Page 24 of Sweet Chaos
My sister was not a bad person, but she was weak, and she was selfish, and I had known from a young age that she would always choose herself, even if it meant throwing someone else under the bus.
Dylan dropped his forehead to mine, his soft breaths mingling with mine, and his fingers trailed down my arm. My eyes closed, and I flattened my palms against the rough wall behind me to stop myself from fisting my hands in his shirt to steady myself.
He made my knees weak. He made me tongue-tied and confused. He made me want things I shouldn’t.
“I picked the wrong sister.”
His voice was low. Quiet. But I heard the words as if he’d shouted them over the loud beating of my heart that thrashed against the walls of my chest. He wasn’t allowed to say things like that. How dare he?
I picked the wrong sister.
There was nothingrightabout this. Except for the way he made me feel. But even that was riddled with contradictions. I felt so alive. So desperate. Anxious. Aroused. Scared. Excited. Restless.
And so, so screwed.
I was still trying to get a grip on my emotions, to formulate a response, when he pushed away from the wall and left me standing there alone. Without another word, not even a goodbye, he was gone. Moments later, my feet still glued to the same spot, I watched his taillights disappear into the darkness.
It felt like I’d just gotten off a roller coaster. Yet I had a feeling that the ride had only just begun.
10
Dylan
On Sunday evening, after I put in a few hours at the gym to compensate for the weed and the whiskey the night before—it’s all about balance—I went over to Shane and Remy’s coral-pink beach house, and nearly tripped over a box, sitting right inside the front door.
“Rem,” I called, and heard her footsteps coming down the stairs.
“Hey Dyl.” Remy smiled at me then frowned at the box. “I forgot about that. I think it’s the car seat. So much stuff got delivered.” She bent down, wrapped her arms around the box and tried to lift it. I wrestled it out of her hands and glared at her.
“You can’t be carrying shit. Step away from the box.”
She laughed and followed me into the living room. Their house was cool, decorated in blues and grays with an open, airy feeling to it. Remy’s framed photography lined the walls—her ocean shots, Shane surfing, one of me swimming the fly in my pool but thankfully you couldn’t see my face. I hated having my picture taken. Remy always joked that she was stealing a piece of my soul and that was how it felt. Like my privacy was being violated. I couldn’t begin to imagine how she could have posed for the camera in her modeling years. I would have had to be drunk and stoned the entire time.
I shoved the car seat box against the living room wall next to the other boxes of baby furniture that needed to be put together and turned to look at her.
I had an unrealistic fear that something would go wrong. Not that I’d ever share my fears with Remy or Shane. They’d been through so much shit to get to this place, I didn’t want my dark thoughts to dim their happiness. I’d had weird premonitions, bad dreams that had woken me in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. I used to get these premonitions a lot when I was a kid, and they’d usually been proven reliable.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like a double wide.”
I snorted. Remy had always been rail-thin, too skinny during her modeling days, and from the back, you’d never know she was eight months pregnant. It looked like she had a basketball tucked under her tank top while the rest of her was all long-limbed, toned and thin.
My twin sister and I looked a lot alike. She was the female version of me with the same skin tone, dark hair, and high cheekbones. We looked like our mother but must have inherited our light eyes from our sperm donor, whoever the hell he was.
“You need me to put that crib together?”
“Shane will be home soon. You can help him.” She went to the bottom of the stairs and called up, raising her voice to be heard over the music coming from above. “Hey Scarlett. Call me if you need my help.”
“It’s cool. I’ve got this,” came her response.
I hadn’t seen Scarlett since Thursday night. If she had been any other girl, I wouldn’t have given that kiss a second thought. If she had been any other girl, I would have fucked her and left. Or not. When it came to women, I was mostly ambivalent. Take it or it leave it. I’d never had to work hard to get a girl into my bed.Ever. But Scarlett wasn’t just a random fuck. Which was part of the problem. I wasn’t lying when I told her I had always cared about her. And I wasn’t lying when I told her I’d picked the wrong sister. But I wasn’t sure what had possessed me to be so honest.
“What’s Scarlett doing here?” I asked Remy as I followed her into the kitchen.
“Painting the baby’s room. Wait until you see it. It’s so cool. I’m so glad you talked us into hiring her.”
“You never mentioned it to her, did you?” Bad enough I’d bought her enough supplies to open a whole chain of shops, I didn’t want her to know that I had a hand in getting her a job as well.
