Page 17 of Sweet Twins For My Brother's Best Friend

Hannah

The room swells with Chris’ absence. This place has been my haven since I opened it six months ago, but sometimes it’s an aching reminder of the loneliness that allows me to live here without anyone noticing or caring.

Well, except Lucy,I think happily, looking down at her crumpled sleeping form. It amazes me how much she can sleep, drool pooling beneath her open mouth, her impressive canines poking out from under her purple bottom lip.

My parents would care, Tyler would care, but I haven’t given them the chance. That’s my fault, of course. I’ve been digging my hole of solitude even deeper.

I don’t know quite why I reacted the way I did, except that it’s embarrassing to admit that I never learned to cook. It’s alsoembarrassing that I don’t have any way to learn while living out of my office.

I’m approaching 26, and I’m only getting better with a microwave.

I’m afraid that if I tell Chris that, he’ll just ask more questions, and eventually the truth about my upbringing will come out – that my parents were rarely around, both working two jobs, that no one taught me how to ride a bike, either.

I think he’s starting to put it together, though. I shouldn’t have told him that I used to help my mom with the checkbook. I saw pity on his face, and I hate that.

Tyler’s adoctor.I’m a CPA who owns a business. We’re doing just fine no matter how we grew up.

But the truth is that everythingng I know how to do I’ve taught myself, and all that I’m missing is a mystery that may or may not be revealed to me eventually.

And now, how would I learn to cook, anyway? I don’t have an oven or a stovetop, or even a real kitchen.

No, it’s too much to tell someone, especially someone who looks at me the way Chris does when he doesn’t think I’m paying attention.

And if I were to catch his gaze, would I return his look in the same way? And why does he look at me in an almost sexual way?

The way he talked to me at the end of the evening,that’sthe real Chris. An emotionally unavailable asshole, he’s someone who shows up uninvited and then calls his CPA names after trying to raid her kitchen. He has no manners or respect for others.

Besides, Tyler’s told me all about Chris.

I know he sows his wild oats endlessly and treats women as disposable.

He hasn’t had a real relationship since Julie left him, but he’s evidently had plenty of sex. What kind of guy has sex with a different woman every night on what was supposed to be hishoneymoon?

No, I don’t care how he looks at me. I’m not entertaining any of it. And I’m not entertaininghim.

The loneliness rather overwhelming, I pick up my phone and call my mom.

In a strange twist of fate, or perhaps in exactly the trajectory it was always meant to go, Tyler and I leaving the nest, albeit several years apart, allowed both her and my dad to go back to school and then build up enough money to live well.

They now live the life I always wanted to have while growing up.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but one I can’t begrudge them. They tried and did their best. But it’s why I know I need tohave a modicum of success before I even consider marriage and children.

“My baby!” my mom calls out excitedly. “What did I do to deserve a call from you on this sunny day?”

“Well…”

“Oh, I know. Let me guess – darling, heart of my heart, do you need to use my washing machine?”

I glance over in the direction of my bedroom, picturing the pile of clothing I have in the closet. “Who do you think I am? I just wanted to talk to my mom.”

“So you don’t want to come over?”

“No, I do.”

“And you won’t have clothes in the back of your car?” she needles, her voice cloying with sarcasm.

“Fine,” I admit, “I need to use your washing machine.”

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