Badd Luck

by Jasinda Wilder

  We laughed at that image. I was pretty sure we'd have to eat a lot of cheeseburgers before that happened.

  "You know why else I'm thinking Ketchikan?" I asked.

  "I have no idea."

  I couldn't suppress a giggle. "Because I was surfing on Facebook the other night, and I came across this fun little page." I pulled up the page in question and spun my phone around so she could see it--Badd's Bar and Grill, Ketchikan, Alaska.

  She scrolled through it. "The Badd brothers are all back in Ketchikan?"

  "All of them."

  She lifted her gaze to mine. "All of them, meaning, all of them? Even Canaan and Corin?"

  "Especially Canaan and Corin," I said.

  "You know..." Aerie said, pinching to zoom in on a photo of the twins, "I've always wondered what those boys have been doing over the past few years. I'm surprised they're back in Alaska. I mean, I know they're pretty big in the music business...but Alaska?"

  "I've wondered the same thing."

  "They're hot, successful, moderately famous like us, they're twins, and they were our best friends growing up. It's kind of weird that we've lost touch."

  "I know they valued our friendship a lot, even in high school when every girl there was throwing themselves at them. I'm sure they learned everything they know in the sex department thanks to those girls. That's probably why they always kept our friendship totally separate," I said.

  "But we barely see them now, and they're even sexier than they were as teenagers. I have to admit, I'm dying of curiosity. All the girls back in high school always talked about how amazing they were in bed, and that was years ago. I'm sure they've had a lot of practice since then, you know?"

  "But what if seeing them again is weird?" I asked.

  "Oh, it will probably be a little weird at first, but you have to remember we were always best friends growing up. Their brothers always treated us like little sisters," Aerie said, putting my phone to sleep and handing it to me.

  "So we're going back to Ketchikan to reconnect with the Badd twins?"

  Aerie grinned at me. "Remember, it was your idea to go back to Ketchikan."

  "True." I laugh again. "I suppose catching up with the boys now they're back in town may or may not have crossed my mind already."

  "Catching up, huh?" Aerie rolled her eyes at me.

  "Yeah, you know, just...see how things stand."

  She gave me a meaningful stare. "I'm definitely curious to see how things stand with Canaan and Corin."

  "Which does lead to the question of how things would break down, if you know what I mean," I said, eyeing my twin.

  She sighed. "How we would split up, you mean? Which twin with which twin?"

  "Exactly."

  A long pause. "That...yeah, that could be complicated."

  "As kids, it was always you and Corin, and me and Canaan," I said.

  "I know," Aerie said with a sigh, "but what if it's different now? We haven't seen them in a couple years, and we're different and they're probably different, and what if..." she trailed off uncertainly.

  I finished my coffee. "I'm curious, though, is my point," I said. "Deeply, intensely curious."

  "Me too, T. Me too."

  Our conversation ended right then, when Lacy found us. She slid into the booth beside me and took off her heels. Her feet must be killing her.

  "Girls," she began, "you can't just--"

  "Before you get started, Lacy, I feel like you should be on our side," I interrupted. "And not just because you're...you know...our agent, but because you're a woman. You should totally understand our position. There shouldn't even be a question in your mind."

  "I am on your side, but I also have to have your future and career in mind as well."

  "You know what's in the best interest of our career?" I snapped. "Not being sexually assaulted."

  "Oh, stop being dramatic." Lacy sighed. "He grabbed your ass, it's not like he tried to rape you."

  I gaped at Lacy. "Did you just...did she just..." I looked over at Aerie, and then back at Lacy. "You did not just say that."

  Aerie was frowning at Lacy with an expression of stunned incomprehension. "That may be true, Lacy, but do you believe men have license to help themselves to whatever they want? Is that what you believe?"

  Lacey quirked an eyebrow. "It's par for the course in this business. In any business, really. I was in stock futures before I became a talent agent, and I can't even tell you how often I was groped on the floor, or in the hallways or elevators. It sucks, it really does, but men can be pigs, and it's what we women have to deal with to get anywhere in this world. It doesn't make it okay, but you can't go around punching everyone who touches you inappropriately."

