Page 18 of Twins For My Bestie's Brother

I won’t let him. Not again. Noteveragain.

“Anyway, dinner service is starting, and we need to get our drinks, so maybe we can catch up later, huh?” Jackson says with an even smile.

“Sure,” Will says. His eyes still on me.

Jackson swoops me away back into the drink line, lowering his mouth to my ear. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I reply.

He rubs my lower back. “Be honest with me, Lily.”

I hold my jaw tight. The shock of seeing Will is starting to melt away, and fear is replacing it. “It’s over now. That’s all.”

Jackson doesn’t push or ask for anything more. But after a moment, he says, “His mustache looks stupid.”

I can’t hold in my giggle. “It does.” I look up at him. “Thank you.” It’s thanks for coming to help me when he did. Thanks for making me laugh at something so silly. Thanks forall of this.

“For what? It doesn’t take a genius to see how much he doesn’t deserve you.”

And for making me feel beautiful.

Chapter 6

Jackson

Ihaven’t felt this good in ages. It’s not the wine flushing my face or the fact the DJ for this event is actually pretty damn good.

It’s Lily sitting next to me at the table, leaning into me as the conversation flows at the table, close enough that if I wanted, I could kiss her hair. Even Tia can’t keep being her rude self when she sees us like this.

Like this is real.

“So, I think we all want to know,” Melissa, one of Tia’s crew from the old days, begins, leaning back in her seat and resting a hand on her protruding pregnant stomach. “How did you two . . . ”

Lily and I exchange a glance. Good thing we worked out our story beforehand. She smiles at me. So at ease compared to the way I found her, cornered by Will Scortello, the jackass. Something about him just exudes jackassery.

Lily places her hand on my chest. “Jackson was just a shoulder to cry on at first,” she says.

“Oh,just, I see how it is,” I add in a bantering fashion.

“You know what I mean,” she laughs.

I could eat that laugh up with a spoon.

“Leaving Seattle was hard for lots of reasons,” she says, the earnestness in her voice coming through. “It took me a while to feel like myself again. Jackson made me feel . . . gosh, it sounds ridiculous to say, but—”

I watch her lips as she speaks. Wishing I could have one kiss. Just one.

“It felt like old times. Like I was young again. I know we’re still young, but how often do wefeelyoung, you know? Like we’re kids, and we’re safe and loved just for being, you know?”

I know she’s selling a story, but if I make her feel even half of that, I can die a happy man.

“So it just made sense. He was brave enough to ask me out and that was what, three months ago?”

And the Oscar for best actress goes to . . . “Three months and four days.”

Melissa glances at her husband, Theo. “Wow, he even remembers the days, Theo.”

Theo rolls his eyes. “Making us all look bad, Roy.”

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