Double Heat [Twin Ties: 3] (3 page)

“She was sorry for me, actually. Seemed concerned for my mental health. Wouldn’t be the first one, eh?”

“Was she pickin’ up on anything?” Carter asked. It felt like a poke, like he was feeling for weak spots. Unfortunately, Evan had plenty of those, so it made him feel like he had to duck and weave. “I mean, hey, I’m listenin’ if you wanna talk.”

Evan groaned, sinking down lower into the driver’s seat, watching people go in and out of the seafood store. “Nah, it’s nothing. Just nervous, I guess. Bren’s got news to share with the twins tonight. They don’t know anything about it, but I do. Don’t say anything, but he’s going out of town. Bren. Just for a few days. He’s headed back to his old home for Maggie’s birthday. Says it has to do with a promise he made her a while back. I kind of feel bad for not going with him, but that’s not really why I’m....” He sighed and stopped talking.

“What?” Another poke.

“I shouldn’t tell you,” Evan said. “Can’t even tell Jimmy. Can’t tell anyone, really.”

It felt like he was standing in quicksand, like he had intentionally walked right into it and every move he made, every astonishingly stupid thing he said, only pulled him deeper. Soon, he’d be in over his head and he’d really be screwed then. Being in relationship where you constantly had to balance between four different people those things which usually only involved two was exhausting. Everyone’s feelings needed to be safeguarded. Rules had to be followed. Proper respect and care had to be given so someone didn’t get upset and throw everything off. And that was all fine. It was expected. But sometimes it was the little things that got to Evan. Like how he’d been forced into situations where his comfort level was stretched almost to the limit and he couldn’t even vent about it to his friends because of how bizarre it all was.

“You kidding? Of course you can tell me. You’re talking to someone who lived with the Popović twins for years.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Evan allowed, even though it didn’t really make a difference. Not with what was really bugging him.

Don’t tell him
, a voice whispered in his head. Maybe it was his conscience talking. More likely it was the voice of experience kicking in.
You’ll just make it worse.

There was a lot Evan had learned a long time ago not to talk about. Things he’d done, choices he’d made, worry about the consequences or implications—it was a tangled mess of feelings better to be avoided and diligently not thought about. But things were different now, weren’t they? What real harm could come from talking to Carter? What would he be making worse? He was in his relationship with the twins for the long haul and Carter already looked at Evan funny because of it. It wasn’t like anything Evan said would be able to undo that.

Evan’s thoughts lingered there for another moment, thinking of how his friendship with Carter had gotten to be about a lot more than football and beer. Just in the way Carter spoke to Evan, asking questions to draw him out, like he really wanted to know the answers, made Evan want to at least try.

The idea of opening up terrified him. But maybe he could, just a little. Clearly trying to keep everything inside wasn’t working so well anymore.

“Look,” Carter said, sounding more determined, which consequently made Evan feel more worn down. “If something’s bothering you, you have to tell someone. Sounds like you can’t tell Alek and Luka yet. Or Bren—”

“Bren’s too close. And I don’t want him to feel like he can’t go on his trip.”

“There ya go. You’ve gotta tell someone. Who else you gonna tell?”

“Christ,” Evan groaned. He decided to just close his eyes and go through with it despite his reservations. That was another skill he’d perfected over the years. “Fine. Well, you know what Luka and Alek are like, and what went down a little while ago.”

Am I talking to him about this? Really?
Evan marveled. Once more though, his mouth seemed to have a life of its own. Or maybe it was just the desperation talking.

He pushed the thoughts away and kept going. “I cheated on Alek with Luka. That’s our history, and it’s always there, even if they try to tell me they’re past it. With Bren leaving, it all becomes about me and them. I’m the third wheel. I’m the reason they were fighting with each other. They were actually choking each other at one point. It wasn’t just fucking around. They were livid.”

“Ev, that’s not just history, that’s
ancient
history. Why do you think they’d get upset over something like that? You’ve all been living together for a while now. Hasn’t it been going well?”

