Forsaking Truth (22 page)

The recovery from that
night didn’t come for some time. As autumn arrived, Sheilagh stuck around
rather than head off to college as ex
pected. Tristan
hated the way her smile no longer greeted him whenever they crossed paths. Luke
was pissed she didn’t leave for college when she should have. He saw it as a
complete waste to turn down so many scholarships and his relationship with his
sist
er only grew more strained as time went on.

Sheilagh never told
the others about what she’d seen. Luke, knowing this, still couldn’t seem to
trust that she’d hold their secret forever. That winter, over the holidays,
Tristan ate with Luke’s family. No one
seemed to mind
his presence aside from Sheilagh who no longer spoke to him beyond when it was
absolutely necessary.

Things had changed.
Colin was a totally different man and Samantha was back. She was also pregnant
which was an entirely unpredicted drama.
Bray was
often in Philadelphia finishing his degree and Kelly was Kelly. Finn was still
with Erin on Tuesdays and random Thursdays, but their relationship followed a
continuous pattern of quarrels and juvenile breakups the rest of them couldn’t
keep track
of.

When Finn wasn’t
distracted by Erin’s high maintenance presence, Tristan sensed him observing
him and Luke. He suspected Finn was realizing things about his twin the others
had yet to pick up on.

He kept his hunch
about Finn’s suspicions to himself, no
t seeing the
point in stressing Luke out about the inevitable. They carried on in their
clandestine relationship and with each passing month their guard grew a bit
more lax.

When their two year
anniversary arrived the following June, they went to the cabin
in the woods and made love for seven days straight.
Tristan told the family he was returning to Texas to visit old friends and Luke
made up some bullshit about possibly returning to college and having to take an
entrance exam out of state. No one found ou
t they
were lying, but they also didn’t look too hard to see the truth.

It was a blurred line,
wondering who knew the truth and who was in the dark. Samantha was another
person he suspected knew their secret. She was always the first to suggest Luke
ask Tr
istan to come to family functions. This made
their lives easier, but stressed Luke out all the same.

July rolled into
August and they were moving along as always, steadily getting older, but
marking their days with little more than quiet celebrations betwe
en him and Luke.

They were at the
market one day, arguing over cinnamon bagels versus the kind with raisins that
Luke liked, when something strange happened.

“You could just pick
the raisins out,” Luke argued. “I’d pick them out for you.”

“You can’t pick
raisins out of a bagel. They’re buried inside.”

“Just buy both kinds
then. I’m done arguing over fucking raisins,” Luke said tossing both bags in
their cart.

They turned and
stilled as a girl Tristan didn’t recognize was standing in front of them
smiling
up at Luke. He frowned and looked to Luke to
see if he knew her. His face was blank.

“Hi.”
The girl said. “Remember me? Mallory.”

“Uh…”
Luke shot him a guilty look. Great. Who was she? Someone he’d slept with? She
didn’t look like Luke’s prior type. This g
irl had a
stout little build and quite a bit of curves. She was pretty, just not in the
long legged willowy way most of Luke’s exes were.

“Sorry?”
Luke said. Maybe he didn’t know her.

“We
met in the woods. You gave me a ride back to my car…”

What?

Trist
an scowled at Luke. When was
he in the woods picking up strange women?

Luke
cleared his throat. “You must have me confused—”

The
girl’s eyes turned apprehensive. She glanced at Tristan as if second guessing
her statement. “My mistake.” She quickly said. “I
thought you were someone else.” And just like that she turned and fled toward
the dairy aisle.

Tristan
glared at the back of Luke’s head as he watched her go. When Luke turned he
drew back. “What? I have no freaking idea who she was.”

Narrowing
his eyes,
he asked, “You haven’t given any girls
rides in the woods?”

“Why
the fuck would I be driving around the woods picking up strangers?”

He
believed him, but that didn’t explain what the hell just happened. They didn’t
discover who the girl was until a few wee
ks later.

Braydon
was leaving for his senior year of college and, as usual, they were going to
make him vomit to help him remember them. Everyone was meeting at O’Malley’s
that night.

Tristan
and Luke were getting out of the truck when Bray’s Jetta pulled
in. They paused when they noticed he had a passenger. The
side door opened the same time as Bray’s driver door and Sheilagh’s glistening
red head popped out.

“What’s
she doing here?” Luke asked under his breath.

“Look
who I found,” Bray called.

Luke
noti
ceably tensed as he always did in his sister’s
presence, but played it off. “Hey, Shei-Devil.”

“Well,
hello, boys!” she said with more expression than Tristan had seen her hold in
months. Something was different.

They
went into the bar and headed in Kelly’
s direction.
Sheilagh was almost twenty, but still under the legal drinking age and he
didn’t like her in the bar on weekend nights. She definitely wasn’t a kid
anymore as she seemed to frequently go out on dates, but she was still too
young to be at a bar
doing more than waitressing.

He
protectively stuck by her side and for once she didn’t seem to shoulder him
off. They approached the bar and she reached in her purse, slapping something
down on the lacquered counter.

“I’ll
take a shot of Tully,” she said
, lifting her chin and
grinning proudly.

Her
fingers lifted and a fake ID showed. Kelly snatched it up. “Where’d you get
this?”

