by Elodie Colt
Jesse. Fucking Jesse…
How could I have been so blind? I mean, who else is a spitting image of me if not my damn twin brother? He crossed my mind when Ruby rocked up to me last night, but I shrugged it off, telling myself it would be too much of a coincidence. Or maybe I just didn’t want it to be true. Didn’t want to see that, once again, I was poaching on my brother’s territory.
God, I’m such an idiot. Last time we talked, Jesse wanted to become a geologist. Boring as fuck. It should have clicked that he’s the other guy in the picture when Ruby said ‘You’re the expert’ during our little gem wordplay.
Glancing at the open bathroom door, I hear Ruby turning on the shower, and I use the time to replay every word we exchanged since yesterday, trying to fit the puzzle pieces together.
Jesse is in Venezuela. Ruby had a fight with him and thinks he came back for her, but in reality, he’s still MIA. So far, so good.
Now, here’s the catch—I know for a fact that Jesse is not in Venezuela. According to Tara, he is in North Dakota. With Lana. Trying to fix their relationship that has been damaged since the cliff-diving accident six years ago.
Unlike me, Jesse is a saint. The noble one. The courteous one. But the shit he’s pulling here looks as if he’s two-timing Ruby big-time.
I glance down at her phone in my hand and flip open the screen. PIN protected. Shit. If I ask her, it might raise suspicions. Ninety percent of the population uses birthdays as PIN codes. I don’t know Ruby’s birthday, and I can hardly ask her. But what are the odds that Jesse’s birthday is the key? Or, in that case, also mine?
Deciding it’s worth a try, I type in the date, and to my surprise, the screen unlocks. My birthday is Ruby’s PIN. How ironic.
A red dot at the corner of her Facebook app shows she’s got a few notifications. Opening the app, I wait for her profile to load.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me…” I utter in astonishment when my eyes trail to the part where it says ‘Lives in West Palm Beach, Florida.’ Didn’t the pin on my funny app strike at West Palm Beach yesterday?
Shaking my head, I navigate to Ruby’s pictures and browse her media library. In most of them, she’s with four girls. One is Skyla, the surfer chick who got the ball rolling yesterday. The other three are tagged with the names Sam, Leo, and Kendra.
For the next five minutes, I play Sherlock and ransack Ruby’s life on social media. All five girls live at Sam’s. The wedding that took place yesterday was Sam and Leo’s.
Samantha Kent is a freelance author who married Matthew Miller. He’s a farmer and owns an orange plantation.
Leonara Alvarez is an artist and runs a gallery. She married Daniel DeLuca, the owner of this place. Officially, he’s the founder of a notable non-profit organization. Unofficially, I’d wager he works on the other side of the law—the side where cash flows along with tons of white powder and other lucrative shit. I mean, who else owns a palace in Veracruz—the trade center for drugs—and needs an entire squad of armed security to guard his entrance door?
Kendra Farris worked in a fashion store but is now a dancer and in a relationship with… “Aaron Callaghan?” I mutter to myself.
I’m not into mainstream disco music, but everyone knows him. He’s the most famous DJ of the decade. As far as I know, he’s been nominated a few times as the sexiest man alive and gets insane sums of money for one gig.
And then there’s Skyla Shore, the blonde chick who started the ball rolling. She’s the surfer girl in their crew and still single according to her Facebook status.
Last, there is Ruby Kingston. Part-time librarian and psychology student at Palm Beach Atlantic University. A solemn smile leaks onto my lips when my eyes lock on her profile picture, one that shows her cuddled on the couch with a book in hand and a shy smile. No wonder she doesn’t sport a Florida tan. She looks like the type who prefers to lock herself up and study day and night instead of spending time at the beach.
We met twelve hours ago, and it already feels as if I’ve known her for years. A dazzling beauty with a pure soul. An aspiring girl with brains and a big heart.
Also, the girl who’s ‘in a relationship with Jesse Chandler,’ Facebook reminds me, and it’s all I can do not to update her status to ‘it’s complicated.’ Frankly, that wouldn’t cut it. Not by a long shot.
