The Designated Twin

19. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Lorelei

“Tell. Us. Everything.” Hadley elbows me before taking a sip of sweet tea. I’m sitting around Hadley’s table in her grandmother’s old house that she inherited. Lucy is fixing her plate while Karoline is already shoving a bite of spaghetti into her mouth. Hadley demanded we all come over for dinner after work; she shipped Braxton off to Finley and Mason’s place, which is his old cabin.

“We walked the nature trail, went to the library, ate hibachi, then toured the Adeline House,” I say, shoving noodles in my mouth. The girls glare at me, and I find the garlic bread on my plate very interesting.

“More details, Lor. That’s not everything. I was at Mason’s when he came home last night. The man looked absolutely drunk in love.” Karoline sings the last part off-key, matching Beyonce’s song. Something I only know because Lucy once played it on repeat for days. “Plus you two sat next to each other in church this morning. Close to each other. What did you do to that man? And what did he do to you?”

Hadley tosses her hair into a platinum blonde ponytail before digging into her spaghetti. Lucy’s green-hazel eyes warm as she mentally nudges me to speak from across the table.

“I don’t know. It was a lovely evening. We talked. Laughed. Had fun.”

“So do you have a boyfriend now?” Hadley asks, her fork paused at her mouth.

“No?” As I think about the night, the one that very much felt like a date by the end of it, I can’t deny that the thought of actively dating Finley is intriguing. But I still know I can’t move. I can’t become a queen. So therefore I can’t date Finley.

“That sounded like a question,” Hadley says with a smirk.

“Maybe I find the idea appealing.” I shove garlic bread into my mouth while the three women erupt in applause and excited squeals. The corner of my lips tugs upward as I chew.

“Please give us more information. I’m starved to know everything,” Lucy exclaims, sweeping her braid to one side of her shoulder. “You went to bed when you got home and then we didn’t get to talk much because I woke up late for church.”

I recount the conversations, carefully including the way he made sure I was safe all night and how it feels like our brains were meant for each other as we challenged each other fact for fact in the library. But I was sure to leave out his personal admission of stomach issues. “But I can’t date him. It wouldn’t be right. I don’t want to leave Juniper Grove. And I definitely do not want to become queen of an unknown country.”

Lucy scoffs. “That’s the coolest part!”

“To you, Little Miss Romance Writer.” I shove a forkful of spaghetti into my mouth.

“I don't think you should write him off just yet, Lorelei,” Karoline says, surprising me. She typically doesn’t put her thoughts into conversations like this. I set my fork down to listen. She tucks a lock of brown waves behind her ear. “I didn’t want to leave this area either, but in three months, I’ll move to Nashville. And while I’m going to miss Juniper Grove and everything this place has given me, I know that I’m going to build a new life with the one my heart was meant for.”

“But I’ve been here my entire life,” I state.

“You’re right,” she says. “I moved here from Dallas, but this place quickly became home. And once you find a place that feels like home, you don’t want to leave. But I’ve learned home is more than a place. It’s the people.”

“That’s the—”

She cuts me off. “Before you say that’s why you want to stay here, remember that you can build new relationships. And you won’t lose the ones here in the process.”

“Hear, hear.” Hadley holds up her glass of sweet tea. “You couldn’t get rid of us if you died. We’d just die with you.”

Lucy clinks her glass with Hadley’s. “Speaking truth, my dear friend.”

I shove another bite of spaghetti into my mouth as I process their advice. I hear what they’re saying, and I do trust that I wouldn’t lose their friendship. I definitely wouldn’t lose my twin. In fact, she’d probably move to Korsa with me to search for a duke or something.

Hm. I wouldn’t mind that, actually. It would be nice to have her around.

But there is still the idea of being a queen. A whole queen to an entire country. One I’m not familiar with.

You’d have Finley to guide you through, my inner voice comments out of the blue. No. That wouldn’t be enough. Would it?

“When are you seeing him again?” Lucy asks, taking a sip of her sweet tea and ripping me, thankfully, from my confusing thoughts.

We didn’t make plans at the end of the night, nor did we do so today. The thought makes me sad, I notice. Huh. “Probably not until the weekend. I have a big case plus some smaller ones I’m preparing for at work, and I will need the evenings this week to work.”

Karoline stands, placing her hands on the table. “Well, I do need everyone to make themselves free Saturday morning. I have a dress fitting booked for us.”

We exchange glances as Karoline walks to the living room, quickly returning with an armful of olive green and white flannel shirts. She holds up the backside of the flannel where it reads “brIDESMAID” in bolded, bubbled, black font. She hands one to Hadley, Lucy, and then me. “Will you all be my bridesmaids?”