“Yeah,” Evan sighed. “It has. I mean, I guess that’s not it exactly. They probably wouldn’t get upset about that, but there could be something else, something shitty that just spontaneously happens, and I suck at keeping the peace between them. It’s just a lot to handle on my own. I don’t have a hell of a lot of people skills. My way of coping has always been to bail or avoid shit. I can’t do that with them without making everything worse. And I’ve never been on my own with Alek and Luka for that long before. Bren has, but he was busy worrying about Dad finding out about shit and it’s different now.”

Carter was quiet. It made Evan feel on edge.

“So that’s what you’re worried about?” Carter asked. “Handling the twins on your own?”

There was subtext there Evan didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole. Actually, it scared him, so he tried to talk past it and said, “What if I screw everything up? It’s been going really good and I don’t want to be the cause of fucking up things. I mean, it’s not like I have anywhere else to go if this doesn’t work out and I wouldn’t just be hurting one other guy. There’s a lot of people’s feelings involved.”

“Sounds to me like you’re getting way ahead of yourself. Just be honest with them.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“They care about you, right?”

“Of course.”

“Then spending some extra time together should be a good thing. I mean, if you didn’t like them, you wouldn’t be with them, would you?”

“Of course I like them. I
love
them. I just have to tell them I’m freaking out a little and it’ll be fine. We have a rule that we have to talk about things that bother us, so I’ll try to bring it up tonight, but I
hate
talking about this kind of shit. I never say it the right way. It comes out wrong and I just screw things up even more. It’s almost worse to talk about it than to just go through with it and pretend I’m not worried.”

When Evan finished, the line was dead quiet, and that scared Evan even more.

“Carter?”

Nothing.

“You still there?”

Quietly, Evan heard, “You might think I’m a dumbass. Maybe not. But, I do actually hear what you’re saying, you know. When’s Bren leave?”

There was that subtext again. Evan didn’t like it. Wouldn’t go near it.

“Um, in three days. Why?”

“I’ll give you the three days to talk to the twins. Then
I’m
gonna talk to them. If they’re your boyfriends, Evan, you shouldn’t be this scared to be alone with them, not if they haven’t given you cause to be afraid. And if they have, then we have some serious fucking problems here.”

“Dude, please let it go. See, this is why I didn’t wanna tell you! Please don’t get weird about it, okay?”

“I’m just gonna come over there and look you in the eye. If you’ve talked to them, fine. But if you haven’t? They will be warned to treat you with some fucking care.”

“Jesus, are ya done? I’m not a damn child, dude! I don’t need you to fight my battles for me!”

“Is this why you’ve only talked to the preacher until now? Huh? Because he’s not likely to take matters into his own hands like he should have?”

It hit a little too close to home, making Evan feel more defensive. There were a lot of reasons why Evan had always confided in Jimmy, but it had very little to do with Jimmy’s faith or his former profession.

“What are you talking about? They’re your friends! What, you’re gonna start a fight over this? I shouldn’t have told you. It was a mistake. Won’t happen again.”

“Be mad at me if you want,” Carter said, sounding determined as ever. “If the twins don’t see something’s wrong here, that you’re not only
not
excited to be alone with them, but worried about it, then I’m happy to make a few corrections.”

“Whatever, man,” Evan replied, too tired to argue anymore.

“You’ve got three days.”

“You’re serious?”

“As a heart attack.”

“God damn it.”

He hung up. His head fell back against the headrest.

“Now what do I do?” he asked the empty car. Unsurprisingly, he got no reply, from the lobsters or anyone else.

Chapter 3
Mixed Messages

There were a lot of text messages saved to Brennan’s phone. Hailey, a girl with dimples and curly auburn hair who he’d been friends with since elementary school, was the person he was planning to stay with while he was away, since she had her own apartment and an unoccupied couch. Her messages contained vital information like her address and directions on how to get there and where to park.

There were a bunch of other messages from random people from high school who’d heard Brennan was coming for a visit and checked in with him because of it. He had a few messages from some of his mom’s old friends, too, asking him to stop by if he had time. Keeping all of those little notes helped him remember who to try to visit and gave him needed courage to go through with the trip, just in seeing their names in a list in his phone. They were his connections to a life he’d been happy to leave behind.

