I didn’t sleep much last night, because I kept thinking about that time a long time ago when Tom told me exactly how he felt, and I didn’t understand. That time when I was possibly at 100 percent and didn’t know it.
I was eighteen, putting black platforms on over my fishnets to go hang out with a bad crowd, and Tom had leaned on my door frame and asked me not to go out. It had been no secret that he didn’t approve of all the black-clad guys and how I stayed out all night. I thought it was typical Valeska-in-the-snowdrifts stuff. Tug, tug, away from danger.
In my careless way, I’d snapped at him. Why not? Why shouldn’t I go?
Tom told me in a steady, reasonable voice: Because I love you. And I’d replied without thought or gravitas, I know, because I’d always felt it. How could I not? How many times had he saved me? I’d have to have been a moron to not know it. To this day I know he loves me, in that old, stitched-into-my-family way.
Turns out, I know wasn’t the right reply.
He’d rusted over with embarrassment and left. He wouldn’t turn around as he walked down the front stairs, through our front gate. He wouldn’t stop even as I chased him across the street and he shut the door in my face.
That was the very first time I tore up a once-in-a-lifetime offer.
I bailed on my friends and I went to Loretta’s house instead. When I told her what had happened, she said, I saw that coming. What else would I expect from a fortune-teller? She shook her head. That’s not what she meant.
That boy would take a bullet for you.
We sat outside and shared a joint, and it was a thrill. Don’t tell your father! How’d I birth such a prude? It grows in the earth, for God’s sake. She told me about her first husband, way before she met Grandpa. I never knew she had been married twice, so I was gobsmacked.
I was just a kid, she mused, eyes narrowed on her inhale. Maybe if I’d met him ten years later . . . it was a terrible mistake. I hurt him badly, because I was too young and immature to love him right. I still regret it. Let yourself grow up and live your life. You’re a wild one, just like me.
I’d laughed and said there was no risk of me getting married. This was just me and Tom kissing, if it didn’t feel weird.
Loretta hadn’t been remotely amused. He loves you more than that. I can see you don’t take this seriously.
Like it was an emergency, she bought me my first plane ticket and gave me some cash. A few days later, under the cover of darkness, she drove me to the airport. It was a transformative moment. I was suddenly completely responsible for myself and not part of a set of twins. It was like all the turmoil I’d caused was released out of a pressure valve, and I knew it was the right thing to do.
Loretta handled the fallout from my parents and brother, and I threw my first coin into the Trevi Fountain in Rome, completely addicted to this new reckless anonymity. Nobody saw a girl with a heart condition and a more electric brother. They saw me for the first time, and even better, I could walk away from anything I didn’t like.
My wish, when I threw that coin into the fountain? That Tom wasn’t too bruised by my carelessness.
I drift off now, on the couch with the quilt over my face, imagining myself walking down the carpeted jet bridge from the gate into an airplane. That’s my favorite part: walking out of real life so that everyone I love can exhale.
Except that first time I did it, I walked out a little too long. When I returned, ready to look into Tom’s eyes and be guided by what I felt, I was pulled up short by the sleek, composed girl at his side who would one day wear his beautiful ring.
And here’s the real kicker: Jamie introduced them.
“ALIVE?” THERE’S A voice above me. I wake with a snort, flip the quilt away, and open my eyes. “Ouch.” Tom has sympathy in his voice, so I must look pretty bad. He puts a takeout cup on the coffee table. Next, a takeout box.
I attempt to speak with my dead mouth. “Have I mentioned that you are the world’s best person?”
“A few times. Waffles. That’s still right, isn’t it?” Just like his cheese-lettuce lunch, my hangover food hasn’t changed. I nod and pull myself up onto my elbows. I’m glad he doesn’t know about my trip down memory lane.
“What time is it?” The coffee is the most perfect temperature and sweetness and I drink it in a series of gulps. I’m a hummingbird. “Oh my God.” I tip the last drops into my mouth. I lick the inner rim. “How was that so good?”
Does everything taste this good when delivered by his hands? Megan, you lucky bitch. He could make a cold toast crust succulent, I swear. He takes the lid off his own coffee, pours in a bunch of sugar sachets, and gives it to me. Such charity. Such goodness.
And I tore it up. I tore it all up.
“Don’t cry, they’re just waffles,” he says, smiling. “It’s heading toward lunchtime. I’ve got stuff to show you before we call Jamie.” His phone begins ringing. “Speak of the devil.”
I take the ringing phone and hit speakerphone. Even with tears in my eyes and a regret-thickened throat, I can still say: “Hello, you’ve reached the micro-penis counseling service.”
There’s silence on the other end, then a deep sigh that I’d know anywhere. I heard it before I was born, probably. Tom grins, teeth white, and it’s probably a better feeling than a stadium of people laughing. He’s 2 percent mine. It’s official.