“Thought you weren’t going to ask!” Hadley jumps up and hugs Karoline.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Lucy shouts.

Me? You think of me as someone worthy of standing beside you?

“Of course,” I say aloud, stunned.

We each take our flannels, and the fabric is scratchy beneath my fingers, causing my skin to feel like a bug is crawling beneath it. My heart drops. How will I tell her that I absolutely will not be able to wear this for any length of time? Another time, I think to myself as I watch her celebrate this moment with our friends. I’ll ask Hadley the best way to approach it. For now, I paste a smile to my face and lay the flannel across the back of my chair.

We spend another hour eating and pinning boards on social media for Karoline’s wedding. At least, they do. I sit as an outsider to the conversation as I truly have no opinion regarding colors, decorations, and dresses. Though, I do enjoy that Karoline is doing beige and olive green and white. Those colors are earthy and pretty. Plus, Lucy and I look great in green. Finley will think so, too.

Huh. That’s a thought I’ve never had before. It’s more of something my twin would think and voice. But I find it’s true. I know Finley will think I’m pretty in that color.

And I want to look pretty for him.

“What will the fabric of the dresses be?” I interrupt. Three sets of shocked

eyes look at me while Lucy’s jaw drops. I briefly wonder if I’ve asked the question in the wrong way, but as I recall the conversation around me prior to my interruption, I remember they had moved on from dresses and were talking about flowers. I smile sheepishly. “Sorry. I’m a bit late to the dress discussion.”

“No, that’s totally fine, Lor,” Hadley says. Then her ivory white face turns to Karoline. “Did you have a specific fabric in mind?”

Karoline places a black-painted fingernail to her chin. “No. I want each of you to choose the style and fabric that works best for you. Just as long as our colors match, I’m perfectly fine with different styles and fabrics.”

I smile. “Great.”

Lucy tilts her head, an action that is my own when we are perplexed with one another. “Do you want to see the different styles that I think will look good on you?”

“Sure.”

My twin’s eyes sparkle as she rises from her seat on the reclining chair and moves to sit next to me on Hadley’s worn couch. She pulls up an app on her phone and searches through pictures of dresses. As she shows me different styles and cuts, going into detail as to why each would look good on me, my mind is in awe of this moment. I’m not this girl. I don’t talk about dresses and colors and styles. But they have easily allowed me into the conversation. I send a silent prayer of gratitude for my sister, my best friend, and Karoline. I truly have wonderful women around me who get me. Or at the very least, they don’t complain all the time that they don’t understand me like so many peers that I’ve tried to make friends with have done in the past.

“That’s a strange way to file,” my coworker, Hannah Thompson, says, her arms crossed and eyes squinted. What a lovely Wednesday afternoon you’re providing me with, Hannah.

I want to reply, “Then why are you hovering over me inside my office,” but I don’t. I grin a plastic smile and shrug.

“It makes perfect sense to me. Pictures register in the brain quicker than words. By using pictures to file my reports, I can easily identify them.” I know I shouldn’t explain. She will not understand, but I can’t help but try to help her to understand.

“How do you immediately know that the pictures represent certain words?” She sounds skeptical, but at least she’s considering my method rather than dismissing me offhand.

“I associate the pictures on the top of the file with each of my clients. For example,” I hold up the file I’ve been working on but took a break from to organize my other files, “this image of a Christmas tree tells me I have Ms. Gretta’s file in hand before I even register her last name on the side. I associate her with Christmas because it’s an important part of her story.”

Hannah snorts. “Weird. But okay. You do you.” Then she walks out of my office in her clicking heels, her board-straight brown hair swishing behind her.

I have gained nothing but frustration from this interaction.

“Why are you so concerned with how I choose to organize and label my files? They are mine. You don’t have to touch them,” I grumble under my breath after my glass door clicks shut. Okay, she wasn’t mean. I think? But it still frustrates me when people treat me like a child who isn’t capable simply because I create my own systems instead of being “normal.”

Once I stuff all the files away into the metal cabinet, I take a breather and boil water in my electric kettle for tea time. I send a quick email to Mr. Austen, inviting him to my office. He doesn't always come, but he definitely shows up a few times during the week for my 2:30 p.m. tea time. The clear kettle chimes, letting me know it’s ready, and I pour a cup of steaming water into my oversized light brown mug that reads “BAE” in bold, black letters, and underneath it in a smaller black font, “Best Attorney Ever.” It was a gift courtesy of Hadley when I passed the bar exam a couple of years ago.

I plop in a bag of ginger honey tea, then I reach into my mini fridge under my desk, hunting for my bag of sliced lemons. While I’m bent down and moving around lunch meats, cheeses, and a variety of fruits, my office door opens.

