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CHAPTER 9

RYAN

I shook my head no. I almost always drank my coffee black. But my mind wasn’t on the coffee. It was on Rene trying to sneak from behind the bar. There was no telling what he would do to Flint. Rene was mad with the bruises appearing from who he called Bear, tossing him down the stairs. Whatever he was going to do had better be soon. I wanted to explore getting to know Flint.

I was torn between my loyalty to my brother, us wanting out of the basement, and to Flint. It was all very confusing.

“Look, Flint-…” I started the conversation, but the loud DING startled me. Flint had a moment of confusion on his face, then he slumped forward.

Rene looked too pleased with himself, standing there with his hands on hips like Wonder Woman. The only exception was, he had a cast iron skillet in one hand. Where in the living hell did he find a cast iron skillet? How badly was Flint hurt?

Rene set the skillet down and was darting around the room, searching. Ah, he wanted something to tie Flint up with.

There was the bag of candy. Licorice shoelaces would be perfect, intertwined. I started strands of rope, making them long enough to tie his hands behind his back. Rene did find a short length of electrical wire for a lamp, but it wouldn’t help. He started to laugh when he saw what I was tying Flint up with. He shrugged his shoulders and grabbed a sandwich, then downed my cup of coffee. I really needed that coffee.

“Help me set him up, would you? And stop drinking my coffee!”

“You need coffee, Ryan. You’re cranky.” My twin poured me a cup of coffee, and sipped on it.

I muttered, “Butthead.” Then stuck my tongue out at him. At that moment, he took a big drink of coffee and burnt his tongue. “Karma”. Now it was my turn to look smug.

Flint groaned, and when I looked at his eyes, I would swear he was playing opossum. He was, I could see his eyes through the slits. I was going to make this fun.

“Help me turn him so his back is lying on the sofa. It will help keep his hands secure too, as he won’t be able to move around. Oh, and change clothes with me. That will add to it.”

Rene agreed, helped me position Bear, exchanged clothes, then said he was going upstairs for a piece of ice, and to see if he could find our phones. He ran up taking two steps at a time.

The bag had an assortment of candy in it, and I decided to have a closer look. Of course there was more licorice, chocolate, and sour candy strips. Sour candy. He had put it over my mouth earlier. That was why I tasted sour. I wondered how he wet it to stick to my lips so well.

It was my turn.

Flint was having a hard time keeping his eyes closed, and there was a nice goose egg on the side of his forehead. He was going to have a beautiful bruise, with the skin adopting different colors. I sat on the sofa and gently touched his bump, then trailed my fingers down his cheek. My heart was beating fast. All I could think of was how badly I wanted to kiss him. Something I had never felt before.

I shook my head no, as if that would clear my thoughts. The bag of sour candy was being stubborn to open. I tried to tear the edge with my teeth and flung them into the air. I heard a chuckle beside me on the sofa. That would be ignored for now, but I was going to have fun. I picked up two strips of sour candy.

I didn’t really want to lick the sour off, so I’d let Flint.

This could be reenacted at a later date if we tried to be a couple. My hands were shaking, part nerves, part excitement. I bent over his face and slowly licked his bottom lip first, letting my tongue glide across his top lip. I heard his breath catch. Fine, my heart was beating out of my chest.

Flint’s mouth opened a bit, so I repeated my action. Licking his bottom lip from corner to corner, then across his top lip, letting my tongue glide close to the opening of his mouth, but not going there…yet.

While his lips were moist, I stuck the sour candy across his mouth. The way he coughed, I would guarantee he got a good dose of sour dust. Payback for his mouth being opened. The strips I grabbed were in the bottom of the bag where the sour dust remained.

His eyes flew open, and there was an emotion I was unfamiliar with. Not anger, disgust no, maybe a spark of something mixed with the reaction to the sour? While I hated being innocent, I was kind of loving the adventure. Even if he did kidnap me to start with.

Rene was still upstairs and it sounded like he was looking in every drawer and cabinet. He was less pleased than I was about being kidnapped, even if it didn’t place us in harm’s way that I was aware of.

I poured a cup of coffee and stood there with Flint watching me. His coughing had subsided, and he definitely had a look of curiosity. For some reason he kept looking at my clothes. I felt the lightbulb come on over my head. He thought I had changed clothes. Rene was right, this would be epic.

Thinking of my twin, and he came bounding down the stairs with both of our backpacks in one hand, and his cellphone in his other hand. He was holding them up in the air as if he had won a prize. Until he noticed Flint or rather Bear was awake and trying to sit up.

I was just standing there enjoying a cup of coffee. While Rene did find our backpacks and phones, there were no chargers and both of the phones were dead. If Bear had a phone, it had to be on him, because Rene didn’t find it or a house phone. The scene was a little bizarre.

“Okay, Ryan, you want to let me in on the little joke here? You’d never be comfortable in this type of situation.”

My shoe squeaked and stuck in the sour sugar. I tripped, with my head landing right in Bear’s lap between his legs. I let out some kind of noise and jumped up, splashing lukewarm coffee on Rene from my cup, with the remains of the cup being spilled on the floor under our feet. I was trying to get my face off Bear’s dick, and now the floor was slippery made worse by the gelatin in the candy. Every time I found my feet, my head bounced on Bear. My nose was going to be sore from hitting Bear’s zipper and buttons, but not as tender as his crushed nuts.

I stopped moving, wondering how I could get out of this situation. When I looked at Rene, he was laughing while Bear had a grimace on his face with his legs pressed together tightly. Rene ran upstairs, grabbed the ice pack from the freezer and tossed it on Bear’s groin. Bear moaned and I couldn’t contain my laughter. Fine. So Rene should have gotten the ice pack that wasn’t in hard plastic. Oops. Rene looked at me and shrugged his shoulders through his laughing.

I untied Bear’s hands, not letting him see it was licorice. Bear placed the ice pack, then pulled the candy off his mouth once his hands were free. Instead of tossing the sour candy, he ate both strips.

I sat in the chair near Rene. Flint looked totally confused, and we were both trying not to laugh. We kept looking from each other to Flint. We weren’t laughing out loud exactly, but close to it.

“Twins. So I kidnapped the right twin after all?”

“Silly bear. It really depends on which one you were looking for. Are you sure it’s not triplets?”

Flint’s face lost all color. Rene handed him a bottle of water off the tray.

“Oh, man, I didn’t know there were two, let alone three of you.” I felt sorry for him. He really did look like he was going to heave his stomach contents.

Rene was laughing. “Dude, there’s only two of us. No one could handle more than us.” I nodded and laughed with him.

“Flint, there’s only two of us. You deserved that for kidnapping not one, but both of us.”

“If you want to call it that way, you were both hitchhiking. I wasn’t a weirdo out to hurt either of you. I just wanted time with Ryan. That’s the right name right? I’m confused but let me figure this out.”