Double Attraction (Gemini Taboo Romance Series Book 1) (4 page)

[continued]

              When I arrived at Mickey’s, the place was nearly empty except for a couple of bartenders and an already drunk waitress. I ordered a few beers while I sat by myself, waiting for more people to arrive.

              My mind was restless as I sat alone. I didn’t want to tell my sister about what happened, but she left me with little choice. Sooner or later, she would have to face the truth. Meanwhile, I would be in shambles at the bar, only proving that I was a mess that no one felt like cleaning up.

              After I had ordered my fourth beer, I felt a sting of emotion sweltering in my chest. The rejection was a harsh burn that I had been healing from after my mother and I lost touch. Though Brea remained hopeful, I knew that my relationship with my mother would never pick back up again.

              “Everything all right?” asked a man’s calm sounding voice. It was much sweeter than I would expect to hear in Mickey’s. I spun my chair around to see Rhett sitting on the barstool next to me. His face was more handsome than I remembered as he looked at me with a concerned expression.

              “Hey, you,” I said before I swigged out of my glass. “What’s... shakin’...”

              “Are you drunk?” he smiled.

              “No... I’m not,” I said, though, after as many beers I had on an empty stomach, it seemed entirely possible.

              “Why are you crying?” he asked.

              “Nothing out of the usual,” I said before giving a little sniffle. Rhett handed me his handkerchief, and I used it to dry my eyes. “My mother, my father, and now my sister all pretty much hate me. Soon I’m going to be homeless, living in a van down by the river.”

              “I don’t think it’ll be that bad,” he said with a jesting undertone.

“Want anything?” the bartender asked Rhett.

“Whatever she’s having,” Rhett replied. “Just much less of it.” I laughed a little at his joke, but the bartender didn’t seem to find it as comical.

“I thought it was funny,” I admitted as Rhett grabbed his beer.

“Just trying to cheer you up,” he said. “So why does everyone hate you?”

              “Because I screw everything up,” I said without telling him about the incident. I wanted to forget what happened after college so that I could move on with my life though none of that seemed possible. “But now I’m just a mooch living under the iron grip of my perfect, inconsiderate twin sister.”

              “Oh, so you’re a twin?” Rhett asked.

              “Yep,” I hiccupped. “What a curse.”

              “When I was a kid, I wished that I had a twin.”

              “Why the hell would you want that?”

              “I was the black sheep of the family,” he explained. “I have an older brother and a younger one. Both of them are smart guys who my parents always bragged to the neighbors about. I, on the other hand, got into drinking and later drugs. I used to figure that if I had someone like me in the family, I wouldn’t be such a loner.”

“No wonder you feel like you belong here,” I said. “This place is full of black sheep. Just most of them aren’t remotely as good looking as you.”

“Why thank you,” he said while raising his glass. “To good looking people in a rundown bar.”

              “Cheers!” I said while lifting my glass next to his. We clanked them together, and some of the beer sloshed out of my mug and onto his lap. “I’m sorry about that!”

              “Don’t even sweat about it,” he said. “It’s just a little beer.”

              “A guy who can handle a mess,” I said. “That’s a very good thing.”

              “And why’s that?”

              “Because I’m the biggest mess you’ll ever meet.”

              “I doubt that,” he said with a smile. “I’ve seen some pretty sad looking people back in the day.” My eyes wandered to his handsome face before drifting down his torso. Under his black jacket, Rhett was wearing a fitted black v-neck t-shirt. I could make out his well-defined pectoral muscles. They seemed to be calling me from inside of his tight shirt.

              “I wanna lick your pecs,” I growled.

              “You want to what?” he said, nearly spitting out his beer.

              “Your pecs...” I said. “I wanna lick ‘em.”

              “How much have you had to drink?” he asked.

              “This is my fourth,” I said and then I finished the beer. “Done. Everyone says that I’m a lightweight, but I know that I’m not.”

              “I’m going to have to agree with everyone else,” he said.

              “You know... I’d date you if you wanted to.”

              “Thanks,” he said with a worried expression. I could tell that he wasn’t interested. Being that I couldn’t take any more rejection that night, I decided to walk home.