“Braydon,”
she purred. “He’s the new favorite, so all you ass clowns better up your game.”

Tristan
frowned and Kelly shot Bray
a look. “You got her a
fake ID?”

“Like
she doesn’t drink at home,” Bray argued.

“That’s
different. She’s safe there.” Kelly tucked the ID next to the register. “I’ll
serve you, but I’m keeping the ID. You drink here or home. Nowhere else.”

Sheilagh
accepted his conditions. “Line ‘em up!”

Kelly
set the shots up like good little soldiers and they each threw one back.
Sheilagh hooted as her empty glass returned to the counter and Tristan smiled.
He missed seeing her happy and was glad she was enjoying h
erself.

Erin
suddenly appeared and Sheilagh rolled her eyes. “You’re drinking?” Finn’s
girlfriend asked.

“Problem?”
Sheilagh snapped, raising a sharp red brow. She was back. The feisty Shei-Devil
was back.

Erin
huffed and turned to order a drink. The bell
above
the door rang and Finn came in. “Finally,” Erin hissed.

The
first round of beers was passed out and Tristan rolled his eyes as Erin
shrugged off Finn’s greeting. God, she was such a bitch. Finn took his beer and
disappeared. Erin scowled after him a
nd Sheilagh
didn’t miss a single beat.

“Hey,
who’s that pretty girl over there Finn’s talking to?” the devil taunted,
earning an evil look from Erin.

Tristan
turned. “It’s the girl from the woods.”

“The
woods?” Sheilagh asked.

“Long
story,” he mumbled, sho
oting Luke a look.

Luke’s
head tipped to the side as he observed the girl talking to his twin. Sheilagh
said, “I’m gonna go see who she is.” And off she went.

They
hung at the bar and a while later, Pat and Ryan showed up. Tristan sidled up to
Luke and wh
ispered, “Your brother seems to know her.
Case of mistaken identity?”

“That’s
what I’m thinking,” Luke said back, sipping his beer.

Finn,
Sheilagh, and the bagel aisle girl came over to the bar and another round of
shots was poured. It was gonna be a long
night.

Luke
held his shot high and said, “To our golden boy, Braydon. May his last year of
school be the best he’s seen yet!”

They
raised their glasses and shouted, “To Braydon!”

“Solute!”

The
bagel girl slammed down her glass and gasped. “What was that
?”

“’Tis
the best Irish whiskey O’Malley’s has to offer,” Finn said.

“It
tastes like shit,” she grumbled, wiping her lips with the back of her hand.

Tristan
laughed. He sent Luke a look telling him he wanted to meet this newcomer. Luke
strolled over. “Hey,
I know you.”

Finn
chuckled. “Yeah, I heard you two met at the market.”

Tristan
caught the slight tensing of Luke’s expression, but he quickly covered his
obvious nervousness that Finn might have heard they’d been grocery shopping
together.

“You
thought I
was Finn, didn’t you?” Luke asked the girl.

“Sorry
about that,” she said, her face flushing.

Luke
smiled. “No problem. So, where’d you come from?”

Turns
out, the girl, Mallory—or otherwise called Philly—had recently moved from
Philadelphia to Center Coun
ty and was starting a job
at the high school. What a strange small world.

Mallory
was actually pretty cool. She was funny as hell and everyone seemed to like
her. Everyone except for Erin, but she didn’t like anyone.

Tristan
saw Luke was stressing and ass
umed it was over Finn’s
comment about them being in the market. Finn hadn’t mentioned knowing Tristan
had been there, but he probably knew.

Erin
was acting all sorts of affectionate and sweet to Luke’s twin, which was such a
pathetic act. It didn’t last long. Tristan watched as she whispered something
to Finn and his easygoing expression turned to a scowl. A minute later he was
dragging her ou
t of the bar for what was likely their
usual weekend brawl.

Bray
was teasing Samantha about being a schoolteacher. “Bet those boys love it when
you wear those pencil skirts and write stuff on the chalk board.”

“Schools
haven’t had chalkboards in years, Br
ay. And I don’t
wear skirts.”

“You
should. I always paid more attention to the sexy teachers. Remember that
teacher who used to work at the high school, the hot one with the long pipes?”
Bray asked Colin and Luke.

Luke,
of course, jumped all over the topic
. “Oh, yeah, what
was her name? She had a great body.”

Tristan
sighed. This was par for the course whenever Luke felt the least bit threatened
by exposure. Looking away, he caught Sheilagh’s look of confusion.

Finn
returned and Luke yelled loud enough for
the entire
bar to hear, “Hey, Finn!”

Finn
looked irritated but pasted on a smile. “Yeah?”

“What
was that teacher’s name who always wore the lacy slip we’d peek at in middle
school?”

“Ms.
Fitzpatrick.”

Luke
clapped his hands. “That’s it! She had a set of l
egs
on her.”

Finn
paused then gave a hollow chuckle, glancing over at Tristan. Yeah. He knew.
Tristan met his confused stare, saw the sympathy in his eyes. It was bad enough
dealing with a lover who refused to come out. It was a whole different mess
when o
thers began discovering their relationship and
said lover exploited every opportunity to act straight. It was embarrassing.