His mouth quirked upward at that. He opened his phone, flipped through it, then turned the screen toward me.
I gawked.
The photo on the screen showed two of him standing side by side. One was grinning. The other wasn’t.
“What the hell?” My jaw dropped. “Are you trying to say it wasn’t you, it was your evil twin?”
He blinked twice, looking genuinely surprised. “Well, yes, actually.”
“Nice try, but that’s obviously Photoshopped. Or AI.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “I usually have this whole spiel I use to explain. I didn’t expect you to guess it.”
I stared at him. “Come on. You don’t really have an evil twin.”
“I assure you that I do.” He frowned slightly. “Though I’m not sure that ‘evil’ is quite the word I’d use. Anyway, I’m Landon. The person you presumably had an encounter with yesterday is my twin, Kai.”
He held out his hand, but I was too confused to shake it.
So instead, he handed me the beer he’d been holding, and I accepted it automatically. He turned back to the fridge and got another one for himself.
I couldn’t quite take it in. How could there betwomen that looked that good? I stared at the photo, even enlarging it with my fingers, trying to find evidence that it was faked. But the more I looked, the more convinced I became that it wasn’t. I stepped back, really looking at him this time, searching for differences.
I couldn’t find any. Except maybe that his hair was a little less spiky.
“I’m sorry,” I said, handing him back his phone.
He waved off my apology. “No need. This isn’t the first time it’s happened. And at least you didn’t slap me.”
“Someone’s slapped you before?”
He nodded grimly. Then he gestured toward the seating area in front of the fireplace. “Want to sit down, drink, and take turns complaining about my irresponsible sibling?”
I gave a half smile. “I’ve actually got one of those, too.”
“A twin?”
“No. A younger sister.”
We settled onto the leather sofa in front of the fire. There were blankets in a basket nearby, and Landon grabbed one and handed it to me before swinging his feet up onto the coffee table, crossing his ankles.
I noticed his long legs. Even his bare feet were kind of sexy—not gross like some men’s.
We drank in silence for a moment. The fire crackled, filling the quiet with warmth.
“So, you just have one sister?” Landon asked.
“Yes. She’s twenty. I’m twenty-two, but I feel ten years older than her sometimes.”
“I know what you mean. I’m about thirty minutes older than Kai, but sometimes it feels like ten years separate us as well.”
“So you’re very different?”
He looked contemplative, staring into the fire. “We used to be the same. We used to be... well, I’ve never understood the phrase ‘thick as thieves,’ but it probably fits.”
At the mention of the word ‘thick,’ my eyes flicked to his muscular thigh before I could stop myself. But then I raised my gaze and gave a little smile. “I don’t know what it means either, but maybe you could say ‘thick as twins’? But that doesn’t sound right either.” The initial sounds needed to be the same. “Twisted as twins?”
He laughed, the low sound seeming to have surprised him for some reason. “That works.”