“Do you want lemon with your tea today, Mr. Austen?” I ask as I snag the bag from the back of the fridge. I really need to organize this next.

“Lemon sounds grand,” a smooth and chipper voice that is decidedly not Mr. Austen retorts. As I jolt—because I know that voice—I slam the back of my head against the underside of the metal desk. Pain spreads and radiates down my neck.

A word that I don’t recognize is hissed as footsteps draw near. My chair is lightly rolled away from the desk—with me on it and still hunched over my knees. Knowing I’m in the clear to sit up, I do, slowly, as one large, slender hand wraps around my shoulder, guiding me gently. The other hand rests right above my kneecap as Finley Andersson squats down in front of me, a look of pure worry creasing his blond brows as he asks if I’m all right.

“Uh-huh,” I respond, pressing my hand against the backside of my head just to make sure there are no bumps or blood. “Just give me a second. I think I am more embarrassed than anything. I thought you were my boss.”

He removes his hand from my shoulder, flashing the number “two” before asking, “How many fingers am I holding up?”

I laugh, the motion of my shoulders rising and falling sends another little wave of pain coursing through me. “Two,” then I add, “You should choose an odd number next time. They are superior.”

“Yep, you’re all right,” Finley breathes a laugh as the hand resting on my thigh squeezes. My gaze zeroes in on that hand, wondering how so much heat can be packed into one man’s touch. It’s too much. I shift away, and he releases me, letting me bend back down to pick up the bag of lemons I dropped. Though this time, I’m extra careful to swing my body away from the desk as I come back up.

I notice he has placed his hand over the edge of the desk where I would have hit if I hadn’t swung my upper body around. That’s… sweet? Or is he already making fun of me?

“I trust that you wouldn’t repeat the incident, but I wanted to be extra careful,” he says as he lowers his hand to his side and props himself on the side of my desk. I nod at the reassurance I didn’t even need to ask for as my gaze trails from his hand to his light-wash jeans up to his tucked-in blush button-down shirt. Strands of golden hair frame his face, not quite obscuring his crystal blue eyes.

“You look like a sunrise today.”

Finley crosses his arms and his feet as he semi-sits on my desk. “How so?”

“The light blue of your jeans fading into the blush shirt with a golden crown on your head. It’s like a sunrise.”

His lips turn upward, then he unleashes a brilliant smile. “I think that’s the nicest, most poetic compliment I’ve ever received, Leilei. Thank you.”

Something warms inside my chest at his praise. I am not the woman known for flowery words or—gag—poetry, but it was the first image to come to mind as I gazed upon him.

“Maybe I have a concussion,” I joke, unzipping my lemon bag and squeezing a wedge into my tea. “Want some tea?”

Finley moves behind me. “One second. Stay still. I want to check your head now that you mention concussions.”

I do as I’m told, mostly because a small part of me is excited his fingers will be on me again. I may not be able to withstand the contact for long, but mercy, I enjoy it before it gets to feel like too much. He lighty prods my scalp, and I applaud myself for wincing only a little before he moves his hand and returns to his propped position beside me. “No bumps or blood or caving in. You should be in the clear.”

“Duh,” I say, knowing good and well that I didn’t hit my head hard enough for a concussion. “And what are you doing here?”

His face falls, and I realize that I might have sounded rude. “I mean, I’m glad you are here, don’t get me wrong, but what prompted the visit?”

“I’ve missed you over these last few days while we’ve both been swamped with work,” he says plainly, not a hint of sarcasm or flirtation in his voice. It is a fact. He missed me. That warm feeling in my chest from earlier expands.

“What kind of tea can I get you? I have peach ginger, honey ginger, elderberry green tea, black tea…” I pause from fiddling through my tea stash in my desk drawer to look over at him with a raised brow. “I have so many more, Finley. We could be here all night before I’d finish delivering your options.”

He shakes his head, wearing that dazzling grin of his. “Black tea will suffice.” Then he actually sits on my desk; his long legs allow the tips of his dark brown dress shoes to reach the hardwood floor. “Thank goodness you keep your desk space clean and clear. I do enjoy sitting in places I shouldn’t.” There’s something about his tone as his voice trails off to a low rumble that fans the flame of heat within my chest. How much longer can my heart, my ribs, my skin withstand the increasing warmth?

“Oh, darn it. I don’t have an extra mug. I typically take tea time alone, and when Mr. Austen joins me, he brings his own mug.”

Finley shrugs. “No big deal. I’ll sip whatever you’re having…” he looks at my cup, a smirk flicking across his face as he glances back to me. “Bae.”

“Hadley bought me that,” I say, reaching for the mug and looking at the front of it. “Best attorney ever.” I hold the mug up to my face and smile.

