Persuade

by Wendi Wilson

  “How about Lucille’s?”

  “What’s Lucille’s?” Wyatt asked.

  “It’s a fifties-style diner a couple of blocks down. They serve a mean milkshake.”

  I flinched, realizing my mistake. They didn’t drink milkshakes. They drank blood. I wondered if it bothered them that they weren’t like normal kids, doing normal things.

  “Sounds great,” Wyatt said.

  Beckett nodded and Jett held out his arm once more, motioning for me to lead the way. I headed across the lot to the main road and turned right. The brothers trailed behind me, remaining silent as we walked all the way to Lucille’s Diner.

  Chapter Seven

  “Okay, let’s play a game.”

  I flinched, realizing I’d been zoning out, my eyes locked on the cup in Jett’s hand. We were sitting in a large booth at Lucille’s, me with my chocolate shake and the brothers taking turns sipping from a Styrofoam cup. Wyatt insisted on paying for my shake, and as he handed over the cash, he’d asked the waitress for an empty cup.

  After we sat down, Jett had pulled an insulated bottle from his backpack and poured its contents into the cup before popping on a lid and inserting a straw. He gave it to Beckett, who took a sip before passing it across the table to Wyatt, who sat beside me. I knew what was in that cup, and I was fascinated. My stomach was surprisingly unaffected by the idea of them drinking blood right in front of me.

  “What?” I asked Wyatt, and he repeated himself. “What kind of game?”

  “A ‘getting to know each other’ game. We’ll take turns. You ask a question. Any question. We have to answer honestly and then we get to ask you anything.”

  “Okay,” I said, biting my lip. “But I reserve the right to end the game at any time.”

  I wasn’t sure how personal or embarrassing they planned to get, so I needed to give myself an out. I could have just refused to play, but I really wanted to know more about them. I let my eyes drift over each of their identical faces. Strong jaws, dark hair, silver-rimmed eyes…they really were gorgeous, in a dangerous sort of way. It amazed me that I could already tell them apart, but each of their personalities showed so strongly on their faces, I didn’t have any trouble at all.

  Jett, of course, went first. “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen,” I said, the tension draining out of me. That was easy enough.

  It was my turn. “Where did you move here from?”

  “Greenwich, Connecticut.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend?” Wyatt asked.

  Predictable. “No,” I said with a laugh.

  Looking at his face, I asked, “Do you ever stop smiling?”

  “Rarely,” he said, his grin getting even bigger.

  “What’s your favorite movie?” Beckett asked, and for the first time, I realized his voice was slightly deeper than the other two.

  “Hmm,” I said, thinking. “That’s a tough one. I think it’s a toss-up between Independence Day, The Harry Potter Series and Twilight.”

  I kept a straight face and took a sip of my shake as I watched their reactions. Beckett blushed and Wyatt’s smile dropped. Jett started sputtering. I almost spit milkshake across the table, choking back a laugh.

  “Twilight? Seriously?” Jett demanded once he regained the power of clear speech.

  “It’s my turn,” I said, evading the question.

  I looked at Beckett. “Who’s your favorite author?”

  “Stephen King, hands down.”

  “Are you one of those Twihards?” Jett cut in.

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I had planned to let him stew a little, but the look of horror on his face was too much for me to handle with a straight face.

  “No,” I said. “I mean, I thought the books were good and the movies were entertaining, but I wouldn’t call myself a super fan.”

  “Thank God,” he said. “If you were one of those silly, vampire obsessed girls, I’d…”

  He trailed off, and I really wanted to ask him what he’d do, but I didn’t want to waste my question. I thought about what I should ask.

  “Why were you so mean to me when we met?”

  “I’m pretty sure you were the one who called me a jerk.”

  “You bumped into me, made me drop everything and walked away without helping me pick it all up,” I stated, ticking each offense off on my fingers.

  He pinched his lips together and narrowed his eyes. I maintained eye contact, refusing to back down. We sat in silence for several long moments before he took a sip from his cup, making a big show of swallowing. We both knew what was in that cup.

