99 Percent Mine

by Sally Thorne

  “Patty got out and ran away,” I say, and Tom’s arms hug tightly around my middle. I can feel the tension in his body, shivering out in palpable waves. “I thought she was gonna get squashed.”

  “And this is exactly why I’m here. I knew it.” Jamie is furious. I’m certain we’re busted—I’m lying against Tom in a robe and his arms are around me. But then he adds, “She can’t chase a Chihuahua these days. Two weeks working here and she’s nearly dead.”

  “I’m sorry.” Tom is cringing behind me like it’s his own personal doing. “She said she was okay—”

  “She’s been lying.” Jamie takes my shoulders and pulls me away from Tom, setting us side by side like Barbie and Ken. “Look at her. I knew I had a bad feeling!” He walks a few paces to the car and then wheels back on us. “You are the only person I trust to take care of her. You’ve fucked up.”

  My brother, when he’s angry? He’s sort of spectacular, in a blood-thickening, terror-inducing kind of way. He makes me want to get my camera, just to show him what he looks like.

  Tom sighs but doesn’t deny it.

  “He hasn’t fucked anything up. He just got here! My health is my own business.”

  Jamie’s beyond exasperated. “You know that isn’t true. You’re our business. Go get some clothes on. What time do the guys get here? A robe and heels.” Another look at Tom, like that’s also his fault.

  “Let’s all just relax,” Tom says in this tone he uses, the words and cadence always exactly the same. I don’t know why, but it always works on the Barrett twins; it has for all these years. We blow out matching angry breaths and then Jamie begins to laugh.

  “I was nearly full owner of this house,” Jamie says with a grin. He’s relieved—but he’s also a jerk.

  Tom gives him a dark look. “Are you really okay now, Darce?”

  I pull at my shoe, which is sinking into the mud. “Yes, I just had a fright and it triggered me off. And yes, there’s room for you in our cemetery plot. Open invitation.”

  “Gremlin, you’re gonna kill my sister,” Jamie tells Patty, and she stands on her hind legs and puts her muddy paws on his expensive trousers. He loves her secretly. He tickles behind her ear and her tongue lolls out. Then he remembers the pants. “Down.”

  “You came all the way here because you had a feeling?”

  “Yes, my twin senses were tingling. You’re right,” Jamie adds, and I really don’t think he’s ever said that to me. “Watching this happen through a window is no fun.”

  I pull my robe tighter but wherever I tighten it, it loosens somewhere else. Thigh, neck, over and over. Tom’s correct. My clothes don’t want to be clothes. The memory of last night shocks through me, and we make proper eye contact for the first time.

  Tom’s got ruffled hair, pink lips, and dilating pupils, giving him away. He looks like he’s been rolled around in bed by me. He looks like he’s been licked and kissed and brought to the brink by me, over and over, minutes melting into hours, gasping and groaning, please, please. Who even knows what I look like. Probably pretty much the same.

  Tom’s attention is caught on my neck, then he stares up at the roofline with grim concentration.

  “Come on, get dressed. I want to see the house.” Jamie goes to the car and takes out an overnight bag. “Thanks for picking me up.”

  “You knew he was coming? What the hell, Tom.”

  Tom picks up Patty. “I did tell you.” He’s so impossibly cool, given the circumstances. “I was up pretty late, checking on the water damage, and saw the message from Mr. Impulsive. You always gotta get the red-eye flights, don’t you?”

  “Cheap” is all Jamie says.

  “The title of your autobiography?” I grin when his gray eyes cut to me.

  “Don’t even start with me. What the fuck were you up to last night?” Jamie puts his hands into my hair and tousles it with expert fingers. He’s doing my hair like his. I’m pathetic, because it feels wonderful. “I get the feeling my baby sister has been exerting herself horizontally, judging by that hickey. Are you sure you weren’t chasing a guy up the side of the house?”

  “Ha, ha,” I respond.

  Jamie looks at Tom. “That was one of your jobs. Get rid of the guys until I find her the husband option. I take it you weren’t in your security post last night. I don’t blame you.” He means the tent and the rain. He’s looking now at the mud on my shoes. “Seriously, go get changed. That robe is gross.” Jamie takes his bag and walks to the front door, rummaging for his key.

