“Okay. Hit me with it,” Wren said, once Lark had sat down. Only Lark could perch in a chair and remain in constant motion.
Lark opened her mouth, then closed it. Then she slumped back and crossed her arms.
Wren frowned…because this suddenly did feel like an emergency.
“Lark. What’s wrong?”
Lark bit her lower lip, then lowered her head. “I fucked up. Big-time.”
This wasn’t the first time she’d heard those exact same words from her sister. Hell, it wasn’t the twentieth time.
“I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think,” Wren said soothingly. She’d had a lifetime of practice when it came to reassuring Lark.
Lark finally lifted her head and took what appeared to be a bracing breath. “I need you to be me this weekend.”
Wren blinked. “No.”
Lark groaned. “You didn’t even think about it.”
“Hell no,” Wren said, stressing her response. “I don’t need to think about it.”
“But, Wren?—”
“We did that when we were kids, Lark. For fun. For harmless little pranks on our friends. Are you proposing this as a joke?” she asked, even though she knew what the answer would be.
Lark shook her head. “No. This time, it would be serious.”
“There’s no way I could pull off ‘being you,’” Wren finger-quoted. “As we’ve gotten older, we’ve become very different people.”
“I know that, but, Wrennie,” Lark pleaded, “I wouldn’t ask you to do this if it wasn’t really important.”
She was determined to stick to her no. But obviously, Lark wouldn’t accept that until she shared what the emergency was and Wren found another solution for her sister. One that didn’t involve pretending to be her live wire of a sister.
Why oh why did they have to be identical twins? Fraternal would have been just fine.
Wren suddenly regretted deciding against cutting her long blonde hair into a bob-style last month.
“What’s the emergency, Lark?”
Lark’s shoulders slumped, and for once, she wasn’t all bright energy and chaos. Instead, she looked worried.
“Nora’s mad at me. I’ve kind of been screwing up a bit at work.”
“Dammit, Lark?—”
Her sister cut her off. “I know what you’re going to say. It’s just…”
“You’re showing up late?” Wren asked, even though she knew the answer.
Lark nodded. “I’ve been struggling to get there on time. It’s okay when I start my day cleaning cabins with Remi, because she doesn’t care if I’m a few minutes late. But Nora notices. Plus…I might have swapped shifts a few times in the past couple of months, and the last time, I forgot to tell Nora. Tonya, the girl who traded with me, didn’t show up, so Nora had to work my shift. Obviously, she was mad at me, because she thought I was the one who missed.”
“Why didn’t you ask her for those days off before she put you on the schedule?” Wren knew Nora Storm, so she knew the woman wasn’t much of a hard-ass.
One side of Lark’s mouth twisted up, but she didn’t bother to answer the question. Because she didn’t need to.
Wren rubbed her eyes wearily. This conversation with her sister was the equivalent of a scratchy record, stuck in the same spot, repeating the same words over and over and over. “What happened to that planner I bought you for Christmas? You swore you were going to start writing things down.”
“And I did,” Lark insisted. “For a little while, but then…I forgot about it. Then I lost it.”