  When I didn’t flinch, he sighed and answered. “Our dad died a few months ago.”

  “I’m so sorr—”

  He cut me off with a raised hand and shook his head. “He never loved us.”

  “Jett,” Wyatt said, “you don’t have to—”

  “Yeah, I think I do,” he said before looking back at me. “Our father wasn’t in the XRT-90 trial and our mother never told him that she was. By the time she got pregnant with us, it was already widely-known what children of those test subjects would become.” His fingers twirled around his face. “Alts.”

  I looked from him to Beckett, who was staring at the table. I glanced over at Wyatt. His eyes were on Jett, the look on his face heartbreaking. I felt the backs of my eyes start to sting.

  “It’s okay, you don’t have to go on,” I said, hoping to diffuse the tension.

  He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Our mother died during childbirth. He was alone, with newborn triplets, and in his grief at losing her, he blamed us for her death. When the doctors confirmed what we were, that he was going to have to raise three damned vampires, as he liked to call us, he lost his mind. He didn’t let us die, but he was never a real parent to us. He hated us and, eventually, we gave up on ever earning his love and grew to hate him in return.”

  “That sounds horrible,” I whispered.

  “We survived. We had friends, a set of Alt twins that lived a few blocks away from us. They were our true family. Their parents let us stay with them when Dad went off on a bender. We stayed with them more often than at home by the end. When Dad died, they wanted to take us in, permanently.”

  “We weren’t given a choice,” Beckett added when Jett stopped talking.

  “Our father’s twin brother, whom we’d never met, showed up at the funeral and staked his claim on us,” Jett continued. “The court sided with him against our friends’ family, since he was an actual blood relative and we were only seventeen. So, here we are, in this tiny nowhere town in South Georgia, living with a man we don’t know who looks exactly like our asshole father. We finally had a chance at a good life with our best friends and parents who understood us, and it was ripped away.” He gave me a long look. “That’s why I was such a jerk when we met.”

  “Oh.” I couldn’t come up with anything more eloquent to say.

  “My turn,” Wyatt said and I forced myself to break Jett’s magnetic stare to look at him. “Are you a good kisser?”

  Jett barked out a laugh and Beckett groaned. Just like that, the tension engulfing us was gone. Wyatt grinned from ear to ear, waiting for me to answer. I could feel my face heating. I could call the game off, as per our agreement, but I didn’t want to stop discovering new things about them. And I didn’t want to lie.

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “No one’s ever told you?”

  “No one’s ever kissed me.”

  Silence. So thick you could have cut it with a knife. My eyes were glued to my melting chocolate shake, but I could feel three stares burning into me. I could feel their incredulity. Who could blame them? What seventeen-year-old has never been kissed?

  “I knew there were a bunch of dumb hicks in this town, but I had no idea they were all idiots,” Jett said, his voice full of arrogance and…something else. Something I couldn’t quite define.

  “I guess I’ll just have to find out for myself,” Wyatt said,
leaning toward me.

  My eyes snapped up to meet his and, for once, he wasn’t smiling. He looked like a man on a mission, his eyes nearly glowing with intensity. He was really going to do it. He was going to kiss me right there, in that booth, in front of his brothers. I couldn’t move. His tongue darted out to wet his lips and goosebumps exploded all over my arms. Of its own volition, my body leaned toward him and my eyes drifted shut.

  “Wyatt, stop.”

  It was Beckett who spoke, and his voice broke whatever spell Wyatt was weaving over me. My eyes popped open and I straightened. Wyatt leaned back with a groan and ran a hand through his dark hair. I glanced over at Beckett, who had an apologetic look on his face. My eyes turned to Jett, who was snarling at Wyatt.

  Before I knew it was happening, my temper exploded. I slapped the table so hard, the sound echoed through the diner. All three brothers sat up straight, staring at me with varying degrees of bewilderment etched on their faces.

  “You lied to me,” I hissed.

  “Lied?” Beckett said. “About what?”

