Page 14 of Double Trouble
I shifted uneasily. Luckily, I still had some lip gloss leftover from earlier today, but still. I was makeup-less in front of the hottest guys I knew.
“This is Penelope,” I told them.
She waved. “Anything you want to know about Cin, you just ask me.”
“Great, thanks,” I said, shooting a glare at her as we got in the back.
“Never said I’d tell them the answers,” she pointed out.
“Ok, how about this,” Jake said as he pulled his Porsche away from the curb. His voice rose an octave. “How do I win Cin’s undying affection?”
“Wine,” Penelope said immediately. “Lots of it.”
We all laughed.
Inside the car, the chitchat flowed easily. Although my mind was periodically pulled away from the conversation, distracted by Owen’s nearness, the way his eyes returned to mine every so often. Inside, I was roiling with nerves. Before, the crazy-hot kiss with Jake and our phone conversation after had made me start to think that he was the one I liked. But now I was definitely starting to have feelings for Owen too. We couldn’t continue things like this indefinitely, could we?
A few minutes later we were there, and Jake raced over to open the door for me.
“An Owen move,” he said, tossing a wink to his brother.
“How gentlemanly,” Owen said as he clasped my hand.
“I try,” Jake said as he clasped the other one.
“Talk about being the fourth wheel,” Penelope said with a good-humored laugh.
“Here,” I said, dropping both twins’ hands and grabbing hers.
“Sorry,” she giggled to them.
Glancing at each other, they went for my free hand at the same time.
“Can we please not act like we’re twelve?” I asked them.
“We can try,” Jake said in a half-hearted voice.
Inside the movie theater, we were pretty early, so there was plenty of time to talk.
“So you did used to switch with each other in school?” Penelope asked, looking to Owen.
“Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes Jake would even fail my tests for me.”
“Just how you started that food fight and said you were me?” Jake said with a sanguine smile.
“Kinda crazy you guys work together now,” Penelope commented.
“Not really,” Jake said. “Back then our feuds were nothing serious, just kid stuff. Whenever we’d get into big trouble, we’d band together to figure it out. Just how we do now.”
There was something forced about Owen’s smile as he agreed. “Yep. Just how we do now.”
“Food time,” I said, grinning as I accepted the menu from the theatre attendant.
“Ice cream,” Jake said immediately, “All I want is ice cream.”
“Ice cream does sound pretty good,” I said, my finger scanning the flavors. “They even have Rolo.”
After we told the attendant our selections and she left, talk returned to the movie at hand.
“I heard this one might be scary,” Jake said to me in a somber tone, touching my arm. “So if you need to cuddle up to me, don’t hesitate.”
“It’s Avengers,” I said, smirking. “Not The Shining.”
“Now that you mention it,” Jake continued. “Didn’t you run out of the room crying when you first saw The Shining, Owen?”
“I was four,” Owen said. “And Jack Nicholson is a scary bastard when he’s crazy. Anyway, check this out.”
He held out his phone and I stared. For a good few seconds, what was on the screen didn’t process. The woman with her hair splaying around her like a halo was too beautiful, almost unearthly so.
“Holy hell you look hot!” Penelope said, peering over Owen to see the screen.
I looked up to Owen. It was clear he’d done some fiddling with the colors and gradients and all that, but still. “This is how you see me?”
He nodded. “That’s how you are.”
Right then, I felt like kissing him, like the rush of feeling in me found a channel. Because it was more than Owen had taken a pretty picture of me. That picture, the way he caught the play of sad and happy, full and empty in my eyes, they way he’d captured it, it was clear. He got me. Owen hardly knew me and yet, he did somehow.
The theatre attendant returning with our ice cream interrupted the moment but didn’t eradicate it. As the lights dimmed and Owen’s hand found mine, I concentrated my ice cream eating with my other hand, happy for the contact. He stroked my hand, tracing the outline of all my fingers as if finger-painting a portrait of them, stroking up and down every inch of my palm as though trying to read it like braille.
Maybe I could tell him about losing Brent, I realized in a flash.
As the movie screen flashed to life and all of us sunk into our seats, it wasn’t the movie I was truly looking forward to, it was what would come after.
9
Jake
What had happened between them at that harbor photoshoot anyway?
Peering over at Cin out of the corner of my eye revealed nothing. So Owen had taken some hot picture of her on the beach, so what? Yeah, I guess girls liked art, but still. This date was supposed to prove that Cin liked me better, not that she was closer with my brother than I’d feared.
