Page 68 of Twins for the Enemy

My grip has loosened on my phone. I lean against it, listening to the steady breaths of my brother. I thought I couldn’t get the old version of him back, and maybe I can’t, but just like I was renewed after my car crash with Kieran, Neal can become new after he hit rock bottom—and I’ll love him with the same intensity, but differently.

We continue to talk, accepting our past ghosts and anticipating our future. After I hang up, with Nealpromising to call me back next week, I find myself looking at the crumbs under the breakroom’s cabinets. It reminds me of when I broke through Kieran’s door and the splinters of wood I’d left behind.

I told myself I didn’t leave that day because I wanted to find out how he’d tracked me down. But I wanted him to always be able to find me.

Just like I’ll always go back to find him.

Chapter twenty

~KIERAN~

I crumple the sandpaper and run my hand over the plank. The deep hue of the wood looks good enough that I may not need to apply a stain.

As I rub my hand over my jaw, my latest callouses scratch my skin. Some scruff has grown in as well, a recurring problem now that I can’t find the capacity to give a shit about anything.

I peer out the window. The three deer are still in the yard. It’s different from being in my mansion, where the view of the deer is usually from the second floor. Even on the first floor of the mansion, the deer stayed near the creek on the other side of the yard. These deergraze on the clover I planted, only raising their heads to give me a look of bewilderment that I’m still inside the house three weeks later.

When I bought this house, it was only to trick Farah into coming to me. Neal told me about the cleaning service that paid her under the table, and when I arranged for her to work here, I relished in the idea of her shock and fear.

But I saw her, and it changed me.

It wasn’t just the aggression—I felt her in my bloodstream, like something electric. She made the world sharper, louder, more alive. Suddenly I could hear music in the city noise, see beauty in everything that moved. I still grasp those things, but it’s much less interesting now. With Farah, I could enjoy the wonders of the world, but it feels empty now to see them without her.

I dream of her every night. Sometimes, it’s a simple dinner or unpacking boxes together. Sometimes, my mouth is on the nape of her neck as we lie in bedbefore my hand moves down her spine and to the small of her back.

I should resent the reminders, but sometimes I drink too much to fall asleep early and visit her.

I lean the plank of wood against the wall with the others. I head back into the kitchen, where Ellie had left some muffins she’d bought. With no insulation after I’d torn down some walls, the sound of the plastic snapping as I open the container seems to fill the house. I take out a muffin and bite into it. A bit dry, but the blueberries add an edge of sweetness that helps me to finish it quickly.

A car pulls up to the house. It’s from that ridesharing company, EnginePeer, with its telltale logo of a V8 engine with two large white eyes and a puff of blue smoke trailing behind it.

When she steps out from the back, fumbling to pay the man, it’s a rush.

She’s so ethereal, I must have fallen back asleep and the exhaustion is making her painfully real. The softwaves of her hair sway and collide with her nervous but playful movements. Her body moves in a similar way. It’s a lightning strike between sensual and endearing.

I’d take cardiac arrest and chronic pain for a single moment of holding that lightning.

When I go to the door, I’m certain by the time my eyes are on the driveway again, she’ll be gone. But as I step out to the porch, she’s still there.

As the car drives away, she turns and sees me.

She’s springtime after a winter that stretched for years. When she smiles at me, it’s like seeing green shoots push through frozen ground—proof that something beautiful survived.

“Hey,” I say. I need to memorize that smile and slip it in my pocket for safekeeping.

“Hey.”

“How did you know to comehere?” I ask.

“I stopped at your house. Your staff told me you were here,” she says. “I didn’t think you actually bought this house.”

“It’d been foreclosed. I’d planned on getting rid of it, but—” I stop. “Farah, I shouldn’t have made decisions behind your back. I should have given you a chance to talk to Neal first. I don’t regret talking to Neal because it means you’re free, but I should have been a better man about it.”

“Kieran.” She nervously runs her hand over the strap of her bag. “I should be the one apologizing. Even at the time, I understood why you did it without telling me, and it was my brother’s responsibility to reach out to me before he turned himself in. I wanted to punish you more than I wanted my brother to face punishment, and I know now that it’s because I was clinging to this idea that I could save him. I thought I could say or do the right thing and he’d be the brother I once knew. I needed to be a martyr to feel like I was a good person, and you saw the flaws in that. You saw more than that in me.”

She’s stepped up so close to me that when the wind passes through, her hair tickles my arms. The faint scent of jasmine hooks around me, bringing me back to our first night together.

“How are you?” I ask, scrutinizing her face to see any trace of exhaustion or illness. There’s a trace of tiredness in her eyes, but she looks healthy. Happy.

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