  “You know what,” I said. “You told me I couldn’t be persuaded by you.”

  “We can’t—”

  “Stop lying!” I yelled, slapping the table again.

  “Is everything okay over here?” a waitress asked, approaching the table with a worried frown.

  “Everything is fine. Leave and don’t come back over here,” Jett said to her. She turned on a heel and walked away.

  “Did you just use it on her, too?” I snapped at him.

  “Nobody used persuasion on you,” Wyatt said, drawing my attention.

  “Oh really? How do you explain it, then?”

  “Explain what?”

  “I was going to just let you kiss me! Right here in this booth, with an audience,” I said, my words coming faster and higher, as I pointed at his brothers. “I couldn’t move and I…wanted…it.”

  Wyatt laughed. That jerk face actually laughed. I decided right then and there that I was going to kill him. I balled my hand into a fist, ready to let it fly.

  “Woah there, Rocky,” Jett said, pulling my attention back to him. “No need to mess up his pretty face. He didn’t use persuasion.”

  “But…”

  I saw naked honesty in his eyes and my anger seeped out of me. I looked at Beckett. His mouth was turned down in a frown, but he didn’t look guilty. I squeezed my eyes closed and took a deep breath before opening them and looking at Wyatt. He was smiling. Of course.

  “You wanted me to kiss you,” he said, his smile getting even bigger.

  “No,” I said.

  “Yes, you did. Yes, you did!” he exclaimed, clapping like a five-year-old.

  “No, I didn’t,” I argued, but all my anger had fled and I was having a hard time keeping my lips from turning up. Wyatt’s unbridled joy was infectious.

  “Yes, you did,” he repeated. “You admitted it.”

  “Wyatt, enough,” Beckett said, his voice harsh.

  I looked at his face. His cheeks were tinged with pink and his eyebrows were pulled low over his eyes. He looked mad, but before I could ask why, Wyatt spoke again.

  “You’re just jealous, Beck. She wants to kiss me,” he said, emphasizing the last word.

  “No, I don’t,” I said, but I may as well have been talking to my milkshake.

  “Shut up, Wyatt,” Beckett said, his voice low and gravelly.

  “Yeah, Wyatt, shut up,” Jett said.

  Wyatt didn’t respond verbally, but the expression on his face made him look like the cat who ate the canary. I looked from brother to brother to brother, unable to ignore the tension that popped up between them.

  “What is going on?” I demanded, drawing three sets of gray eyes toward me.

  “Tell her,” Wyatt said after several seconds of silence.

  Jett looked at Beckett, who nodded his head once. He turned his head and looked at Wyatt for a long moment before sliding his gaze back to me. For the first time, he looked unsure of himself, and that scared me.

  “Just tell me. What is it?”

  “We all like you,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said, drawing the word out. “I like you guys, too.” As the words passed my lips, I realized they were true. I did like them. Even Jett.

  “I think you misunderstood,” he said. “I meant, we all like you.”

  His emphasis on the word confused me. I knew what the word meant. “I like you, too,” I said, copying his tone.

  Jett groaned and Beckett reached out to grab his arm. His eyes snared mine as he spoke, and his words took my breath away.

  “What my brother means, Savanna, is that each of us is attracted to you. We want to date you.”

  Chapter Eight

  It was a dream. All of it. The Patton brothers never waited for me in the gym, we never went to Lucille’s and played that stupid game. Wyatt didn’t almost kiss me and they absolutely one hundred percent did not admit to having feelings for me. I did not let them walk me home, revealing where I lived, and they did not tell me to think about which of them I wanted to date before leaving me on my front porch. It was all a strange, extremely detailed dream that my mind chose not to forget as I woke up this morning.

  I repeated those words over and over in my head as I lay in my bed, staring at the ceiling. It was early and the sun had barely climbed over the horizon. Being the weekend, I had big plans to do a whole lot of nothing, but my brain wouldn’t shut off long enough to let me go back to sleep. I rolled over and let my legs slide over the edge of the mattress. Pulling myself up into a sitting position, I rubbed my eyes and yawned.

