CHAPTER TWENTY
Corey
My fist pounded Paddy’s white apartment door which echoed like regular knocks without my strength.
‘Geez. You can’t knock politely?’ Nora muttered.
‘Viagra delivery,’ I yelled, then slapped my hand to my mouth when my feminine voice shocked me back to reality.
Nora’s eyes widened, and her mouth parted. ‘What the hell?’ She gasped.
‘I forgot, it’s a habit,’ I said.
Paddy opened the door with a grin so wide you’d think he’d heard there was a yacht delivery for him. ‘Did Corey make you say that?’
Nora glanced at me, and we let out an off-pitch laugh, relieved Paddy created his own explanation.
‘I’m Paddy.’ He wiped his hands against his jeans and offered his outstretched hand to me.
‘Nora.’ I shook his hand and gave a small smile.
‘Come on in.’ He closed the door behind us and gestured for us to follow him to the couch.
I shoved Nora aside so I could nestle into the ass groove of my regular spot on the brown three-seater, then patted the section next to me for her to sit.
‘Ha, that’s where Corey usually sits,’ Paddy noticed.
Shit.
‘What can I say, she’s got good taste,’ Nora laughed with a manic gleam in my grey eyes and handed Paddy the wine bottle.
He placed the wine on the coffee table and opened the waiting bag of chips. ‘How’d you guys meet?’
‘Nora here is basically the top of our finance class,’ Nora grinned.
‘Class? You mean, you’ve seen her every week this year and not said anything to me?’
‘Didn’t see the point. I didn’t think a beauty like her would go for a brute like me.’ Nora nudged my shoulder.
‘Ha! No wonder you never wanted to miss class. Well, except our birthday.’
Nora temporarily lost focus and raised a suspicious eyebrow at me. ‘Our birthday?’ she asked.
I cleared my throat to remind her she currently had curly hair and a penis, but Paddy’s eyes gleamed in delight and spoke first.
‘We’re basically twins, minus the upbringing,’ he said proudly.
‘My parents worked their asses off, but even still, we scraped by. Corey brought one of his unwrapped presents to school for me the day after learning I’d only gotten a stuffed toy compared to his haul, and then he insisted I celebrate every year with him.
Even to this day, he cancels all his plans to hang out with me – including class. ’
I raised my chin. ‘Wow, you’re a real stand-up guy, Corey,’ I praised myself.
Nora didn’t speak. The revelation stunned her into a statue with parted lips.
‘Stop with the bashful face. You’re a good guy, that’s all.’ Paddy punched Nora’s broad shoulder. ‘Let me go grab some wine glasses.’
‘That’s why you didn’t come to class on your birthday?’ she whispered.
I shrugged and grabbed a chip from the coffee table. ‘Yeah, like he said, we spend it together every year. Even my parents know to invite him if they’re taking me out somewhere.’
‘I thought you were an entitled dickhead.’ She laughed, but it didn’t come from her heart.
We seemed to learn something new about each other every day, and I used a Nora-inspired move and crossed my fingers, hoping she’d continue to realise I wasn’t a total asshole. I raked my gaze over her straightened back and hands clasped together on her lap.
‘You look like you’re visiting the queen. Chill out, would you? Slouch against the cushions or something.’
‘Oh, right,’ she mumbled, leaning back.
Paddy returned and placed three stemmed glasses on the coffee table. ‘Hey, we should play Pictionary. Did you know every year at Christmas, Corey sketches us doing something ridiculous like sky diving or swimming with sharks? He’s such a good drawer.’
Nora let out a deep nervous laugh. ‘We don’t need to do that. Don’t want to show off or anything.’
‘It’s fun. It’ll be a good icebreaker; Nora can tell me all about herself,’ Paddy insisted.
He grabbed the Pictionary box from the bookshelf before I could think of any excuse for ‘Nora’ not wanting to play. Perhaps I could pretend she can’t grip a pencil or has a lead allergy. Wait…
‘Teams,’ I blurted. ‘We don’t have an even number of people.’
