After Paige dropped me off around eleven, I dragged myself to my room, took a long, hot shower, and retreated to safety beneath my covers. I had no idea what to do. My brain ached with all the questions floating around in there.

  What could have possibly happened to make Maddox drink so much? And it wasn’t as if I didn’t want to have sex with him. I’d thought about it more times than I cared to admit, but I certainly didn’t want my first time to be under the deck in the middle of a party. How could he think I’d want that? How could he want that? Did I really know him at all?

  The opening bars of “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones played, and I rolled over so fast I almost spilled myself onto the floor. I fumbled with my phone, trying to press the ignore button, but somehow hit speaker instead. I meant to end the call—wanted to end it—but before I could stop it, Maddox’s voice echoed through my room, and I froze in place.

  “Ava? Hello? Are you there?” He groaned. “Ugh, I can hear you breathing. God, Ava, please say something. I’m dying out here. I really need to talk to you. To explain what happened. I’m so sorry about—”

  I couldn’t listen to him rehash our evening over the phone, so I ended the call and rolled back over, pulling the blankets over my head. I didn’t want his attempted apology to affect me, but the pain in his voice managed to work its way under my skin like a splinter. And unfortunately, the only cure for a Maddox hangover was more Maddox.

  I reached up and switched off my phone before punching my pillow a few times. With a groan, I did a face plant straight into it, hoping sleep would take me fast, but knowing it wouldn’t.

  Plink… plink… plink.

  I reached for my phone to silence it then remembered I’d already turned it off.

  Plink… plink… plink.

  Damn it. Someone was throwing pebbles against my window again, and I had a pretty good idea who. I jumped out of bed and crept to the window, keeping to the shadows so Maddox couldn’t see me.

  He stood below my window, dressed in his usual black from head to toe, and I wondered why he’d bothered to change. He reached up to throw another pebble but stopped mid-throw. Our eyes locked.

  “Ava?” He mouthed my name, and even without hearing the sound, I could feel the pain in his expression.

  I hoisted my window open and leaned out. “What?” I tried to keep my voice down, despite the urge to scream at him at the top of my lungs.

  “Can you please come down? Just for a few minutes? I really need to talk to you.”

  “We talked plenty already.” The irony of that statement wasn’t lost on me.

  “What?” He screwed up his face and shook his head. “Ava, I’m really sorry about tonight. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Listen, I’ll see you tomorrow at school, okay? You can beg forgiveness then.” I had the window halfway down before he yelled up.

  “Wait! Please just come down and talk to me.” The words ripped out of him, and he seemed to deflate with the effort. “Please.”

  “You’re gonna wake my mom, and then she’ll ground me so I never get to see you again.” I should have closed the window and stuffed cotton in my ears. The sound of his voice, the look on his face—he had to have known he was getting through. The chinks in my armor were big enough to park a motorcycle in.

  He stood straighter, a determined look in his hypnotic eyes. “I guess you’d better come down, because I’m not leaving until you do.”

  “Stupid stubborn boy,” I muttered. “Fine. I’ll come down, but you’ve only got ten minutes, so you’d better make it good.”

  I grabbed my keys from the nightstand and headed downstairs in my pajamas. I might have given up, but I wasn’t giving in. If he wanted my forgiveness, he’d have to work for it.

  After making it past the loose floorboards in the stairs and tiptoeing past my mom’s room, I slipped through the front door and closed it behind me. Then I dashed across the damp grass in my bare feet to where he waited on the other side of the street, leaning on his motorcycle in the shadows.

  “If you think I’m going for a ride on your bike, you’re sadly mistaken.” I folded my arms over my chest to keep out the chill in the air and regretted not grabbing a sweater.

  “Are you cold? Do you want my jacket?” He had it off before I could say no and draped it over my shoulders, enveloping me in his warmth. He fought dirty. “I wasn’t going to ask you to go for a ride. I just wanted to come and tell you how sorry I am about tonight.”

  “Well, you should be sorry. You can’t treat me like that. If you want me to be your girlfriend, you can’t just—” Act like every other college boy looking to get laid on a Saturday night. I didn’t say it, but I thought it hard enough to send the message through, I was sure of it.

