Separation

by Louise Lyons

  “Who is this?” Stef asked suspiciously. Then after a moment: “Tam?”

  “Yeah,” I gasped.

  “What the fuck happened? Where are you?”

  “Home.”

  “I'm coming over. Stay where you are.”

  A hysterical squawk of laughter burst from me. Like I would go anywhere. I ended the call, and tried to get myself together while I waited for him. He arrived in minutes, not bothering to buzz me. I heard one of the other residents on their way out and guessed they let him in. He found me tidying the room, occasionally scrubbing at my face as stray tears continued to escape.

  “What happened? Someone broke in?”

  “Yeah.” I shrugged and sniffed. “There was nothing to take.”

  “Bastards.” Stef hesitated, then strode toward me and wrapped his arms around me. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. No.”

  “Did you call Matt?”

  “No.”

  “You should.”

  “No.” As much as I needed the comfort, I pulled away from him.

  “He'd help you.”

  “Yeah, he'd probably give me a fuck-ton of money and make me feel even more fucking guilty!” I snapped.

  “So? Family's supposed to help each other. Get your stuff together.”

  “What stuff?” I indicated the crap thrown around my room.

  “I don't know. Your art stuff. Whatever. You can come to my place.”

  “Yeah, your housemate would love that.” I cleared my throat, my tears finally drying.

  “He left a few months ago. I'm a supervisor at work, so I didn't need to get someone else to share the bills.”

  “I can't afford to share the bills.” I sighed.

  “Did I ask you to? You can buy food and stuff. I have to pay for everything, whether I've got anyone else living there or not. Come on, Tam. We've been friends for years, forgetting the Chris debacle. Do you seriously want to stay here after this?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then. Get your shit together and come with me. And call Matt later, or I will. He seems like an amazing guy. Kind of like you when you're not wallowing. He'd want to know, wouldn't he?”

  “I suppose.” I turned my attention to my belongings, such as they were. In ten minutes, I had everything packed into a second bag that Stef took from me and carried down to his car. He drove us to the small house he rented, and left me to settle into my new room while he ordered pizza and threw my clothes into the washing machine.

  “Pizza'll be about an hour!” he shouted up the stairs.

  “Yeah! Thanks.” Reluctantly, I pulled out my phone. If I didn't call Matt, I had no doubt Stef would, and he'd probably make things sound worse than they were. I didn't want Matt to worry about me, or have any excuse to come racing back to Salcombe again. The last thing I needed was to see him any time soon.

  Almost an hour passed before I tapped on his number. Perhaps subconsciously I did it on purpose so I wouldn't have time to talk long before the pizza arrived. I waited for him to pick up, my heart in my mouth and my face scrunched up into a scowl over my own stupidity.

  Chapter Eight

  Matthew

  I'd expected to hear from Tam long before now. I checked out the times of his journey on the Internet when I got home, and his last bus should have pulled in at seven-thirty. It was almost nine when my phone rang. I snatched it up. “Hey! You got back okay?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  He sounded awful, and my heart clenched in anxiety. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. My room got broken into.”

  “Shit!” I gasped. “Did they take much?”

  Tam snorted. “There was nothing to take.”

  “Are you okay?” I repeated. “Shall I come over?”

  “No! I mean, you can't exactly ‘come over.’ It's a four-hour drive. I'm fine, I'm staying with Stef.”

  I sighed with relief. “I'm glad you're friends again. I'm sorry this happened. Can I do anything?”

  “No. I'm fine. I just mi—” He broke off and I wondered what he'd been going to say. I miss you? My pulse quickened. I missed him, too. Of course I did. “I'm going back to work on Monday night, but I'm going to try and find somewhere else to work. After the bottle incident, I don't really want to go back.”

  “Good. It sounds like a shit place to work.”

  “What about you? Are you gonna do anything like what we talked about?” He seemed keen to change the subject.

