“Thanks.” I flashed her an apologetic smile. “How long does that usually take?”
“A week, two at the most.”
“And then they’ll have it?”
She nodded. “Yes, Faith. You’ve done the hard part, and I’ll do the rest.”
“Thank you.”
“This is my favorite part of my job, but you’re welcome.” She beamed a smile at me.
I walked out with a matching grin on my face, feeling like I’d accomplished something good. My smile grew when we pulled up in the driveway and Dillon’s car was already there. But my eyes must’ve still been red-rimmed because as soon as he spotted me walking through the door, he rushed over.
“What happened? Are you okay? Did someone hurt you?” He cupped the sides of my face with his palms and tilted my head back. “You’ve been crying.”
“I swear you have an eagle eye.”
“When it comes to you? Damn straight I notice everything.” His thumbs swept across my cheeks. “Like your red-rimmed eyes and nose. What the fuck happened? And who the hell do I have to kill for hurting you?”
“Come sit down with me,” I urged, taking hold of his hand to lead him over to the couch in the living room. I stroked his arm, trying to calm him down. I was in awe over how he’d leapt into protective mode over me, just because he could tell I’d been crying. “I’m so damn lucky to have you.”
“No, baby. You’ve got that backwards. I’m the lucky one here, and I know it. And I’ve got no problem putting in the work to prove it to you.” He pressed a kiss against my lips. “But I can’t do that if you don’t tell me what made you cry.”
“I made myself cry over a letter I wrote to my donor family.” I scrunched up my nose and waited for his reaction because it sounded so ridiculous; me literally making myself cry.
“They let you do that? Communicate with your donor family?”
I explained to him about how the transplant center was going to forward the letter for me, and my reasons behind writing it.
“That’s so fucking beautiful, Faith. I’m proud as shit to know I’ve made you so happy that you wanted to do something like that.” He rested his forehead against mine. “Although I should technically kick my own ass for making you cry, even if it was indirectly.”
“What if I think you deserve a reward instead?” I closed the inch separating our lips. “For making me ridiculously happy?”
“You aren’t going to get any complaints from me.” He lifted me up and carried me into the bedroom. “If my woman wants to give me a reward, I’m going to let her.”
Lucky for me, my man felt like his reward earned me one in return.
19
Faith
Shopping with Elaine was usually a super fun experience, but it could also be incredibly awkward at times. I was her son’s girlfriend. His live-in girlfriend, at that. So when she pulled an insanely cute bra and panty set off the rack to show it to me, I literally almost died of embarrassment.
“Elaine! You can’t show me stuff like that,” I hissed. “And you certainly can’t buy it for me.”
“But it’s so pretty,” she complained when I yanked it out of her hands and put it back on the shelf.
“You can show me all the pretty clothes you want, as long as it’s stuff I can wear out in public. No lingerie!”
“If I had your figure, I’d seriously consider wearing that in public.”
“You wouldn’t,” I muttered. “You really, really wouldn’t.”
“If you knew me back when I was your age,” she laughed, shaking her head. “Let’s just say, you might be shocked.”
“Okie dokie. I think this shopping trip is over. I shouldn’t have let you get that last glass of wine with lunch.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she sighed as I led her through the store and out the door to the parking lot where we’d left her car about five hours earlier. “I’m terrible at day drinking nowadays. I used to be able to polish off a bottle of wine with my friends over lunch. Easy peasy. But look at me now. I had two glasses with a full meal hours ago, and I’m going to have to give you the keys because there’s no way I can drive home.”
“Lucky for both of us, you don’t have to physically hand them over,” I muttered as I helped her into the car. I was thankful for the technology behind proximity keys after she’d searched her insanely large purse for several minutes without being able to find them. Those two glasses of wine really must have done a number on Elaine, because she fell asleep less than five minutes from the mall. She didn’t wake up when I pulled into the attached garage and turned off the engine.
“C’mon, let’s get you inside so you can get more comfortable for your nap.” I helped her out of the car, into the house, and onto one of the couches in the family room.
“Can you grab the mail for me?” she asked after I spread a throw blanket over her.
“Sure, let me bring the shopping bags in first.”
“Leave your stuff in the trunk and drive the car home. I’ll have Lloyd bring me over later so we can pick it up.” She gave a sleepy yawn and cuddled into the cushions.
Driving back to her house with Elaine in the passenger seat was one thing. Taking her car out by myself was a completely different story. “I can’t, Elaine. It’s worth more than I’ll make in like ten years as a social worker. What if something happened? I’ll just get a rideshare. It’s easier.”
“No.” She reached out and grabbed my hand. “It’s just a car, no matter how much Lloyd and I paid for it. Dillon hates when you use a rideshare. That’s why he talked you into getting your driver’s license. So you wouldn’t have to do that anymore.”
She was right. It did drive Dillon crazy with worry about what could happen to me with strangers driving me around. It was how he’d finally gotten me to agree to go car shopping with him this weekend. He’d insisted I needed my own set of wheels because I was always so weird about driving his since it was also crazy expensive. At least I’d gotten him to agree to letting me set limits on what kind of car he could buy me.