Her boyfriend screws his ex. She screws her boyfriend’s twin brother. I screw them both.
The way I see it, though, I’m the one who’s getting screwed from all sides.
“Un-fucking-believable,” I huff, snatching my jeans from the floor and stomping into them.
The right decision is obvious. Clear it all up, keep a memory of pretty Ruby, and vamoose. But what the hell am I supposed to say? ‘Hey, Ruby, it was real fun, but I’m Jesse’s twin brother. Yeah, I know, I’m an asshole for not telling you right away, but I just couldn’t resist your banging body.’
Nope, I don’t see that one going down well. Besides, would she believe me? Hell, I don’t even know if Jesse ever told her about me! After how we parted ways last time, it wouldn’t surprise me if he kept his evil twin a secret. If I told Ruby the truth, chances are I’d only make matters worse. Her relationship would be ruined and her heart broken. Also, I wouldn’t put it past Jesse to hunt me down and shoot me in the back. Our issues aside, the bros-before-hoes rule was established the minute our mother pushed us out into the world.
Not sure if that rule counts when betrayal is involved, though. Jesse has had a thing going on with Lana for months now. This is my chance to pay him back for sending me into exile and deceiving his sweet girl. It’s touch and go, I’m well aware of that, but I haven’t felt this invigorated in my entire life.
Ever since Ruby stumbled into me last night, I feel this strange yearning in my heart. Who knows, maybe fate brought us together? Even my stupid app predicted that my next stop would be West Palm Beach.
It won’t be easy, though. As soon as Jesse returns, the game is over. He could breach that doorstep any minute, ruining the fun before it’s even begun, but hey, you know I’m all for a good challenge.
Ruby switches on the blow-dryer. I’m tempted to interrupt her morning routine and make her dirty all over again, but I can’t let my dick do the thinking. I need to gather every piece of information if I want to pull this off and slip into the role of Jesse Chandler.
So, I venture deeper into the rabbit hole.
I scroll through her picture gallery making mental notes of all the pics of her and Jesse. I check her emails. I open her Kindle app to see which books she’s reading. I browse through her Amazon account and her last orders. I go through her Airbnb bookings. I check her bank account. I study her calendar, noticing that a date eleven days from today is marked red.
Jesse comes home, it says, with a heart emoji next to it.
A mischievous grin forms on my face. Jesse won’t return for the next few days. I can check in with Tara in case he decides to hop on a plane and show up sooner.
“Payback, Jesse…” I mumble, calling myself with Ruby’s phone to save her number. Before I can second-guess my actions, I scroll through her contacts until I find Jesse, block him so he can’t call or text her, and save my number under his name.
Okay, Jesse’s off the grid. For now.
At that moment, Ruby re-emerges from the bathroom, all freshened up and clad in denim cut-offs, a white top, and a green see-through cardigan that is so flimsy, it glides down her shoulder. Her chocolate hair flows like a silky curtain down her back. No makeup except for mascara. A rare gem, indeed.
Ruby notices me staring, a timid smile gleaming on her face. “What?”
“You need to get me to a hospital. My heart just stopped beating,” is my blunt reply.
Ruby blushes in an instant and glances down her body to see what captured my attention. “This is a thirty-buck outfit from Walmart.”
“Yeah, but we agreed that you were worth a few more millions underneath all that fabric, didn’t we?”
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Sweeping over to her, I capture her kissable lips with mine, but she breaks away too soon, beaming up at me. “No idea what’s gotten into you, Jesse Chandler, but I like it.” Not for long… “The girls and I want to visit the city before we fly back in the evening. Maybe making a shopping tour and going for ice cream later. Do you want to come with us?”
Fly back? Shit, I don’t have a ticket. I can only hope that Jesse doesn’t have one, either, as he never intended to fly back to Florida from Veracruz.
“Um, no. I still need to get my stuff from the hotel and check out.” And return the Ducati.
I glance out the window. Daniel is doing laps in the pool, Aaron sits cross-legged on the floor playing his guitar, and Matthew is on the phone. Might as well use the opportunity and get acquainted with my temporary family.