  I felt like I barely got any sleep. But I must’ve slept at some point to have such a long, vibrant dream. Yep. Denial wasn’t just a river in Egypt.

  I stood and stumbled across the room, grabbing some jeans and a t-shirt from my dresser before heading to the bathroom across the hall. I took care of business and got dressed before brushing my teeth for two full minutes and flossing. I had a thing about dental hygiene.

  The brothers had really nice teeth.

  “Get it together, Savanna,” I said to my reflection. “It. Was. A. Dream.”

  I couldn’t even let myself consider that it was real, that I had not one, but three gorgeous Alts interested in me. It was preposterous. Ridiculous. Intriguing. Exciting. I slapped my cheek with enough force so the sting would bring me back to reality. It was a dream.

  “Savanna, you up?”

  My mother’s voice called out from the other end of the house. It was a ranch-style home, one story and spread out so the kitchen and living rooms were on one end and the bedrooms were on the other. I don’t know how she always knew when I was up. She must’ve had a sixth sense. Or the ears of a bat.

  “Good morning,” I hollered.

  “Breakfast is ready, if you’re hungry,” she yelled back.

  “Be there in a sec,” I answered, heading back into my room to grab some socks and shoes.

  “Hey, Pumpkin,” Dad said, looking up from his paper as I shuffled into the kitchen.

  We had a formal dining room, but unless we had company, we ate most of our meals together at the small table in the breakfast nook. It was surrounded by tall windows, giving us a gorgeous view of the river running behind our house. I plopped down into one of the chairs and shot my mom a grateful look as she slid a cup of steaming coffee in front of me.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, blowing across the top before taking a small sip. Pure heaven.

  “So, what’s new?” Dad asked, folding the newspaper and setting it down. They’d both worked late the night before, so it was my first time seeing them in a couple of days.

  “Not much,” I said.

  Mom placed plates of eggs, bacon and toast in front of each of us. My grin was positively feral as I inhaled. Bacon was possibly the best thing to ever happen to breakfast. I thanked my mom around a mouthful before sighing in pleasure.

  “How’s school?” Mom asked as she sat down
with her own plate.

  “Same,” I said.

  That was my standard answer. My parents knew I had no friends and no social life to speak of. I stopped chewing and swallowed the big wad of bacon in my mouth. That wasn’t exactly true anymore. I knew the whole diner scene was a dream, but the brothers had used persuasion to get enrolled in all my classes. And they had picked me to be on their volleyball team.

  “Actually, there are some new kids at school.”

  “Kids, as in plural?” my dad asked. In a town that small, one new kid would be news.

  I nodded, taking a sip of my coffee. “Brothers. Triplets, actually.”

  My mom sucked in a harsh breath, taking her last bite of eggs with it down her windpipe. She choked, coughing while Dad patted her on the back. Taking a drink of coffee, she wiped her watering eyes and focused back on me.

  “Triplets, you said,” she asked, her voice gravelly.

  “Yeah. Are you okay?”

  She waved off my concern. “I’m fine. Just went down the wrong pipe, is all.”

  “Did you meet them?” Dad asked.

  I didn’t like the look on his face. He looked…overly concerned.

  “Yeah,” I said, my eyes jumping from him to Mom and back again. “They’re nice.”

  “Anything else?” Mom asked, her stare boring into me.

  I sighed. They would find out eventually. In our community, there were no secrets. “They’re Alts.”

  My mother’s eyes closed, a groan vibrating in her chest. I looked at Dad, arching an eyebrow and jerking my head toward Mom. He just shook his head, his face still a mask of concern.

  “I don’t think I want you hanging around with Alts, Savanna,” my mom said, her voice flat.

  “Mom! You’ve never been prejudiced.”

  I couldn’t believe she just said that. My mother had always been very open-minded and outspoken when it came to intolerance and bigotry. She always taught me to accept people for who they were, not what they were. Even Alts.

  “I’m not prejudiced, Honey,” she said, her voice now cajoling. “I just… Roman?”