  "Actually, I can," I said. "And I will. I will punch, kick, knee, bite, gouge, and otherwise physically injure any and every male who touches me without my permission. It is not something I just have to deal with to get anywhere in this world. Your acceptance and complacency makes you complicit, and complicity makes them think it's okay. I guarantee you Ulf won't be putting his hands on me ever again, because I cleaned his clock the first time he did it. And maybe he'll think twice about trying something like that with someone else. Lacy, I'm totally willing to work with him again, as long as he keeps his filthy paws to himself and just does his damn job."

  Lacy hesitated. "Yes, well, after this, I'm not sure he'll work with you again. I barely managed to convince him to not press assault charges."

  "Have you seen the news lately?" I laughed. "Please, please let him press charges. I'll take him to court and I will sue the sleaze out of him. By the time I'm done with him, he'll be a monk."

  Aerie cut in. "All this is moot, anyway, Lacy. Tate and I are taking an indefinite leave of absence."

  Lacy gaped. "You...what?"

  "We're taking a very, very long vacation," I clarified. "So long, in fact, that we may not come back."

  "But...but..." Lacy stammered. "You're booked through next February!"

  "We will honor our commitments through the end of the month--" Aerie said.

  "...and you can cancel the rest," I added.

  "We'll be completely incommunicado. All social media will be deactivated--" Aerie started.

  "And our cell phones will be shut off. No email, no calls, no texts," I finished.

  "And that goes for Mom, too. She can find someone else to manage for a while--" Aerie said.

  "No forwarding address, either," I said. "Meaning, we're going so far off the grid, even the CIA won't be able to find us."

  Lacy stared at us, speechless, looking from one of us to the other, trying to absorb what we were saying. We don't do the twin-speak very often, when we alternate like that, but when we do, it really throws people off.

  "But--but..." Lacy stammered yet again. "You can't just...disappear. You'll lose your social relevancy. You'll be finished in the business."

  "Modeling was never our dream anyway," I said. "It was just something we fell into because Mom pushed us into it. It's been fun for a while--"

  "But we're tired of it now, and we need some time to decompress and reassess what we want out of life," Aerie said.

  "Plus, we're sick of eating like dainty little birds. We want cheeseburgers and chocolate cake," Aerie added.

  "And lots of alcohol and sex," I continued.

  "I'm lost," Lacy said. "Does your mom know about this?" She said this with a bit of trepidation in her voice.

  We knew Lacy was scared of Rachel Kingsley--like just about everyone else in the business--and we knew she would definitely not want to be the one to tell her about our new plans.

  Aerie patted Lacy's hand. "Just relax and don't worry. We'll take care of letting mom know about our decision."

  "So--so...when does this indefinite leave of absence start?" Lacy asked, clearly mollified.

  Aerie and I traded glances. "We'll do Portland, Manhattan, and the music video in Venice, and then we're done," Aerie said.

  "Speaking of Venice, is t
hat Venice, Italy or Venice, California?" I asked.

  Lacy had her phone out and was typing furiously. "Italy, obviously. It's a shoot for Gucci."

  "Ooh, Gucci," Aerie cooed. "I love Gucci. Will we get freebies?"

  "No, you don't get freebies," Lacy snapped. "You do the shoot and you get paid in U.S. dollars like everyone else."

  "I'm just saying, I'd work for free if we got to keep the wardrobe," Aerie said.

  I lifted my hand. "I'll take the dollars, if it's all the same."

  Lacy just sighed. "I'll see what I can do."

  She shot a look at me and then Aerie. "Now, I have to ask--when do you plan to let your mom know about this?"

  "Not immediately," Aerie replied, "but we'll let her know before we get back from Italy."

  Lacy winced. "Your mom is not going to be happy."

  "Too bad!" Aerie and I chorused together.

  "Well, if you don't mind, I have to excuse myself and start calling your sponsors and coming up with explanations and apologies. We'll stay in touch over the next month. Meantime, you two need to be on a plane tomorrow morning, which means you have the rest of today to yourselves." She glared at me. "Try not to maim anyone else, Tate."

  I shrugged. "I'm not making any promises."

