Chapter 1
Knightley
My twin sister, Darcy, liked to say that she had the gift of foresight, so when she sidled up to me at the bar, drink in hand and a knowing gleam in her eyes, I knew I was in for another one of her tirades.
“Everything is going to change for you tonight, you know.” She hummed, her eyes bright. “You’d better watch yourself, or you might fall in love.”
Here we go.
She’d told me I wouldn’t get the internship I wanted because she had foreseen a different path for me—I’d gotten it—and then there’d been the time she’d been sure my team would win the basketball championship because she’d had a dream about a trophy.
We’d placed number twelve. So, her track record was spotty at best.
My eyes skimmed over the party, looking for the cute redhead I had been chatting up in my trigonometry class earlier. “Oh, yeah? That doesn’t sound likely.”
“Don’t be foolish about what the universe wants for you, Knightly.”
“There’s no way that is true.” I laughed. When it came to the fairer sex, I could be an asshole, manwhore, disgusting piece of shit, sex god of their dreams—but relationship material? No.
“You’d be surprised by what you could find if you stayed longer than the woman peeing after sex,” Darcy cackled.
“Cute, Darc,” I grumbled, nursing my beer. A twin was like having another part of you out in the world, but that also meant no one could dig harder into your fleshy parts.
“Oh, lighten up. Come meet my new roommate.” She laced her arm with mine and dragged me across the bar, where a girl with thick caramel curls piled up on her head was talking animatedly with a tall man with locs.
“—I’m telling you, you should have seen her face, as if that girl could tell the difference between a treble and bass clef. Dr. Marshall was aghast and—”
Darcy set her hand on the girl’s arm, interrupting her sentence. “Savannah, this is my brother, Knightly.”
“Knightly?” She pursed her lips, her brow furrowed as those hazel eyes darted from Darcy to me. “Is your mom a fan of Austen or something?”
“Who?” I deadpanned. “Never heard of him. Never once heard that joke. Have you, Darc?”
“Nope,” my sister chimed in, a giggle escaping.
“And what was your name again?” I leaned closer, letting my trusty smirk win her over the way it had for countless before her.
“Savannah. Like the city.” She glanced over my shoulder, her hair falling to the side. A clump of three little freckles sat under her collarbone, like a clover. It was cute.
“Nice to meet you, Bana.”
She didn’t rise to my tease, instead smiling at someone behind me. “Darcy, you need to meet my friend Jesse. I think the two of you would have a lot to talk about.”
With this, she grabbed my sister’s arm, pulling her away from me.
It was another hour before I was able to track them down again.
Darcy was deep in conversation with the man Savannah had been talking to when we’d first arrived.
Savannah stood on the side, a smirk playing on her pink lips as she watched them flirt.
“So, Bana, how about you let me buy you a drink?”
Savannah’s lips curled, and she scrunched her nose. “No.”
“Really? Just no?”
She tapped her lower lip with a fingernail, her head tilted to the side. “You’re my roommate’s twin, and if this doesn’t work out, I don’t want to deal with a pissed-off roommate or a lovesick boy hanging around.”
Lovesick?
“Like that would happen.” My voice came out squeaky. How did that happen?
A swooping sensation started in my gut as she threw her head back, laughing, her hazel eyes shining. “Plus, I have a boyfriend. So, as smooth as your efforts may be, I’m not the girl to waste them on.”
I rocked back on my heels, staring down at her. There was a smudge of mascara under one of her eyes, and a tendril of hair was falling out of her ponytail. She was adorable.
“We could call it a friendly drink.”
She snorted, shaking her head. “What, no flirting, touching—”
“I flirt with everyone.”
“Be that as it may.” She laughed. “I can’t right now. I need to get back and call Bryce to check in.”
“Check in? What is he, your parole officer?”
Her smile dropped, a line forming between her brows. Her tone was clipped. “He just worries about me here at school. There’s nothing wrong with chivalry, you know.”
I bit my tongue. Chivalry, yeah right. I didn’t know this Bryce, but I could picture him already. Hated him already.
As Savannah walked out the side door, phone in her hand, I watched her ass sway in those tight jeans. Perfect for gripping onto. My gaze was so concentrated, I didn’t notice my sister moving until she was blocking my line of sight. “Please don’t fuck my roommate.”
Blinking, I stepped back, watching as Darcy nibbled her thumbnail, a habit our mom had been trying to break for years. “What?”
“I get Savannah is gorgeous and funny and all that, but you have every other woman on campus you can whore around with. I like this girl, and I don’t want another friendship ruined because you don’t know how to keep your dick in your pants.”
“Darc, come on, that was one time, and...”
“Four.” She held up her fingers. “Gretchen.”
Ah, Gretchen, lovely Gretch. That had been a onetime thing. How was I supposed to know that Darcy’s favorite study partner would get so attached after five shots of tequila and a bathroom blowjob?
“Lauren.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell Darcy that I’d refused to sleep with Lauren after she’d told me she’d only come over to our house to see me and couldn’t wait to get rid of Darcy. No, I didn’t feel bad about being a complete asshole that time.
“Alana.”
I cringed. That one had been my bad. I had crashed on Darcy’s couch after a night out, and when her roommate asked me to join her in her room, I’d known it was a bad idea but had gone anyway.
The months of nasty looks and her subsequent move out when it had become obvious I wasn’t interested in her anymore had driven a rift between the friends.
“And who can forget Dawn?”
Putting up a hand, I shook my head. “Now, that one wasn’t my fault. We hooked up before you met her. If anything, I got there first.”
“Yeah, and after she found out you were my brother, she refused to return my calls.” Darcy rubbed her forehead. “Just promise me.”
“Fine, I won’t seduce your poor, sweet roommate.”
There. That was better for me. Now, not getting anywhere with Savannah would be because Darcy had asked me not to, and not because she was impervious to my charms.
“But if she tries to tempt me, all bets are off.” I put my hands up as I walked backward, knowing better than to get too close to the talons she called nails. They were sharper than they looked, and no one could scratch like a vengeful sister.
As I walked home an hour later, hands shoved in my jeans and Savannah’s warm smile playing on a loop in my mind, I had the fleeting thought of heeding Darcy’s warning, but quickly disregarded it. How could she know what the universe wanted for me?