Page 43 of Left on Read

“You look great. I like that color on you.” He raked his eyes up my frame, pausing on my face.

Did his pupils dilate? Was that…heat in his eyes?

“I feel underdressed,” I mumbled, my face flushing from his compliment.

“You’re not. I forgot to do my laundry, and this was one of the only clean things in my room.” He shot me another grin. “So, did you make any plans for today?”

I shook my head, still standing in my doorway like a statue.

River and I hadn’t seen each other since the night I kissed him, but we’d texted nonstop all week. Not about anything serious or important, mostly just sharing memes or talking about our days.

He’d kept the conversations friendly and not flirty, so I hadn’t known what to expect when he showed up today,

Him looking like my fantasy brought to life hadn’t been on my bingo card, that was for damn sure.

We also hadn’t made any solid plans for today other than agreeing on a time to meet up.

“Good, because I did.” He pushed his hair back from where it had fallen over his forehead. “Do you need to grab anything before we go?”

“We’re going somewhere?” I asked stupidly. I’d figured he’d want to hang out around the house and chill. Was this his way of saying we were just hanging out as friends?

“Yup.” He grinned.

“Just let me grab my keys so I can lock up.”

He nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets, somehow looking even more gorgeous.

I grabbed both my keys and wallet and hurried outside. When the door was locked, he waved to his car, which was parked in front of my house.

“Do you want to drive, or should we take my car?”

“Maybe yours since you still haven’t told me where we’re going?”

He chuckled as we headed to his car. “Valid point.”

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I asked when we were settled in his car.

“Nope.” He started it and pulled away from my house. “But you’re going to love it. Hopefully.”

I toyed with the length of seatbelt across my chest as he navigated out of my neighborhood.

“How’s your day been?” he asked conversationally.

“Good. How was yours?”

“Pretty good. Outside of the adventure with no clean laundry. Normally I’d just steal something of Zane’s to wear, but he was out of laundry too, and I didn’t think his Fuck Capitalism shirt or his Eat the Rich hoodie were appropriate choices for today.”

“Is your brother a…rebel?”

“No more than the rest of us. He likes to piss people off.”

“You and him…you don’t sound all that similar,” I said carefully. “Just based on what you’ve told me.”

“We are, but we aren’t.” He turned onto the road that would take us downtown. “Have you ever heard of mirror twins?”

“No.”

“That’s what we are. It’s a type of identical twin where instead of being copies of each other, we’re reflections. Like we both have a birthmark on our stomachs, but mine is on the left, and his is on the right. Same place, same mark, just on opposite sides.”

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