Chapter 10
“Sorry about that,” Silas says. “My dad loses his mind if I send him to voicemail.”
Silas is looking down at his phone when he finally walks back inside. He’s so focused on whatever’s on his screen that he doesn’t even seem to notice Tate, his freaking brother, standing right beside me. While I, on the other hand, am hyperaware of both of them.
Silas and Tate are gorgeous on their own, but together? It should be illegal.
The door is closed and the air-conditioning is on, but heat still licks at my flushed skin.
The Texas weather seems like child’s play compared to the absolute hotness filling my living room.
Need rushes through my veins as an all-consuming desire settles so deep in my stomach, I don’t know if the feeling will ever fade… or if I want it to.
“We wouldn’t want that, would we?” Tate asks. “Gotta keep the old man happy.”
Silas’s head snaps up and his gaze narrows on his brother. “When’d you get here?”
Duke catches wind of Silas, and his little body flails as his paws slip on the hardwood floors. His heavy breathing turns to snorts, and he runs across the room, torpedoing himself into Silas’s legs.
“Hey, Duke.” Silas bends over and gives Duke some well-deserved scratches. Duke licks his hand in approval. “You’re such a good boy. Did you come to fix the floor?”
“Speaking of—” Tate turns to me without answering Silas’s question. Talk about awkward. “What happened?”
I don’t know what I expected of the Jacobs twins, but it’s safe to say I assumed there’d be at least a modicum of affection between the two.
Instead, they act more like strangers than two people who shared a womb.
Weird energy rolls off Tate in waves, and the happy-go-lucky version of Silas that I’ve gotten to know is replaced with tension and hostility.
If it weren’t for Duke rolling round, so excited to see Silas, I might think they were completely estranged.
“Um, my bathtub.” My eyes flitter between the two brothers. “It kinda sorta fell through the ceiling.”
Silas tries to hide his laughter with a cough. Tate is less amused.
Tate’s dark eyes narrow. “It kinda sorta fell through the ceiling?”
“Well…no.” I worry my bottom lip. “It really, actually fell through the ceiling. It’s in my laundry room now.”
“Show me,” Tate says.
“The laundry room or the bathroom?” I ask.
“The bathroom, Luna,” he says. “Show me the bathroom where there’s a hole instead of a bathtub.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” I hurry toward the staircase. He’s only been here for a few minutes and already sounds exasperated, so a little urgency on my part feels necessary. “It’s this way.”
“Hey.” Silas puts a hand on my shoulder before I can make it out of the living room. “Are you okay with me heading out now that Tate’s here? A couple of things I need to take care of popped up.”
I was so consumed with my own issues, I didn’t even stop and think that he had better places to go or things to do.
Selfish.
Just like my uncle said.
“Oh my god, of course. Go.” Guilt rushes the words out. “I’m sorry I kept you for so long.”
“You didn’t. I wanted to be here,” he says, his voice as soft as his smile. “I’ll swing by tomorrow and check in.”
“No, don’t worry about it.” I already owe him so much for his help today. The last thing I want is for him to feel obligated to come check on the mess next door. I know that feeling much too well to put it on someone else. “You don’t need to do that.”
“Yeah, you don’t need to do that,” Tate says. “Go handle the ranch or whatever Dad needs from you this time. I’ve got Luna covered.”
“Like I said”—Silas ignores Tate and keeps his steady gaze trained on me—“I’ll swing by tomorrow and check in.”
I didn’t think anything could distract me from their combined attractiveness, but I forgot to account for the power of pure and total awkwardness.
Silas’s smile never wavers and his tone remains the same, but the efforts are for naught.
The hard lines, so out of place on his gentle face, are a dead giveaway for how he’s really feeling.
And it’s anything but happy.
Yikes.
“Then I’ll be here,” I acquiesce. “Thank you.”
He nods and turns on a booted heel and walks out of the front door without so much as acknowledging Tate. The screen door slams shut behind him, and an uncomfortable silence hangs heavy in the air.