Jamie speaks. “Hilarious. She’s just hilarious.”
“I thought so,” Tom replies.
I stay in character. “How small is your penis, sir?”
“Don’t encourage her,” Jamie orders as Tom breaks and begins laughing. “Darcy, where’s your phone?”
“Women’s bathroom at Sully’s. Second stall from the end.”
“Well, get a new one, dimwit.”
“I’ve got an old one in my car you can have.” Tom’s all about solutions, especially when his boss Jamie is within earshot.
“No, I think I like things better this way,” I tell him. Coffee, waffles, Tom, Patty leaning against my shin, and my brother is calling me dimwit again? Tom’s fixed everything.
Jamie says, “So, let me guess. She’s so hungover she’s a ghost.”
“Ah, well . . . ,” Tom says, because he doesn’t have a lie mode.
I’ve got lie mode on autopilot. “I’ve just gotten back from a walk.”
My brother just laughs in response, for a little too long. “Sure. Are you going to stay out of Tom’s way while he gets started on the house?”
“I’m sure I’ll be gone before he even opens his toolbox, don’t worry.”
“That’d be right,” Jamie says, sarcasm dripping. “Skip out before anything hard. Poor Tom’s going to have to do everything himself.”
“Poor Tom is here to do a job and get paid,” Tom reminds Jamie.
I open the box lid and there are two perfect waffles. “Hey, I have to pack the house. That’s plenty hard.” I drown them in syrup and begin breaking them apart with my hands. I feed Patty a tiny piece and myself a huge piece.
“You’ll flirt Tom into doing it.”
“I will not,” I snap, mouth full, licking my fingers. Above me, Tom’s face is partway between pained and amused.
“You will. You’re going to be worse than ever now.” Jamie scoffs. “No doubt your sympathy was completely unconvincing.”
“I’ll be worse why? What does he mean?” I look up at Tom. He shrugs and interrupts our petty flow.
“We’ve got a lot to do between now and next Monday when the crew arrives. Darce needs to pack, and I want you both to agree on the style we’re doing.”
“Modern,” Jamie says at the exact same moment as I say, “Vintage.”
Tom groans and plops down heavily on the end of the couch. I move my legs just in time. He pinches his hand across his eyes. “Goodbye, cruel world.”
“It’s going to be fine,” I assure him through my bite of waffle. “Don’t you worry.” I tear off a chunk and feed it into his mouth.
“Easy for you to say,” Jamie says. “You’re going to be walking around in a random country licking an ice-cream cone while Tom and I do all the hard work. What’s next on your personal reinvention journey, by the way? You’ve done the piercing and the tough haircut. It’s gotta be a tattoo next.”
I step over that, because Tom’s looking for the piercing. Nose? Ear? Eyebrow? Nope. Now he’s averting his eyes, and his mind is running through the remaining possibilities.
I give the phone a glare. “So your hard work will consist of sitting on your ass in your office and occasionally answering Tom’s calls and emails? You’ll pick out a faucet or some tiles online? That’s hard work?”
“It’s more than you’ll do,” Jamie hisses back. Something inside me lights up; I want to retort, like old times, Challenge accepted! But my hungover brain scratches around and comes up empty. Could I pack the house super-fast?
“It goes without saying that I’m doing the hard work, and you’re paying me to do it,” Tom interjects, ever the calm referee. “Does five percent of the sale price work for you, Darce?”
“Math isn’t her strong point,” Jamie says cruelly, at the same time as I say, “Sure.”
“You don’t even know how much that will be,” Tom prompts, unwillingly agreeing with Jamie. “Do you know what the current market is in this area?”
He holds the phone away a little and lowers his voice. “Make sure you know what you’re saying yes to. This is your inheritance, Darce. I’ve got contracts that you both need to sign. Even though we’re all friends, everything is going to be done right. You’re both clients as soon as you sign.”
“Business is business,” Jamie’s voice says faintly from the phone. “I taught you well.”
I’d have said yes to ten. Twenty. Five percent of his heart. Anything.
“What’s the big deal? I trust you. I’m sure it’s fair. As long as the house is restored, that’s all I care about.”
“You’ve got to start caring about money more.” Tom doesn’t look like he’s glad that I’ve got blind faith in him. He looks like he’s feeling sick.
“Hear that, Tom? You’re the only person on earth Darcy Barrett trusts!” Jamie says, a little too exaggerated, a lot jealous. I narrow my eyes at the phone.
“He’s the perfect man,” I say, just to jab at Jamie.
“You’ve got to stop saying things like that,” Tom says in a pained way. To himself, he says, “No pressure.”
“You’ve been telling her the truth about everything, have you?” Jamie says, and there’s a long silence. Endless. The cotton threads on Tom’s body squeak. “Ah, I see,” Jamie says, speculation in his tone. “Yes, I think I know why you’re playing it this way. Smart.”
