Chapter 24
Tessa
Motherfucking twins?!
I sat up in bed, dumbstruck, as my eyes bounced between the two carbon copies of a man I’d been fantasizing and obsessing over for weeks.
How could I have missed this?
I knew there were subtle differences in the way they both spoke and acted around me—the hot and cold, the change in nicknames. I knew men were complicated and oftentimes difficult to read, but this was fucking ridiculous, and… Who did I meet first?
“Which one of you was on tour?” I hurried with my first question, ignoring the fact that there were two of them and one had just clearly stated that they wanted to share me.
Holy fuck, to be shared between basically the same man? I mean...
I’d have to be crazy to say no, right? Who wouldn’t want two tens instead of one?
I really have lost my mind now, haven’t I?
“That would be me, Lucas.” The man sitting at the edge of the bed to my right answered as he leaned back on his palms with a cheeky smile.
“But the shoes—”
“His. I took them by mistake. One of the pitfalls of being a direct copy-paste of one another. Everything fits the same.”
“Unless the other decides to go on a sugar bender. Then… not so much.” Levi, propped up on his elbow, lounging to my left and laughing lightheartedly as Lucas shot him a glare from across the bed.
As if they were foreign objects, I took a deep inhale and reached out to touch each of their hands. My mind was still spinning and reiterating that I was imagining all of this—that I was still asleep with only one of them.
When my fingers grazed the backs of their palms, I felt my heart halt in my chest, the air sucked from my lungs as I grasped onto the reality of just how real the two men surrounding me were.
That I wasn’t back in LA on a Hollywood set, recording a movie, scripted with body doubles, or a single actor playing two roles.
Lucas and Levi were fucking real, and I was in one of their beds.
Oh my God, I just fucked twins.
“Hey.” Levi leaned forward with a soft murmur, taking my chin between his fingers as I lifted my gaze from staring at the sheets to meet his. “Do you need a minute?”
He was so gentle, warm, and comforting, I’d never noticed that before—how his eyes softened as they stared into mine, and my stomach danced at the sight.
I tilted my head to glance over at Lucas, while his brother held onto me, and for some reason that I couldn’t explain, I found myself drawn to both—equally, not one over the other.
“I-I’ll be fine…” But what does this mean? Where do we go from here? “So, to be clear, I met Lucas on tour—” I pointed to him before returning my gaze to his brother. “And then Levi at Pulse?”
“Yes,” they answered at the same time, both nodding with the same expression, and I just about passed the fuck out. This was going to take some getting used to… a lot of getting used to. Overwhelmed was the understatement of the fucking year right now.
Next question…
“Okay, I—what is it that you two want with me?” There had to be a catch to this.
Real or not, men are selfish assholes and don’t share shit, let alone brothers.
“If you’re trying to set me up for some sort of bad media ploy, I swear to fucking god I will destroy both of you.
” That came off a little bitchier than I anticipated…
But I wasn’t interested in playing games. Not when my heart was involved.
I suddenly found myself seeking any excuse to deflect my emotions. Because they both couldn’t want me in an equal capacity, that would be absurd, irrational... Ridiculous.
I inhaled, and the air cut like glass as panic hijacked my ability to remain focused.
“Ev—Tessa, calm down. You need to breathe, babygirl.”
The walls of the room were closing in on me, and all the self-doubt and pity were gnawing at my heartstrings. My drunken desire had spiraled into an obsession I could no longer control or resist.
The mattress sank just as strong arms wrapped around my body, pulling me into a lap and squeezing with enough pressure from behind to bring me back into myself.
“Tessa,” Lucas whispered over my shoulder.
“Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not true.
Levi and I don’t want you for the sake of fame, fortune, or to tarnish your reputation.
There’s just something about you that’s…
magnetic and draws us in. There hasn’t been a day that’s passed where I haven’t regretted not chasing after you at that hotel. ”
“But you slept with me as Evie.” As if that fact even mattered...
“Imagining and wishing that she was you, and in the end, she was… And yeah, under any other circumstance, that would have sounded fucking stupid and cruel to say to a woman, but she was you. She wasn’t someone else.”
“And Brandi?” My voice cracked as the thought of her came rushing to the forefront of my mind—the things she’d said, the claim she had made, what I’d seen…
“What about Brandi?” Levi shot a glare at Lucas, his brows knitting into a scowl. “Luke, you—”
“I didn’t.” He barked in response. “She came on to me and I wasn’t fucking interested.
” Lucas’s grip tightened around my body, as if he were scared of letting me go.
“I would never jeopardize your relationship, and from the moment I saw Tessa, there wasn’t a woman on this goddamn earth who could ever have compared to her. ”
I sank into his chest, his words hitting home in a way that reassured me that I wasn’t the only one feeling these intense emotions, that I wasn’t the only one who had become infatuated with the two men sitting in front of me.
“This doesn’t need to be an argument. We’re all on the same page.” Levi calmly voiced, taking a deep breath and standing from the bed. “Babygirl, Luke and I need to talk for a minute.”
I felt the hesitation in his brother’s hold—his reluctance to release me as if I’d suddenly vanish from existence. If only I’d known that my disappearance would have affected him like this. But how could I? It was one night… as unforgettable as it was.
I twisted in his arms to cup his cheeks, holding his troubled eyes with mine.
“I’m not running anymore.” In that moment, I didn’t need to. I’d never felt more at home until last night. “I’ll be here.”
He waited for me…