With Silas gone, Duke has gotten all the attention he needed and he finds a spot on the hardwood floor beneath the air-conditioning vent to plop down. His tongue hangs out of his mouth and his little body moves up and down with every laborious pant. It must be exhausting to be a puppy.
“So you two are close?” I joke, but surprising absolutely no one, it falls flat.
Even Duke looks embarrassed.
“Alrighty then!” I clap my hands together and infuse way more enthusiasm than necessary into my voice. If I wasn’t still reeling from the discomfort of standing between Tate and Silas, I might have the wherewithal to feel shame. But that ship has long since sailed. “So, the bathroom?”
“Yeah,” he says with the whisper of a smile that’s barely perceptible on his stoic face. I worry I could get lost staring into his eyes and spend eternity inspecting his full lips trying to find it. “That’d be good.”
I force myself to look away and rush to my rickety old stairs.
Something about Tate’s brooding presence is so much different than Silas’s.
I’m hyperaware of the way my heart races in my chest and my stomach twists into knots as his long legs follow effortlessly behind me.
Everything about this man screams trouble, but that doesn’t stop my body from craving something it’s never had.
Something it never will have.
I hold open my bedroom door and gesture for the second hot man of the day to go inside.
“Just be careful,” I say. “The entire house makes a lot of noise. I thought that was normal for an old house, but that was before the floor collapsed. I’m not so sure anymore.”
Nothing like a bathtub-shaped hole to shake your confidence.
“The entire house?” he asks. “What did the inspection say?”
“The inspection? I’m not sure.” My cheeks flame. I try to avoid his eyes as I push by him, but I don’t get far. “The hole is right—”
Tate’s large hand wraps around mine and he pulls me to a stop. “You did get an inspection, didn’t you?”
“What? Of course I did!” I try to infuse as much indignation in my voice as possible, but it’s hard to focus with the feel of his calloused palm resonating throughout my body and taking hold between my thighs.
“Luna, I’m going to ask again.” He sniffs out my lie like some kind of bloodhound. His black eyes narrow and I squirm beneath his knowing gaze. “Did you get an inspection on this house before you bought it or not?”
“I did.” I tell him the god’s honest truth. “I just didn’t pay much attention to what it said.”
“Fuck. Okay.” He sighs and drags his free hand across his face. “Show me the bathroom now. I’ll call Patricia later.”
“You will?” My eyebrows scrunch together. “Why?”
“Have you ever bought a house before?” he asks instead of answering.
“No, but—”
“So she knew you were a first-time buyer,” he says, and I’m not sure I follow.
“Did she go over the inspection list with you? Did she make sure you knew what you were getting yourself into before you bought the house that’s been on the market for the better part of six years?
A house that nobody in town would touch with a ten-foot pole because Mr. Monroe was always doing renovations but didn’t believe in the government, so he never got permits before doing them? ”
Oh.
Now I know where he’s going with this, and fuck me with that ten-foot pole if it doesn’t sound expensive.
Ignorance is bliss. Until it isn’t.
“Maybe I should’ve paid attention to the inspection,” I admit.
“But this isn’t on Patricia. She did her job.
I was so ready to move that this place could’ve had no windows and a hole where the chimney should be and as long as I still could have a pink chicken coop, I would’ve signed on the dotted line. ”
Desperation and avoidance are funny motivators.
I didn’t mean to give so much away, and I know the next question before he even asks it. His grip on my hand tightens, and I brace as I try to think of any reason for my hasty move that doesn’t include trauma dumping my entire life story on him.
Turns out, my worry was for nothing.
“A pink chicken coop?” he asks instead. “That’s what sold you?”
“It was really the air-conditioned shed,” I say.
“I was actually afraid of birds as a kid. I was convinced they were going to peck my eyes out. But I’ve been watching a lot of chicken content on TikTok and I’ve decided that not only am I not afraid of chickens, but I think I love them.
I already have some names picked out. Kelly Cluckson, Henda Martell, and of course there will be Little Chix. ”
“Little Chix?”
