TWIN PASSIONS: (A Logan Brothers Novel) (8 page)

I don't know why it had grown
into this secret anyway. Why hadn't she just told Cade the truth when
they first starting dating? It would have made things so much easier,
and we wouldn't have to put on this stupid front. It was eating away
at me. I wanted to chat with her like we used to, reminisce about old
times. But no, I was stuck with this fucking weight on my back,
probably looking like the moodiest fuck ever. It was ridiculous.

As soon as dinner ended, people
began gravitating towards different tables and over to the bar
set up along the side of the hall. The lights went down and the music
went up, the night beginning to descend into something more
appropriate for a couple of young guys turning 23.

It was then that a girl called
Tess came over and sat in the now spare seat beside me. I'd hooked up
with this girl once or twice before and she seemed to get it into her
head that I wanted more from her. She was a friend of my brother
Kyle's new girlfriend, Alice, and went to a local college in the
city.

She was already a bit drunk when
she draped herself over my lap, much to the amusement of Cade and
some of our friends, who were now standing in a large group near the
table doing shots. I'd told Cade that this girl meant nothing to me,
so he was laughing his ass off at my plight.

Well, plight might be too strong
a work. This girl was pretty hot to be fair, just not my type. She
was pretty and blonde, with a cute smile and raunchy personality, but
she didn't physically do it for me.

She was too skinny, too tall. I
liked my girls a good 6 inches shorter than me when in their heels,
not right up at my eye level. I also liked girls with a curve to
their hips and ass, and this girl had neither.

I glanced again at Gemma, who
was now sitting talking to Alice at the other side of the table, and
my eyes washed over her. She had the sort of shape I liked, the sort
of features I liked, the sort of personality I liked. But then, I
knew that already...I always had.

Her eyes found me, drawn by the
laughter of Cade and his cronies, and she smiled lightly, her lips
staying closed. Next to her, Alice noticed the sight of Tess draped
over me and rolled her eyes, shaking her head. She was Tess' best
friend, and I think she'd probably seen this all before.

I barely reciprocated when Tess
stuck her tongue down my throat, the boys still ogling us over to the
side. I pulled my face away from Tess' wandering tongue and shouted
over towards them: “why don't you all fuck off and stop staring!”

They laughed a bit more before
turning their attention to the latest shiny object to distract them.
Fucking neanderthals. 

Tess grabbed at my face again and carried on
where she'd left off. I noticed Gem look away as she did, returning
to her conversation with Alice.

I wish it was her on my lap
instead.

The night was drawing on when I
sought refuge from the clutches of Tess. That girl just didn't take
no for an answer. I found myself looking for some quiet away from the
noise and growing chaos of the party, heading off outside to get some
fresh air.

I ventured down a corridor away
from the hall and out onto a small garden to the back of the hotel.
It was quiet and secluded, the beating thud of my party now only a
blur in the distance. I pulled out a cigarette and lit it up, sucking
the smoke in and exhaling deeply.

The night sky was clear that
evening, the stars shining brightly as I sucked on my cigarette,
filling the air with rings that drifted off and slowly disintegrated.
I sat there for a few moments, alone, gathering my bearings, happy to
be on my own.

I often got like this in group
situations when Cade was around. It had always been the case: him
stealing my thunder and putting me in the shade. He never did it on
purpose, I don't think, he just had this more dominating personality.
I guess, in that way, he was more like Crash, more like my father.

I sat back in the comfortable
lounge chair, gazing up at the stars and trying to encircle them in
rings of smoke, when suddenly I heard a voice behind me.

“
You know, this is familiar.”

I sat up and turned around to
see Gemma standing in the doorway, two champagne glasses in one hand
and a bottle of Dom Perignon in the other.

She was smiling at me, her teeth
shining in the moonlight, her beautifully curved figure silhouetted
against the bright light down the corridor at her back.

She stepped forward and flicked
the door closed with her foot.

“
Familiar,” I said. “What
do you mean?”

“
Well, it's like how we first
met,” she said, sitting down in a chair beside me and placing the
glasses and bottle down on a small table in front of us. “Only this
time, it's you who ran away.”

I laughed lightly. “You
noticed, huh?”

She nodded, still smiling. “You
didn't look overly comfortable in there. I thought I'd come out and
say 'happy birthday' alone.”

She leaned across and kissed me
on the cheek, her lips lightly brushing over my stubble.

“
Happy birthday Zack,” she
said, before leaning back and popping the cork on the bottle and
pouring two frothing glasses.

“
So what's going on,” she
asked, handing me a full glass. “Why exactly are you out here on your own
on your birthday?”

I lifted the cigarette from my
mouth. “Just came out for a smoke,” I lied. “Terrible habit, I
know.”

“
Yeah, you never used to smoke
when I knew you.”

“
Gem, we were, like, what,
15?”

“
Yeah, loads of 15 year olds
smoke!”

I scoffed. “Yeah, well, not
where my dad sent me. I can tell you, no one smoked there.” My
voice carried a bitter finish.

She put her hand to my arm in a
consoling fashion, just as she used to when we were younger. “That
bad huh?”

“
No, it was OK really. I'd
have rather stayed where I was though...”

“
Same here.”

We both fell silent for a
moment. I didn't want to talk, even think, about the reasons why I
left. It was a period of my life I always regretted, that I wanted to
forget.

