Chapter Eleven
“Mark is ten minutes away,” said Josie, walking back into the room after she had spent the last five minutes on the landline, twirling the cord around her finger, begging a snoozing Mark to get the hell out of bed.
A wave of awkwardness radiated like an invisible force field in the room. An awkwardness that had started seconds after Peyton had climbed back onto her side of the bed last night—regret smeared on her face like makeup—and then continued all the way to this morning.
Josie had made the brave decision not to be offended.
But it was easier said than done.
One would think she would have a tougher outer shell by now, especially with having a twin sister.
People thought it absolutely necessary to compare them, as if Josie didn’t already know that Kelsey had smaller hips, that her face was just a little thinner, her hair just a little lighter, and that the almost invisible freckles on their faces didn’t match.
But this felt way worse than being called the smarter twin.
An insult if there ever was one, since everyone knew that the smarter twin was the uglier twin.
That was just the way the world worked, and it didn’t matter that they were identical.
Despite the slight differences, they basically looked exactly the same.
When Peyton glanced up sharply, those blue eyes like a stormy sea—you would swear they were a mood ring—Josie’s stomach roiled.
“I’ll be late for work,” she said, snapping the elastic band off her wrist. She threw her head forward, gathered all her lovely waves, and flipped her head back to fasten the band in place. “I’m never late.”
“I’m sorry,” said Josie, leaning against the chair. “You can tell your lieutenant that it’s my fault if you want. I really don’t mind—”
“It’s completely your fault,” interrupted Peyton matter-of-factly.
But it wasn’t a jab. There was none of the venom or malice Josie expected.
So, she went with it. Josie patted the pockets of her jean shorts. “It’s more like the fashion industry’s fault. They’re to blame for the significantly shallower pockets in women’s clothing. If I were wearing men’s shorts, it would be impossible to lose my keys.”
Peyton’s lips quirked up, but she bit the smile away so quickly Josie might have imagined it.
At least she was a hundred percent certain that she hadn’t imagined last night.
The way Peyton had pinched her nipple, the way she had made her body shiver and quake and moan out loud, would surely have woken her up if it was just a dream.
“We should go wait downstairs,” said Josie, heading back to the door.
Not that she wanted to leave. Or she did, since she needed her cell phone and had to get back to work.
But to leave also meant that there was a significant chance Peyton would never want to see her again.
Josie could easily imagine Peyton leaping out of the car before the ignition even cut when they got back to Morro Bay.
Before Josie could even ask for her cell phone number, she would be running away.
The thought made her shudder.
You would think sleeping with someone twice and falling asleep next to said person would warrant sharing contact details. But Peyton seemed no more ready to give a part of herself to Josie than for Josie to accept that the whole key fiasco wasn’t predestined.
“Frances said we can grab a complimentary muffin on our way out. She also offered cereal bars, but I told her muffins are perfectly fine.”
Peyton nodded once, looked about the room, even though they had nothing but the clothes on their backs, and followed Josie into the hallway.
Two minutes later, they walked into the dining room, heading straight for the table that was pushed up against the window holding a tray of baked goods.
Josie’s eyes were set on a good-looking blueberry muffin, the one with the perfect crumble on top.
She reached out at the exact same time Peyton’s hand moved toward the muffin.
Fingers scraped briefly, and then Peyton jerked her hand back so quickly it was as if she had burned it on a hot stove plate.
“You can have it,” said Josie, dropping her arm to the side, still feeling the blaze of Peyton’s touch on her two middle fingers.
“No,” said Peyton, shaking her head. “You can have it. Seriously. I’m not even sure why I went for that one. I don’t even like blueberries.”
Everyone liked blueberries. But before Josie could continue the ‘no, it’s yours’ charade, Peyton grabbed a banana-nut muffin and stalked off, leaving the room feeling empty and cold.
If Josie could stab the awkwardness with a knife, she would.
She would flip this constant tension between them on its back and offer up a friendship or something.
Anything that wouldn’t make every conversation, look, or touch so unbearably stressful.
Instead, Josie convinced herself that Peyton wouldn’t go for that and grabbed the blueberry muffin.
Biting into it, she walked out to the porch. The sun was shining brightly onto the garden and the rumble of waves was echoing in the distance.
Mark pulled up in his Chevy sedan seconds later. He honked once, waved, and then climbed out, stretching his arms above his head like he’d just driven six hours instead of thirty minutes.
“This place is nice,” he grinned, walking around the hood. “Very Victorian-esque. Didn’t think you could find something like this here.” He then tilted his head up, scrunched his bushy brows, and pointed to the roof. “Is that a real owl sitting up there on the turret?”
“Is that your brother-in-law?” asked Peyton under her breath, leaning toward Josie.
They were both still standing on the front porch of the Inn, watching Mark flip out his cell phone.
He angled it in the direction of the roof to take a photo.
Knowing him, the photo would end up zoomed in and blurry to the point of complete distortion.
You would think a man in IT—after seven years of knowing him, Josie still had no idea what Mark actually did for a living—would know how to use a phone’s camera.
“The one.”
“He looks kind of like Will Farrell, except with darker hair.”
“You’re not the first person to say that.”