“Yeah, you know, like Little Mix, but chickens,” I explain. “Leigh-hen Pinnock, Jade Cluckwall, and Perrie Eggwards. If all goes well, I’ll make them an Instagram account. The internet will love them.”
There will also be Dolly Parton, but I couldn’t come up with a pun for her. That’s okay though because…well, she’s Dolly.
“You know you’re kind of a nut, right?” he asks.
I nod. “So I’ve been told a time or two.”
His lips turn up at the corners, and at the sight of his smile, the rest of the world falls away.
I ignore the way Silas smiles all the time and it never feel like this.
I forget all about the great bathtub fiasco and the ever-growing to-do list I’ve yet to put a dent in.
Victory courses through my veins, knowing I put that look on his face.
The quiet noises of the house fade beneath the sound of our deepening breaths.
As if by magic, I drift closer to him. My skin prickles with awareness as I realize we’re standing in the middle of my room and only a few boxes separate us from my bed. All it would take is one little step, and then…
“So where’s the bathroom?” Tate drops my hand like it’s on fire and takes a very pointed step away from me. “I should probably take a look at it so I can figure out what I’ll need to fix it.”
“Oh yeah. Good idea.” I try to clear the embarrassment clogging my throat and I point to the half-opened door across the room. “It’s right over there.”
His only response is a nod of his head, and I follow behind him as he enters my own personal construction zone.
He hisses out a sharp breath. “Jesus Christ.”
I haven’t worked with many handymen before, but this seems like a bad sign.
“That bad?” I ask, and his angry eyes slice to me.
“There’s a hole in the fucking floor where your bathtub was,” he says. “So yeah, I’d say it’s that bad.”
Cool, cool.
“So how do we do this?” I ask. He might be kind of an asshole, but he’s Silas’s brother, and I don’t think in a town this small, there’s enough options to bother shopping around. “Do I sign a contract? Are you hourly? Should I pay up front?”
For some reason, this seems to make him more irritated than he was before.
I didn’t think that was possible.
“I’ll send you a contract tonight. You’ll cover all the costs of the materials, and I’ll bill you for my hours at the end, but Luna, this isn’t going to be cheap,” he says. “At first glance, I’m thinking this could run upward of ten thousand just on materials alone.”
That’s almost one-tenth of what I paid for the entire house.
My stomach hurts.
“Okay,” I say, not because I want to, but because there’s nothing else to say. “Get me the contract whenever you can, and I’ll be sure to get it back to you as soon as possible.”
“Thanks. I’ll take a look around and see if I notice anything else,” he says, turning his back on me. “I’ll find you and update you when I’m done.”
I don’t wait for him to say anything else. I know when I’ve been dismissed. And although it’s never happened in my own home, I don’t need to be told twice.
I brave my way down the tenuous stairs and push through my back door.
The sun has settled high in the afternoon sky, and it’s even hotter than it was before.
My air-conditioning blows at my back, tempting me to wait it out inside, but I’d much rather put my anguish into finishing my cabinets over nursing my bruised ego on the couch.
Distraction is my favorite coping mechanism.
Right below avoidance. Which I will absolutely be using the moment I see Tate again.
The cabinet doors I sanded with Silas are still laid out where I left them, but the paintbrushes and rollers have been wrapped in plastic and the loose paint I forgot about has been returned to the canister.
Silas.
I look over the fence, trying to spot the house nuzzled in the acres upon acres of Starlight Ridge Ranch before chancing a glance over my shoulder and trying to catch a glimpse of Tate through the stained glass window of my bathroom.
If I was smart, I’d forget all about Tate and never look back. I don’t need to know him to recognize the unspoken ghosts he’s fighting, and I have too many of my own to help him battle his. Too bad I’ve always been a slow learner.
I know I came to Celestial hoping for a cowboy romance of my own, but twins from the ranch next door? That’s a trope too far even for me. I have a feeling that this plot twist can only end with me getting burned or—if recent history is any indicator at all—extremely hot and bothered.