Chapter 2
Two
C ooper
They’re kissing, and I think I might die.
Any possibility of ever being with Sybil Laurence is officially gone. It’s over. She’s my dream girl, and now that dream will stay locked away in my imagination.
While I can’t say I’m surprised—I even feel a sense of vindication at being right—I’m fucking shattered . A knife lodges into my pathetic heart and twists, but I can’t even be mad about it. They’re Ethan and Sybil…
And I love them both.
I should’ve talked to my brother about my feelings. He wouldn’t be kissing her if I had. Or not. Maybe he would’ve anyway, and things between my brother and me would’ve become awkward.
But the fact remains, nobody saw her first or called dibs.
Maybe that’s where the trouble started. If you like a girl, you tell your brother, so he doesn’t make a move.
It’s a simple rule, but an important one.
My twin and I are competitive as fuck, except for when it comes to this.
Contrary to the rumor mill, we don’t share.
Dating the same woman is a line we’ve never crossed and never will—one we drew in middle school when girls started getting hot and we started noticing.
But Sybil Laurence? She’s different.
She’s not a sister, but she’s family. She’s been around since the beginning.
Hell, our birthdays are only a month apart.
Ethan and I were born in January, and she came along in February, just in time to be her parents’ Valentine’s Day present.
They even used to call her Valentine when we were little—a nickname Ethan and I adopted and Sybil never corrected.
I think she secretly likes it, though she’ll never admit it.
I saw that girl go through the awkward braces stage, a year of bad acne, and a gangly growth spurt.
She looked like a giraffe, and when Ethan told her as much during fourth-grade summer, she stomped around the beach house for a week.
I’ll never forget when she had her first puppy-love heartbreak at twelve over some idiot she “dated” for two days.
Ethan and I laughed about that one behind her back.
We knew better than to do it to her face and risk pissing our moms off.
All this is to say that Sybil Laurence is not a romantic option.
Not even now that she’s grown into a gorgeous and sophisticated woman.
Not even now that she’s the kind of person I’d be expected to date and someone my parents already love.
And not even now that she’s got a maturity about her that makes her seem so much older than eighteen, like everyone else our age is trying to catch up to things she figured out long ago.
Bottom line: Sybil Laurence is off limits.
Ethan knows all of this, and I thought he agreed. It was understood. An unspoken rule. Don’t date Sybil.
But did Ethan and I ever have this conversation? No. We fucking didn’t. And that was a big mistake on my part.
Now they’re making out in the pool like they belong together.
“Are you alright?” the girl sitting on my lap purrs into my ear. I think her name is Tracy. Or maybe it’s Lacy. Stacy?
Whatever her name is, she’s straddling me in the hot tub, the overly chlorinated bubbles swirling around us.
We’ve been making out on and off for the better part of an hour.
I was into it, too. Really into it. Even though we barely met a few hours ago, I’d already made mental plans to get her naked tonight.
Things were going perfectly until I came up for air, ready to ask Tracy/Lacy/Stacy to go somewhere more private, and I saw them.
Sybil and Ethan.
And now I can’t even remember this girl’s name anymore.
There they are, bodies pressed against the side of the pool, arms wrapped around each other. Sybil’s lips—her perfect cherry-red lips—are currently working against my brother’s mouth like he’s the love of her fucking life.
Shit.
Ethan’s got her against the side of the pool like he’s ready to do her right there, despite all the people around.
PDA is not usually his thing, but it’s as if he’s forgotten there’s a party happening around him.
What’s worse is she seems to have forgotten everyone else as well. It’s them and nobody else.
I’m part of that nobody else , apparently.
My entire body heats from more than the hot tub, and one thing is painfully clear—I’ve never been more jealous of Ethan than I am right now.
“I need a drink,” I mutter to Tracy/Lacy/Stacy and peel her off my lap before she can protest.
She falls back with a pout, her cleavage bouncing in her bikini top.
Normally that would keep my attention, especially since she’s the sexy vixen-type with her long jet-black wet hair, beads of water on her soft, tanned skin, and lips puffy from kissing.
Under different circumstances, I would take this as far as she’d let me—most likely with my dick buried in her as she screamed my name.
But I can’t. I’m too… pissed? Flustered? Confused? Angry?
I don’t even know what to call what I’m feeling. It’s more than jealousy. It’s hurt and fear and so many other emotions I want nothing to do with.
“I’ll come with you?” the girl asks, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth. She probably thinks this is the part where we find a room and lose our swimsuits.
What is wrong with me? Wouldn’t fucking her make me feel better? I already know the answer to that is a big fat no, and I hate it.
I’ve got to get out of here.
This party isn’t happening at our beach house, and thank goodness for Perry Hargrove and his constant parties and many available bedrooms. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to attempt sleep while Ethan fucks Sybil in his room across from mine.
Are they going to sleep together tonight? Looks like it. But maybe this will become a one-off drunken mistake that will lead to nothing.
Ethan knows better than to go after Sybil, let alone actually date her. He knows better than to take this big of a risk.
Or maybe he knows better than to let Sybil fall for someone else, losing his chance with the most beautiful girl he’s ever laid eyes on.
Ethan’s always been smarter than me. I shouldn’t be surprised he’s smart enough to want the woman he also considers his best friend. Who wouldn’t want to date their best friend when she’s gorgeous and intelligent and funny and kind and gets you in ways other people don’t?
I wouldn’t be so jealous if she wasn’t my best friend, too.
I might be in love with the girl, but my true best friend isn’t actually Sybil.
It’s Ethan.
My brother.
My twin.
I must be loyal to him above all else.
And that means supporting him with her.
There are three of us in our trio, but there’s only room for two to fall in love, which means one has to go.
I guess that not-so-lucky one is me.