              “I’m going to leave,” I said. “Don’t tell the bartender, but I didn’t bring any cash with me tonight.”

              “This isn’t the place to do that,” Rhett laughed as he pulled out a money clip. He put the cash on the counter and stood up from the barstool.

              “Thanks for getting me.”

              “No problem,” he said. “I’ll drive you home.”

              “I’m gonna walk,” I said as I stood from the bar. Suddenly, I felt that my legs were gelatin. “Okay, maybe you can take me.”

              “Let’s get out of here,” Rhett said as he grabbed my hand. It felt nice for him to hold my hand as we walked through the bar that was filling up quickly with people. Just as I left, I caught sight of Jesse, who gave me a grimacing stare. Just when I went to flip him off, we were outside of Mickey’s in the cool night air.

              “Where’s your bike?” I asked.

              “Right over here,” he responded as he walked over to a black motorcycle on the road. His helmet slung on the top of the handlebars. The bike was a designer with fire hand painted on the sides.

              “Cool ride,” I said.

              “Thanks,” he responded before handing me the helmet. I pushed it on my head and followed him onto the bike. After I had given Rhett the directions back to my sister’s place on the other side of town, he seemed to get there in record time.

              “Want to come inside?” I asked. “I’m pretty sure that my sister is asleep by now.”

              “Sorry, I can’t,” Rhett said.

              “Why not?”

              “It’s just probably better that I don’t,” he said.

              “Fine,” I grumbled as I got off the bike. “Thanks for the ride.”

              “Of course,” he said as I handed him back the helmet. Rhett waited for me at the bottom of the stairs to make sure that I got into my apartment. After stumbling through the door, I heard his bike speed off into the distance.

              The apartment was much warmer than outside, and the heat caused my head to hurt. Feeling hungry, I moved toward the kitchen to grab something quickly. There, I pulled out a box of cereal from the cabinet along with some milk. Before I could gather the bowl, I felt dizzy. Though I tried to keep my footing, my brain throbbed inside of my skull. Suddenly, I plummeted onto the tile floor.

              When my alarm sounded in the morning, I could hardly get myself to crawl out of bed. After the fight with Arianna, I barely had any sleep, and my head hurt from all of the worrying I had done that night. In my morning stupor, I thought that I might kill for an extra hour of sleep.

              When I dragged myself out of my bedroom, I saw that Arianna’s door was still wide open. More than likely she had gotten drunk at a sleazy bar and ended up in bed with an unsavory character.

              As soon as I walked into the kitchen, I noticed that the scene had gone awry. Cereal was scattered all around the countertops, and the refrigerator door was open with a puddle of water pooling at its base.

              “Oh, Arianna,” I griped as I walked groggily into the room. Suddenly, my foot caught something and I tumbled onto the kitchen floor. When I looked back, I saw my twin sister lying on the floor. Her clothes looked disheveled as she twisted around her body.

              “Uh...” she groaned from the floor next to me. I found my footing again and decided to prod her awake.

              “Get up, please,” I said while shaking her with my hands. Instead of listening to me, she rolled in the other direction, revealing clusters of cereal that had collected under her body. “Great. Well, at least you didn’t bring a guy home with you.”

              “He... he...” she mumbled. “He didn’t want me...”

              “Are you sure?” I asked as I lifted her drunken body from the floor. “Because you smell like beer. Don’t those guys love a drunken girl?”

              “Uh...” I could tell that I lost her. Still, I needed Arianna to walk back to her room so that I could clean up the mess that she had made before I got ready for work. When she finally stood to her feet, I guided my sister carefully into her bedroom. Naturally, her bed wasn’t made, so I hardly had to peel the sheets back for her to lie on the mattress.

              “I’ll leave you a glass of water by your bed,” I said. “I just need to take a shower first.” A part of me expected an answer; however, she just slept with her head across her pillow. It was just another morning with me cleaning up after Arianna.

As much as I felt the instinct to worry about my sister, I tried to focus on Gavin. My heart fluttered as I thought about seeing him at work that day. Perhaps we could take another break and do a round two in his office. Quickly, I rushed into the bathroom to get ready.