“Other people think so too?” asked Peyton, glancing at Josie out of the corner of her eye, a slight smile on her face—this one was as real as the geraniums in the corner of the garden.
“I was the first person to point that out,” chuckled Josie. On his last birthday she had bought Mark a Will Ferrell boxset. She loved a good boxset, especially the DVD kind, though in this day and age, they were hard to find. Not to mention that DVD players were basically extinct.
“You must be Peyton,” said Mark, unlatching the gate, and walking through, hand outstretched, ready to greet her.
He might look a little derelict with the speckle of holes in his T-shirt, but he had manners, good ones.
His level of manners was all gained during his years in boarding school, when etiquette was forced upon him like a second language.
He was fluent in the language of love, yet hadn’t ever spread rose petals across the hallway to the bedroom. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“You have?” stammered Peyton, her cheeks just a bit pinker than they were before.
“Of course,” he beamed. “Josie told us all about how you two met in Costa Rica. My wife loved hearing how the rain had stopped suddenly, like it was some sort of miracle. She’s a lot like Jo in that way.”
“Kelsey, right?”
“Spot on,” said Mark and then pointed to Josie.
“Did you know they’re twins? Identical. Like really identical.
Except Kels has been highlighting her hair since after Noah was born.
Says it makes her look younger. Apart from that, they basically look exactly the same.
” He laughed as if it were the funniest thing in the world.
“It’s really weird when we’re all out together. ”
Josie’s heart dropped well below her stomach.
The taste of blueberry muffin sat on her tongue.
“Not that weird,” she chuckled unconvincingly, feeling the heat rush to her cheeks.
Mark was less like a cool brother-in-law and more of a cringe dad.
He had no problem relaying embarrassing stories to strangers, or to women Josie felt determined to impress.
“Besides, we’re looking a lot more different from one another these days. ”
Mark waved her words away and focused his attention entirely on Peyton. “Back in college, when Kels and I just met, they played this prank on me where Josie showed up at the start of the movie and—”
“Enough Mark,” interrupted Josie before he got to the part where she had kissed Mark—just a faint peck on the lips, but still.
The whole thing had been Kelsey’s idea. She wanted to see if Mark could tell the difference and, in actual fact, he could.
Almost immediately. Josie, who was already out and proud, remembered that moment as the worst day in her life.
But Kelsey had promised her tickets to Rihanna’s ‘Anti World Tour’ and Josie would do anything for Riri.
“Oh, come on,” moaned Mark, shrugging his soft shoulders, oblivious to the line he was crossing.
The last thing Peyton needed to know was Josie’s weakness for a woman who had won nine Grammy awards.
It could easily be used as ammunition. “It’s a really funny story.
I’ve actually got plenty of stories about the two of them.
They did the twin swap thing all the time. ”
“Oh really?” said Peyton, her brows lifting while a smile tugged her lips upward. She looked genuinely intrigued.
Josie was stunned, and if she didn’t value her dignity, she would probably encourage whatever was happening. “He’s exaggerating.”
Mark shook his head, his green eyes bright and full of mischief. “I am not. You should come over for dinner sometime, Peyton. Kelsey will tell you all the stories. She’s really got a knack for telling stories.”
“It seems so does Josie,” said Peyton, glancing at her briefly. Her gaze was like a hot poker, boring deep into Josie’s soul.
“So, what do you say? Come over for dinner this weekend. Jo and Kels can cook their famous carbonara.”
“Um…” started Peyton, suddenly looking severely panicked. A red flush leeched onto her cheeks and her eyes turned as wide as dinner plates. “I don’t… um, I think… I really don’t know if I can. I mean I might be—”
“We should go,” said Josie suddenly, darting forward and grabbing her brother-in-law by the arm. It was the only way she could rescue Peyton from her impending beet-red blush.
Besides, Josie no more wanted to hear Peyton’s fickle excuse for not wanting to see her again than she wanted to drive the five minutes to the trailhead with a chatty Mark.
“We’re going to be late for work.” She yanked her brother-in-law toward the open gate, only letting him go when he reached the driver’s side.
When the car peeled off the driveway a minute later, Josie in the passenger seat and Peyton at the back, Mark fiddled with the rearview mirror and had just opened his mouth to say something when his phone rang.
A saving grace.
They had then spent the entire five minutes driving back to the trailhead parking lot, listening to Mark argue with a colleague about something that went far over her head.
And by the time they got into Josie’s car, the silence continued between them, all the way until Josie glimpsed Morro Rock rising in the distance.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to see me again,” said Josie, keeping her eyes glued to the road.
“Things didn’t exactly go as expected yesterday.
I completely understand if you think I’m too much of a liability to be around.
” She braved a glance in Peyton’s direction.
She was picking at a piece of stitching on the edge of her T-shirt.
“I promise I don’t lose my keys so willy-nilly,” she added.
“And I usually always have my phone with me in case of emergencies. Yesterday was just… um.” Josie tried to think of the right word that Peyton wouldn’t roll her eyes at.
Calling it fate would be dangerous, even if it was correct. “A fluke.”
Peyton twisted her hands in her lap. “You’re not a liability. And it’s fine. It wasn’t that bad.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” said Peyton, ending the conversation as she reached for the volume dial and turned it up.