Page 120 of Tangled Like Us

Call it divine intervention or maybe the devil is laughing in my fucking face—but her phone rings and blows this one shot to hell.

Truth is, I’m not even close to upset. Because she’s my purpose. I want to be here for Jane more than anything; it’s my drive in life and I’m already squared away to push out.

“I’m so sorry,” Jane says quickly, her face torn in a wince while she unzips her purse and grabs her phone. “I want to say this will only take a minute, but if it’s my family, we’ll need to leave.”

I think she’s forgetting I’m her bodyguard and that I’ve been around her for almost a year, a part of her daily routine. Nine times out of ten, her phone calls lead her in a new direction.

Always family.

Her big blue eyes lift up to me.

“I want you to take as long as you need,” I tell her, not breaking our gazes. “I’ll still be here beside you at the end of everything.”

She breathes deeper and nods repeatedly, then reads the Caller ID. “It’s Charlie.”

Her twenty-one-year-old brother is hard to pin down. Literally and everything else in between. Hell, I spent months on a tour bus with the kid, and I can’t say I fully understand him. I just assume he prefers being at arm’s length.

Which makes protecting him a clusterfucking shit show. He’s gone through the most 24/7 bodyguards of any client. It used to be a running issue on the team. Who can last on Charlie Cobalt’s detail for more than two weeks?

Almost no one. We had brand new hiresquitafter being paired with Charlie, and then finally, we found his perfect match. Oscar Oliveira is the only bodyguard able to keep up with him.

Jane puts the call on speaker. “Charlie?”

“How far from New York are you?” His voice is smooth, but I hear some frustration.

“I’m a couple hours without traffic.” She lifts the speaker to her lips. “What do you need?”

He speaks in French, and then hangs up.

Jane growls a little at the phone. “Charlie.”

Oscar isn’t speaking on comms. I switch frequencies to Epsilon. But no one is talking about Charlie or any of Jane’s brothers in Hell’s Kitchen. “How serious is it?” I ask Jane.

“I’ve no idea.” She slips her phone in her purse, quickly plucking a deep, red lacy dress off the rack. A sticker on the fabric reads:Gothic Queen of Hearts.

By her urgency alone, I can tell we’re moving out. I touch my mic, about to radio in the location change, but I home in on Jane, checking to see if she’s okay.

She speaks faster. “Charlie has never been forthcoming with me, even before his feud with Moffy. He’s always been closest to Beckett, which I respect entirely.”

I nod. Beckett is Charlie’s fraternal twin, and Jane can empathize with that close relationship better than most people. I think because she has a strong bond with Maximoff—a bond that always reminds me of what I have with Banks.

They’ve even dealt with the “incest” horseshit that we used to get all the fucking time in high school. Guys we barely knew would joke about us jerking each other off or me giving my brother a blowjob.

I’m not sensitive. You can earn the right to rib me like that and I won’t bat an eye. Infantrymen did, bodyguards still do. But if I don’t know you and you tell me to go suck off my brother, then you’re just an asshole trying to piss me off.

And don’t be surprised if I deck you.

Before I agreed to the fake dating op, I asked Banks if he’d be okay with “incest” shit exploding on a larger public scale.

Everything I do reflects on my brother. I’m never just thinking about myself. I’m constantly thinking about how my actions will affect him.

We’re identical. People seeoneperson. An entity.The twins.Growing up like that, we lose out on a lot. I wasn’t anI.I was awefrom birth, and I know who I am. I can differentiate myself from my brother.

The fight is having other people seeme.And not justus.

To be treated more like a singular human being in the eyes of my peers, all I had to do was not be around my twin brother.

Seems easy.