Chapter 48
FORTY-EIGHT
Emerson
After Twila and I both shower––separately, unfortunately––and get dressed for the day, we head downstairs to grab some breakfast and figure out a plan for today.
When we get to the kitchen, we find all three of my roommates at the table, eating platefuls of French toast and bacon.
There are two extra place settings for Twila and me and platters of food in the center for us to serve ourselves from.
“Wow,” I say as I hold Twila’s chair for her. “I think this is a first.”
“What?” Ritchie asks, taking a swig from his glass of juice.
“You guys have never cooked a family-style breakfast like this,” I explain for Twila’s benefit. “It’s usually just protein shakes or leftovers from last night’s dinner.”
“We have a guest,” Stone says, flashing Twila a smile.
It’s genuine and not flirty at all, and even if it were, it wouldn’t get under my skin. Not after Twila’s appalled reaction when I told her some women would prefer any of these guys to me. She’s apparently unaffected by their appeal.
“And we wanted to talk to Twila,” Mason adds.
“Oh, yeah?” she asks, a smile curling at the corners of her mouth. “About what?”
“We’ll do it,” Ritchie says. “The BingBang thing. We’ll do it if you post it to your account, not Emerson’s.”
“Yes!” she shouts, pumping a fist, “I knew you’d all come around. I have so many ideas.”
She enthralls my roommates with her enthusiasm, and I, myself, am not immune to her charms. Everyone gets into it, tossing out ideas and tweaks to make the perfect introduction video, and before I know it, all of the food has been consumed, and we’re setting up my ring light tripod in the living room.
Twila’s vibrating with excitement. This isn’t a job to her. She genuinely wants to help my friends.
God, that makes me love her more than I––
Wait. What? Love ? Why is my internal dialogue using that word?
I blow out a long breath and close my eyes.
Love is the right word. That’s why I thought it.
But I’ll be keeping that little four-letter word to myself, for now.
I don’t want to scare Twila away. I know we shouldn’t stay married––that would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it?
But I do want to keep her in my life. As my girlfriend.
Until I propose a real marriage, that is.
And I know I will. I feel it in my heart. In my bones. In every muscle and joint in my body.
Twila’s it for me.
I follow her bright energy into the living room along with my roommates, who are apparently as affected by it as I am. I don’t resent them for it. I know it’s inevitable. Who could resist?
I plop down on the couch and watch as Twila takes charge.
First, she gets Ritchie’s BingBang handle and follows him.
When she tells him to follow her back, I swear, his cheeks tinge pink as he admits that he already does.
Twila gushes and thanks him in an over-the-top way that ends with all us of laughing.
“Before you even ask, we follow you, too,” Stone says, holding up a palm.
Twila’s only reaction is to stare at him thoughtfully. Then her eyes move to Mason, then back again before she speaks. “You guys have separate accounts?”
“Yeah,” Mason says. “Of course.”
She nods slightly, saying, “We should create a joint account for you.”
“What? Why?” Stone asks, and Twila’s still nodding like the wheels in her head are spinning on overdrive.
I already know where she’s going with this, and I agree with her, so I say so.
The twins look from Twila to me, eyebrows raised as they wait for an explanation. I shake my head and wave a hand toward my wife. This is her circus, and, for the time being, they are her monkeys.
“Uh,” she says like her reasoning is obvious, “you’re twins. Identical twins. Hot as fuck identical twins.”
I don’t bristle at her words because I know that though she finds them attractive, she’s not attracted to them.
I do stiffen, however, ready to play referee if Stone and Mason get pissed at her suggestion.
The whole “Sullivan Sandwich” thing might’ve been fun for them in their late teens and early twenties, but they’re over it now.
They want women to like them as individuals, not a matching set.
“Any content you make could focus on your individual personality traits, hobbies, and interests,” Twila says, successfully reading the room before anyone can say a word.
“But the twin thing will get them in the door, so to speak. You’ll get the assholes who will make everything about sex and threesomes, of course, but if you can handle ignoring them, I think a joint account could be really successful. ”
They agree, and Twila grins as she takes a good picture of the two of them with Stone’s phone, then helps them set up an account.
They follow each other, then she grins at all of us before hashing out the idea she has for a video.
We all agree, and I grab my ring light stand and set it up while Twila teaches the guys the dance she wants them to perform.
The video starts with my three roommates dancing in sync with Twila, and when they slide in, obviously trying to get close to her, I fly in from the right side of the frame and grab her, throw her over my shoulder, and carry her out of there while the guys throw up hands of complaint.
We pull it off to Twila’s satisfaction with three takes, and she smiles softly as she works on the caption and hashtags. I watch her with a warm heart as the guys chatter with excitement over how much fun it was to make the video.