The rest of the messages weren’t from Evan, or Alek, or Luka. They weren’t from Presley or Carter either, but from Tommy Koch. Tommy was Brennan’s ex-boyfriend and Brennan would have never let Evan or the twins know, but Tommy had been texting Brennan regularly for months, ever since he’d moved to Pennsylvania, despite the fact that Brennan hadn’t replied to a single text.

Tommy’s behavior was verging on stalker territory, and Brennan was aware of it. It had been too long since Brennan had left for Tommy to keep messaging him without reply, and there were too many messages, period. They accumulated like a snowball rolling downhill. Half a year had passed since Brennan packed all of his belongings in a moving van and drove it up the country to find his long-lost twin brother. Yet Tommy still texted. Brennan had thought about changing his number, but never actually went through with it, partially because then he would have had to explain to his brother and the twins
why
he’d needed to change his number.

But Brennan didn’t think Tommy was actually dangerous, just overzealous maybe. He was the kind of person who was used to always getting his way, and all of the abrupt changes in Brennan’s life following Maggie’s death had completely disrupted the trajectory of Tommy and Brennan’s relationship. Tommy had always had big plans of going to the same school as Brennan and living together. Brennan’s sudden, decisive choice to move away had been the end of all of that, or so he’d thought. Relocating quite effectively ended a relationship that had gone on too long anyway. It had been bound to upset Tommy, and maybe make him feel like what happened wasn’t fair to him. There weren’t a lot of young gay men in their hometown to distract Tommy from trying to pursue some long-distance arrangement with Brennan. He was probably really lonely. It was sad, actually, and kind of pathetic.

Maggie hadn’t liked Tommy, but that had been part of his appeal. Tommy had the bad boy veneer even though he was popular and got good grades. Of course, to Maggie, one of the main things she hadn’t liked about Tommy was how physical he was, in every possible sense. He was touchy-feely and hands-on, no matter who happened to be watching as he palmed Brennan’s ass or pushed a hand down into Brennan’s side pocket to fondle him through the fabric. Maggie had known they were sexually active, though Brennan had never told her in so many words. There had always been condoms in his room for her to find if she searched thoroughly enough.

Since Brennan was a naturally sexual person, and it had been a long time since he’d been a virgin, he’d been a perfect fit for insatiable Tommy. There was very little Brennan wasn’t game for. He’d try anything once. Of course, Tommy had gotten off, hard, on trying to find things which tested Brennan’s vast limits. He’d been certain he could find things Brennan would be nervous to try, and he’d been right. There was a lot Brennan and Tommy had done behind closed doors that Brennan wasn’t proud of. As rosy as Tommy’s fantasies of being together forever seemed, that’s all they ever were to Brennan—fantasies.

Their kinky sex life wasn’t the problem. Not really.

The problem was that Tommy was physical in other ways, too. He tended to use his hands to make a point.

Brennan scrolled through the list of messages, all originating from Tommy. Some tried to ask for information, but most of them were sent simply to keep Brennan posted on what Tommy was up to, or sharing gossip from town about people they knew. They seemed harmless.

It wasn’t that Tommy was a bad person. He couldn’t technically be classified as a nice guy; there was too much darkness in him for the label to ever fit. A better term for him might have been that he was a bad influence. Tommy had never hit Brennan. There had been pushing and shoving, hard enough to leave bruises, but that had only happened once or twice, a few times at most. Plus, they were both guys. Teenage guys pushed each other around. They wrestled and roughhoused. It didn’t have to mean anything.

But still, Brennan was glad it was over, and he never wanted to go back to being the person he’d been while they dated. So, he never replied to those text messages, or figured out a way to get a new phone number without raising suspicion, or found a way to tell Evan, Alek, or Luka, about the darker side to tall, dark, handsome Tommy with the perfect teeth.

It was the biggest reason he didn’t really want to go back to Monroe. Tommy hadn’t taken the breakup well, or seemed to realize how completely Brennan had moved on. It was a conversation he’d been avoiding so long, he wasn’t sure he was even capable of having it. He wasn’t proud of his spinelessness where Tommy was concerned. Of everyone Brennan had ever been with, it seemed to only be Tommy who could bring out the pushover in him. Brennan was willing to do whatever it took to keep his newfound family from finding out about those mistakes and acts of cowardice he’d traveled so far to escape.