“You’re adorable, bae. And yes, you are the best attorney ever. And you’re my bae.”

Huh?

“I’m your best attorney ever? Did you need an attorney for something? Is that why you’re here?”

Finley cocks his head, perplexed. “What do you think bae means, Lorelei?”

“Best attorney ever?” I state this as a question because now I’m reconsidering the acronym.

He chuckles and looks down, running his hands down his jawline. Which, by the way, is sharp. It gives him that haughty, regal air that I once condemned him for. But now I think it’s… Well, I think it’s kind of hot.

Man.

I’m becoming my sister…

“Bae is an informal way to address your significant other. It’s an acronym for Before Anything Else.”

Oh.

Huh.

“That’s interesting. I think I like ‘best attorney ever,’ though. Plus, we are not each other’s significant person.” I gesture between us and take a sip of my tea. The warm, spicy goodness slides down my throat. Tea is like an immediate sedative for me. Calming and relaxing.

“Not yet.” He winks. “I like calling you Leilei, anyway.” He holds out his hand. When I lift a brow, he motions towards my cup.

Oh.

I give it to him. I don’t ever drink after people, so the tea is now his.

He takes a sip, placing his lips in the same spot mine were moments ago. A shudder runs through my body. “You aren’t grossed out drinking after a person?”

He shrugs, setting the mug down between us. “Not when the person is you.”

“I don’t carry any less germs than the average human, Finley.”

He stands then stretches out his hand towards me. I take it and he guides me to my feet, tugging me into a hug. “I’ll happily consume all of your germs, bae.”

I move my hands to splay across his firm chest and shove at him lightly, but his chest rumbles with laughter underneath me as his arms snake around me tighter. My hands maneuver to his back, and I latch them together. This is hot and tingly and good. After a moment, he puts a small amount of distance between us, just enough that I can look up at him as he stares down at me. His eyes move from my own and down to my lips for a fraction of a second before he closes his eyes and presses his lips to my forehead.

The warmth in my chest finally explodes, rivaling any too-hot sip of tea I’ve ever taken in my life. It’s unnatural heat. The chaotic need to be closer to him. The raw desire to press my face to his and become one. It’s encompassing.

And that’s a feeling I’ve never had before, but I know exactly what it is because my twin is a hopeless romantic, always feeding me her personal and fictional stories.

I want to kiss Finley Andersson.

I rip myself away from him and turn around, discreetly fanning my blistering hot face. We aren’t dating. Right? Even though last Saturday felt like a date. Him showing up here feels like something a boyfriend would do. Hugging him feels like hugging the sun, but it’s oh so good. But kissing? I wouldn’t even know where to start. Do I initiate? Does he? Am I supposed to tilt my head? Yes, I’ve seen my parents do that. What will his lips on mine feel like? Will I be okay with it? Will it ick me? And what about…

Oh, heavens.

What about tongue?

I don’t think I could do that. Just the thought of a thick piece of wet muscle invading my mouth…

I dry heave once. Twice. And then I take deep breaths and think of plants and my cats and tea and law reviews… Yes. That’s better.

“Lorelei?” Finley’s voice sounds like what I imagine a hurt puppy would sound like if they had human voices.

“I’m good, Finley. I’m okay,” I hurriedly say, spinning around to see the concern in his glistening eyes.

He steps towards me, but I automatically take one step back. “I’m sorry,” I quickly state. “I don’t know what came over me, but there’s a lot of internal and external feelings, and I don’t think I can touch you right now.”

“That’s perfectly okay, Lorelei. Thanks for voicing that to me. I’m sorry if kissing your forehead was too much.” And he genuinely looks sorry. The helplessness in his eyes breaks me, and I wish that for two seconds I could be a normal woman with normal sensory experiences.

“This is why you shouldn’t choose me, Finley. I’m not normal.” For the first time in a long time, I feel ashamed of my disabilities. Of who I am.

Finley, however, smiles and his eyes genuinely light up as he says, “Normal is so overrated, Leilei. I can wait for you. I will wait for you.” Then his face darkens, and I imagine this is what he must look like when dealing in state affairs back in Korsa. “And if you dare start to berate yourself for the way you process different sensations, I will be there to remind you that you are absolutely perfect. God made you, and He doesn’t make mistakes. You are whole. Loved. Adored. Desired. Just the way you are, Lorelei Raine.”

My mouth opens and closes like a fish gasping for air on land. I have no intelligent words to speak back, but that doesn’t seem to bother Finley. In fact, I believe it amuses him. As if he didn’t just wrap me in a verbal hug and give me a verbal chastising all at the same time, he turns around and takes another sip of tea from my mug.

I have never been so jealous of an object before.