Back when I was a kid, I had a hoard of good-luck charms. A mountain of pennies I’d picked up, a sock my twin sister had worn when her kindergarten soccer team won the championship… even a piece of paper that Isworecould make any wish I wrote on it come true. Strangely, none of them seemed to work consistently, but I’d been both stubborn and timid as fuck. I’d been convinced that if I found the right charm, it would make me brave.
Then the summer I turned nine, while attempting to find a four-leaf clover that my cousin Arlosworehe’d seen growing near the woodpile in his backyard, I acquired the worst case of poison ivy known to man—so bad I couldn’t help scratching and ended up getting a terrible skin infection that landed me in the hospital on IV antibiotics, crying the whole damn time because Arlo was gonna get the clover before me and steal my luck.
Yes, really.
After a few days of this, my poor, exasperated Mom had thrown up her hands and told Ma Ann to “sit your son down and explain this stuff to him, Annie, before he concusses himself trying to steal a horse’s shoe next, for Christ’s sake.” And Ma Ann had done just that. She’d sat on the side of my hospital bed and explained in her quiet voice the concept ofprobability—the science behind luck—so that I’d stop running amok looking for “flippin’ clovers.”
It had been a life-changing moment for me.
It turned out, outcomes tended to follow patterns. If I learned to account for the right variables, I could predict the likelihood of any outcome, because there was a probability to everything—winning bets, acing tests, scoring touchdowns, even making friends. And you didn’t have to be brave when you could only take the risks you knew would pay off, right?
I’d decided Arlo could keep his damn clovers, and I’d spent my life focusing on the numbers instead.
But then three hundred fifty-five days ago, I’d driven home from Vermont after my promising Hannabury interview and found the world’s most beautiful man standing in front of my mailbox, pouting his perfect,perfectlips, flipping his long red hair, and talking about fairies. And I—rational, shy John Curran—had for the first time in my life wanted to grab a man, run possessive hands all over his body, and never let him go.
There was no metric in the universe that could have accounted for the absurd coincidence of that meeting. No collection of data I could have evaluated that would have predicted the instant, overwhelmingclickI’d felt when his eyes met mine. No method of analysis that could have forecasted how much this one person had come to mean to me.
In short, when it came to Teagan, the numbers didn’t apply.
I am not going to have sex with my roommate.
I debated taking the train home, but I knew the Green Line would be packed with commuters, so I opted for a half-hour walk home instead, figuring it would be a good chance to get my head on straight—or at leastvery platonically—before spending the evening with my best friend on the couch.
The weather was the kind of autumn-crisp that peoplethought of when they imagined fall in New England—cool enough that I didn’t turn the concerning shade of red that would make bystanders worry my burly ass was gonna stroke out any second, but with a warm breeze blowing in off the water that swirled the yellow and orange leaves on the ground like one of the seventeenth-century Iranian carpets in the textile exhibit Teagan had dragged me to last spring. Canada geese flew south in a tidy V-formation that soothed my soul, honking their asses off.
Almost home. Do I get to hear the news now?
“Evening, John!” Mrs. Graziella, the elderly woman who lived downstairs, called with a wave as I hoofed it up Grand View toward home. She and her husband were taking their Pekingese, Tito, for his evening stroll, and as usual, they were linked arm in arm with their white heads bent so close together, it was impossible to tell who was supporting who.
“Hi, guys. Hey, Tito,” I said, smiling as I passed them. “Sorry, I’m running late.”
“What’s the rush?” Mr. Graziella called. “Got a hot date with your young man? Tell him he left his muffin plate at our place this morning, and he can bring me more muffins when he comes to collect it!”
“Dante.” Mrs. Graziella smacked her husband lightly and spoke in an urgent whisper that people on the next block could probably hear. “What did I tell you? I asked Teagan, and he said they aren’t dating.”
“Ah, baloney. I seen the way this kid looks at him.” I could feel Mr. Graziella’s gaze on my back as I jogged up the steps from the sidewalk to my building. “Wait, no kidding? Then who’s Teagan dating? You might think I’m going deaf, but I swear I heard you and Teagan this morning talking about him going on dates and findingthe one.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Dante,” Mrs. Graziella hissed. “I thought you were watching your car auctions on the television!”
My face went hot as I opened the building door, and when I hit the lobby, I could feel sweat soaking my temples as my heart pounded. It took me a second to recognize the feeling for what it was—panic—because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt that way.
Shit. If both Marie and Mr. Graziella had noticed my feelings for Teagan, I was doing a shit job of hiding it. How long before Teagan noticed?
Calm and Steady John had officially left the building.
My phone buzzed in my hand, and I looked down, expecting a reply from Teagan, but instead the words EVIL TWIN appeared above a picture of my sister sticking her tongue out.
Jesus. Why had the whole world decided to descend on me at once?
I knew exactly why Molly was calling… and I didn’t have an answer for her any more than I had for Professor Kheir or Marie.
I darted a guilty glance around the lobby and declined the call, hoping that Molly would drop it, but I should have known better. A moment later, the text messages began.
EVIL TWIN
John. Bernard. Curran. Stop ducking my calls.
You think I’m calling to ask WHAT THE FUCK YOU’RE THINKING, not jumping at this job at Hannabury, don’t you?