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that the thing with my family got out of hand tonight and—”

  “That’s not my problem. But you can’t act like—”

  “Like I have no respect for you. I know. Can you forgive me?” He seemed sincere. He looked as if he’d learned his lesson. But it was too easy. Too quick.

  I shifted my weight, turning a half circle so I wasn’t facing him anymore, but I could still see his reaction in my peripheral vision. “I don’t know. First you make me think you’re an illusion, then you disappear on me, and now this.”

  He took a tentative step toward me and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, waiting until I relaxed to tug me all the way in. “Ava, I’m sorry. I should have… I don’t know.”

  “You shouldn’t have had so much to drink.” I turned the tables again, regaining the power in our argument.

  “I haven’t had anything to drink.” He laughed as if my statement was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard.

  I scoffed. “Don’t lie, Maddox. I could taste the beer on your breath.”

  “When?” He stepped back and held me at arm’s length. Something that looked suspiciously like fear flashed behind his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

  “Are we pretending nothing happened now? I mean, I get it. I lose control around you too, but I thought for sure we’d talk about it rather than pretend nothing happened.” I let the frustration flow out of me. I’d had enough of the games for one night.

  He shook his head, and for a second I thought, maybe, he really didn’t know. But that was ridiculous. It wasn’t as if he had amnesia or something. “Pretending what didn’t happen?”

  I spun away from him and threw my hands into the air. “Oh my God, Maddox. You either had way more than I thought you did, or you’re being intentionally obtuse.”

  His muscles tensed, ready for action, and he stood stock still, his jaw clenched so tightly I feared it would shatter. Then, as if a blanket of calm fell over him, he crossed his arms, and his lips tipped into a frosty smile. “Why don’t you spell it out for me then?”

  Exhaustion had gotten the best of me. My brain was frazzled, my body tense and anxious. I’d had less than a few hours of sleep, and he wanted me to relive our first argument?

  After taking a moment to consider it, I decided I owed him that much. It wasn’t that long ago he’d had to tell me what happened at the lighthouse party after I’d drunk my weight in apple ale.

  I chewed on my lip while I worked up the courage. The strength of my anger seemed to fade with each breath I took. I dropped my eyes to my naked feet, freezing in the dewy grass. “Fine. Since you don’t seem to remember what happened, I’ll tell you.” I started rambling. “We, uh. Though how you could possibly forget that we almost had sex is beyond me. Well, I guess not quite almost, but if I hadn’t come to my senses, if I hadn’t stopped you, we probably would have.”

  “No. Ava, please don’t…” The words tumbled past his lips like a prayer. If I hadn’t known better, I might have fallen for the anguish reflecting in his expression, as if I’d just destroyed his entire world with that revelation.

  I lifted my head, imploring him to understand my feelings. “Trust me when I say, I want to have sex with you, Maddox, but not against the wall at some random guy’s party while you’re drunk.”

  “I’m so sorry. I should have… ” He choked back a sob and took a step toward me only to stop in his tracks.

  “And if my mom ever finds out you tried to drive me home after you’d been drinking, she’ll never let me see you again.”

  When I finished, I waited quietly for him to say something. Anything. But Maddox seemed frozen in place, as if he’d had some kind of seizure. Or a stroke.

  “Maddox? God, are you okay?” I reached up to brush my fingertips across his flaming cheek. He didn’t have a fever, but he definitely looked like he was burning up.

  “I-I don’t know what to say.” He clenched his jaw as raw fury warred with the utter devastation in his eyes. They seemed to glaze over, and he looked almost as if he were about to cry. “I’m very sorry that happened to you.”

  What the hell?

  My eyes widened. “You’re sorry that happened to me? Are you serious, Maddox? That’s all you have to say?”

  He swallowed hard and seemed to stagger on his feet. He looked lost and broken. I knew he’d been lying about drinking. “Ava, I think you need to sit down.”

  Despite the gravity of the situation, I laughed. “I need to sit down? Me? I barely drank anything tonight. You’re the one who looks like you’re about to keel over. Or throw up.”

