realized I may have had a jaded idea of what sororities were from the dirty books I'd read over the recent years.
"You need some help there, Tate?" Logan asked. "You need a suggestion of how to express yourself as an adult? As the woman you are?"
"I could use the help. I'm not exactly coming up with productive ideas here."
"You need ideas, eh? How about this one?"
In a flash, he kissed me.
Logan Pierce, one of my brother's best friends, had just kissed me.
Mouth to mouth. The way he lingered, too… There was definitely no doubt about his intentions or his meaning.
Stranger still was that I was kissing him back, my mouth opening to meet his, his tongue invading my mouth and making mine follow his. It was instinctual.