For the first time, I feel a sliver of doubt. Tom won’t look at me now. “What the hell are you two cooking up?”
“Nothing,” Tom tells me with a heavy sigh. “All right, this is going nowhere. I’ve got a guy coming to look at the foundation. I really need you two to agree on the style before Wednesday. I’ve got to order stuff.”
“Just make it look exactly the same, but new.” I nod. Case closed.
“Make it look like my apartment,” Jamie orders him. “Just deal with her until she leaves and do your standard modern renovation. Like that place you did last year, with the fancy gray feature wall. Do what sells.”
“Gray feature wall? Loretta is laughing until she’s crying right now.” I look around at the beautiful wallpaper. I thought I could trust Tom to take care of this place. “You know that an old cottage like this would look ridiculous done modern.”
“We’ll need to have a weekly budget meeting,” Tom says, persevering, “and any changes once we’ve set the baseline will have to be agreed on by both of you. I’m having this job come in early and under budget.”
“I know you will,” Jamie says, his voice nothing but confidence. I’ve never heard him sound like that. “I’m going to a meeting. Tom, make it modern.” Jamie hangs up. Tom tosses the phone onto the coffee table and leans back. Under the blanket, my feet are pinned by his thigh.
“Modern vintage,” Tom says to himself. “Barrett versus Barrett. I’m not sure how I’m going to pull this one off. You know I can’t make you both happy, right?”
“You just have to decide who you want to make more happy. Hint: It’s me.” I smile at him. As doubt pinches his features, I smile wider, cuter, a nose-wrinkle, putting every bit of spoiled baby sister that I can into it.
“I do like making you happy,” he admits grudgingly, and I’m bumped up. Three percent. I feel like a store’s millionth shopper.
“Why was Jamie hinting about a secret? You can tell me, you know.”
He takes the empty takeout container from me, and I swipe the syrup container and drink the rest. Judging from his expression, that was gross.
“You’re going to get diabetes,” he says faintly. “Or rot your perfect teeth right out of your head.”
Perfect? “Worth it.”
“There are no secrets when it comes to this renovation. I’ll be up front with you both.”
His eyes catch on my mouth. I lick and everything’s sweet. Everything’s heavy. He’s still sitting on my foot and I didn’t know that was a fetish, but hey, what did I know two minutes ago? I sit up with an ab-muscle tremble and it was a mistake, because now we’re closer.
“Do you still live on-site when you renovate?”
“Yeah, I’ve got my camping gear.” One second is up, and he’s passing his palms over his knees like he’s wiping away sweat. “Did Jamie say you pierced yourself somewhere?”
“Yep. And it hurt like a bitch.”
He won’t ask me where it is. He refuses to. “Thought you’ve had enough needles in your life.”
“I needed one more.” I was so cavalier about it, imagining my next heart review and how tough it’d look. It hurt like my entire body and soul had been pierced and I loved it, because in that all-consuming agony, I couldn’t think about diamond rings and my brother’s fury.
Plus, it looks hot. Silver and pink is one hell of a combination.
He’s thinking about where it could possibly be, I just know it. Time to get Megan back in the room with us.
“What does Megan think of you being away from home so much? She hates it,” I conclude without pause.
“She doesn’t care,” Tom says with no bitterness. “She’s used to it.”
“If you were mine,” I say, and the words seem to run down his spine because he sits up straight, “I wouldn’t like it. You know what I’m like, though.”
“What are you like? I have no idea,” he adds when I cast him a come on look.
“With most guys? I couldn’t care less if they lived or died. You, though . . .” I look at the two empty coffee cups and feel the weight of his goodness and I want to tell him the truth in return.
The thought of how a million people must abuse his kindness—myself included—makes me crazy.
I want to walk two steps in front of him, wherever he goes, bulldozing the world a little flatter for him. If he were sleeping on a building site, and he were mine, I’d be in that tent, too. All night, every night, as the wind whistled and the rain beat down. I’d never let another woman sit as close as I am right now. Megan seriously lets this walk around on earth, completely unattended?
If I were Megan, I would fuck me up for sitting close enough to smell the scent on his skin. He smells like birthday-candle wishes. I’ve never in my life felt even a passing possessiveness for another man, but Tom Valeska? It’s something I have to keep lashed down inside me, hard and tight, because I have no right to it.
Maybe he’s not the only wolfy sled dog around these parts.
Some of this is in my eyes because he blinks and swallows. He’s trying to ignore the undercurrent between us. It’s because he’s a good guy. My brain doesn’t want him to be any different. But my body wants him to pick me up and put me against the wall. Windowsill. Floor. Bed.
I have to salvage this situation.
“Oh, come on. You know what I’m like better than anyone. Now, are you going to tell me this secret?”