  “Yeah!” I burst into a long and detailed description of my online shop and my investigations into art courses. It had meant a lot to me when Mum and Dad both said they were proud of me, but I wanted to hear it from Tam. He was the most important person in my life. I didn't want him to think I was a leech, taking advantage and doing nothing for myself.

  “That's great, good for you. I'll ask if I can use Stef's computer and check it out. The paintings you showed me were awesome.”

  “Thanks. You know, you could put some of your work in the shop, too, if you wanted. We could share it. Have a look and see what you think. I've only put digital stuff in it so far, but I was going to add some of my sketches and maybe a couple of the watercolors. Obviously, it'll be more trouble because they'll need mailing, but if it makes some money it'll be worth it.”

  “Yeah, maybe I will. I need to try to make some extra cash.”

  A distant yell interrupted our conversation, and my heart sank when Tam reported the pizza Stef ordered had arrived.

  “I'll call tomorrow,” I told him. “Make sure you're okay.”

  “I'm fine. You don't have to worry.”

  “I will, though. You're the only real relative I have. If we hadn't found each other... well, I don't know what I would have done if I had to spend my entire life without knowing you,” I blurted.

  A long pause greeted me, during which Stef's voice in the background yelled “it” was getting cold.

  “Me too,” Tam said quietly. “Bye, Matt.”

  “Bye.” I responded to the dead line and tossed my phone aside. Things still weren't right between us. With the arrival of the pizza, it seemed like he'd called me at that time on purpose, knowing we wouldn't have long to talk. I had no idea what to do about it, and my heart ached. Perhaps he still felt uncomfortable and wanted to avoid me for a while until that was further in the past. All I could do was give him some time and hope it hadn't ruined things.

  I spent the next few days concentrating on my new plans. I found an interesting art course I wanted to do, but it didn't start until September. With five months to go, I decided to invest the time in trying to raise the money to pay for the registration fee without using my credit card. When I logged onto my online shop to list a few more pieces of art, I was delighted to find I had two orders for a digital fractal design. The payments had already arrived, and I emailed the file to the customers, overjoyed that two random strangers liked something I'd created.

  After a week had passed, I'd sold nine pieces, including one pencil sketch. In addition, I succeeded in creating three new digital works, just by messing around with my computer software until inspiration struck and new designs formed on my screen.

  I hadn't heard anything from Tam. On numerous occasions, I selected his number on my phone, but failed to call. I'd only experienced a feeling like that once in my life—trying to summon up the courage to call someone and not doing it because I dreaded an unfavorable greeting. I'd been seeing Chris and in the early stages he kept me on a string, refusing to commit to anything until he "got to know me better." I couldn't understand why I'd behave in the same way with Tam, and told myself it was fear he'd had second thoughts about having me in his life. I'd longed for the missing part of me for twenty-one years, and now we'd found each other, already I loved him. If I lost him again, it would be a hundred times worse than before I knew he existed.

  For whatever reason, he didn't want to talk to me, and I became more and more miserable. When his name came up in conversation with my parents,
I forced myself to respond positively, but I doubted my mother was taken in. She frowned when I spoke of him, but she didn't say anything.

  On Friday night, I went out again and had a few drinks with a friend I hadn't seen in months. Dave and I had been mates in school, and kept in touch off and on when he went to university. He'd graduated now, and was working as an engineer. He was straight, and when he suggested going on to a club, I declined and went to the same venue I'd been to with Tam. Part of me hoped Jaz would be there, but although I saw him later in the evening, he was with someone and barely gave me a second glance. I made a half-hearted effort to pick up a guy, but it wasn't happening for me and I was home in bed by one o'clock. Immediately I thought of Tam, finishing work around midnight and heading home to the place he now shared with Stef. Before I could stop myself, I found his number on my phone and tapped Call.

  I thought he wouldn't answer. Either he still didn't want to talk to me, or he wasn't home from work. The phone rang and rang, but right before I expected the answer service to kick in, he picked up.

  “Hi, Matt.”

