Chapter 7
I pulled up in front of Harper’s grandmother’s house just in time to see the taillights of my brother’s car racing down the road.
What the hell was he doing here? I could only imagine how salty he was after I told him Harper and I were having dinner tonight.
He didn’t let on, as usual, but I saw the way the fire danced behind his eyes. I loved this shit.
I knew how he felt about Harper, which was why I stood down, for the most part.
I’d met Harper first, but in an attempt to get out of tutoring, I sent my brother in my place.
Who would have known he would fall for the same girl that I was trying to get with?
After a couple of weeks of back-and-forth, we discovered that we had both been seeing her.
Not only that, but she also thought we were the same dude.
When JoJo confessed that he was in love with her, I didn’t know what to do.
I had fallen for Harper too. Unlike my brother, I wasn’t exactly in love, not at first anyway.
That didn’t mean I wanted to let her go.
I still wanted her. For a while, I blocked like hell, making sure I was always there when she came around and being a third wheel.
There was something about Harper that I couldn’t get enough off.
She was feisty but sweet. She was smart but still kind of street.
She wasn’t from our neighborhood where all the girls were stuck up and hell bent on marrying rich.
Harper was down to earth and didn’t give a damn that we came from a little money.
Even at eighteen, her pretty ass had us wrapped around every one of her fingers.
She made me and bro treat her like the queen she was, and I loved that shit.
I admit I pretty much forced them into a three-way relationship.
It actually worked for us and lasted right up until me and Jordy were about to graduate from med school.
Our thing worked for us. We weren’t just lovers. Together we were a unit built on late night study sessions, inside jokes, and shared secrets. Forcing Harper to choose would have meant breaking us all.
JoJo and Harper were exclusive, but she and I had more of an open relationship. For some reason both JoJo and I got off on watching Harper with each other. We fucked women together over the years, but no one was like Harper.
She made me want to be good and do good by her.
She respected that I liked my freedom, and they both agreed that as long as I kept it clean, I was good with stepping out now and then.
My girl wasn’t jealous because she had JoJo when I wasn’t around.
We made sure of that. Harper was the only woman I would ever take seriously, so anything I did on the outside didn’t matter to me.
Over time, she went from a girl I liked to a woman I loved and cherished.
It didn’t matter that she and my brother were madly in love.
I loved her, too, and she loved me just as much as I loved her.
I was prepared to let JoJo have her. I planned to let them live happily ever after without my interference after our last hoorah.
Jordy wanted to marry Harper. He wanted the whole family and children thing that I knew I wasn’t built for.
After the shit that went down with my parents, I knew I never wanted to get married.
I just wanted to show my brother a good time one last time before he made the plunge.
My stupid mistake cost both of us the woman we loved.
It didn’t matter that my sole reason for asking Harper out to dinner was to try to get her back in my brother’s good graces. Well, it wasn’t my sole reason, but getting them back together was high on the list. At the same time, I couldn’t pretend that my reasons weren’t selfish.
Of course, I missed her. Of course, I had dreamed of sliding between those pretty chocolate thighs for years. Sure, I loved her company and couldn’t wait to have her back in my life too, but most of all, I needed her to forgive my brother.
Jordy loved Harper more than I ever thought I could.
He loved her the way she deserved to be loved.
I mean, I missed her, but Jordy was devastated when she disappeared on us.
After she left, he didn’t have sex for almost a year because of the vow they took when they were just teenagers.
For years, Harper had been his best friend in the world next to me, and that said a lot.
She knew he was an awkward, black nerd who loved cartoons, sneakers, and useless trivia, and she fell for him just as hard as he fell for her. JoJo knew how I felt about Harper and respected our love and friendship as well. She was the perfect match for him, but she was also perfect for me.
Our situation wasn’t conventional. We knew that it wouldn’t make sense to a lot of people, which was why my identical twin brother and I never told anyone in the world that we were in a relationship with the same girl.
We both felt that if she had to be with someone else, it was better that it be one of us.
Of course, we were all young, dumb, eighteen-year-olds when we made that decision, but our thing grew into something mature and solid.
Harper and I met in high school in a tutoring program my mom made me sign up for when my math grades started slipping.
She was pretty and funny, but not enough to make me want to go to tutoring.
I didn’t think there was anyone that damn pretty.
She was one of the tutors, which was the only incentive for me to show up the few times I did.
Once I convinced Harper to give me her phone number, I paid JoJo to finish the sessions for me.
That chump was smart as fuck anyway. He already had an A in math.
As long as he could get me a C, I was satisfied.
Little did I know, JoJo was falling for Harper over the sessions and even started to go work out with her after school, helping her train for her boxing matches.
Since he was in the class impersonating me, he had been going by Jay.
She had no idea that he wasn’t me. She found out we were twins when I walked in on them on his bed, making out after school one day.
It was crazy that I wasn’t as mad about the shit as I thought I would be. I was actually proud of my brother.
At that point, I was sexually active. I had gotten some from a couple of girls around our way, but I knew my scary ass brother wasn’t.
Neither was Harper—believe me, I asked her.
It wasn’t something that I was going to pressure her about.
I was cool with her wanting to wait. I planned to take my time with her.
Harper wasn’t like the other girls I messed around with.
She was smart but still strong and fine as hell.
She knew sports and music and could make me laugh.
She was different. I liked her. We talked on the phone half the night when she didn’t have to train early.
On those days, I got up and ran with her before school.
Her fine ass was a boxer and could probably beat my ass, but I was so crazy about her that I wanted to take things slow.
It felt weird to think about a girl like that, so I hadn’t even told JoJo who I had been seeing on the low.
We thought the girl was going to have a stroke when she saw both of us together.
Once we got her calmed down, I explained that I had been sending JoJo to the class in my place.
Neither of us knew that the other was crushing on her until that moment.
Instead of trying to ask her to choose, we decided to all be friends.
All the while, I was secretly trying to win her over.
It didn’t take long before I found out JoJo was doing the same damn thing with his slick ass.
They were both nerds, so they bonded over comic books and sci-fi movies.
Our relationship was different because she and I were athletic.
We worked out together, not that JoJo was a slouch when it came to that department.
He and I were like Clark Kent and Superman.
I was Superman, of course. He sparred with her while she and I ran and lifted together.
Even at a young age, I realized that with both of us, Harper could have the best of both worlds.
Something about her made me feel like she deserved that.
Since both she and JoJo were virgins, I didn’t have to worry about them doing anything that I couldn’t do with her.
Even before I knew for sure what love was, I loved Harper and wanted the best for her.
Jordy did too, so I was cool with him having her.
I parked my car in front of Mrs. Viola’s house and looked at the time before turning off my car.
I’d told Harper to be ready at seven. I was a little early, but something told me that she wouldn’t have been ready one way or the other.
I figured she would need some encouragement, which was why I showed up early.
I got out of the car and walked up to the door.
I had to watch my step because Mrs. Viola’s walkway was buckling in a couple of places.
You could tell it had been a while since anyone did any maintenance on the property.
I guess when people got their own places, they didn’t have time and resources to maintain the ones they weren’t occupying.
Harper’s brother lived in their grandmother’s house for a little while but moved away and bought a house with his wife.
As far as I knew, her mom was living somewhere else too.
If Harper was going to live there, then I would have to make sure that she was safe.
I couldn’t have her or her son falling out here and breaking their necks just trying to get to the road.