Page 28

Sliding my key into our apartment, I fully expected for Thayer to be sleeping off his shift at the club. What I hadn’t expected was to see him sitting on the couch watching TV.

As I closed the door behind me, his gaze followed me and it finally hit me that it wasn’t Thayer, but rather his twin brother, Troian. The buzzcut was a dead giveaway, but it was so jarring seeing someone share my best friend’s face that it took longer to register than it probably should have. With my recent hospital visit, I could also just blame it on that.

“Thayer’s not here.” Troian said, pausing the show he was watching on TV and crossing his arms. What the fuck was with this guy and crossing his arms? “He went out to get food.”

The last thing I’d planned on when I’d wanted to come home was to deal with the absentee brother I’d been denied knowing about. Plus, I wanted to be as quick as possible, considering that Kroven was waiting for me in the car downstairs. He’d told me to take my time yelling at Thayer and gathering my things, but I still wanted to be considerate.

My heart felt like it was enveloped by a swarm of bumblebees at the fact that I was going to be recovering at Kroven’s house for a few days. He’d pleaded, telling me he’d take much better care of me, which sounded like a subtle way of saying I’d get some pretty gnarly orgasms out of it, so who was I to complain with that?

Movement brought me back to the dilemma before me as Troian stood, walking closer to me over by the door. He was cautiously keeping his distance. Sighing, I rolled my eyes and stepped closer so I could lean on the bar of the kitchen. I opened my mouth to spew the annoyance I had for Thayer at his lookalike, but Troian beat me to it.

“Look, I know you’re mad at Thayer for not telling you about me.” Troian nodded, crossing those goddamn arms again. “But it’s not his fault he never told you. It’s mine.”

How the hell did that work? Here’s what I knew about Thayer. After we’d first met at a coffee shop and then later saw each other at the same support group, I’d learned that he’d lost his parents when he was freshly eighteen. It was something we’d weirdly bonded over, being two dumbass eighteen year olds that were stumbling into adulthood without the guidance of their parents. I knew he’d been given a lump sum of money after his parents death, which had helped us get into our apartment. We’d both worked jobs to afford the apartment over the years, but Thayer had been working at the club for a little over five years. Way more stable than the several months I’d been working at the blood center.

Which begged the question: how was this his unknown twin’s fault? I didn’t give him anything to work with, waiting for him to continue. If Troian wanted me to hear him out, then he was going to have to do all the work.

Troian eventually got the hint, and uncrossed his arms to slide his hands in his pockets. It was a reverse action of something Thayer did, I noticed. While Thayer ran his hands through his hair when he was nervous, it seemed that Troian buried his hands in his pants’ pockets when he felt the same .

“I’m sure he’s told you about how abrupt our parents’ death was.” When I affirmed his assumption with the tilt of my head, he cleared his throat. “One car crash and our lives were changed forever. It was hard on both of us, but Thayer’s the strong one. Always has been. I’m the weak piece of shit that couldn’t cope.”

His face contoured in a refraction of emotions desperately wanting to come to the surface, but he was forcing them into submission so he didn’t show them to a stranger. “I fell in with the wrong people, and then turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of losing my parents. Thayer should have rid himself of me then, but he didn’t. Because he’s too good for his own good.” I had to agree with that. Thayer was relentlessly selfless, to a fault. “A few years ago, I really fucked up. I started seeing this guy and he was….well, it doesn’t matter.”

Emotion welled in his eyes, which might have been more shocking than the revelation that Troian was queer. Ever since I’d been trying to figure him out, Troian gave me the impression that emotions were not something he handled well. Truly the Anti-Thayer.

“I showed up on Thayer’s doorstep and begged him to help me out with some money. When he refused…I took it.” Confusion spread over my face, and he nodded and added, “I knew he had a lot of his inheritance left. And since I’d blown all mine on any mind-numbing substance I could find, my ex convinced me that I needed this money to get better. So, I did some digging, found the bank that Thayer used, and pretended to be him to withdraw every single cent.”