  “Hey!” I lowered my voice. “It's not too late, is it? I thought you might have been working and you finish at midnight, so I thought—”

  “No, it's fine.” He interrupted my babble. “I left that job. Stef got me a job at the factory where he works. He's a supervisor. We're not on the same shift, though. I work two until ten. It's four days on, four off.”

  “That's great!”

  “Yeah, it's full time, so much better money. I can get there on the bus, too. I should be able to afford my own place in a couple of months. A proper flat, not just a room.”

  “Awesome!” Maybe then he'd want me to visit again. “How's your arm?” I remembered to ask.

  “Fine. The stitches are out. I was going to call you.”

  “Why didn't you?”

  “I don't know. I've been a dick.”

  “So have I. I shouldn't have left it a week before I called and made you talk to me.”

  Tam laughed. “I'm sorry about that. I looked at your website. The digital stuff is really good.”

  “Thanks. I've sold quite a few. I'd really like it if you'd upload some of your stuff on there. We could have a business together. I'm using what I make to fund a course I found. It doesn't start until September.” I rambled on, too relieved the awkwardness was over to care what I said. When we finished talking, interrupted only by my phone battery needing recharging, over an hour had passed. Reluctantly, I said good-bye, and for the first time in a week I slept well.

  We talked almost every day after that. Tam uploaded six of his sketches onto the website and within a couple of days, two of them were sold. His job paid weekly and with some of his first wage, he bought new materials and began sketching again to add to his portfolio.

  When his third four-day shift was over, Tam's days off fell over the weekend, starting Friday. It was less than a month since we'd seen each other, but it seemed an age since he'd got on the train in St. Albans and left in tears.

  The drive down to Salcombe was endless, with Friday morning traffic, roadworks, and an accident. The four-hour journey took over six hours and when I parked outside Stef's house and dragged my luggage from the car, I was exhausted. Tam had invited me to stay over the weekend and with Stef planning to visit family on Saturday and Sunday, we'd have the place to ourselves for much of the time.

  Tam pulled open the door before I had the chance to ring the bell. Grabbing my rucksack from me, he gave me a one-armed hug and warned me to be quiet. “Stef's sleeping until mid-afternoon. I thought we'd go out for a while until he's up. Do you need to freshen up first?”

  “No, I'm okay. I can wait.” I followed him to his room to dump my stuff, and glanced around at the desk covered in scattered sheets of paper and card, and an assortment of pencils. “What are you working on?”

  “Oh, um…” Flushing, Tam shuffled the papers together and placed a sketchbook on top of them. “I'll show you later. We should get out of here before we disturb Stef.”

  “Okay.” Keen to stretch my legs after six hours driving, I followed him out again. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around, stopping for snacks in the coffee shop where we'd previously had coffee and walnut cake. After the hours spent on the phone over the past couple of weeks, we should have run out of things to say, but we talked non-stop until we returned to the house.

  Stef ordered in Chinese food and we watched a movie, before Stef and Tam retired to their rooms, and I crashed on the couch. For the next two nights, I was to use Stef's room. Although he would return on Sunday evening, he'd be going to work immediately after.

  On Saturday, Tam cooked a pasta meal for dinner. While he clattered around in the kitchen, I looked at his small DVD collection to find something to watch later. The DVDs stood on a shelf above the desk in his room, and I remembered he still hadn't shown me his sketches. The book lay on the desk, but the loose sheets of paper beneath it were gone.

  I leafed through the book, surprised to find a wide variety of still life, landscapes, and animals. All of them were incredible and I realized he was much more talented than he let on. I opened a drawer to see if he had more, and discovered a pile of loose pages, possibly the ones I'd seen when I arrived. The one on the top of the pile depicted a beach scene, easily recognizable as Salcombe, with several people enjoying a sunny day. I lifted it to see the next picture in the pile, and gasped as I stared at myself, as clearly as if I were looking in a mirror. Tam had sketched me. Not once, but half a dozen times. Most of the drawings were head and shoulders only, but one showed me dancing, as if he'd memorized a scene from the club we'd gone to. I looked stunning in the drawings, and a flush of heat crept over my face.