“All this hotness under one roof. What’s a girl to do?” she reads, and gets shouts of approval from the guys.
She looks at me and dips her chin, silently asking if I’m okay with it. I nod, and she flashes me a smile that makes my breath catch in my chest. She reads the hashtags out loud, and I nod in agreement even though I can’t hear her over the pounding of my pulse in my ears.
God. I really am head over heels in love with this woman.
The guys head to the gym, promising to meet us for lunch at one.
Twila and I climb into my car, and I show her my favorite places in and around Long Beach while promising to take her to the more touristy parts of L.A.
tomorrow. She laughs and says she grew up in southern California and has explored all of the tourist traps more than once.
That she’s much more interested in me, the places I love, and the haunts I frequent.
As the clock nears one, we head to the diner and find the guys already waiting in a large, semi-circular booth that will fit us all. We order burgers and fries and milkshakes, and Twila asks the guys about their lives.
“What do you guys do for work? Is it weird that you’re not working on a Wednesday?”
“Not at all,” Stone says, then jerks a thumb toward his brother. “Mason and I are bartenders. So we work mostly nights.”
Twila’s eyes go wide. “At the same bar? Like, together?”
“Yep,” Mason says, and Twila shakes her head.
“No wonder you were concerned about a joint BingBang account. You probably get indecent proposals nightly at work.”
“I work there, too,” Ritchie says, and I brace for Twila’s next question.
“You’re a bartender, too?” she asks as I’d predicted, and as I flinch, the twins chuckle.
“Not…exactly,” Ritchie says, taking his glasses off to rub a hand across his eyes.
When Twila just stares at him, confused, Stone jumps in with, “He’s part of the talent.”
“Talent?” she asks, looking toward me for clarification.
“They all work at The Peppermint Hippo,” I say, and her eyebrows pull down with confusion.
“Am I supposed to know what that is?” she asks, and the twins laugh outright.
“Most women do,” Stone says.
Twila looks at him, and her head tilts slightly to one side. “Most women ?”
He nods as Mason adds, “Most women in L.A., anyway.”
Her eyes widen comically as she looks from the twins to Ritchie. “Wait. Are you saying you’re a stripper?”
“He prefers the term ‘exotic dancer,’” Mason answers with a snicker.
“I’m a male revue performer,” Ritchie says, reaching over to smack Mason on the back of his head.
“And you guys don’t dance?” she asks, looking between Stone and Mason.
“Nah,” Stone says. “We make more in tips behind the bar. And besides, it would be really weird, getting mostly naked with my brother on stage.”
She nods, accepting his explanation, then looks back to me. “So, how did you end up living with them? Did you work at the bar at some point? Please tell me you danced.”
She clasps her hands as if in prayer and bats her eyelashes, making a laugh rocket out of me. I shake my head as I place a palm over my heart.
“Alas, I cannot grant your wish,” I say in my best impersonation of a knight in shining armor. “I answered the ad these three put online, looking for a roommate.”
The conversation moves on to other things, and we all share an easy rapport. Twila fits right in with zero friction, something I wouldn’t have guessed could happen in a million years after that fateful first message she sent to me on BingBang. And God, am I glad she did.
After lunch, we head back to the house. The second we’re inside, Ritchie pulls out his phone and wiggles it in the air.
“I can’t wait any longer,” he says. “This damn thing has been going off nonstop since Twila posted the video.”
He taps at the screen, and his eyes turn to saucers behind his glasses before he looks up from the phone.
“What is it?” I ask, a knowing smile curving my lips.
“I have over two thousand followers,” he says. “I had less than two hundred this morning.”
“Yay!” Twila cheers, clapping her hands. “Two-K in about four hours? Not bad. Check yours.”
Stone and Mason do as she asks, looking as wide-eyed as Ritchie. Their new account––The Sullivan Brothers––had exactly three followers this morning. Twila, Ritchie, and me. Mason turns his phone around so we can see the numbers beneath their profile picture.
“Twenty-four-oh-six,” Twila says with a smile. “Excellent start.”
She opens her own account, and I step up behind her and rest my chin on her shoulder so I can see, too. After she navigates to this morning’s video, I feel her smile stretch wide against my cheek.
“Forty-thousand views and a bevy of comments asking if you’re looking for any female roommates,” she says with a laugh. “You’re famous, fellas.”
She offers to shoot content with them for their own pages, if they want to. The guys promise to think about it and scatter to their rooms. I move around in front of Twila so I can see her face.
“What?” she asks when she notices my star-struck expression.
“You’re amazing, you know that?”
She grins and teases, “Of course, I do.”
I shake my head. “I mean it, Twila. You are fucking perfect in every way.”
She blushes and looks down as she murmurs, “You’re not so bad, yourself.”
And suddenly, I feel like I won the God damn lottery.