“Oh my God.” My hand went to my mouth. It was the first thing I’d said to him during his explanation. I remembered a few years back when Thayer had said he needed a better paying job. He’d been working at a school as a janitor, and next thing I knew, he was working at the club over in the Orb-centric part of town.

“And my piece of shit ex-boyfriend stole the money from me . I didn’t even get out of the state before he robbed me and took everything I’d taken from Thayer. I was lost,” Troian sniffled, and he shook his head to keep the dam of emotions from bursting in front of me. “I fucked up the last relationship I had with the last person who gave a shit. Thayer cut me out of his life after that and I struggled to become the man I am today.” He unfurled his arms to gesture to himself. “Five years sober.”

“Congratulations,” And I meant it. I wasn’t going to pretend to understand his struggle or his journey, but being able to walk away from it was a feat. “But what the hell does all of this have to do with why Thayer didn’t tell me about you?”

“I may not know the exact reason,” Troian admitted. “But would you want to tell your, I’m assuming, new friend that you had a twin brother that was letting anyone and everyone fuck him for drug money?”

I winced. Troian certainly had a way with words. If Thayer was sunshine and comforting cotton, Troian was a thunderstorm and barbed wire. They might have looked uncannily alike, but they’re opposing forces were obvious. They were like two spirits that shared the same face.

And he was right about how soon after Thayer’s parents had died that we met. We’d both gone to a grieving support group, him for his recently deceased parents and me for my recently passed grandmother, both of us confused teenagers turned adults. We’d found kinship in one another, and it didn’t take long for us to become friends. Neither of us liked being alone, so when Thayer had found the apartment, I’d moved in and the rest was history.

“So you showing up at the same time as my accident is purely coincidence?”

Troian nodded. “I’d heard of you, obviously, but I had no idea that was going on. Thayer had no idea I was in town. I showed up outside the apartment when he was on his way to the hospital to see you that first day. ”

That answered most of my questions. Sort of. It still didn’t explain why Thayer hadn’t told me. A lot of what Troian was saying as the motives behind Thayer’s actions were pure speculation. I needed to hear it straight from the source to know for sure.

“I came here to make amends,” Troian sighed, his fingers bulging in his pockets as he nervously played with the material between his fingers. “I’ve already deposited the money I stole from Thayer back into his account, plus interest.” My eyes bulged, but Troian didn’t allow me a response. “This whole shitshow started with me impersonating my brother at the bank, so I did it one last time to keep him from arguing about taking the money. It’s already his.”

“And he doesn’t know any of this yet?”

“I tried to talk to him at the hospital, but it was pretty clear the only thing on his mind was you,” Troian stated. “As it should have been. I have a knack for arriving at just the best time.” Sarcasm turned his lips into a smirk, and it was the first time I’d seen something comfortable on his face.

It seemed like convenient timing for Troian to show up, but it also felt like he was telling me the truth. About everything. What hurt more than anything was that this had been happening under my nose, without my knowledge. Thayer had harbored this for a decade, for fuck’s sake.

How was I supposed to take this news any other way than to feel completely untrustworthy?

Creaking from our ignored hinges reverberated off the walls as the front door wretched open, Thayer stepping inside with a bag of food dangling from his hand. When he saw the two of us, his eyes became saucers with a wide berth.

His eyes went to me first. “Bas, I was going to stop by the hospital again but I—”

“Was avoiding me?” I rolled my eyes, but my smile betrayed my inner feelings. “Yeah, I got that part. ”

A memory struck me like lightning across the sky of Thayer and Troian’s conjoined past. My mind raced back to the time that Thayer had started worrying more about money, claiming he needed to leave his janitor job. After that whole ordeal, Thayer had debuted a new haircut shortly after. A haircut that resembled the one I saw when I craned my neck in Troian’s direction.

