As soon as I’m lying next to her, she turns toward me and cuddles into my side. That’s when I notice the stars above me through the skylight over the bed. Lying here with her warm weight against my side and her soft skin under my palm, I fall asleep thinking she’s right; it does feel like you’re sleeping outside under the stars.

  Waking to the sound of soft music playing in the distance and the smell of bacon, my eyes open to a view of gray skies. Getting up on an elbow, I look down and find my jeans and shirt both folded and in a neat pile on the floor. Grabbing my cell out of the front pocket of my jeans, I hit the screen and see it’s just after eight.

  Once I’m out of bed, I pull on my jeans and head out of the room where I find Kim in the kitchen. Her back is to me, and her mass of hair is tied up in a high ponytail at the top of her head, showing off the elegant slope of her neck. Taking her in, I notice she’s wearing a pair of shorts with flowers on them and a tank top to match that she put on at some point when I was making a call before dinner arrived. Without thinking, I head right for her and rest my hand on the side of her waist then curve it around her stomach, pulling her back into me feeling her shiver.

  “Hey.” Her eyes come to me over her shoulder, and her cheeks turn a pretty shade of pink.

  “Morning.” I lean down, kissing the exposed skin where her neck and shoulder meet. “You got an extra toothbrush?” I ask, and her eyes go soft in a way that I know I could get used to seeing every day.

  “No, but you can use mine. I don’t mind.” She shrugs.

  “All right.” Touching my lips to her temple, I give her waist a squeeze then head for the bathroom. Coming out a few minutes later, I find her cracking eggs into the pan she just fried bacon in, and as soon as I’m close, she turns her face toward me.

  “I don’t know…” She pulls in a breath then lets it out slowly. “I don’t know how this works,” she says, turning around completely, and I stop a few feet away from her. “I mean…” She lets out another huff of air. “I don’t know if you want to eat or if you just want to go.”

  “I’m not going,” I state, watching her tense shoulders relax at my answer.

  “Good,” she whispers, and I feel that one word wash through me. “Do you want coffee?”

  “Yeah.” I close the distance between us, and she pulls down a coffee mug from the cupboard, handing it to me.

  “Coffee pods are in the drawer under the machine.” She nods toward the Keurig on the counter. “Cream is in the fridge, and sugar is there.” She points to a canister. “How do you like your eggs?”

  “Anyway you want to cook them is good with me.”

  “Okay.” She gives me a smile then cracks two more eggs into the pan before taking toast out of the toaster and buttering it. Leaning back against the counter next to her with a cup of fresh coffee in my hand, I look at the shelf we put together and see that she already stacked her books on it.

  “You’ve been up a while,” I observe, and she looks from me to her shelf that is now full of books.

  “I can never sleep in. No matter how late I go to bed, I always wake up early.” She pulls down two plates before looking at me once more. “Did you sleep okay? I was going to go in and shut the skylight, but I didn’t want to wake you by closing it.”

  “I slept better than I’ve slept in a long time,” I confess, and her eyes soften. “I like the skylight. I might have to put one in the master at the lake house.”

  “It’s pretty awesome. I like lying under it when it rains even more than at night when the skies are clear.”

  “I’ll have to experience that myself sometime,” I say, taking her hand and pulling her a step closer to me after she finishes buttering the toast and putting two fresh slices in the toaster. “What’s your plans for today?”

  “I have a client coming into the salon at ten, so I have to work. What about you?”

  “Work tonight, but after that I’m free. You feel like hanging out later?”

  “Sure.” She leans into me with her weight, and I dip my face, brushing my lips over hers, touching my tongue to her bottom lip. Her mouth opens and I deepen the kiss. “We should eat,” she breathes into my mouth as my hands roams down her body and I drag her tighter against me.

  “Yeah.” Kissing her one last time, I regretfully let her go.

