Page 58 of Sweet Twins For My Brother's Best Friend

Then, as though suddenly remembering, he stops when he sees Lucy.

“Oh, I..I don’t know how I almost forgot. Hannah, I can’t believe everythingng you’ve brought to me.”

His hands hover over her, wanting to pet her but letting her eat.

“I can’t believe this is my life.”

“I can’t either. Can you believe it, Chris? Lucy is Noodle. It’s so crazy. I guess we’ll have to co-parent now, huh?” I ask jokingly but sort of meaning it.

This has been on my mind, the idea that once Chris realized that Lucy was Noodle he might want to be a permanent part of her life.

“Well, that’ll be easy since I’m your client and all.” He winks at me.

“Stop, you make it sound so inappropriate.”

“Itisinappropriate.” His voice is joking, but I see his face fall as the weight of his words hit him. He wraps his arms around me from behind me.

He mutters, “What are we going to do about Tyler? I can’t keep lying to him.”

I jump back from his touch.

“Well, tell him then. I don’twantto be a secret.”

He chuckles, running a hand through his hair.

“That’s easy for you to say, Han. He’s your brother. He’ll never stop talking toyou. He could decide he doesn’t want to be friends with a guy who would screw his sister.”

“Screw?” I ask him, taken aback by his verbiage.

“No, come on, you know I don’t mean it like that. I just mean that’s how it’ll look.” He readjusts his weight awkwardly, looking around. “You know?”

“No, Chris, I don’t know.” I cross my arms. “What is this, the 1800s? You don’t need my brother’spermission.That’s disgusting.”

“This is all coming out wrong. I’m just concerned that he’ll be angry, okay? There’s a code. You wouldn’t get it.”

His tone is so intense, but I’m still upset by the concept that my brother gets any say in who I date.

“A code, huh? So the brotherhood is real. How quaint.”

I roll my eyes and pet Lucy as she greedily laps at the water, her eyes looking sideways at me anxiously. She’s always been good at sensing tension in a room.

“If there’s no code amongst men, what are we?” he asks me seriously as he pulls two plates out of the cabinets, preparing for my dinner.

“Oh, yeah, thecodeis what differentiates you all from animals. Fine. Don’t tell him. We’ll wait.”

“Well, I don’t want to wait if it’s going to make you angry.”

“I don’t want you to hold back from being straight with him just because you might be worried about making me angry.”

“And that’s not better?”

“No. That’s not better.”

“Hmm.”

He pretends to consider my admittedly insane mental gymnastics.

“Han, how about this? Today, let’s go takeourdog out for a walk and hold hands and feel how it feels to be a couple. And let’s just pretend nothing else is happening.”

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