‘Nah, doesn’t matter. We can take turns drawing while the other two guess, and for every correct guess, you get a point.’
I’d seen Nora doodling on the back of a receipt the other day and assumed she’d drawn an elephant/giraffe mash-up until she told me not to throw out the receipt with the picture of a dog on the back. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that wasn’t a dog.
During Nora’s second turn, Paddy turned his head to me.
‘I swear he can draw better than this,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t know what he’s doing.’
Nora stepped back from her scribbles for us to decipher. A horizontal line went from one side of the paper to the other, with a huge circle in the middle. Lines jutted from the circle and random squiggles were spaced on the top half.
‘Sunset?’ Paddy guessed.
‘What the fuck is that?’ I muttered.
Nora took the hat off her head and threw it at me. ‘It’s a rainforest. Trees, birds, a rock?’
‘Did you have your hand amputated or something? I know you can draw better than that.’ Paddy shook his head. ‘Or are you trying to make us feel better about our own skills?’
I’d pretended I was left-handed and drawn some shit pictures this game, but even my jumbled drawings were better than hers. Paddy’s face twisted as he stared at her drawing again.
‘I just…’ his voice trailed off and he shook his head. ‘Bloody hell.’
‘You got me,’ Nora laughed and glanced at me. ‘Don’t want anyone feeling bad. All right, game over.’
Paddy went over and started packing the game away, still muttering in confusion. I lifted the green hat from my lap, tugged the snug comfort down, and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, he stared at me across the room. He took a few steps forward, then paused.
‘Corey does that when he pulls his hat on. Like he’s relieved or something, as though he’s sucked in a breath after swimming underwater.’
My mouth opened, then closed when no words came out. I tugged on the sleeve of my shirt and made a noise that sounded like a cross between a donkey and the buzz of a bee.
Paddy’s eyebrows lifted. ‘He does that, too, when he’s nervous.’
My gaze shifted to Nora, begging for help.
‘Beans, beans, the musical fruit,’ she sang.
What in the holiest fuck was she doing?
‘The more you eat, the more you toot,’ she continued.
Paddy cleared his throat and grimaced. ‘Are you trying to tell me you’re hungry?’
‘Yes.’ Nora nodded so hard she gasped and grabbed her neck. ‘Let’s eat something.’
Paddy’s gaze darted between us beneath lowered brows. His outstretched finger moved from Nora, to me, then back to Nora. ‘Something isn’t right. You’ve been weird all week, acting like a different person.’
Nora crossed her arms and jutted her hip to the side. ‘What are you talking about?’ Her voice boomed with the confidence of Corey Flemmington, but her posture had the attitude of Nora Claremont.
‘Sit,’ Paddy ordered.
My weak knees obeyed, and my left eyebrow lifted, waiting to see what he’d do.
He walked to Nora who’d refused to sit and analysed her features so close I’d thought he might kiss my face.
Warning bells rung through my head, and I widened my eyes to get her attention.
Paddy knows I’d never let him stand so close to me.
Similar to claustrophobia, except instead of being terrified in a small space, it terrified me to have people too close to my face for more than a few seconds. Suffocating me with their judgement.
Yet now I realised, I’d never had that problem with Nora. There was no my space and her space. It was simply our space.
‘Corey would never let me stay this close to his face,’ Paddy whispered.
My head dropped into my hands.
‘Corey?’ his voice shook.
He was closer to me than my real brothers, and I couldn’t keep this chaotic secret a moment longer. I sighed and lifted my head. ‘Yeah?’
His face spun to me and his mouth dropped open. ‘No.’
‘Yes,’ Nora whispered, nodding her head.
He twisted back and forth between us until he stumbled onto the couch next to me. A moment later, a ridiculous laugh burst from his mouth. ‘You got me.’ He continued laughing, but when neither of us laughed along, he quietened again. ‘Oh. Holy shit.’
‘Holy shit,’ Nora and I repeated back to him in unison.
I turned to her and tilted my head, trying to grasp her thoughts. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip as she shrugged, then glanced at Paddy.
