Page 19 of Twins For My Bestie's Brother

I chuckle. “It’s not an easy thing to forget.”

Lily smooths her hand back and forth over my chest. Perhaps errantly. But perhaps more.

“Aren’t you scared you’re a rebound, Jackson?” Tia pipes up.

“Oh, come on, Tee,” Charlie says. I don’t know how he keeps her in check. He’s a better man than I am.

“I’m just asking what we’re all thinking. Lily and Will were together for, gosh, fourteen years, right?”

Lily goes rigid. “Almost. Yeah.”

I touch my fingertips to the ladybug tattoo on her shoulder blade, stroking softly to say I’m here.

“That’s not something you can just forget. We don’t want Jackson Roy’s heart getting broken here, do we?”

“I wouldn’t do that to him,” she says, and . . . I believe her. “We’re basically family.”

“Family that fucks,” Tia says into her drink.

Charlie swipes her drink out of her hand. “Okay, you’re cut off.”

Tia splits with laughter. “You’re being ridiculous.”

The married couple starts to squabble with others at the table rolling their eyes at Tia’s classic antics.

Lily leans closer to me. “I wouldn’t.”

“I know.”

Her eyes lock on mine. “I wouldn’t ever want to hurt you, Jackson.”

Lily’s adamance is confusing. I suddenly don’t know how fake any of this is. We’ve agreed upon this relationship for tonight and tonight only. Ostensibly, someone is going to be the bad guy once people realize we aren’t together. Maybe this is her way of saying she’s not going to take the fall.

I play with some of the curls resting on her back. “I know you wouldn’t, baby.”

Her body lifts with an inhale. I’ve said ‘baby’ with no one else around to hear unless they were listening closely.

I turn my attention back to Melissa and smile, “When you know, you know, right? And I won’t speak for Lily, but I just knew.”

I’ve always known.

“That’s so romantic,” Melissa says with a sigh, then glares at her husband. “Why aren’t you romantic?”

Theo leans over, resting his hand over hers on her baby bump. “How do you think we got here, Mel?”

It’s romantic and . . . everything I want. I want the wife and the kids and to be someone’s default date for whatever annoying events we have to go to.

“Thirty seconds in missionary,” Lily blurts.

Melissa squeals in laughter, and Theo manages to laugh, too, though his face grows hot.

I pinch Lily on the arm playfully. “You’re an ass.”

“When you know, you know, Jackson,” she lilts, leaning closer to me, so close I can feel her breath on my face.

If she were really mine, I’d kiss her.

Someone clears their throat from behind me. “Sorry to interrupt.”

---