Chapter One
Lorelei
Weird things are widespread in this world.
Why do women love wearing animal print clothing (looking at you, Hadley Dawson Rawls)? What is the point of a keto diet? Who decided daylight saving time was a brilliant idea? Where does one joyfully put together a 5,000 piece puzzle in an apartment that she shares with her messy twin sister? And how do I turn down my sister’s absurd request to twin swap for her date tonight without breaking her fragile, romantic heart?
“Lucy, you know I’ve never been on a date before. I would only fumble this up for you.”
Lucy lies on her back across the cocoa-colored loveseat with our shared ice bag—the oneshepicked out as it’s imprinted with little crowns and hearts—over her left eye. She’d burst into the apartment ten minutes ago—knocking a few leaves off my Bird of Paradise plant that was innocently basking in the late afternoon sun under the window by the front door—in hysterics because a kid threw a tennis ball at a wall and it bounced back and hit herin the eye earlier today at the Juniper Grove Community Center where she works.
“But that’s why you should go! It can be practice for your first real date when you meet that special someone.” She says the words as if it’s the most obvious solution, but she doesn’t understand how the idea of a date sends my nervous system into a rebellion.
I have no idea how to behave romantically. In fact, the few times I’ve been interested in a guy, I’ve hidden and buried it until I got over the strange feelings. That’s another question: how in the world does Lucy enjoy those types of feelings? The sweaty hands, hard and heavy heartbeats, the stomach knots, the uncertainty… It’s all too much. But she lives to fall in love it seems.
Which makes my mission all the more impossible because her scheduled date tonight is with an actual, real-life prince. It’s the type of scenario she writes about.
“Just slap one of the many makeup products you horde like treasure onto the bruise.” Itisa nasty bruise, and the swellingisatrocious. I smothered the injury in arnica gel immediately when she arrived home.
She removes the ice bag and sits up, leaning against the armrest while crossing her legs. “Look at this.” She points to her eye, her pink-polished nail inches away from accidentally touching the monstrosity. “Regardless of not having a product thick enough to cover the intense bruise, this eye will be swollen shut by the end of the night. I’m already having trouble keeping it open.”
I’m quiet as I sit on the recliner, the same chocolate color as our couch, rocking slowly while I process my sister’s request. I love her. Dearly. And normally I would find a way to move mountainsfor her and her happiness. But this request is too much. And ultimately, I would only decimate her chances. There’s no way Prince Finley Andersson would ask her out again after a night with me. I’m the awkward, socially clueless, brainiac, autistic woman who lacks the normal female warmth, sensitivity, and grace that my twin exudes, even if she has her more dramatic moments like right now.
“Please, Lor.” Lucy sighs as if she’s already been defeated. Which is true as of this moment. “We’ve switched before. And we’ve had a lot of fun doing it in the past.”
“But that was when we were young. And it was innocent pranks on our teachers and friends.” I think back to the times we switched in order to try each others’ high school elective classes, to trick our friend group (minus Hadley who has always had a special gift to tell us apart), and occasionally, we even fooled our parents. It was…fun. And to be honest, I haven’t had time for fun in my attempt to climb the ladder at my law firm, Donwell Family Law. Work has been my life for the past two years, and I still have a long way to go to make partner one day. I don’t have time for silliness like this. And I have never switched with Lucy for a date or to trick a guy she was into. Frankly, she never asked.
“You’ve been working nonstop, Lor. You take care of me. You put everything and everyone else before you. I know I’m asking you to do this for me, and I also know it’s an extremely selfish request.” She crawls to the other side of the couch to be closer to where I’m sitting and grabs my hand. “But this is two-fold. Yes, you would be rescuing me, but this would also be good for you. You’re twenty-five and have never been on a date. Which in itselfisn’t bad, but you should get this experience with someone we can trust.”
I scoff. “How can we trust him? We’ve only met him once at Hadley’s wedding, and to be honest, I didn’t care for him much.” The arrogance that dripped in his walk and the smirk that danced across his lips, even as he ran into me and spilled a drink down my bridesmaid dress, flickers to mind. The way my skin crawled at the wet, sticky fabric clinging to my body still haunts my nightmares.
“Hadley trusts him. And we trust her.”
Valid.
“But still. Can’t you simply reschedule the date?”
Lucy lies back down and places the ice bag over her eye. “He’s aprince,Lor. I am lucky to have this date. I can’t just reschedule with a prince.”
“Why not? If he’s here in Juniper Grove, Mississippi, he must not care too much about his title and position.”Though that haughty air around him at the wedding tells me his feathers would be tickled if something didn’t go his way.
“Hadley told us why. He isn’t the crown prince, and he wants to pave his own path in life.”
I stare blankly at my twin, who can’t see me as she still has one eye covered and the other fixed on our white, textured ceiling. “Exactly. So he wouldn’t be against rescheduling.”
Lucy shoots up, dropping the ice bag, and turns that pointed glare right to me. “He is still a very rich, very mannered prince. Even in Mississippi. I don’t have it in me to reveal I have a black eye from a kid while working at a job I can’t stand because I’m nota successful romance author yet. I can’t tell him all that. I need him tolike mefirst.ThenI can confess all my failings to him.”
The anxiety and worry in her voice balls into a pit in my stomach. She doesn’t often show how much she’s struggling not having “made it” as an author yet, but I know it’s killing her. She lives and breathes writing, and furthermore, I don’t think the fiercest heartbreak would turn Lucy’s idealist love sour. Though she has her head in the clouds at times, she’s the purest, kindest soul I know. And again… I would move mountains for my younger-by-one-minute sister.
“But like I said, Lor. You work every day only to come home and work every night. You don’t even watch documentaries these days, which is still boring, but I know you consider that fun. You stick to this rigid routine and never allow yourself to step outside the parameters you’ve set. Which I get. It calms you and makes sense to you. But you can’t let autism dictate your life. You need to do something new. Different. Fun. Insane.” Her words sting because, well, they’re true. Since graduating from law school and accepting a full-time position at Donwell Family Law, work has become my identity. Occasionally I hang out with the girls, but even then, I retire early and shut myself in my room to work.
I’ve known I’m autistic since I was four, and I’ve constantly looked for ways to trick my brain into normalcy. I’m not ashamed by any means, but I also know that I can get…stuck.
And I am very much stuck in life right now.
As if sensing my change of mood, Frizzle, one of our two twin Abyssinian cats, jumps into my lap, rubbing her furry cheek against my hand. Not to be left out, Frannie, the other cat, jumpson the edge of the couch by Lucy’s feet and then springs, using Lucy’s face as a landing pad. She screeches and jolts up, throwing her ice bag onto the floor, but then she swoops Frannie into her arms, mumbling something about losing her good eye to cat claws.
“Why are you like this?” Lucy asks her, but then Frannie purrs and Lucy rubs her face against the cat’s short, reddish-orange hair. “Yeah, you’re my favorite. But don’t tell Frizzle.”
