Page 84 of The Emerson Effect
Twila’s it for me.
I follow her bright energy into the living room along with my roommates, who are apparently as affected by it as I am. I don’t resent them for it. I know it’s inevitable. Who could resist?
I plop down on the couch and watch as Twila takes charge. First, she gets Ritchie’s BingBang handle and follows him. When she tells him to follow her back, I swear, his cheeks tinge pink as he admits that he already does. Twila gushes and thanks him in an over-the-top way that ends with all us of laughing.
“Before you even ask, we follow you, too,” Stone says, holding up a palm.
Twila’s only reaction is to stare at him thoughtfully. Then her eyes move to Mason, then back again before she speaks. “You guys have separate accounts?”
“Yeah,” Mason says. “Of course.”
She nods slightly, saying, “We should create a joint account for you.”
“What? Why?” Stone asks, and Twila’s still nodding like the wheels in her head are spinning on overdrive.
I already know where she’s going with this, and I agree with her, so I say so.
The twins look from Twila to me, eyebrows raised as they wait for an explanation. I shake my head and wave a hand toward my wife. This is her circus, and, for the time being, they arehermonkeys.
“Uh,” she says like her reasoning is obvious, “you’re twins. Identical twins.Hot as fuckidentical twins.”
I don’t bristle at her words because I know that though she finds them attractive, she’s not attractedtothem. I do stiffen, however, ready to play referee if Stone and Mason get pissed at her suggestion. The whole “Sullivan Sandwich” thing might’ve been fun for them in their late teens and early twenties, but they’re over it now. They want women to like them as individuals, not a matching set.
“Any content you make could focus on your individual personality traits, hobbies, and interests,” Twila says, successfully reading the room before anyone can say a word.“But the twin thing will get them in the door, so to speak. You’ll get the assholes who will make everything about sex and threesomes, of course, but if you can handle ignoring them, I think a joint account could be really successful.”
They agree, and Twila grins as she takes a good picture of the two of them with Stone’s phone, then helps them set up an account. They follow each other, then she grins at all of us before hashing out the idea she has for a video. We all agree, and I grab my ring light stand and set it up while Twila teaches the guys the dance she wants them to perform.
The video starts with my three roommates dancing in sync with Twila, and when they slide in, obviously trying to get close to her, I fly in from the right side of the frame and grab her, throw her over my shoulder, and carry her out of there while the guys throw up hands of complaint.
We pull it off to Twila’s satisfaction with three takes, and she smiles softly as she works on the caption and hashtags. I watch her with a warm heart as the guys chatter with excitement over how much fun it was to make the video.
“All this hotness under one roof. What’s a girl to do?” she reads, and gets shouts of approval from the guys.
She looks at me and dips her chin, silently asking if I’m okay with it. I nod, and she flashes me a smile that makes my breath catch in my chest. She reads the hashtags out loud, and I nod in agreement even though I can’t hear her over the pounding of my pulse in my ears.
God. I really am head over heels in love with this woman.
The guys head to the gym, promising to meet us for lunch at one. Twila and I climb into my car, and I show her my favorite places in and around Long Beach while promising to take her to the more touristy parts of L.A. tomorrow. She laughs and says she grew up in southern California and has explored all of thetourist traps more than once. That she’s much more interested in me, the places I love, and the haunts I frequent.
As the clock nears one, we head to the diner and find the guys already waiting in a large, semi-circular booth that will fit us all. We order burgers and fries and milkshakes, and Twila asks the guys about their lives.
“What do you guys do for work? Is it weird that you’re not working on a Wednesday?”
“Not at all,” Stone says, then jerks a thumb toward his brother. “Mason and I are bartenders. So we work mostly nights.”
Twila’s eyes go wide. “At the same bar? Like, together?”
“Yep,” Mason says, and Twila shakes her head.
“No wonder you were concerned about a joint BingBang account. You probably get indecent proposals nightly at work.”
“I work there, too,” Ritchie says, and I brace for Twila’s next question.
“You’re a bartender, too?” she asks as I’d predicted, and as I flinch, the twins chuckle.
“Not…exactly,” Ritchie says, taking his glasses off to rub a hand across his eyes.
When Twila just stares at him, confused, Stone jumps in with, “He’s part of the talent.”