  “What are you doing?”

  I jumped at the harsh tone in his voice. “Nothing. I was just—”

  “That's my private stuff. I told you I'd show you my work. You didn't have to pry into it.”

  “I wasn't prying. I looked at the sketchbook and the drawings are so amazing, I wanted to see more. But…” I pulled out the first portrait of me and laid it on the desk. “What's this?”

  “What's wrong with it?” Tam strode across the room and snatched the sketch from the desk. “I can draw the only family member I have if I want. You don't like it?”

  My eyes widened as he tore the sheet of paper clean in half, then again, and again, until the small pieces scattered into a heap on the desk. I looked up at his face, shocked by the glisten of tears in his eyes and the deep color in his cheeks. “You didn't have to do that. I didn't say I didn't like it.”

  He shrugged and released a long, ragged breath. “I'd rather you didn't look through my stuff without asking.”

  “I'm sorry.” There was more to it than me looking at his work; there had to be. What was I missing? He seemed so upset as he pushed the remaining sketches to the back of the drawer and closed it. His throat moved as he gulped audibly, and I felt his unhappiness and discomfort as if it were my own. I grasped his arm and tugged him toward me, intent on giving him a brief hug. I didn't know what else to do. Chris had always said I was useless when it came to offering comfort.

  Tam resisted my efforts to pull him closer, but then gave in with a heavy sigh and leaned against me. He wrapped both arms around me and we hugged each other in silence. My heart thundered in my chest, and I felt the matching vibration of his. “I'm sorry,” I repeated.

  “’S’okay.”

  “I liked the drawings. You're much more talented than me.”

  “Thanks.” He lifted his head and stormy gray eyes met mine. My breath caught in my throat. I tried to tell myself it was nothing, the same way I'd tried to tell myself it was nothing when he got hard dancing with me. That the look in his eyes at that moment was nothing. That I wasn't going to… kiss him.

  Our lips touched, the lightest brush, and we exhaled at the same time, eyes half closed.

  What the fuck am I doing? He's my brother. My twin. Stop
now.

  I didn't stop. I kissed him again, yelling at myself in my head while I caressed his lips with mine and delighted in his heated response. It was so wrong, but it felt so good. Desire flared through my belly, more intense because I already loved him. I'd never felt anything like this before, and I didn't know if it was because what I was doing was forbidden, or it was such relief to do what I'd refused to think about over the past couple of weeks.

  Tam broke the kiss and pressed his face into my neck, his body trembling in my arms. “Don't, Matt. Please.”

  My stomach turned over and my racing heart almost stopped. I'd ruined everything. I'd got it wrong. The pictures didn't mean anything. The episode in the club had been about Jaz after all. My face burned and I pulled back, letting my arms fall to my sides. “I'm so sorry. I don't know what happened. I—”

  I registered that Tam hadn't let me go, but continued to cling to me. His words were whispered so quietly, I barely heard them. “I want you so fucking much.”

  Chapter Nine

  Tremaine

  I couldn't believe I'd said it. I hoped he hadn't heard me and that we could go back to what we were supposed to be—twins and friends. But it was too late. It was too late from the moment I got hard in his arms on the dance floor; from the second we met and I looked at him in the way I'd look at a man I was attracted to. Perhaps it would have been better if he'd never found me, but the thought of losing him now was unbearable. And it was too late to change the last few minutes, or however long the kiss lasted. I waited, almost sick with fear that he'd come to his senses and push me away; that he'd leave and never come back.

  “Tam.” He cleared his throat and his arms came around me again. “We shouldn't do this.”

  “I know.”

  “It's not just you.” He pulled me closer to him and the hard ridge of his erection pressed against mine. I couldn't suppress my desperate moan. I lifted my head, returning my mouth to his. His tongue sought entry between my parted lips and I welcomed it, sucking it into my mouth. He moved his hands over my back, squeezing my shoulder muscles and stroking fingertips along my spine. Shuddering with pleasure, I touched him, too, sliding my hands under his T-shirt to find warm skin.