  “Here.” She hands me a plate loaded with bacon, eggs, and toast. Picking up my cup of coffee, I follow her outside to a colorful round table with two chairs that’s on the deck. “I know it’s not a lake view, but it’s not a bad one.” She takes a seat, setting her plate and cup on the table. Folding into the chair across from her, I laugh when she does. The chair might be okay for a chick that’s probably five-eight, but at six-four, my knees come up to my chest when I sit. “Oh, God.” She covers her face, peeking at me through her fingers. “We can go inside to eat.”

  “It’s all good.” I place my hand over hers when she goes to stand. Stretching out my legs, I cross my ankles. “I’ve always been tall. Even when I was little, I was bigger than everyone else, so I had to make it work.”

  “How tall were you in high school?”

  “When I graduated, I was six-two,” I say, and her eyes widen.

  “How tall are you now?”

  “Six-four.”

  “I knew you were tall, but sheesh, you’re really tall!” she says, and I laugh then watch her pick up her toast and take a bite.

  “So you do hair?” I ask, thinking it’s ridiculous as fuck that I didn’t find that out from her yesterday, seeing how we spent the entire day together.

  “Yeah, I went to college and did the whole four-year thing to please my parents, but I was never happy. So when I graduated with a degree in business management, I decided to spend two more years doing something I knew I would be happy with. I’ve always loved makeup and hair, so it seemed like a no-brainer.”

  “Where are your parents now?”

  “Florida, about two hours outside of Miami.”

  “Why Tennessee?” I ask, and something shifts behind her gaze, but she hides it quickly.

  “I just wanted a change.” She shrugs then nods to my plate. “You should eat before your food gets too cold.”

  Picking up my fork, I dig in then spend another hour with her before I leave her with a kiss and a promise to see her later.

  Kim

  HEARING KNOCKING ON the sliding glass door, I roll out of bed and glance at the clock. It’s after 1:00 a.m. Sage sent a text while I was at work and told me he would be over late, since what he was doing was going to keep him a while, but one in the morning is not someone who is interested in you. One in the morning is the time a booty call shows up, and I do not want to be a booty call, no matter how amazing the sex was between us.

  Feeling something uncomfortable fill the pit of my stomach, I grab my robe and pull it on quickly while the knocking turns to pounding. Hitting the living room, I turn on the light, and that’s when I see Kelly standing outside, looking at me through the glass with her fist up ready to start knocking again.

  “Hey,” I greet her as soon as I slide the door open.

  “I’m leaving,” she states, tossing her hair that looks exactly like mine over her shoulder.

  “You’re leaving,” I repeat, and she nods, shouldering past me into my apartment that she hasn’t been staying at and she’s only used when the guy she’s been messing around with kicks her out of his bed, leaving her no choice but to come here to crash. “Why… I thought—”

  “I can’t do it. I thought I could, but I can’t,” she cuts me off, going to the closet, grabbing her black duffle bag from the floor, and opening it up.

  “I need you,” I whisper, watching her pull things off hangers and shove them into the open bag on the floor.

  “You need me.” She turns around to face me, picking up the bag, and I notice then that her eyes are wild, which means she’s gotten high recently—something she told me she would stop doing. “You don’t fucking need me. You just want to use me like every fucking other person in my life does.”

  Rearing back like she slapped me, my body jolts. “That’s not true.”

  “It’s not?” She laughs, but her cackle sounds evil and grates across my skin. “You didn’t even fucking try to find me until you were out of options.”

  “You know that’s not true.”

  “I’m sure, bitch!” she shouts, and I take a step back.

  I’ve never seen Kelly like this. I’ve never seen her so out of control, and I don’t have any idea how to fix this or how to defuse the situation. “You know my parents never told me about you or about our mom.” And they didn’t. I didn’t even know I was adopted until the day the test came back and I found out my kidneys were in the beginning stages of shutting down. That’s when they told me I had an identical twin. That’s when they told me everything.

