Chapter 11
Juniper
The kite festival is happening on the beach today.
I can see the various designs waving in the wind from the bar.
Holiday designs, dragons, birds, wings… The colors make me smile, and I go a little slower making this Bloody Mary.
Even though I was always terrible at trying to get a kite to fly, I love watching them.
There’s something magical about them soaring together against the wind.
It’s a peaceful sight, so different from the way I felt staring at the sun this morning and the cold tears that had run down my cheeks because I couldn’t stop them.
Three days to my birthday.
Four days to the anniversary I’m dreading.
Remembering that this year will be the first year that I won’t be walking to the jetty on my birthday with my dad is hitting me hard. I was able to contain it yesterday. Even so, this morning nearly broke me.
Thank fuck Nick was awake to get my mind off of it.
I’d sent him the picture of the sunrise thinking he’d see it later, but my chest had swelled when he answered seconds after.
The air had warmed around me, my racing heart had calmed.
I don’t know why it felt as if someone leaned against my side, hands cupping mine, a thumb swiping the tears from my cheek.
I’m blaming my grief for the weird things I keep feeling and seeing, like my mind is overloaded and can’t find a way to break free.
“Hey, hey.”
Jasmine’s voice startles me. I flinch, drink spilling down the side of the glass.
“Jesus, Jas,” I say breathlessly. I grab a clean towel to wipe up the mess. “I didn’t realize you were coming in for the lunch shift.”
Jasmine frowns at me as she taps away on the POS machine. “Girl, since when are you jumpy? You usually see me first.”
“Long night,” I confess.
I can see her smirking out of the corner of my eye, and I glare her way. “Don’t start.”
“I didn’t.”
She’s still smiling when I turn to take my table their drinks, and when I return, she looks like she’s checking the truck invoice from this morning, though I know she’s hardly looking at it.
“I saw you had an escort home last night,” she says.
Of course she had the outside motion alert on. “I did.”
“But no escort this morning?” She raises her brows when she looks my way, making me purse my lips as I turn to put in the last round of drinks on the computer.
Jasmine’s laugh continues. “Okay. You keep your secrets. Just don’t make fucking in the bathroom a habit—”
I throw a towel at her face, cheeks heating. “Shut up!” I exclaim, chuckling myself.
God, I still can’t believe I did that.
“It was a one-time thing,” I add. “And I tried to be quiet.”
“Girl, quiet is not your strong-suit,” Jasmine mutters under her breath.
I shake my head and tap the POS screen, putting in an order for the kitchen and closing out another table’s tab. I’m printing out the receipt when Jasmine settles her hips against the counter at my side, arms crossed.
“Did you dye his hair?” Jasmine asks, staring at the door.
“Huh?”
“Your boyfriend. Did you dye his hair?”
“I don’t… Do you mean Nick?”
“Obviously. He had black hair yesterday.”
“Yeah, he has dark hair. What are you talking about? Who dyed their hair?”
“Girl, just turn around.”
“What—”
“Turn around.” Jasmine grabs my shoulders and pivots me. I start to protest, but the moment I see who she’s talking about, the thought fades.
“Hair. Not dark. Isn’t that him?” Jasmine asks.
No.
No, that’s not…
“That’s not Nick,” I manage.
I know Nick’s eyes. Nick’s eyes are soft, filled with fervor, angst, and assertion, as if everything is just out of reach, but he’d have it no other way.
This man’s eyes… they’re the opposite. Mischievous and relaxed. Entirely unbothered and self-assured.
The world is in debt to him.
“Do you have any siblings?” I’d asked Nick.
“I have a brother,” he replied. “He’ll drop in at some point, I’m sure.”
“He did not say his brother was his twin,” I mutter.
The man standing outside the bar’s resemblance to Nick is uncanny. Despite the long, dirty blond hair, the black rectangular glasses, and his broad build, everything else is the same. The shape and color of his eyes, his jaw structure, the way he holds his head high. They even have the same scowl.
He has a hoodie on beneath his leather jacket, wearing dark green pants and tall chunky boots.
The curved end of a peppermint stick hangs out of his mouth, his jawline even more prominent as he sucks on it.
He’s staring at the sign above the door, hands in his pockets as if he’s deciding if this is the right establishment for his lunchtime drink.
“Twin?” Jasmine laughs under her breath, shaking her head. “This just got even more interesting.”
Even when he tosses the candy in the trash and makes his way inside, I can’t stop staring. There’s no instinct in my body to stop ogling, to even make myself look remotely as if I can move.
