Page 26 of Fortuity

Elaine smiled, her eyes darting down to the small amount of space between us. “Why don’t you give Faith a little tour while your dad and I go check on how dinner is doing in thekitchen?”

I felt the muscles in Dillon’s arm tense and turned to look up at him. His dark eyes were wide, and he was shaking his head. “Do you think that’s a good idea? Because Idon’t.”

“You set fire to one turkey, and they judge your cooking skills forever,” Lloyd muttered, tugging on Elaine’s hand as theywalkedaway.

“Do you like Chinese?” Dillon askedoddly.

“I heard that!” Lloyd yelled, making Elainegiggle.

“I feel like I missed something.” I cocked my head to the side, giving Dillon a questioning look that wrinkled my brow. “Your dad set fire to aturkey?”

“And a big section of the backyard,” he laughed. “C’mon, I’ll start the tour there so I canshowyou.”

He kept his hand on my back while he guided me through several rooms and led me through a set of French doors which opened to a stone paved patio that was even bigger than the front porch. We walked to the top of the steps that led down to the lawn, and Dillon pointed to the left. “Do you see the line in the grass there? Where the green changes to a slightly lightershade?”

I held a hand to my forehead to block the glare from the sun and narrowed my eyes while I focused on the area he was pointing at. “Maybe?”

“It’s hard to spot because my dad had the landscapers change out the sod three times until they got as close a match as possible,” heexplained.

“Your dad set fire to a turkey…on the lawn?” I still felt like I was missing a big part of thestory.

“Yup. It was a deep-fried turkeydisaster.”

“Oh!” I nodded. “That actually makes sense. I’ve never had deep-fried turkey before, but I could see how something could go wrong with all thathotoil.”

“Especially when my dad’s the one doing the cooking,” Dillon laughed. His hand slid from the small of my back to grab my hand. His fingers laced through mine, and he tugged me back into the house. “My mom never lets him help in thekitchen.”

“And yet she let him use a deep fryer on the lawn to cook the Thanksgivingturkey?”

“Yup.” He stopped in front of a stone fireplace and pointed at one of the photos on the mantle. It was of his parents on their wedding day, staring into each other’s eyes as though they were the only two people in the world. “She loves him too much to say no when he really wants something, and he was dying to fry thatturkey.”

“That’s”—I swallowed down a lump in my throat while I tried to find the perfect word—“incredible.”

“I’ll deny it if you tell them I said this, but I have to agree. My parents are definitelyincredible.”

“I’ll keep your secret,” I promised as I took in the rest of the pictures on the mantle. It took a moment before it registered that I was seeing double. Literally. “Wait. You haveatwin?”

Dillon’s fingers tightened around mine. “Idid.”

“Did?” I tore my gaze away from the photos of Dillon with a mirror image of himself and found him staring at the one of them standing side-by-side in football uniforms. He was holding perfectly still, the muscle in his jaw jumping and his eyes filled withdespair.

“That car accident I was in my senior year? The one that landed me in the hospital? He died in the crash. On impact, but at least that means he didn’t suffer,right?”

Oh, shit.No wonder Elaine had sounded like she was about to cry when we’d talked about Dillon’s problems. She’d lostason.

Dillon’sbrother.

Even worse...hisidenticaltwin.

I’d been a total bitch, judging him the way I initially had. Without bothering to look for what lay beneath the surface of his seemingly perfect life. If it had cost me the chance to stand by his side while he told me his story, I never would have known what I was missing. Even though I was starting to wonder if I would’ve felt the lossanyway.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” The words sounded hollow, just like they did whenever anyone said them to me about my past. But I meant them. So very much. And I hoped he heard the sincerity in myvoice.

He looked away from the photo and sighed. “We don’t talk about him often. Even though it’s been a few years, the loss is still too fresh. It hurts sofuckingmuch.”

“I can’t evenimagine.”

“But you can,” he disagreed. “I think that’s partofit.”

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