  I manage to make it halfway down the side of the house before my shoes completely sink in. “I’m beached.”

  Tom picks me up with an arm around my waist and carries me the last few yards to my private bathroom. When it was delivered he drew a lady stick figure on the door with a Sharpie. I love him for it. He puts me on the metal stairs, and Patty is still on his other forearm. It’s honestly the only way to travel.

  His skin smells different and lovely.

  “Thanks,” I say. The robe has sprung open indecently and he tries to pinch it together one-handed with not much success. The stair has me at eye level with him. Lip level. I lean in but he evades me.

  He gives up. “Can I please buy you a new robe?”

  “That would be a very romantic gesture. Make it something short and silky.” I grin at his exasperated expression.

  “Shorter and silkier than this? Please, don’t walk around like this in case guys turn up early.”

  “This was an emergency and you know it. Don’t be telling me what to wear, I don’t like it.” I lean on the door behind me and bite my lip. “Hey. We smell like each other.”

  He shushes me desperately. I cross my bare feet at the ankles and look at his body, my brain full of grateful thoughts and erotic memories, until he finds words.

  “You really need to stop looking at me like that. I did wake you up to tell you I was leaving for the airport. We had a complete conversation about it. You were comatose.” He smiles despite his stress. “You said, Okay, Valeska. Go fetch.”

  We hear Jamie’s voice, echoing in the empty space. He could be on the phone, or just as easily talking aloud to himself.

  “I swear, he even talked in the womb. Tom, I can barely walk. Every step, I can feel you. My body is just . . . squeezing. Now that you’ve been in me, all I can feel is hollow.”

  His eyelashes flutter and he swallows. “If he’d gotten a cab . . .”

  “We’d be kissing on a cloud in heaven right about now. It’s okay. We’ll just talk to him.”

  “What, now?” Panic has him crazy-eyed.

  I go into the bathroom and shut the door. “Yes, of course, now. You think I’m going to miss out on more of what I got last night, because of my brother? I’m surprised how calm I am, actually.”

  I wash my hands and dry them on one of Loretta’s hand towels. My cosmetic bag is here, but I look in the filmy mirror and don’t need it. I’m smoky eyed, with pink-marshmallow lips and a purple mark on my throat. Boy hair and girl body. I’m sexy as hell.

  “This is a good look for me. Could you mess up my makeup for me every morning?”

  He says nothing. I hope he’s still there.

  “This was a nice touch.” I open the door and indicate my neck. I put my hand up to scrape his hair neater, but he steps away out of my reach.

  “We can’t say anything to him. We can’t.”

  “You’re a big boy,” I tell him sharply, even though my confidence is starting to falter. “I’m a big girl. None of us are eight anymore. Let’s just tell him and work through it.” I look up at the house. “He might be glad. He hates my usual selections. You’re like, the supreme option.”

  My brain mimics Jamie so loud I flinch. The husband option.

  “Listen to me,” Tom says, his voice like steel. “He is not going to be glad. He’s going to cut my dick off.”

  “I’ll protect you. I absolutely love your dick. Did I make that clear enough last night?”

 
His expression says yes. “If we tell him, the renovation is a guaranteed fail.” He looks back up at the house. The first pink rays of sunrise mean that the crew will turn up soon. Tom’s got even more on his plate, more roles to juggle. Employees and invoices to pay. Inheritances to secure.

  “I’m helping you now, dummy. We’re a team.”

  “If we tell Jamie he’ll be angry and hurt. He thinks he knows everything, but he never saw this coming.”

  I’m remorseless. “He can deal.”

  “He’s been working in the city awhile now and he suspects everyone of backstabbing. Except me. I’m one of the only people he trusts. The same way that you trust me. Completely and blindly.” He softens a bit. “You don’t know what that kind of responsibility feels like.”

  “Maybe he’s a secret romantic,” I try, but it’s ridiculous to think that.