  “I don’t fucking care!” she screams at the top of her lungs, leaning toward me. “I do not fucking care about you.” She points in my face, and my heart cracks open. “I don’t care about any of this shit. I do not need your kind of fucking drama in my life.”

  “What happened?” Something had to have happened. Something had to have set her off to make her act like this.

  “Nothing happened. I just finally got a fucking clue.”

  “Kelly, please.” I grab onto her arm as she starts to storm past me. “Let’s just calm down. Please don’t go. Let’s just get some sleep and we’ll talk about this tomorrow, when you’re thinking more clearly.”

  “Thinking more clearly? Fuck you, Kim. Fuck you and your holier-than-thou attitude. Ask your fucking perfect, rich-ass parents to help you out.” She jerks her arm from my grasp and heads for the door.

  Running after her down the steps in the garage, I yell, “Kelly, please don’t do this!” as she hits the remote for the garage, sending the door up. “Kelly,” I beg, but she doesn’t stop or even turn around to look at me. She ducks under the door, runs across the pavement, and gets into the car that is parked and running in front of my garage with the lights on, slamming the door once she’s inside. Standing here, I watch her back out of the driveway then take off.

  “Oh, God.” I crumple to my knees, dropping my face to my hands as rain starts to fall. Realizing I’m now soaking wet, I get up and make my way back into my apartment where I call my parents and tell them what happened while I cry until I can’t cry anymore.

  *

  PULLING UP OUTSIDE the shop that I need to open in the next ten minutes, I put my car in park and pull out my cell to once again check if I’ve missed a call or a text from Kelly or Sage. I haven’t heard from either of them in over a week, and even though I shouldn’t be surprised or hurt, I am.

  Really, I’m more hurt by what Sage did than by Kelly taking off. I knew she was struggling with not only her decision to help me, but her life in general. I knew there was a chance she would take off, but Sage, I didn’t expect him to play me the way he did. Not after the day we spent together or after him seeming so sure he wanted to continue seeing me the morning after. I should have known better, but I stupidly thought he was feeling the same thing I was.

  Seeing he hasn’t replied to my text of “Hey” from two days ago, I shove my phone in my purse and step out of my car. Slamming the door, I turn and stop dead when I see him standing on the sidewalk, sweaty and wearing nothing but a pair of black workout pants, his eyes on me.

  “Hey,” I say quietly, walking toward him. That’s when I notice his eyes are hard and his body is tight.

  “You live in this town. Gonna say this once and only once. You pull some shit like you did again, next time, you’ll be sitting behind bars,” he says harshly, and my feet stop moving while my heart starts to pound. I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I do know he’s pissed.

  “Pardon?”

  At my question, his eyes travel over my hair and face then down my body, but not in a good way. Not in the same way they did right before he made love to me. No, the way they travel over me makes me feel dirty and cheap, like I need to take a shower to get clean.

  “You were good, babe. So good I would have paid you for it if I knew that’s what you wanted.”

  His words are like a punch to the gut, and I take a step back, feeling my throat get tight. “What?” I finally get out, and his eyes harden even more.

  “Coming up to me in the bar, playing games, acting like you did, then trying to slip some shit in my drink so you could get my wallet?” He scoffs, and reality hits me in the face. Kelly. She did this. That’s why she took off, and that’s why he’s not spoken to me. He thinks I did those things to him.

  “My sister.” My eyes slide closed, and my hand tightens on the handle of the purse in my hand.

  “Your sister?”

  “My…” I pause, opening my eyes and try to pull in a deep breath because my lungs suddenly feel too tight, like they are twisting inside my chest. “My twin… my twin sister. She…” I take a step toward him, and he takes a step back, like he can’t stand the idea of me getting close to him. Stopping, I hold out my hand palm up toward him, and my words come out whispered. “Whatever happened, that wasn’t me. It was my sister.”