“Wait, have you been in this apartment before?” I looked between the twins, but pointed my finger at Thayer. “You cut your hair right around the time you told me you’d have to quit your job at the school to make more money.”

Thayer sighed, running a hand through his jet black hair. “Yeah…that night you found me passed out on the couch? That wasn’t me.”

I remembered the night Thayer was talking about. I’d woken up in the middle of the night and decided to make sure he’d made it home alright. When I saw him on the couch, donning a much closer haircut than usual, I’d just shrugged and went back to bed. There’d been no reason for me to actually check Thayer’s bedroom because I’d never known there was two of them.

I turned to Troian, who nodded. “It was me. I’d shown up berating Thayer for money, like I told you.”

“And you cut your hair to cover up that Troian was here?”

Thayer sighed. “I wasn’t ready to tell you what was really going on, so it seemed like the best idea in case you started asking questions.”

Understanding the reason behind it was one thing, but accepting it was another. “Why did I have to the hear the truth from your brother though? Why couldn’t you have told me, Thayer?”

“Did you tell him the truth , Troy?” Thayer’s tone was sharp and accusing, and even I could detect the hurt in Troian’s eyes as his brother set their cooling food on the kitchen bar.

“Yes,” Troian hissed, hands forming fists from their denim confines. “I told him the truth, asshole.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Sorry. That was fair. I’ve lied to you a lot. But I’m not the lying asshole brother you cut out of your life. I would’t lie about the bullshit I’ve put you through.”

“He told the truth.” That much I knew. There was no reason for Troian to lie to me. Especially when he was claiming that he wanted to make amends with his brother. It didn’t exactly boast well for him to lie to Thayer’s best friend. “The better question is why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?” Thayer scoffed. “Tell you that not only had my parents just died, but that I was dealing with trying to help my brother cope through it too?” His face shook, and his face twisted as tears burst through. “It was hard enough admitting that I’d lost my parents. I couldn’t tell one of the people I’d met at group that I was losing my brother too.”

Thayer had always told me I was like the brother he’d never had. Given what Troian had shared with me, maybe that was still true. But all this time we’d been friends, roommates, sharing our lives together, Thayer had been silently dealing with this huge burden of trying to keep his twin out of trouble. It hurt to think that he didn’t feel like he could have leaned on me to share that burden with.

But Troian’s earlier words echoed in my head. He’s too good for his own good . Thayer was shouldering the truth to protect me, I got that. All that did was hurt Thayer in the process, though.

“I understand,” I clapped a hand on Thayer’s shoulder. “As best I can. But I still think you should have trusted me enough to tell me at some point over the past ten years.”

“You’re right.” Thayer grabbed hold of my shoulders, making me almost forget that his grumpier mirror was to my right. “I should have told you. You’re my best friend and it wasn’t right for you to find out the way that you did. I’m sorry. I just…I wasn’t strong enough to speak about it.”

I pulled him into an embrace, one he took a minute to give back to me. When I retracted from his grip, I gave him a smile, turning my chin towards his brother. “According to him, you’re the strong one.”

Thayer looked over at his brother, and there was an awkward glance shared between them. One that held years of resentment, but also years of remaining unresolved. Thoughts of Kroven broke the spell of being entailed in their family affair, and I started walking toward my room.

“I’m gonna grab some of my things to take over to Kroven’s. I’m gonna take it easy over there for a couple days. Which will give you guys plenty of time to talk.”

Neither of them said anything, resistance or otherwise. I threw as many clothes as I could into the denim duffle bag I kept under my bed for traveling. I made sure to grab a couple of my toiletries from my conjoined bathroom.

After telling the twins goodbye, I hoped that they could work things out. Troian clearly was doing his best to make up for what he’d done to Thayer. It would take me a little bit of time to fully come around to the fact that my best friend hadn’t told me such a huge detail about his life. But I’d get over it.

Preferably by being otherwise occupied with my hot and handsome sangamar boyfriend.