  Later that evening, in our hotel room, Aerie and I were at the fun end of a couple of bottles of wine, which we'd scored thanks to Lacy's assistant.

  "Do you want to Skype the boys and let them know we're coming to Ketchikan?" Aerie asked, apropos of nothing.

  I frowned at her. "Right now?"

  She giggled. "Yeah, right now. I don't think they'll mind."

  I bit my lip, thinking. "It has been a while since we Skyped with them."

  "We should tell them we're coming back. See how they react."

  I nodded and went across the room to get my laptop. "Very true, A, very true."

  I opened Skype and dialed the boys.

  Aerie scooted beside me as the camera popped up to show us on the screen. She finger-combed her long blonde hair, twisting strands aside and plumping the rest for added volume as the line trilled.

  We're identical twins, so we both have naturally platinum blonde hair and eyes that are a dramatically vivid amber, with streaky hints of green around the rims. Having been moonlighting as models for the last few years, we were playing up the identical twins look, keeping our hair the same length and often dressing in matching or very similar outfits for shoots. In our private lives, though, we were very different. Aerie liked her hair down around her shoulders, with loose spiraling curls, while I preferred to keep mine either braided or in a high and tight ponytail; Aerie went for dark, dramatic smoky looks with makeup, while I liked to stay more natural and subtle, usually just a little blush and concealer and eyeliner.

  If we did our makeup and hair exactly the same, though, it would be nearly impossible to tell us apart unless you knew us both very, very well, and even our own mother had difficulty keeping us separate if we were done up to look identical.

  The line was still trilling, but unless they'd changed completely, Cane and Cor were never far from a device of some kind, just like Aerie and me.

  Finally, after a solid two minutes of ringing and re-dialing, the trilling ended and the screen changed to show Canaan and Corin.

  And...holy mother of Moses, those boys were hot to begin with. But now? They were incredibly sexy. They were shirtless, sweaty, and breathing hard.

  Having known them their whole lives, it was easy enough to immediately identify who was who, even if they did wear their hair differently. Canaan had long hair, rock star long, past his shoulders, a deep, rich brown, while Corin had the sides of his head shaved, with the top left long enough that he could tie it into a tiny little topknot/manbun thing. Which, typically, were stupid and lame, and I hated them, but on Corin, it just...worked. They both had full sleeve tattoos from shoulder to wrist, bright color montages of jumbled imagery. They were into piercings and had rings through the center of their lower lip, and Canaan had another through his septum, while Corin had a stud in his tongue--visible when he licked his lips--and they both had multiple small hoops and studs in their ears, several each in their earlobes and more around the upper curve.

  All in all, they looked like the kickass rock stars they were.

  They were also ridiculously shredded. Like, CrossFit shredded. Mouthwatering, thigh quivering, pussy dampening shredded. Speaking for myself, at least, one look at them all sweaty and jacked and breathing hard, covered in tattoos and piercings and my thighs were absolutely doing the quivery cha-cha, and heat was very definitely pooling between them, leaving me squirming and turned on.

  And we hadn't even said hello yet. Live and in person? Oh boy. I'd be all over those boys like white on rice.

  "T and A!" Canaan said, using their pet name for us. "It's been way too long. What are you girls up to?"

  "Sitting in our hotel room in Jamaica, drinking wine after a really shitty shoot," I answered. "What about you boys?"

  "Finishing a workout," Corin said, wiping his forehead. "Which is why we're all sweaty and out of breath."

  I winked. "Hey, I'm not complaining."

  Canaan and Corin exchanged glances. "Why was the shoot so shitty?" Corin asked.

  "The photographer turned out to be super sleazy, and then our agent was spectacularly unhelpful when we complained about his behavior. And, as usual, our mother completely overextended our schedule so we're flying to Italy in the morning." I leaned forward to adjust the screen and Corin's eyes flicked downward. I pretended not to notice, of course, but I was pretty sure he was getting an eyeful.

  "If your agent is unhelpful," Canaan said, "then why don't you fire her?"

  I shrugged. "It's not that simple."

  Corin frowned. "I mean, it kind of is. We went through three agents before we settled on Dan. They work for you, not the other way around."

