First, Ever and Wren being half brothers, and now this?
What were the odds?
What were the fucking odds?
I naïvely thought the next two months would be the easiest, most carefree time of my entire life, but it was apparent fate had other plans. The summer had gone to shit as far as I was concerned.
Both girls stood frozen, their gazes locked, with what I could only assume were a million questions begging to be answered. I wondered at the chances of Selena being mistaken. Still, after studying the possible sisters carefully, I realized that if not for the two-inch height difference, Tyra and Selena could have been carbon copies.
Feeling my dick slowly deflate and remembering that I only wore a towel, I pulled a stunned Tyra back inside. After a moment of hesitation, I awkwardly invited Selena into a house that didn’t belong to me. Once I showed her into the living room, I took Tyra’s small, trembling hand in mine and led her up the stairs.
Her small bedroom was a teenage girl’s wonderland.
The lights Tyra had strung up on the wall above her bed illuminated the pictures of us covering the entire wall adjacent to it. Most of the time, I pretended not to see them or feel the sharp chord in my chest, knowing they were there. I gently placed her on the bed and shoved Mr. Bear, her favorite stuffed pig—I still scratched my head at that one—into her lap. Tyra immediately wrapped her arms around it before staring at her bedroom floor.
Turning away to dig out the duffel—one her father didn’t know I kept in his daughter’s closet—I dropped the towel, hurriedly pulled on a pair of sweats, and then shoved a loose-fitting muscle shirt over my head. I decided to keep some clothes here after the third or fourth bubble bath when it became clear that this was now a routine for us. Soaking in a tub hadn’t been my thing until Tyra convinced me of the benefits. Let’s just say it involved her getting wet that first time, too.
Just as I was pulling on a pair of socks, I heard the faint but unmistakable sound of sniffling. I looked up in time to see the first tear fall down Tyra’s soft, supple cheek.
Fuck.
As much as I wanted to get the hell out of there, I knew I could never leave her like this.
Sounds an awful lot like you’re starting to give a damn, Rees.
I gritted my teeth and shoved the possibility into the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind where my father could never hope to reach it. Not even if he made good on his many threats to torture me.
Pulling Tyra up, I took her place on the bed before planting her in my lap. She wasted no time curling into me for the comfort that I had no business giving. I wasn’t her boyfriend. It wasn’t my place to be the foundation that kept her from crumbling. I had every right to walk out that door.
I balled my hand into a fist in frustration as I kept my ass planted on her overcrowded bed.
“Just say the word, and I’ll toss her out on her ass,” I heard myself whispering in lieu of goodbye. The hole I’d been digging for the past year was getting deeper every day, and if I weren’t careful, my father would throw both of our lifeless bodies inside.
“I don’t understand,” Tyra cried in response. “My mother and father were in love. How can she be my sister?”
“She’s older,” I gently pointed out. “Maybe they found each other after she was born.”
“My father said he was with my mother for five years before she got pregnant with me. Selena can’t be more than twenty-one years old.”
I thought about that for a moment. Unfortunately for us both, Tyra was right. Selena barely looked old enough to be out of high school. No way could she be almost thirty. “It’s possible you share the same father, too. Maybe they gave her up for adoption,” I reasoned. “Maybe they weren’t ready to be parents at the time.” I dried her tears only for twice as many to fall in their place. Fuck, fuck, fuck! “Not until you came along.”
Tyra went still, and instantly, the tears dropped as a cold look took over her normally warm gaze. “Then how did she get her hands on that letter? A letter that was meant for my dad?”
Before I could respond, Tyra was up and rushing from