If Nick is the cataclysmic snow coming down against an illuminated city backdrop, his twin is the ice crystalizing across a creek in the middle of a haunted forest.
They’re both so devastating that I’m not sure how I’ll react to eventually seeing them in the same room.
“I think I need to print out a receipt or something,” Jasmine says. “Or go check on Chester in the back. I’ll do that.”
“Okay,” I reply without blinking.
The twin’s gaze finds mine, and a smile stretches across his lips that makes my knees weak.
Oh my god.
He practically stalks his way through the tables, eventually coming to stand directly in front of me. If I was pouring a drink, it’d be all over the floor by now.
There are two of them.
“Hello, darling,” he says, taking off his coat.
I blink.
He has an English accent.
Oh, shit. He looks like Nick, wears glasses, and has an accent.
I…
“Are you related to Nick?” I blurt.
His brows lift as he settles his forearm onto the edge of the bar, long fingers entwining together at his side. “Nick? Nick… Hm… That depends. What does he look like?”
“I feel like you already know,” I say.
He smiles wider. “Does he look like me?”
“Yes. But he has dark hair. And he doesn’t wear glasses. Or have an accent.”
“Ah.” He takes off his glasses and squeezes the bridge of his nose. “Nick. Right. No, he wears contacts, but I never really liked the things.” He puts the spectacles back on and peers at me once again, stalling every thought that might have previously tried to enter my head.
“I guess that makes me Jax.” He straightens and extends his hand, palm up.
I hesitantly place my hand into his. “Juni.”
He deliberately brings my knuckles to his lips and kisses them, gaze holding mine the entire time. The motion sinks my heart. A lump sits in my throat. His lips are cold in comparison to Nick’s, breath a chill against my skin.
The smell of peppermint lingers in the air.
“Is that short for Juniper?” he asks.
I nod again, thighs squeezing.
Twins.
“You deserve the Eiffel Tower,” I remember Nick telling me last night.
I don’t know if one has to do with the other, but holy shit am I unable to think of anything else.
I clear my throat and close my mouth before I start drooling. “Are you… I mean, does Nick know you’re here?”
Jax scoffs and takes a seat. “He does. He said he’s trying to finish a job today. Do you prefer to be called Juni?”
“I don’t… I mean, it doesn’t matter to me. I think most people just end up shortening it,” I reply.
“What’s your middle name?”
“Do you not like my first name?”
“I’m curious if your middle name suits you better.”
I’m chewing on my tongue, deciding whether to tell him, when I realize he still has my hand in his.
He’s toying with my fingers in such a gingerly manner that it’s suddenly all I can think about.
The little smirk in his eyes makes me wonder if he can tell how restless my legs are—even though the heat on my cheeks is probably a dead giveaway of my fluster.
“You’re as nosey as your brother.”
Jax huffs amusedly. “Does he know?”
“Know what?”
Because I forgot what we were just talking about.
“Your middle name,” he replies.
“No.”
“Then it’ll be our secret.”
I stop breathing when he leans closer.
“Come on, darling. Give me something he doesn’t have already,” he says in a gravelly voice.
“Holly.”
The word practically makes me spit. Jeez, how am I even more embarrassing than I was when I first met Nick?
“Holly? Your parents named you Juniper Holly?” he asks, brows raised.
I finally force my hand out of his. “Maybe.”
“Is your birthday soon?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because not many would name a child born in the summer Juniper Holly.”
I grab a towel to wipe away the condensation beneath an abandoned drink nearby. “My birthday is on the solstice,” I admit.
Unexpected delight spreads over his features. “In three days?”
I eye him sideways because of his tone. “Maybe… Depends on what you plan on doing with that information.”
“What is the one thing you’ve always wished for on your birthday?”
I pause, considering him. “I don’t think we know each other well enough for that conversation.”
“A problem I plan on rectifying quite quickly,” he says, taking a seat. He settles his elbows on the bar and inclines my way. “Hello, Juniper.”
Well, shit.
His voice is entirely sex, and the way he says my name…
“I… I need to… Hey, Jas?” I push away from the ice cooler as Jasmine comes out of the kitchen, wide-eyed. “Hey, can you cover me a minute? I just need to go to the restroom.”
“Sure,” she says, setting down her water bottle.
I glance at Jax one more time. “I’ll be back.”
“I’ll be here,” Jax replies.
I quickly remove my apron and set it near my purse under the bar. I really do need a minute.
Twins.
God fucking help me.