“It wouldn’t be a good idea, trust me,” he says carefully, but his pupils give him away. They’re black drugged eyes, and I know he wants to tell me. Why else would he leave a little gap for me to squeeze through? He didn’t just say no.
It’s on the tip of his tongue. I need to bite it off. I wonder if I can make myself persuasive. “Is it about the house?”
He shakes his head like he’s hypnotized. His brown eyes? They’re my favorite. In this morning light, they’re a treasure trove. Gold, sands, tombs, coins, riches. Egyptian pyramids, eternal life. Gilded sarcophagi. Cleopatra’s dinnerware.
“Is it about Jamie?” He shakes his head no again. I put everything I have into it. “You can tell me.”
He seems to give himself a little mental slap, and his brow creases downward. “You can stop it now.”
“Stop what?”
“What Jamie said. Stop trying to flirt things out of me.” He’s disgusted. “You really should get into Loretta’s line of work.”
If I can occasionally hypnotize him, Jamie can make him walk over hot coals. This house is a sitting duck in the hands of my tyrannical genetic copy and someone who has never had any creative license in his entire career.
“And you should stop hiding something from me. I’m going to work on the house.”
As I say it out loud, something clicks down into position inside me.
It’s the perfect retort I should have said to Jamie. The usual feeling of chickenshit guilt dissipates like squeezing a zit. I’m going to work on fulfilling Loretta’s wish for this place and protect it from anyone who can’t appreciate Maison de Destin’s inherent magic.
“I feel like if there’s any chance to get back into Jamie’s good graces, it’s going to take blood, sweat, and tears. I’m going to redeem myself.”
“Not too much of your blood, or tears. Or sweat,” Tom says, thinking. “Just be around when I need to call Jamie to get a quick decision made. Can you move out and stay with Truly?”
“No way. I’m working and I’m staying here in a tent, just like you. I’m on your crew.”
He grins at the thought, but it fades off. “Sorry, no.”
“Any particular reason? Don’t you need free labor?”
“I can’t focus when you’re around,” he says with complete honesty, and a little starburst thrill pops inside my stomach. His eye contact is uncomplicated so I don’t think there’s anything more to the statement. “But it’s your house, so I can’t stop you. You could help on the occasional small project. Maybe painting the new front fence.”
“No. I’m not doing the girly stuff. I’m using tools.”
“No heavy lifting, no manual labor, no ladders, no electrical—” Tom stops himself. He’s imagining me with my finger in a socket, I bet. He’s got a big brow crease. “I don’t think my insurance would cover this. You’re a liability.”
My mouth drops open, the void opens up like a canyon inside my chest, and everything’s whooshing. A liability.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” He is obviously horrified at what he just said. “Darce, that came out completely wrong.”
“Fine, it’s fine. It’s true. Do whatever you want to the cottage. Like I care. It’s being sold to some rich Jamie clone, anyway. What does it matter?” It’s a miracle I can still speak. I struggle up and nearly trip over the coffee table.
“You do care,” he protests, hot on my heels as I make a beeline for the bathroom. I slip in, shut the door, and lock it. “You care so much it’s crazy. I’m not going to do a job that you’re going to be unhappy with.”
“I don’t care. I’m going to be about ten million miles away by the time you crack open a can of paint. Just do whatever Jamie wants, liability free.” Time to get these feelings together like loose sheets of paper. Tap them into a stack. Stick them into a shredder.
“I’m so sorry.”
Time to leave before I do something I can’t undo.
“Open up, please,” Tom says, knocking again. Does he have no self-preservation? “I really didn’t mean it how it sounded. Of course you aren’t a liability.”
“You never lie.”
“I do lie. Every day.”
I look at myself in the old speckled mirror. I look terrible. Under each eye is a purple mark. Each cheek has a vaudeville spot of color. I’ve studied Megan at every Christmas party I’ve been home for. I’m telling you, she is poreless.
“Go away,” I say because I can feel he’s still there. He can’t follow me here. I pull my clothes off and look down at my weird body, with its too-big joints and waffle-belly fatness. The piercing on my nipple now looks like it’s part of a costume.
“I could unscrew the hinges,” he says in a friendly voice. I think of myself last night, lying on the floor outside like a hound.
“If you do that you’ll be scarred for life. I’m taking a shower.”
“Don’t go back into your shell. It’s okay that you care about this house. And I want to hear how you picture the finished product.” Through the door, he says in a new tone, “DB, please get dressed so I can hug you and tell you I’m sorry.”
“You heard your boss. Make it modern.” My voice sounds even harder when it bounces off the tiles. I crank the shower and it spits and steams. Then I stand in the water and when I cry, the tears wash away. The perfect crime.
I’m standing in the exact same place that Tom Valeska stood naked.
I’m not going to think about things like that anymore.
