Free Web NovelChapter 96: Chapter 96 Jasmine.
“So, tell me how your week went,” Briar asks as she goes for a spring roll. “I’ve missed my nightly updates.” It’s true, because Briar has been going out at night, and I don’t think it’s clubbing or bar hopping. She’s up to something. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
“Speaking of, where have you been in the evenings?”
“There are some things you shouldn’t know about, Jasmine.”
“Oh, now I really need to know,” I say, and she chews on her bottom lip for a second. “Seriously?” Briar knows I’m not going to judge whatever it is she’s up to.
“Maybe I was doing some light stalking.”
“Light stalking?” I say a silent prayer that Briar hasn’t gone and got some crazy PI job. It’s not exactly out of the question.
“I mean, can you stalk kittens? That can’t be against the law,” she says, and I shake my head. On the surface this sounds legal, but I don’t think we’re going to land on legal by the time this story is over. “I might have kidnapped a few kittens when I saw an opening.”
“Did you punch someone in the process?”
“Of course not. The kittens were right there, and it would have traumatized them.”
“Right,” I laugh.
“Drink more of your cocktail,” she says, and when I start to reach for it, I pause. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
“Out with it.”
“Okay, I might have brought them home. We’re just fostering them for a bit.”
“How many is a few?”
“Two?” It comes out as a question, and I know better.
“So three,” I correct, and she nods.
“Look at them!” Briar pulls out her phone to show me a picture of the three kittens.
“They’re cute,” I admit, even if they are a bit malnourished. “But is this a foster?” In the back of my mind, I knew when we moved off campus, a pet situation would arise. I made sure that the places I checked before we picked one were animal friendly.
“I mean, yeah. It’s a foster until they find a home.” She’s lying to herself, but I’m going to let it go. Briar is floating around at the moment and not latching on to any one job or direction.
“Where are they now?” In the picture, they’re in a crate.
“At the shelter being checked out.” Her smile grows. “We’re having triplets, all boys.”
Three boys living with us? That would be a first. The one and only man, besides the movers, to enter our home is Dad.
“Oh shit.” Briar sets her phone down quickly, and I know not to follow her line of sight because that would be way too obvious to whoever has caught her attention. “Mace and Taylor,” she whispers under her breath.
“Here?” I whisper back, and she gives me a subtle nod in the direction she looked.
My back is to where she indicated, but just hearing the name Taylor makes my stomach tighten. Years ago that was different because I used to get excited to see him. Then he crushed my teenage heart and took the missing piece from me. The puzzle to my life I’m building has no chance of being complete. It’s not his fault, because I can’t make someone be attracted to me, although I’m sure he thinks I’m a total bitch now.
Mace and Taylor are identical twins too, but they are three years older than us. Our moms became super close after they met in some twins group back in the day. The two of them clicked, and both of our families came together. We spent holidays together, and every spring we’re all stuck together for two weeks on a family vacation since our families own beach houses right next to each other.
Once upon a time, we got along with the McCartney twins, but then they were suddenly a pain in our asses. They always found a way to ruin our spring break at the beach houses. Especially after the time I blurted out to Taylor that I was in love with him. That’s when he told me I was drunk and it was only a crush. Then he scolded me about drinking.
In fairness, I never drank before that night, but I’d stolen a couple of drinks and chugged them so I’d have the liquid courage to tell Taylor how I felt. Between the beers and seeing some of the girls on the beach flirt with him, my confession came tumbling out of my mouth. The expression on his face told me all I needed to know.
After his shock, he finally told me how brilliant my mind was and that I was cute. He even said he found shyness endearing. When he turned me down, I thought it was all a lie, and I was sure there was something between us. I felt it deep inside of me, but after that, I really thought about it, and no man wants cute and adorable. He was describing a little sister, and although it wasn’t a lie, it still was not what I’d longed to hear.
It crushed me, and in the wake of my heart’s destruction, I built a cold wall of ice between us. I didn’t want to be mean so instead I was indifferent toward him. Briar, on the other hand, got pissed at the McCartney brothers even though I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what happened. She blamed them even if she didn’t know exactly what took place.
After that night, things changed, and both of the brothers did too. They turned into bossy jerks whose life mission was to ruin our annual family trip. I do my best to ignore them, so obviously Briar does her best to annoy them.
“Incoming,” Briar mutters under her breath, but I don’t need to see Taylor to know he’s close. I can feel him coming because he gets as close to me as possible without touching, but I don’t think it’s on purpose.
My whole body wakes from a deep slumber, and not one boy I met while away at college could do the same to me. Then again, Briar and I went to Wellesley College, just like all the women in my mother’s family. It’s one of the largest and most influential women’s colleges in the world.
“Aren’t you a little young to be in here?” Mace is the first to speak.
“Well, hello to you too, Taylor,” Briar sasses back, and I bite the inside of my cheek so that I don’t laugh.
I peek over at Mace and know he’s pissed. I don’t know why Briar pretends to mix them up every single time, but he should really be on to this by now. Taylor shifts on his feet, and I can see it makes him uncomfortable, but he doesn’t get mad.
“Mace,” he clips to correct her.
“Right,” Briar giggles. “And you should know we’re 21 since you both showed up to our party at the beach house. Uninvited.”
“We live next door; we’re always invited.” Taylor responds this time.
I hate him. His voice is low and gravelly, and just when I think he can’t get hotter, he does something like talk and my panties try to melt.
“Welp. This has been fun.” Briar grabs the small iPad on the table and takes out her credit card to pay. I reach out and take two mozzarella sticks for the road. We’re so ordering in when we get home. “We’d love to stay and catch up and do whatever else this is, but we have three guys we have to go meet up with.”
My eyes peek up towards Taylor, and I’m ignoring Briar and Mace bickering. Taylor is staring down at me, and it’s like I can feel his gaze on my skin.
“Three?” he asks, his voice firm and final. I wonder if that comes with his profession, but I think he might have always been that way.
“So I’ve been told. I saw a picture, and they are pretty cute.”
Taylor’s hand comes down on the back of my chair, and it’s almost an intimate gesture. From the outside, it makes us appear to be together, or I might be reading it wrong. I must be. I know where Taylor stands, and while it might be next to me at the moment, that’s all it is. A moment. I have to get out of here, and these kittens are already coming in handy. That’s a point for them.
“We need to—”
“Taylor, sorry I’m late,” a tall blonde says as she comes up next to him. “Am I interrupting?” Her eyes bounce around to the four of us, and Briar jumps up.
“Nope,” she answers. “We were letting them have our table since we’re heading out. I think all the others are taken.”
“Oh, thank you,” the blonde says and smiles at us.
I go to slip down off my chair, but Taylor pulls it out for me first before taking my coat off the back of it. He tries to put it on me, but I grab it out of his hold.
“I guess we’ll see you at the beach house in a few months.” I finally speak a full sentence as I push past Taylor.
“Sooner than that,” I think I hear him say under his breath, but I ignore it.
That’s what I’m used to doing when it comes to Taylor. I give him nothing, which is what he gave me all those years ago.