“I’ll spend the day with the guys, I think, but speaking of flying home… I don’t have a ticket.”
Ruby snickers and slaps my shoulder. “You don’t need a ticket, silly. Daniel’s chartered a jet for us.”
He did? Nice. One problem solved.
Now, I just need to make sure that Ruby doesn’t see my passport, or I would have to explain why the name Jesse turned to Raphael overnight.
“All right, we’re on our way, then. We can talk on the plane about your trip to Venezuela. I want to know how your project went.” She winks at me, and I watch her sexy ass wriggle out of the room.
As soon as the door shuts behind her, I slump down, puffing out in both relief and annoyance because…
I’ve got about five hours to become a geologist.
So, here’s the thing.
Jesse and I have three things in common—the DNA, the looks, and the taste for women. Dark hair, porcelain skin, green eyes. The sweet, innocent girl next door that looks cute in a beanie and plain boots. The one you hire for a makeup remover commercial because she’s even more stunning without eyeliner and mascara. Preferably with brains, a sense of humor, and a nice rack.
You can imagine how often we butted heads ever since we figured out that our dicks could do more than hanging around all day, arguing about who’s seen Irina first, or who deserved it more to fuck Zoe… You get the picture.
From the day we reached puberty, we were into the same type of girls. Sadly, we were always into the same girls.
We even tested it once in a club back in North Dakota. Setting the timer to one minute, we chose the woman we wanted to approach, wrote it down on paper, and then exchanged the notes. We repeated the experiment three more times—in a park, at the mall, at the airport. Each time, we chose the same fucking girl, no matter if there were dozens or hundreds of others around.
Then there’s the part about our looks. Obviously, Jesse and I are identical twins, but we all know that identical twins are never exact replicas. However, Jesse and I are so close to clones that even the Institute for Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado did some in-depth research on our DNA when we were seventeen.
As a rule, identical twins share the same DNA but not the same DNA markers. Quick biology lesson: The body cells need these markers to know which genes to use when and where, but they change over time. So, in the long run, you will see the differences, no matter how identical.
The institute found out that with Jesse and me, the markers have barely changed over the years.
Retinas and fingerprints? Ninety-nine percent identical. Dicks? Ninety-nine percent identical (we did our own research here with a micro diameter and a ruler). No one could ever tell us apart. Not even our parents. Mom called me Jesse more times than Raphael, and at some point, I got used to both names.
But, having a double also comes with benefits, and soon, we found a solution to our problem with women.
We shared them.
One gets the girl and spends time with her to get to know her. Later, we exchange information. The next day, we switch.
It started out as a prank to see how long we could keep up the act. One took her out on Friday, the other on Saturday. One fucked her on Monday, the other on Tuesday. In the best case, they were into a threesome, and we came clean to share the fun. We got away with it each time. Until Lana.
Now, here’s the catch. Usually, twins are wired the same as in mutual interests, likes, hobbies, phobias, whatever. Save for our attraction to the other gender and our looks, Jesse and I are polar opposites.
Hobbies and habits? He likes punk, I’m all for metal. He loves olives, I hate them. He likes ketchup, I like mustard. He played World of Warcraft, I played League of Legends. He likes hiking, I like skydiving. He loves BMW’s, I live for Ducati’s.
Character traits? He’s cautious, I’m bold. He’s dutiful, I’m irresponsible. He was all for the pursue-a-shiny-career, think-about-the-future stuff, while I wanted to travel the world, earn some quick cash, and live in the moment.
To put it short, Jesse could have won an Academy Award as the son of the year, while I would have gotten the Golden Raspberry. Guess who’s been Mommy’s favorite. Bingo! Not me.
But I was okay with that. Jesse defended me whenever Mom started a rant about why I didn’t follow my brother’s example, why I always had to act out, why I always came home with bad grades… Jesse used to have my back.
And then came Lana.
