Page 33 of Her Shifter Babe

Tommy

I WAS IN BED BUT NOT asleep when David finally arrived home. I’d tried to rest, but my brain just wouldn’t stop spinning. I heard the front door open, and I got up, sliding on a pair of flannelette pants. Within a minute, there was a knock on my bedroom door. “Coming,” I said, opening the door to my brother’s back.

He was already walking away toward the kitchen.

So I followed, glad he wanted to talk in a common area.

David was standing with two glasses and our favorite bottle of whiskey in the dining room, his expression a mix of fleeting emotions. “We need to talk,” he said.

I reached out and accepted the half-filled tumbler from him gratefully. I needed a stiff drink for what was coming, I could feel it. Something was up, and things were about to get serious. “Yeah. We do,” I agreed.

David tossed back his entire drink, sculling the whiskey, and wincing as the alcohol burned down his throat. “I want Stacey too,” he managed in the aftermath, his gaze intense as fuck.

My eyebrows flicked upwards.

Holy shit!

That wasn’t what I’d expected him to say. “Ah... yeah, of course. I assumed you would when you came to your senses.” My gut twisted with the thought, even though I should have been ready for him to feel this way. I’d always known we’d share our mate, but I couldn’t deny the secret joy that had sprung from Stacey being all mine, even just for a little while.

“It fucking hurt that you found her and slept with her without me,” my brother admitted. “I don’t want to sound like a damn pussy, but it did. I hated the idea that you just stormed ahead into your new life without me. We were meant to be a family. You and me and our mate. It was always supposed to be something we did together, not separately.”

I swallowed hard, very conscious that I could not screw up this moment. My twin was being real, and he needed my reassurance, not my petty jealousy. “I didn’t know at the time, David. I swear it. If I had known, or had any inkling? I would have put her on a plane with me and brought her straight home—for both of us. I know I should have recognized the signs, but I was wasted. The zing all of it just went over my head. Back at the conference, she was just another woman. The most beautiful one I’d ever been with, but no different than any other.”

I’d never wanted to get married or have a life different from the one David and I had always planned. “It wasn’t intentional, I swear,” I said. “You have to believe me. Not meeting her, sleeping with her, or getting her pregnant. And if I’d known she was destined to be mine, I would never have let her go in the first place.”

“She’s not just yours,” my twin corrected. “She’s my mate too, so we should all bond together,” David said, his tone terse and annoyed at my misstep.

“I agree.”

There was a heavy beat of silence that fell between us.

Where is this conversation headed now?

“I went to see Stacey tonight. At Wade and Tanner’s new place,” my brother said, shattering the awkward silence like a hammer through glass.

My jaw tightened as my teeth clenched. I couldn’t help the way my body reacted. “When?” I prompted.

David shrugged. “I don’t know, an hour or two ago, maybe? It doesn’t matter.”

“What did you do with her?” I asked, inhaling deeply. My brother smelled of sweat and soap, and the normal level of kitchen grease he brought home with him each night. I couldn’t smell my—our— mate... but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

David shrugged again, his gaze sliding to the floor. “Does it really matter?”

I inhaled sharply again. “It shouldn’t,” I answered. My brother had every right to sleep with Stacey, and I shouldn’t care. But I did, which was fucking stupid! How I felt went against everything I knew about how this was supposed to work. It made no sense.

David chuckled, breaking the tension between us. “We suck at this, you know? Why did we ever think that we could share a woman?” he asked, shaking his head.

My ribs squeezed tightly, making my heart pound a little harder. “Because we’re a perfect pair! This is our fate, brother,” I emphasized. “It always has been.”

David poured himself another generous serving of whiskey and took another sip with a grimace. “And yet, here we are, both jealous assholes. Like toddlers unable to share a toy.”

I took another slug of my own whiskey, and it burned hotly down my throat, proving a great distraction from the strange trembling in my heart. “You believe me, don’t you? That I didn’t know Stacey was my mate when I met her, right?”

David stared at me. “How is that even possible? I mean, I know you say you were wasted, but...”

I groaned, annoyed at my own weakness and stupidity. “I was blind drunk. It’s a miracle I remember any of the conference at all after how much I had, honestly. And Stacey and I fell into bed within minutes of meeting each other. All I could think at the time was that she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. But that was it, at the time. Then, the next morning, she was gone.”

David grabbed the bottle, clearly ready to drown his sorrows, and lumbered over to the small couch area, then flopped down with a sigh. “Yeah, I’d wondered about that part. You know, you missing all the signs. You must have been really fucked up, brother. I only wish I’d been there to meet her too. Maybe I might have realized for the both of us.”

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