“Fine,” I huffed. “But it’s going to take me forever to get home because I’m going to go about five miles under the speed limit the entire way.”
“As long as you get there safe and sound, that’s all that matters.” I pressed a soft kiss to her cheek, and she gave my hand a squeeze. “Could you check the mail on your way out? If there’s anything in there, just toss it on the passenger seat and I’ll get it when we come pick up the car.”
“Sure thing.” It was the least I could do after she’d treated me to such a fun day.
I grabbed her shopping bags from the trunk of the car and set them on the kitchen counter before driving down to the mailbox. As I pulled the envelopes out and went to toss them on the passenger seat, one dropped onto my lap. When I picked it up, my eyes landed on the return address. The one for the same transplant center where I received care. The same place I’d stopped off at a week and a half ago to drop off the letter they were going to forward to my donor family.
Sitting there frozen, I frantically tried to think of a reason—any reason other than the one which had already popped into my brain—for why they would be getting mail from the transplant center where I’d had my surgery. But I wasn’t able to come up with anything other than the one reason that would tear my whole world apart. Dillon’s identical twin brother, Declan.
“This doesn’t make any sense. The timing was totally off,” I mumbled to myself. “The car accident was an entire month before my transplant, and Dillon said his brother died in the crash.”
As I started the engine, my hands were shaking. I carefully turned onto the street and drove away. Once I’d driven about a mile, I pulled over and lifted the envelope off my lap. Staring at it, I tried to talk myself out of opening it.
“Don’t do this, Faith.” I traced my fingers over the back of the envelope where it was sealed. Opening it would be wrong on so many levels. Whatever was inside wasn’t meant for my e
yes. It was sent to Dillon’s parents—not me. But if the contents were what I thought they might be, then I wanted to be the first person who knew.
Not just want. I needed to be.
Before I could think about it too much more, I ripped the envelope open. Unfolding the typed letter on the transplant center’s letterhead, my heart dropped when I recognized the note inside. The one I had written to my donor family.
“No,” I wailed. “It can’t be. Please, no.”
The fear that took hold of me was instantaneous. What if Dillon and his parents hated me because of this? What if that pull we’d felt towards each other was because his identical twin’s kidney was inside my body? Would he still love me when he found out?
I sat there and cried for at least an hour, utterly destroyed by the contents of that envelope. The past was not an old coat that could be easily discarded and quickly forgotten. It was a scent that clung and never let go. Only it wasn’t just my fucked up past that had come back to wrap its stench around me. It was Dillon’s, too. And neither of us had ever seen it coming.
Serenity
I’d lived a privileged life, in the lap of luxury and surrounded by family. It had felt like I was on top of the world...until tragedy struck.
My sense of loss felt bottomless, and I struggled with it every single day. Finding my path back into the light seemed impossible.
But then I met Faith—she was smart, sexy, and out of my league even though she didn’t have a penny to her name. We grew up in different worlds, but somehow we fit perfectly together.
Except neither of us had counted on learning that our connection was more profound than we knew.
Prologue
Dillon
“C’mon, bro.” I looked over my shoulder and stared at a mirror image of myself. Declan was my identical twin, older than me by only thirty minutes. And judging by the death glare beaming my way from his dark eyes, he wasn’t super happy with me at the moment. “It’s time to go.”
I moved towards him and flung my arm over his shoulder. “Dude, chill out. We’ve got plenty of time before curfew. There’s no need to rush out of here when we’re having a good time.”
The guys I’d been standing with nodded their heads in agreement. Declan didn’t seem convinced as he shifted his glare their way and shook his head. “I hate to ruin your fun, but my brother and I need to hit the road.”
“Fuck,” I groaned, recognizing his tone of voice. There wasn’t going to be any budging Declan on this. It was time to go. “You heard my brother, guys. It looks like I’m outta here.”
I got a few chin lifts before our friends were distracted by a group of girls who walked over. Not that I blamed them since they were dressed to party in short skirts, low cut tops, and high heels. I hated to be dragged away from all the tits and legs, but I wasn’t going to argue with my brother over it. Not when there were plenty more parties for us to go to before we graduated, and a ton more after since we planned to attend the same college. “Bros before hoes,” I mumbled to myself as we walked outside and headed towards my car.
“And that’s my sign to take the keys away from you.” Declan snagged the fob from my hand after I pulled it out of the front pocket of my jeans.
“Dude,” I complained while I tried to swipe the key back from him. “I’m fine to drive.”
“Nope. It’s not gonna happen. Not after you’ve been drinking and smoking pot. You know the rule as well as I do.”
“Only one of us lets loose at a time so the other is there to be responsible,” we said in unison. It was an agreement we’d made back in our freshman year; to keep us out of trouble with school, our parents, and the police. No drunk driving, and we always looked out for each other. One of us being sober was the key to that.