[continued]

The first couple of hours in the workday were packed with phone calls. Though I anticipated seeing Gavin, he was nowhere to be found. Around noon, we were able to peel ourselves away from the office. Nariah and I went down the street to a delicatessen for some lunch.

“Spill the beans,” she said before biting into her sandwich. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you yesterday. What happened to you, girl?”

“I know, I’m sorry,” I groaned. “I had a lot going on that day.”

“Let me guess,” she said after swallowing a mouthful. “You had so much fun on your date two nights ago that he fucked you silly. Then you came home to see your sister passed out with some trucker on your couch.”

“Wow,” I sighed. “Is my life that predictable?”

“She brought home a guy?” Nariah said while lowering her gaze at me. Her long, braided hair swooped over her shoulders. “I would beat the hell out of my sister if she did that to me.”

“Not exactly,” I said. “However, I did have the pleasure of picking her drunk ass off of the floor this morning along with her cereal and milk.”

“You do too much for that girl,” Nariah sighed. “What about Gavin? How did all of that go?”

“He took me to Alexandria’s for dinner.”

“Oh, shit!” she said. “My husband and I are still on the wait list for that place. Did you at least you get some play from your playboy?”

“That I did,” I said.

“Girl, tell me everything!” she squealed. “Where did it happen?” I couldn’t tell her the truth, so I decided to smooth it over with general details.

“At his place,” I said while believing that his office didn’t make that technically a lie.

“Very nice! I bet you were floating on cloud nine!”

“That I was,” I said as I reminisced about Gavin and I grinding together on his desk. “Just when I thought that Arianna couldn’t possibly ruin my night, she freaks out on me!”

“Over what?”

“She told me so much heavy stuff...”

“Elaborate, please!”

“I shouldn’t because it’s very personal.”

“I completely understand.”

“Without going into too much detail, let’s just say that I know what’s been bothering Arianna all of these years.”

“Oh, yes,” sighed Nariah. “She finally told you about her assault?”

“Wait, what?” I gasped. “Am I the only one who didn’t know about it?”

“Brea,” Nariah said as she looked into my eyes. “It was so obvious that your sister had been through extreme trauma. You said that she came back from school and was a mess.”

“Yes, I know,” I sighed. “We both went to the same college, but... I don’t know... it’s all so confusing.”

“The best thing you can do is to be there for your sister.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do all of this time. I keep putting her needs in front of mine, including paying her half of the rent and giving her money. I’m so broke that I’m always miserable!”

“That’s where you’ve got it wrong,” Nariah said while shaking her head. “You need to take care of yourself
first
.”

“I know,” I groaned. “What am I going to do? She’s crazy and horrible, but I feel so bad for her after everything that happened.”

“You girls are twenty-three now and it is time to grow up. Your sister needs to see a therapist and
stat
!”

“Even with all that has happened, Arianna refuses to see a therapist. She and our mother had a huge blowout over if and now they refuse to speak to one another.”

“You need to have a mini-intervention. Tell her that if she doesn’t get help soon, then she has to get out of your home. You pay for her life, Brea.”

“I just feel like if I add this on top of everything that she’s been through, it might just drive Arianna over the edge. I’m hoping that with enough time, she’ll just let things go instead of acting out all of the time.”

“Brea,” Nariah said. “Your sister was raped. That isn’t something she’s just going to get over.”

)(

              After our lunch, Nariah and I made our way back to the building. We had stayed a little longer than usual, however, after the crazy morning phone calls, we knew that Mr. Buchanan wouldn’t mind.

As we stepped out of the elevator, I heard the low tone of Gavin’s voice coming out of his office. It took it as the perfect opportunity to reconnect with him.

              “Sounds like that’s my queue to leave,” Nariah said as walked down to her cubical.

“Talk to you later,” I said before moving to Gavin’s door. Suddenly, he emerged from his out of his office, looking disheveled.

              “Hello,” I said, attempting to sound sexy.

              “Hi,” Gavin said with a slightly off-kilter expression as he looked at me. Our moment quickly disrupted when a tall, thin blonde woman stepped out of his office from behind Gavin. She smiled as she adjusted the heels of her shoes on her feet. My heart sank as I stepped past the door to see papers spread all over the floor next to his desk.