“
So,” I said, breaking the
silence and changing the subject, “how are things going with golden
gloves in there?”

“
Golden gloves?” she
laughed.

“
Yeah, just a silly nickname
dad used to call Cade when we were all younger. He said his gloves
would bring gold, that he'd be champ one day. I guess, maybe, that's
beginning to come true now. I hear you're a part of that.”

She was shaking her head as she
answered. “Not really. Cade seems to think I'm some sort of lucky
charm or something, that he's doing better because of me. I don't
believe in any of that sort of stuff really. Has he always been like
that?”

“
What, mental?”

“
Haha, yeah.”

“
Pretty much. He's always had
superstitions when it's come to his boxing. I think you're the latest
fad.”

“
Fad,” she huffed, “is
that all I am!”

“
No, no,” I said laughing,
“I'm sure you're more than just a superstition to him.”

“
Well I should hope so.”

We laughed and talked for a while as we sipped on our drinks. It was the first time we'd talked properly,
just the two of us, since she reappeared into my life.

“
This is nice,” she said,
slipping down into her chair and dragging her coat around her to
protect her from the growing chill. “It's nice to talk to you again
Zack.”

I lit up another cigarette and
took a drag. “Yeah it is, it's been kinda weird pretending we don't
know each other, right?”

She giggled. “Yeah, I guess
that's my fault really. I should probably have just told Cade I knew
you when I first realized who he was.”

“
And why didn't you?”

She screwed her nose up. “I
don't know really. I met him in the gym when he was boxing and
thought he looked like you, only older. We talked for a bit and I
asked if he had any brothers. He told me about all of you and then
said your name. I think I just wanted to see what he was like,
whether he was like you, without him knowing we were at school
together.”

“
Right.....that's pretty
fucked up Gem!” I joked. “You know, a normal person would have
just come out and said, 'yeah, I know your twin, we knew each other
in high school'. That might have made it a bit easier, you know.”

“
Yeah, well, I had no idea I'd
start seeing him did I! I mean, he obviously reminded me of you...and
I liked it.”

She went quiet again and looked
away from me and up to the stars.

“
Anyway,” she said, still
gazing to the heavens, “why weren't you at school together?”

“
I dunno, our parents wanted
us at different schools. I think they wanted us to grow up with our
own sets of friends and our own lives, rather than just doing
everything together like we did when we were little.”

“
That must have been shit.”

“
Yeah, not really. I actually
wanted to go to school somewhere else.”

“
How come?”

“
Well, as you can probably
tell Cade has this pretty dominating way about him. He casts a pretty
big shadow. I guess I found myself walking in it a little bit.”

It was a bitter subject for me
so I stopped talking.

“
Well, that's not how you came
across in high school. You were one of the most popular guys in
class.”

“
Yeah,” I grunted, “because
he
wasn't around.”

I bit my tongue. I didn't want
my bitterness filling the air. It wasn't something anyone even knew
about, least of all Cade. It was just the feeling I got of being one
step behind him every step of the way. The fact that we were twins
and were always being compared to each other made it all worse, what
with Cade beginning to really shine in the ring.

And what was I doing? Just
running one of the clubs that my dad had owned. He'd built loads of
businesses in his time, with several clubs and bars, and the casino,
and had put us in charge of overseeing them when we got to an
appropriate age.

I'd been running the club for
the last couple of years, at one time with Cade alongside me. As his
boxing got more serious, however, dad told him to focus solely on
that, leaving the club in my hands.

I enjoyed the job and enjoyed
the life, but I hadn't really achieved anything. I'd just been handed
the keys to the place and told to run it, working for a while under
the previous manager to learn the ropes before taking over. I hadn't
build the business from scratch or achieved anything real. Not like
Cade. He was making real splashes.

I turned my thoughts away from
the matter and changed the subject, asking Gemma about her life and
her job and everything in between.

She told me about her current
role working for some lifestyle magazine and how it wasn't overly
fulfilling. She spoke about her desire to be a real journalist, to
work her way up towards one of the larger global magazines. She told
me of her love of writing and investigation, and how she had an idea
for a detective novel that she wanted to write.

I remembered how she loved to
read and write as a young teenager, and was always amazed by her
imagination and creativity. It was a side of me that was woefully
underdeveloped. I couldn't imagine myself out of a wet paper bag.

It was the highlight of the
night for me, sitting there talking to her under the stars, the
gentle thud of music barely audible behind us. She was the only girl
I'd ever had as a close friend, the only girl I'd been able to spend
this much time with without sex coming into it.

The problem was, as the evening
drew on and I watched her lips spout words, a deep longing began to
develop inside me, one that had long been dormant. She had developed
from a pretty teenager into a gorgeous young woman. All I wanted to
do was pull her off her seat onto me and kiss her right there under
the bright light of the moon.

But no, I couldn't. I'd bottle
those feelings up, keep them locked down inside me. She was with
someone else now.

Once again, I was in Cade's
shadow.

Present Day

Cade

I was walking on fucking air as
I paced into the gym.

“
Yo Cade,” shouted one of
the personal trainers there as I passed by, “when's your next fight
bro?”

The guy was massive, muscles
bulging off his body. “Soon mate, soon. I'll let you know when I
know.”

The truth was, I already did
know. I'd just been told, and it was just the sort of shot I was
looking for.

An hour earlier I'd been on the
phone with my coach. “Cade, I've got some good news and some bad
news. Which do you want first?”