Cracked an eye open to find Callum’s bed on the other side of our room. Empty, with rumpled sheets.
Figured. Cal had dropped his Coast Guard discipline the second nobody was yelling at him to make his bunk.
But… Mötley Crüe. Bed empty three hours before either business opened.
Didn’t need to see my identical twin to know. He was pissed.
Sure enough, I found him in the doorway of the third bedroom, where the mayor had set up a gym. Banging out pull-ups like a damn machine in nothing but a pair of gym shorts. Dripping sweat with wild eyes. And a massive hard-on.
That old familiar itch rose in my bones. Match him. Mirror him. Stay the same so you don’t fall apart.
But there was only one pull-up bar.
And my dick hadn’t worked since I moved back to Bear Mountain—right after black ops Joint Task Bear Force chewedme up and spit me out with heavily redacted discharge papers featuring words likecorrupted,body count, andtoo unstable to trust.
So I went for the stereo.
Nice thing about the mayoral cave den, it dated back to the last century and came with vintage everything. Real sound system. None of that Bluetooth Wi-Fi crap wired into the Bear Mountain Proper cabins where we grew up.
Cal damn near went feral over it when we moved in. Blew hundreds on CDs full of music from before we were born. So, yeah. I knew cutting Vince Neil off mid-scream would piss him right the hell off.
I guessed right.
He dropped to the ground. Glared at me like I’d kicked Tommy Lee in the balls. “Turn it back on.”
I waited.
“I said, turn it back on.” He bared his teeth. Took a step toward me.
I just peeled off my T-shirt. At least now we matched on top.
Still, I couldn’t mirror him if he was seriously pissed. Too close to the natural state I’d been hiding underneath the shell of being one of the “Red Outsider Twins”—the ones nobody in Bear Mountain could tell apart.
“You wanna tell me why you’re interfering with my workout?” Cal demanded, getting right in my face.
“You wanna tell me what set you off?”
“None of your business.”
I stared him down. Didn’t blink.
Eventually, he caved. “Cody’s closing the restaurant early so he and his new best friend Hawk can make a big surprise dinner for their mauls.”
“Okay,” I said, brow furrowing. Not sure why he was riled up and sporting a hard-on overnothaving to work tonight.
“It’s not even either of their birthdays!” Cal snapped, heading back to the bar and knocking out a few more rolling reps. “Cody says they just wannado something nicefor their mates. Guess winning the maul bride lottery wasn’t enough for them. Now they gotta rub their happily-ever-after in our faces, too.”
He paused to huff out an angry breath. “I mean, what are the odds of notonebuttwoeligible tourists strolling into our town during off-season?”
Touristwas what we called both the literal tourists and the humans who’d gotten turned into bears during their time in Bear Mountain. Not gonna lie, it could get confusing.
“One of those tourists was the older sister,” I pointed out anyway. “She wouldn’t have come if she wasn’t looking for Noelle.”
“And how long did it take Holly Winters to walk into that bar after Hawk strolled in to meet those Iron Claw MCs?” he gritted out.
Aw hell. Not this again.
I didn’t answer.