  I laughed, glancing at Aerie. "He has a point, A."

  We giggled simultaneously, and then tried to resume straight faces. "We may have gone one better than firing our agent, though," I said.

  The boys did the thing where they both quirked one eyebrow in unison, which always made my heart pitter patter a little harder.

  "And that would be--" Canaan started.

  "What exactly?" Corin finished.

  "We just decided today that we're tired of being international Instagram models," Aerie said.

  "So we're taking an indefinite leave of absence," I continued.

  "And since we don't want to be found or bothered during our leave of absence, we've decided we're going to go completely off the grid." Aerie grinned at me, and then at the boys on the screen.

  Corin: "Off the grid--"

  Canaan: "Meaning what?"

  "We're moving back to Ketchikan," Aerie and I said together.

  Canaan and Corin locked gazes for a moment, exchanging silent communication.

  "Oh really?" Corin drawled.

  "You're moving back, not just visiting?" Canaan asked.

  I shrugged, and I didn't miss the way Corin's eyes followed the movement of my breasts with the shrug. "Probably not permanently forever and ever," I said, "but for a while. Until we figure out our next move."

  "So you're quitting modeling?" Canaan asked.

  "We haven't decided anything for sure," Aerie said.

  "All we know is we need a break, and not just a couple days on a beach drinking Mai Thais and ogling the surfers," I said.

  "When will you be in town?" Corin asked.

  "Beginning of next month," I answered.

  "We're honoring the next few bookings we've got this month, simply out of professionalism," Aerie added.

  The boys were silent again, wordlessly exchanging something or other.

  "Do you have somewhere to stay?" Canaan asked.

  "Why?" I said, somewhat coyly. "Are you offering your place?"

  "Tate!" Aerie said, laughing and elbowing me in the ribs. "Forward, much? Jesus.
"

  I shrugged again, because I liked the way Corin's eyes seemed glued to my chest when I did it. "What? Just asking."

  Corin finally managed to pull his eyes back up to my face. "If we had extra space or anything like privacy, I'd offer it up in a heartbeat," he said. "But, alas, we're sharing a three-bedroom apartment with Bax, Brock and his girlfriend, and Lucian."

  "So unless you're down with sharing beds..." Canaan suggested, watching both of us for our responses.

  Aerie and I exchanged looks.

  "We're not sure where we're staying," I said, carefully phrasing my response so it was neither a refusal nor an outright admission of interest.

  "Brock Badd has a girlfriend?" Aerie said, sounding stunned. "Like, a real girlfriend?"

  "Pretty sure she's not a robot, so yes," Corin answered, chuckling.

  "But I mean, she's really his girlfriend with, like, commitment and everything?" Aerie clarified.

  "Color us stunned too," Canaan said.

  "I suppose you may as well be forewarned," Corin said. "Love is in the air in Ketchikan, Alaska."

  "What does that mean?" I asked.

  "It means Bast is married, Zane and his woman just had a baby, Brock is engaged or something like that, Bax is complicated..." Corin responded. "Love is in the air, I'm telling you."

  "Maybe we should rethink our plans then, A," I joked.

  Corin's eyes went wide, and Canaan elbowed him hard enough to elicit a grunt of surprised pain. "Good job, asshole. Now they're not coming."

  "That was a joke," I said, a little too quickly. "We're still coming. We wanted to go somewhere as far away from New York as possible, and Ketchikan is certainly that."

  "But what about you two?" Aerie asked. "Is love in the air for you as well?"

  "Not yet," Corin said. "But, then, you guys haven't arrived yet."

  Canaan spluttered, going red in the face and elbowing Corin even harder than before. "What the fuck is wrong with you, Cor? Jesus! Shut the fuck up!"

  Corin just smirked. "That was a joke."

  Corin and I exchanged amused glances, while Canaan and Aerie both huffed and rolled their eyes.

  "You guys are both ridiculous," Canaan said to Corin and me.

  "Filtering what you say is a basic skill of adulthood," Aerie added.

  "Fuck that." I laughed. "I refuse to filter myself. People can deal with the truth, or they can go fuck themselves."

  "Fuckin' A!" Corin said.