  “Right.” He nods, but I can see he doesn’t believe me. But why should he? I never told him about Kelly, because I didn’t want to ruin whatever was happening between us. I didn’t want him to find out about my problems until I knew he was the kind of guy who could shoulder them.

  “I’m sorry. I—”

  “Just stay the fuck away from me, bitch.” And with that parting blow, he takes off without a backward glance. Standing here with my heart pounding in my chest and my stomach twisting into knots, I watch him until he’s out of sight.

  Feeling sickness climb up the back of my throat, I run for the door of the salon, unlock it, and get inside. I toss my bag to the couch then move to the bathroom where I fall to my knees in front of the toilet. Throwing up the bagel I had for breakfast, I rest my forehead against the seat of the commode, not caring how gross it is. Not caring about anything.

  Tears fill my eyes, and I whisper, “Fuck everyone, and definitely fuck Sage and Kelly.”

  Chapter 1

  Sage

  “HERE’S WHAT YOU asked for.”

  Looking from the envelope that was just tossed on the table, up to the man who has been my dad since I can remember, I feel my chest get tight. I know what’s in the envelope without looking at it, and I also know it’s too late. The soft check I did on Kim came back as her being an only child, but I know now from a few different sources that she was adopted by a couple in Florida when she was born. I also know she has an identical twin sister who grew up in Alabama with their mom and had a life completely opposite of Kim’s. That life has led her to trying to cope with the pain of her childhood by using drugs and men, going so far as prostituting herself out to deal with that hurt.

  When I first found out that information, I knew I completely fucked up. I should have trusted my gut when I saw the look on Kim’s face as I confronted her. I didn’t do what I should have done, and I not only hurt Kim, I messed up beyond repair.

  “I know you’re a man now. I know you don’t need my advice. But I’m gonna give it to you anyway,” he warns, taking a seat on one of my folding chairs at the card table set up in my kitchen. I’ve been using it since I moved into this dump, because I’ve been saving almost every penny I make and putting it into my house.

  “Dad—”

  “No, you’ll hear me out. Sit.” He nods to the chair across from him as he stretches out his legs. “Who’s this girl to you?” he questions, nodding to the envelope on the table.

  I don’t even know how to answer that question. I thought for a moment she could be my future, but then shit went down and I thought she was a liar and just as fake as the rest of the women who’ve come into my life. I should have known better. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know, or you’re afraid to find out?” His eyes search mine, and he shakes his head, running his hand over his cropped hair. “I get that you want to experience life, experience women. I was young once, so I understand that shit. But, son…” He holds my gaze and drops his voice. “You’re never going to find someone if you don’t give anyone a chance, if you’re always searching, never stopping to see what’s in front of you.”

  “I fucked up,” I tell him the truth, and he moves, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in the chair.

  “How?”

  Taking a seat across from him, I look at the envelope and tell him what went down. I fill him in about meeting Kim, about the time we spent together, and then I explain about Kim’s sister and what happened at the bar. Last, I spill what occurred after, when I corned Kim outside the salon. “I fucked up,” I repeat my earlier statement when I finish, and he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees studying me.

  “Did you apologize?”

  “Yeah.” I did apologize, but I knew the second I did that it was too late. The sadness I left her with had changed into anger, leaving me no shot at fixing what I broke.

  “If she’s important to you, do it again, and again, and again, until she understands you’re sorry. Really fucking sorry,” he says, and I lift my chin, letting him know I heard him. But also knowing that ship has sailed, because not only is she still pissed at me, she now has a man, and even though I might be fucked up in a lot of ways, I won’t go there with her tied to someone else.

  “Now, we need to talk about Nalia,” he adds, bringing my attention back to him, and that tightness in my chest changes to something even more uncomfortable. I hate the look on his face right now, hate that he and my mom both have the same expressions every time Nalia is brought up. I love my sister. I love her with all the love I have inside of me. But I’m pissed off at her. “She’s your sister, and as much as you and I don’t like what she’s doing, she still needs us right now.”