  “He’ll be so betrayed he’ll fight us on everything, on principle. If we want to paint the house blue, he’ll insist on pink. He’ll want that wall put back up. I’ll have to cancel every single thing I’ve ordered. This is the one person who will make my life a living hell.”

  “Maybe I’ll be the second one.” I give him an exasperated look. “I’d better get dressed so I can support you through this mental and professional crisis.”

  “Take this seriously. You’re going to get forgiven, no matter what, Princess.” Tom’s eyes are angry now. “Me, I’m completely screwed.”

  Tom puts Patty down and hooks his arms under me. I’m easily hoisted, like a little dog being carried over the dirty ground. There’s no exertion evident in him as we round the corner of the house, pass the fishpond, and take the path to my door.

  “You know what he’s like. Please, Darce, we have to keep this under wraps until the house is done. If we can’t get a good sale . . .” He stops himself from saying more.

  He puts me down over the threshold of the studio and looks at my robe, and I have never seen a more conflicted human being. He must rue the day he was found by the Barretts. My feet are princess-clean. Patty walks in behind us, muddy and miffed.

  “You never did have to care about money. I have to care.”

  “I care. Why do you think I work at the bar?”

  He huffs insultingly. “Surely that doesn’t even cover your wine habit.”

  “It covers my health insurance,” I fire back, angry. “You really think I’m a lazy little princess, leeching off my parents, don’t you? I don’t take a cent from them.”

  “But if you needed them, they’d give you anything you needed. That’s not a bad thing,” he says, softer. “It’s what helps me sleep at night. You will always be taken care of.”

  It’s true. Below me are multiple safety nets. If I lost everything here, I’d just go stay in one of the many empty bedrooms at my parents’ place. Mom would probably bring me breakfast in bed and open the French doors so I could see the ocean.

  “And you’re about to inherit. Your financial situation is looking good. Meanwhile, I need cash.” A ghost of a smile is on his mouth. “You think I break myself on a worksite for fifty weeks a year like this just for fun?” He blows out a long breath. “I don’t think I can handle it if my business fails before it begins.”

  I wince in sympathy. There’s no way I’d want him to live with the dreadful mix of failure and embarrassment I feel every time I look at the empty screw holes by my front door. Then I think about how the last three times I’ve been impulsive, it hasn’t worked out. Tearing up the development offer, trying to buy Jamie’s ring.

  The get in me incident, barely a minute after learning Tom was single.

  “Okay. Okay. I’m willing to wait and get a strategy together. You know I’ll do anything to help you. Stupid Jamie.” I look in the neck of the robe at my piercing. Tom’s brought it alive. The chafe of my silk robe against my skin is unbearable. “He literally never takes time off work.”

  “He’s here, and here’s your chance to be his best friend again.”

  “That’s you,” I point out, and Tom shakes his head.

  “How do you always have it wrong? It’s you. You’re his best friend and he’s been miserable without you. If you guys don’t realize it now and get over this little meaningless fight you had, it might be too late for you both. Don’t throw that away over me. You’re twins. I’m the stray from across the street.”

  “You’re not!” I can now see the full breadth of what he’s trying to accomplish here. The renovation of the twins’ relationship. “This is so you. Sacrificing and fixing and stepping aside. Fading into the background. Not on my fucking watch.”

  “Where are you guys?” Jamie is at the back door. “Tom, what the hell is wrong with the kitchen ceiling?”

  “The kitchen?” Tom is dismayed. “I’ll be right there. Please, Darce,” he finishes in a hush. “Please help me keep it together.”

  “Give me your phone, then,” I say, and he slides it into my robe’s fun-sized pocket. “Where the hell is that guy Chris? He was supposed to be here by now. Should I call him and kick his ass?”

  “I would be very grateful,” Tom says, stepping a few paces away as the back door bangs open. It triggers off a sense of déjà vu. I think we’ve always stood a little too close.

  “Quit wasting his time,” Jamie barks at me as he clatters down the back stairs. “We’ve got stuff to do. I hope you’re fixing these stairs, Tom.”

  We watch Jamie walk around to the Porta-Potties. He opens the door to the male one. “Oh fuck no.” He goes into mine.

  “That’s my bathroom. Now I want to cry harder than ever.” I exhale and put my hand over my eyes.

