Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
CLARK
Ididn’t come here tonight to see her. Not really.
At least that’s what I told myself when I tugged on this ridiculous mesh shirt Clara dared me to wear and looked in the mirror, wondering what the hell I was trying to prove.
I told myself I came to celebrate. Tomorrow, my twin sister and I will walk across the stage.
My parents are driving in from Jersey, and they’ll be officially free from huge tuition payments.
The Limelight was always the plan. One last chaotic, glitter and sweat-soaked hurrah before our real lives begin.
I came with my friends, Mark and Joey, but they ditched me for the dance floor as soon as we all walked in.
I, personally, like to take a few minutes to gauge the room and clock the hotties before I make my way to the dance floor and out-dance all these poor souls who think their rhythm is anything as good as mine. Yeah, I can brag about how well I move. That’s both on the dance floor and in the bedroom.
But even as I said to myself I wasn’t here for her, I knew I was lying to myself.
Rachel. My sister’s best friend. The girl who never left our side. The brat who refused to let me hang out with them when they were all catty and gossipy.
The girl has had me twisted up inside since our sophomore year of high school.
Since the day I saw her at her locker, arguing with some jock who thought he was hot shit, and she rolled her eyes at his advances so hard, I thought her head would spin.
She never backed down from him, never from any boy.
But she never looked at me that way either, not really.
It had always been the three of us growing up.
Me, Clara, and Rachel. However, once we hit our teen years, the girls decided it would be ‘girl club only’ and cast me out.
Gave me the boot and left me behind. Whatever, I had thought back then, and found my own crew to hang with, and got my own life apart from theirs.
But that never stopped me from watching her from the sidelines, through proms and heartbreaks, through guys who weren’t good enough to cast a shadow upon her glimmering soul.
I lived for the nights when she’d fall asleep on our couch after movie marathons.
I’d watch her sleep with her mouth open and hair a mess, but she was always beautiful to me, always the girl of my dreams.
So yeah, maybe I showed up here, hoping I’d run into her. Maybe I told Clara to keep tabs on where they were headed tonight, just in case.
And maybe, when I saw her standing there in that ridiculous pink and green outfit, her hair sprayed into a gravity-defying miracle, I forgot who she was for just a second.
She looked like every dream I never let myself have. Everything I’ve always wanted but never made a move to have. She meant too much to my sister and my entire family to fuck things up.
I took a long sip of my drink and tried my damnedest to remain casual.
She didn’t see me at first, too busy scanning the dance floor to see where my sister had run off to.
Or maybe she was scanning for a potential conquest of her own.
The stories I’ve heard from my sister about the two of them made me seem like a nice guy, and we all know I’ve been anything but.
Suddenly, her eyes land on me, and I see her throat move as she swallows a gulp.
My dick twitches involuntarily, and I try my hardest to act like she’s not affecting me.
Her expression freezes, then morphs into one that tells a different story than her initial reaction. She doesn’t turn away, she just stares straight ahead, and I feel it into my soul. That alone gives me hope that tonight may be quite different from how I had imagined it would turn out to be.
I walk up to her slowly, my swagger stalking its way into her atmosphere.
Careful not to overplay my hand, I casually make my way to her.
I’ve spent years keeping my feelings under wraps, being the loyal twin brother, the honorary sibling, the safe guy.
But I’m not sure how much longer I can keep up this facade.
Especially not with the longing I’m quite sure I saw in her eyes.
We talk about small stuff. Like Clara, with her current conquest, and both of us acting like the pull between us isn’t drawing us together like a magnet.
Then she leans in, lighting my body on fire, and kisses me.
Our lips crash together, our bodies moving to the beat of the music, like this is all natural to the two of us.
The kiss is not gentle, it’s not sweet. It’s desperate and hungry. I can feel her soul telling me she’s wanted this as much as I have, but neither of us ever dared to cross that line.
When she pulls back, we’re both breathing heavily.
“I guess this is finally happening,” I say, as I trace the pulse at her neck lightly with my lips, making my way up to her ear. Her taste is divine, as I always imagined it would be. Her body is covered in goosebumps, and it makes my dick even harder than I imagined it could get.
“I guess it is,” she replies, still breathless.
And just like that, the world tilts on its axis. The lights around us blur, the music fades behind the erratic beating of my heart.
I want to take her hand, pull her out of this crowd, take her to my loft so we can figure out what this is, what the possibilities of us are, whether it’s real or a heat-of-the-moment mistake, or something in between.
But then Clara pops into my head.
My twin sister Clara, who has spent her whole life with Rachel as her second half.
Clara, who might see this as a betrayal not only to our twin ties, but to their lifelong friendship.
Even though we’re not doing anything wrong, it might and probably will feel that way to her.
I can already hear her cries in my head, sharp and hurt with the sting of betrayal.
I can feel Rachel’s eyes on me, trying in earnest to read the thoughts running rampant through my head. I’m about to say something, maybe betray my own thoughts and ask her to leave with me, when my twin senses go off.
I look up to see Clara, appearing out of the fog of bodies, glowing with glitter and more than slightly drunk. She’s dragging the boy she was making out with behind her, like a puppy who’s learning to walk on a leash.
“There you are, you losers!” she yells, laughter lighting her voice. “God, I fucking love this place!”
Rachel quickly puts a little distance between us, just enough for Clara not to notice how flushed her cheeks are, or how my hand twitched, wanting to pull her back into my space.
But things have changed, and I’m not going to pretend like they haven’t. Even if everything is going to get a lot more complicated.
Instead of following what my body wants to do, I turn back to my sister and speak. “I don’t think you should be cussing and using the Lord’s name at the same time.” I try to be normal.
“Eh, we’re in a church, sinning!” she yells and starts to laugh even harder at herself.
She’s not wrong, and we all eventually break into laughter.
Just like that, the spell is broken, and we dance and laugh together until the early hours of the morning, when we all go our own way.