Page 61 of Dopplebanger

“Whoa,” Evan said, obviously reading the charged look between me and his brother that spoke the words I didn’t dare speak aloud. His jaw clenched as he turned to Ethan. “Yousleptwith her?”

Ethan’s blue eyes stayed steady on mine. “I wanted to. More than anything I’ve ever wanted up until this moment where I want more than anything for her to just give me another chance.”

Affection surged, everything inside of me reaching for him, but it only scraped open old wounds while carving out new ones, and it was all too much. I turned around, clenching my jaw against the sob lodged in my throat. “I need both of you to leave.”

I began blindly reaching for my belongings so I could pack and… I wasn’t sure, but I had to get out of this room, away from these brothers. Away from everything. I’d worry later about how, with them gone, I’d no longer have a ride home.

“I, uh, need my car keys,” Evan said.

Spotting them on the side table, I grabbed them, spun around, and chucked them at his head.

Unfortunately his hand whipped up, his reflexes too fast to let the keys smack him in the face.Damn. That would’ve been satisfying.

“You ready?” Evan asked, and I knew he was talking to Ethan. Now the two of them could ride home together and plan out more schemes and hopefully realize that the other thing they shared besides looks was being assholes.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Ethan said, so quietly I might’ve thought I’d imagined it if his voice didn’t also do the annoying tingly-nerve-ending thing.

The door opened and closed, but I could still feel Ethan’s hulking presence. Feel the weight of his stare. Smell his damn new cologne that was apparently not new, but just what he probably always wore.

He stepped closer, and I quickly zipped my suitcase—or that was the plan, but the stupid thing snagged, and I jerked harder and harder, crazy desperation making getting it zipped up suddenly the most important thing in the world.

Ethan reached around me, his chest bumping my back. He gently removed my hands, stuffed in the wad of fabric that hadn’t quite made it all the way inside, and finished zipping it, the noise so freaking loud in the silence.

“I know it’s too late, and I messed up,” he said. “But for what it’s worth, I kept trying to tell you last night. I even started to when we were in the pool…”

I squeezed my eyes against the clashing mix of pleasure and pain that flowed through me.

His warm breath skated across my neck, soothing yet torturous. “And about what happened before we jumped in the pool… I was pretty buzzed, and I didn’t mean for it to go that far.” I heard him swallow. “Not that I’m absolving myself. I still should’ve stopped sooner. I told myself that I couldn’t sleep with you until you knew the truth. Until it’d be my name coming from your lips.”

Damn it, my body forgot to be pissed again, heat pooling low in my stomach and spreading outward.

“We just kept getting interrupted, and I know that’s not good enough. I’m just hoping it means something.”

His fingers brushed down my arm, featherlight. “By the way, how’d it go with Paige? I didn’t have a chance to ask.”

“We talked. Cried some.” My voice came out croaky. Weak. My knees trembled and my hands weren’t so steady, either. I wanted to turn around to face him, but if I did that, I might forget that he’d lied and I couldn’t trust him, and I shouldn’t still feel our connection pulsing between us, begging me to do something to make it stop pulsing and flow freely again.

Sorry, body. Sorry, heart. You guys aren’t the best judges of character.

I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my palms to redirect the pain there and keep myself on guard. “I told her that I forgave her, but things won’t ever be the same, and if you think that if I forgave her, I can just forgive you, too, then?—”

“Not why I asked,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I don’t feel okay. That same sense of betrayal I felt when I found Kyle and Paige is burning through me again. I told myself I’d never let anyone play me for a fool ever again.”

“I don’t think you’re a fool. You’re so smart I doubt I’ll ever be able to quite keep up with your beautiful brain, but I know I want to try. You’re funny and kind and so perfect that this whole trip felt like an amazing dream I never wanted to wake up from. That’s just part of why I want to be with you, and I’d be the fool if I walked away without begging for your forgiveness.”

“Ev—Ethan.Dammit.” A couple tears spilled down my cheeks. “Don’t you get it? You’re the one I fell for.”

He sucked in a sharp breath. His arms came around me and I flinched, telling myself that I couldn’t, under any circumstance, fall into the comfort of his embrace.

“And you’re the one who broke my heart,” I finished. Misery rushed through me, slamming into the dam holding back my tears and releasing the floodgates.

“Shit, I’m so sorry. You have no idea how sorry.” His arms tightened. “Don’t go. We’ve got to be able to work this out. Just tell me how—I’ll do anything.”

“It’s over, Ethan.”

He made a low sound in his throat, like my saying his name was a relief and yet left him completely tormented at the same time. Saying it felt that way, too.

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