The original plan had been to take turns, but it quickly changed when Declan landed a spot on the first line for defense and offense on the school’s football team. He didn’t want to do anything that would risk his time on the field, so he became the sickeningly good twin. The one who never drank and didn’t smoke pot. And me? I took full advantage of having him around to make sure I didn’t get caught if I had a few drinks or took a hit from the bong when it was passed around.
Like tonight. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t still going to give him shit since that’s what brothers did, especially us. “You’re right. As much as it pains me to admit it since you suck behind the wheel, you should drive.”
“Shut the fuck up,” he grumbled. “I don’t suck.”
“Remind me again…how many times did you have to take the road test to get your license?”
He slugged me on the shoulder, and I stumbled back a step. “Hey, that hurt me almost as much as my dig about your driving must have stung you.”
“Whatever, jackass. Get in the car.”
I walked around to the passenger side of my BMW, and Declan climbed into the driver’s seat. I groaned when he turned up the volume on my sound system and blared the alternative rock he preferred to listen to. I couldn’t complain too much though, not when the only time I let him pick what we played in my car was when he was behind the wheel. And that only happened a couple of times a month, tops.
I might’ve taken on the role of bad twin, but I wasn’t completely out of control or anything like that. I still got good grades, only I had to work harder for mine. My SAT scores had been good enough to get me into almost any college, but they hadn’t been the almost perfect score Declan had received. I played at my brother’s side on the offensive line, but not on the defense too. So I wasn’t a total fuckup. I just liked to party more than he did, which wasn’t hard since he was wound so damn tight.
“You gonna loosen up at all when we get out of here and head off to college? Pledge a frat? Maybe get wasted at a party so I’m the one who has to drag your ass back to the dorm?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “It depends.”
“On what?”
“How much scholarship money we get, if we’re playing football, how hard my major is, and which school we pick.”
“Declan,” I sighed. “You need to stop worrying about the future so much and enjoy the now. We’re only seventeen. That’s way too young for you to worry like an old man already.”
“Almost eighteen,” he corrected.
“Seventeen, eighteen. What the fuck ever.” Our birthday was less than two weeks away, but I didn’t think that made a big difference. “Either way, you need to chill out. These are supposed to be the best years of our lives, and you’re missing out on most of the fun.”
“There’ll be plenty of time for me to have fun.”
“Maybe,” I conceded. “But that’s not going to stop me from trying to talk you into being the one who lets loose at the next party.”
“You need to learn how to say no to pot, bro. You get all mushy and shit whenever you hit the bong.”
“You might have a point.” I leaned my head against the seat and closed my eyes. “It makes me hungry, too. Any chance we can make a pit stop at the Taco Bell drive-thru before we head home?”
“I was already planning on it,” he laughed.
“You know me so well.”
“Always have, always will.”
I smiled, knowing it was true. Declan wasn’t just my brother. He was my best friend. My other half. We’d been together before we were born, and I couldn’t imagine a time when we wouldn’t be at each other’s side.
I turned my head to look at him and was about to say something along those lines when I caught sight of bright lights barreling towards us out of the corner of my eye. Declan had just crossed into the intersection on a green light, but a semi had blown through a red. I only remembered flashes after he crashed into us.
Breaking glass.
Squealing tires.
Declan’s scream, along with my own.
Immense pain pressing against my chest.
Red and blue lights.
My mom crying.
The beeping of monitors.
When I finally woke up again, the time in between was a blur. My mom was next to my bed, tears streaming down her cheeks. My dad was at her side, his arm wrapped around her shoulder and his eyes were rimmed with red.
Pulling the oxygen mask from my face, I croaked out, “Declan?”
Their heads jerked up and they jumped to their feet. “My baby boy,” my mom sighed, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “You’re finally awake.”
“Declan?” I repeated.
My mom’s cries turned to sobs, and she buried her face in my dad’s chest. He was the one who gave me the devastating news, wrapping his hand around mine and squeezing. “Your brother didn’t make it.”
“What? No!” I shook my head, ignoring the pull of the wires connecting me to a multitude of medical equipment. The machines beeped wildly as my heart raced. Declan couldn’t have died. It was impossible. “He can’t be gone.”
“I’m sorry, baby. It’s true.” My mom sniffled. “Declan didn’t make it.”
“It’s my fault,” I breathed, squeezing my eyes shut. My chest felt like it was caving in. From guilt. Pain. Loss.
Nurses and doctors came streaming into the room, and my parents were pushed out as the medical team worked on me. It was at least half an hour later when they’d checked me over and let my parents back into the room.
“Dillon,” my mom cried, rushing towards me. “It wasn’t your fault. There’s nothing you could have done.”
“Your mother is right, son. Losing Declan the way we did is a tragedy, but it was an accident. We’ve seen the footage from the red light camera, and there’s nothing he could have done to avoid that truck.”
It didn’t matter what the cameras showed. I still felt like it was my fault. It had been my car. I was the better driver. “Maybe if I’d been behind the wheel—”
The Fortuity Duet Page 14