  I will myself to trust Tom and see this from his perspective. I see everything he has to lose more clearly than my own potential losses. He’ll always carry me. He’ll never trip or drop me.

  But I just can’t help myself. I’ve felt this way before, so many times. My insecure, spiky self says: “So, last night was a one-off.”

  “Of course not. But as long as he’s here, I can’t touch you. You can’t look at me. We’re not . . . anything.”

  “Wow, so we’re nothing,” I marvel in a stage whisper as the hurt begins to shimmer. “Funny, it didn’t feel like nothing. I feel like I had every glorious inch of Tom Valeska last night. Repeatedly. Just . . . over and over, making me come more than I ever have in my life.”

  My words cause a chain reaction; my body shifts, his shifts, and we look at the bed. It’s a messed-up wreck. We want to be flat in it or bent over it. Any possible variation, we want to be moving, and deep.

  I would have sex with him on a pencil sketch of this bed.

  I stand up on tiptoe, grab him by the scruff, and bring his mouth down to mine. It’s instant. He’s giving me everything in a blink, an intensity so strong I lose the ability to see color. I feel a surface under my butt; I’m on the edge of my workbench and he’s between my legs. Ten seconds. I swear it would take another ten seconds for him to be back inside me. I yank at his leather belt and loosen the buckle.

  “In, in, in,” I order him when he changes the angle of our kiss. Against me, I feel a tremor run through him. Last night didn’t ease anything between us. It’s made it worse. So much worse.

  Now he’s facing away from me, shoulders heaving.

  “Shit,” he huffs. “You see what I mean? We can’t do this all over the worksite.”

  “Shit, indeed.” I put my hand on my throat where my heart is lodged like a frog. “If we’re not careful I’ll be three months pregnant with your giant triplets when the sold sticker goes up.”

  His shoulders shiver and roll. He turns on the ball of his foot and I’m sure he’s going to step back and finish what we just started. Hard. Everything in him is straining. My God, his eyes. For one second, I’m terrified. I’ve provoked something I don’t know if I can handle.

  But he’s got the willpower I do not, and I watch as he packs it all down again.

  I cross my legs and try in vain to pull my robe tighter. “Y
ou think you can stop doing that to me for another three months? You think we can just pretend?”

  His body says no. But he replies, “I’ve been pretending around you since I hit puberty. I can do a few more months. Look, I thought we had time, and I didn’t say much last night.” He’s rueful. “DB, you know you’re special to me, right?”

  “I know you love me,” I reply without thought. He broke my world apart last night. His love is pressed into my skin and kissed into my cells. “How could you not?”

  He bursts out laughing in response. “There’s that Barrett confidence I like so much.” He takes a risk and steps close, pressing a careful kiss to my cheek. “Yes. I do. But you don’t know how much.”

  I put my palm on his jaw and kiss his cheek back. “Don’t worry. I know it. You’ve always told me, one way or another.”

  Jamie’s probably toweling his hands dry by now, or snooping through my cosmetics bag. Maybe dotting concealer under his eyes. I wouldn’t put it past him.

  “You don’t really know. Princess, you’re the one girl I never in a million years thought I’d get.” He presses a kiss to my temple. “Hold on for me just a little longer. Please.”

  We hear Jamie’s voice—“TOM!” The door slides closed behind him and he’s gone.

  I sit down heavily in his office chair. What is this beautiful complicated thing we unfurled last night? Maybe it’s not a bubble that we have. A deflating silk hot-air balloon is filling this space. It’s every color; it can float and take us places, but one single loose seam could end it all.

  But still, I need to learn to be an optimist. After all, Tom didn’t end things with me just now. He asked me to wait for him. He loves me. I stretch luxuriously in the knowledge—he’s mine, he’s going to be mine forever, until he dies.

  As I turn over that last little part of the conversation in my mind, I realize something that makes me feel sick.

  I’ve made the same mistake as when I was eighteen. He loves me? I know.

  I do nothing but take, take, take. I never talk feelings with a man I’ve had sex with. My brain just doesn’t take that logical path, to reply in kind.