‘We’ve all gone mad,’ he insisted. ‘We need to see someone. Group therapy.’
I shook my head and let out of a half laugh, ‘We considered it.’
He walked to the kitchen and pulled an enormous bottle of vodka from the top shelf.
‘Forget the wine, I think shots are in order.’ He lined up the small glasses on the coffee table with shaky hands and filled them. ‘This isn’t real,’ he muttered as he picked the first one up and poured it into his mouth.
Paddy didn’t believe in magic; he refused to even read fantasy books.
My chest clenched with guilt for being reckless.
We probably shouldn’t have come here, and I probably shouldn’t have gotten it off my chest. It was selfish.
Nora hadn’t even spoken since the revelation.
I’d taken her shrug as an ‘oh well’, but maybe she was freaking out. I reached forward for a shot.
‘Nah-ah.’ Paddy threw his arm in front of me and grabbed the remaining two shots, then tossed them into his mouth one by one.
I closed my eyes and sighed in relief. It turned out Nora’s friend karma had our back. At least if he kept that up, things could be saved.
Half an hour later, Paddy’s panicked words turned to slurs, until he eventually passed out on the couch. I tucked a blanket over him and Nora followed me out the door. We walked to the staircase and began our descent down the six flights of stairs.
‘We’re screwed,’ Nora finally spoke. ‘We’re actually, finally, screwed. He’s going to tell everyone, and I’m going to get fired for being crazy, and your dad’s going to send you to the most expensive therapist in the city.’
‘Paddy’s not going to remember a single thing that happened.’ I smiled. ‘That’s why I let him drink so much.’
‘What?’ she asked.
‘Vodka’s his kryptonite. Every time he drinks enough, he passes out and doesn’t remember a single thing.’
‘So, we could tell him we had an orgy?’ Nora eyes gleamed with mischief.
I missed a step and clutched the rail. ‘Sure, I guess.’ My cheeks warmed at the idea of being intimate with Nora.
The small grin on her face made me want to press her against the wall. But the real her. I wanted her personality in this body.
‘You know, he left you a note thanking you for some money you lent him.’ Nora tried to keep her tone light, but I knew my voice too well. Curiosity was eating away at her.
I blinked at her, realising Nora had been discovering bits and pieces about me for longer than I’d known. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or concerned at how much she knew. ‘Well, I think it’s clear he doesn’t have much.’
‘Which I find incredibly relatable. I’m surprised you enjoy slumming it so much. Me… Paddy…’
Her words were a knife to my chest. ‘Is that what you think of me? That I only care about money?’
I stopped on the second landing, my narrowed gaze waiting for her response.
‘Wow, you’re touchy about this.’ She stopped next to me.
‘I lent him money because his laptop died, and he needs it for a business course he’s doing.
I don’t want him to be my assistant forever.
He’s smart, Nora, and he deserves the chance to show the world.
He didn’t get a head start in life, just like you.
His parents got sick, and he spent all his savings on their medical bills.
’ I turned from her and moved down the steps two at a time.
This body had no weight, and I flew down like a fairy as Nora’s elephant feet pounded the stairs behind me trying to keep up.
‘Corey, wait.’ She stumbled and knocked into me at the bottom of the stairs.
I stretched out my arms to catch her, but her weight pushed me back and she pinned me against the wall. Her breath reached my cheek and goosebumps raced up my neck. Her heart pounded hard enough that each thrum pulsed against my chest.
‘You still think I’m an asshole,’ I whispered angrily. I thought she’d gotten past her judgement.
‘Actually, I’ve been coming to terms with the fact I seem to like all these unknown parts about you lately,’ she whispered back.
Her face was inches from mine, and I hated that she looked like me. She’s the first person to see through me – the real me – and she liked it. I wanted to bite her lip and spin her against this wall and show her how much money didn’t matter. Except, I couldn’t.
‘I like the unknown parts about you, too.’ I sighed and took a step back. ‘Come on, let’s head home.’
If I didn’t, my lips would be pressed against hers before you could say the word ‘umbrella’.