Mahogany hair, eyes a glimmering emerald, pink lips, a nose-ring, and dimples showing when she smiled. The first time we saw her, she was grooming a Bay Belgian Warmblood Stallion at Black Leg Ranch in North Dakota. I walked up to her, we talked, we dated, we landed in the sack. Standard procedure.
It went on about three months until I got into a fight with a homeless guy who wanted to rob me and sported a black eye. To keep up appearances, I had to clobber Jesse. Lana noticed when my skin turned blue and Jesse’s red. We thought this was game over, but to our surprise, Lana was fine with it.
Our fling turned into a relationship. Sex turned into a threesome. We were madly in love with her, and she was madly in love with us. We knew it wouldn’t last forever. Two men is one too many.
One summer, we spent our holiday in Acapulco, Mexico. Cliff diving has been a tradition there for half a century. The most famous cliff is forty-five feet deep. Extremely dangerous. You have to consider the wind and when the waves hit the water.
Lana didn’t want to do it, but I told her it was safe. I want to spare you the details… All you have to know is that she ended up with a spinal cord injury and is a paraplegic ever since.
Jesse and I played the blame game for weeks. It was his idea to go cliff diving. It was me who talked Lana into doing the jump.
Tara says it was no one’s fault. I say it was both our fault. Jesse says it was my fault alone.
And Lana? She never blamed either of us, but we both knew that our relationship was over. She’d lived for horses and vaulting, and we ruined her dream. We wanted to stay with her, support her, but she sent us away. Said we should live our lives and not carry her burden.
From then on, Jesse didn’t have my back anymore. We rarely talked and steered clear of each other. He hated me. My parents hated me.
He went on to pursue his career. I packed my stuff and left.
We both loved Lana, but Jesse always loved her more. I heard his heart break when she sent us away, and he’s still picking up the pieces. When Tara said he was trying to get back with Lana, I was happy for him. I didn’t even blame him that he never told me he was in contact with her again, or that he didn’t keep me posted about her wellbeing.
But I blame him for the shit he’s pulling off with Ruby and Lana at the same time.
Ruby’s hand finding mine brings me back to the present, and I tear my gaze away from the world flying by outside the window, peering down at her fingers on my skin.
I’m no better than my brother. I’m shitting on Ruby just the same. An inglorious bastard through and through.
“You wanted to tell me about your trip,” Ruby reminds me. “How was it in Venezuela? Did you start your grand project?�
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“We did. The soil has low permeability there, so we designed an eductor system. It allows vacuum-assisted drainage, so it’s the best solution for deep excavations and poor water pressure,” I say flat out, smothering a laugh when Ruby nods as if she understood a word I said.
Yeah, I did my homework. Or rather, Google did, and I rehearsed some technical terms. I’ve got a few hacker friends in India—all connections I made when I was a cab driver there. It took Shakti barely an hour to find out what my brother dearest was up to over the last six years, and the last four weeks in particular. He started out as a hydrogeologist and landed an internship at Gold Reserve, Inc. near Las Claritas, Venezuela. Over the last six months, he’s been on three field trips, and each time, he attached one or two weeks to spend in North Dakota, just like Tara said.
And poor Ruby has no clue.
“Sounds interesting,” she mumbles in a demure tone, offering me a half-assed smile.
Chuckling, I curl my arm around her. “No, it doesn’t, but thanks for faking enthusiasm. What about you? What were you up to when I was gone?”
She shrugs. “Not much. I did double shifts at the library and studied for my cognitive psychology exam, but I…” she trails off, biting her lip instead of elaborating.
“What?”
“I screwed up,” she confesses in a low voice as if hoping the others won’t overhear.
“Screwed up how?”
She fumbles with a thread on my shirt, averting her gaze. “I got a bad grade.”
I nod, although I don’t understand why she’s making such a big deal about it. “What’s a bad grade?”
“C+…” she mumbles in a sullen tone.
I bark out a loud laugh, and Ruby gives me a quizzical look. “That’s a bad grade?”
Careful, Raphael. You’re supposed to be your nerd of a brother, remember? Jesse always passed with flying colors, even back in high school. Knowing him, he’d label Ruby’s C+ as an epic fail.
