Page 18 of About Last Night

“Met a friend. Going to get a bite to eat. Don’t wait up.”

“So why do you look like you were about to send out the National Guard to look for me?” I say.

“It’s two thirty in the morning. You never stay out past midnight.”

“My fairy godmother took pity on me and gave me until three a.m. tonight before I turn into a stick in the mud.”

“Oh, honey, you’re not a stick in the mud. You’re more like a deep-set fence post.”

“How flattering,” I murmur.

Willa isn’t wrong. Birth-order stereotypes are spot on with the two of us. I’m the solid, responsible sister who spends more time than she should worrying about and mothering Willa, even though she’s only three minutes younger and doesn’t need mothering in the least. Willa is as solid and responsible as I am. She’s also charming and vivacious and makes everything look incredibly easy while she methodically checks everything off the to-do list she pretends she doesn’t make every night before she goes to bed.

“What are you doing awake, anyway?”

Willa moves out of my way and sweeps her arm across our new living room and kitchen in her best The Price is Right hostess impression. “Unpacking.”

Our plan had been to use Saturday and Sunday to unpack before our new project begins on Monday. I expected the main floor of our three-story townhome to be full of boxes. Instead, the long rectangular space is almost pristine, and smells of lemon Pledge and Pine-Sol. Boxes are neatly broken down and stashed in the back corner by the stairs that lead to the basement and garage, and my things have been incorporated in with Willa’s seamlessly: my favorite chenille throw I snuggle under when watching TV or reading a book; a bright-orange Gluggle Jug I bought on a business trip to London sits on the kitchen counter next to Willa’s cookbooks; a half-empty glass of wine is next to an opened bottle of one of my Saint-Émilion Cabernets. I look at Willa and raise an eyebrow.

“Should have been here to stop me.” She walks into the kitchen, pulls a wine glass out of the cabinet, and pours me one.

I follow her into the kitchen, my eye catching the bookshelf by the fireplace where my books are crammed a bit haphazardly onto two shelves.

“You can arrange them by the Dewey Decimal System tomorrow,” Willa says, reading my mind.

“I’m actually thinking about sorting them by color.”

Willa laughs. “Sure you are.”

“Thank you so much for doing all this, Willa. You really didn’t have to.”

She shrugs and holds out the wine glass. “It kept my mind off worrying about you running into Shae and her convincing you to stay.”

“I would be offended, but I deserve that.”

We clink our glasses together.

“Cheers.”

“Cheers,” I say.

I close my eyes and let the wine settle on my tongue before it slides down my throat. I inhale with the deep satisfaction of enjoying a good glass of wine and get the barest whiff of Toni on my lips and I am back in her bed, my head between her legs, watching her come undone, back arching and her pressing into me, her hand on my head holding me exactly where she wants me. I feel myself getting turned on thinking about it.

I raise my eyes and meet Willa’s shrewd gaze. My smile falls from my face. I hadn’t realized until then that I was smiling.

“Have a nice time catching up with your friend?”

The question sounds innocent enough, but this is Willa. My identical twin who can read my every thought and feel my every emotion. I furrow my brows. Surely she can’t feel…she doesn’t know…I shift on my feet and press my thighs together.

“You just got laid, didn’t you?”

“Oh my God.” I pause. “Noooo.” I draw out that two-letter word into at least five syllables.

Willa laughs. “You so totally did.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Because you reek of sex.”

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