  “Please!” he snapped then ran a hand over his clean-shaven face.

  “Wait, you shaved? Since the party?” I took a moment to really examine him, and the differences started to add up. “And you changed your clothes, too.” I took a step back and had to catch myself after stumbling over the edge of the curb. “Maddox, you’re scaring me. What the hell happened to you tonight? Something really strange is going on, and either you tell me, or I’m going back inside and locking my doors behind me.”

  He licked his lips and stepped toward me, his eyes pleading with me to—I didn’t know what. But I held up my hands between us. “Oh no, you stay over there until you explain yourself.”

  “Just… can you please sit down?” The weight of the evening seemed to catch up with him, too, and he looked as exhausted as I felt. “I really need you to sit down.” He crouched down beside me and dropped into a seated position on the sidewalk. “See? I won’t touch you. Sit beside me, and I’ll tell you everything.”

  I nodded, pulling his jacket around my shoulders as I sat cross-legged beside him. “I’m sitting. Start talking.”

  “I wasn’t lying when I said I had to deal with a family matter tonight. God, if you only knew how messed up my family is.” He took a deep breath then closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose before making eye contact with me again. “I-I was trying to work out a little problem I have with my brother. He’s not… he’s not a good guy. Not someone I’d ever want around you. I went to the place I expected him to be but he, uh, never showed up. So I went looking for him. I spent the entire evening looking for him, in fact. By the time I got back to town, it was obvious you’d already left the party, so I came here to talk to you.” He sucked in another breath and reached his hands out to me. He waited until I nodded to take my hands in his. “Ava, I never made it to the party. I came here to apologize for ditching you again.”

  “But…” I stared into his dark eyes and tried to find the lie in his words. “That’s just not possible. I was there. I saw you. Kissed you. I didn’t imagine that.” My cheeks flamed at the memory of how much more than kissing we’d done.

  He shook his head, but I didn’t understand what he meant by it.

  “What? I didn’t kiss you, or I didn’t imagine it?”

  “No, you didn’t kiss me. But you didn’t imagine it either.” His eyes shimmered in the lamplight like tears waiting to fall. “Ava, I-I think—no—I’m positive you met my twin brother. And you have no idea how sorry I am that I wasn’t there to protect you from him. I hope you can forgive me.”

  As if someone had sucker-punched me, the air in my lungs rushed out with a whoosh. “Twin brother? You have a twin brother?” Oh my God, Maddox’s brother had his hands all over me. And I liked it. A lot. Guilt swelled, and I had to tear my eyes away from his. “Why didn’t you tell me? Has he been walking around campus with your face this whole time?” I wondered how many times I’d seen him around a corner, thinking he was Maddox.

  “I doubt it. We do our best to avoid each other, so he steers clear of the places I frequent.” He barked out a hollow laugh. “And trust me, if you knew him, you’d know why I don’t talk about him. God, Ava, I’d hoped you’d never have to meet Laith.”

  I scrambled to my feet, my heart skipping and jumping in my chest like a broken clock. I knew that name. “Laith?” I tried to lick my lips, but my tongue went dry and shriveled up in my mouth like stale beef jerky.

  “Yeah, Laith.” He scratched his neck as he followed me to his feet. “We, uh, had a major falling out a long time ago, and we’ve never managed to get past it.”

  “And you’re sure you never mentioned him before?” I could taste my heartbeat; it was so loud. How could he not hear it? I’d kissed Laith in a dream. Now I’d done it for real. And God help me, I wanted to do it again.

  “Like I said, we don’t get along. I try to forget he exists, if you wanna know the truth.” He let out a forced chuckle, as if trying to make light of the situation. But there was nothing light about this situation.

  “How did he know about me? Your brother? How did he know I’d be at that party?” I tried to drag the information out of him, but he wasn’t cooperating.

  Maddox averted his eyes. “I-I don’t know.”

  I charged toward him with my heart in my throat. “Yes. You. Do! Stop lying to me. How the hell did he know I’d be at the party?”

  He flinched back then reached out to me, but I wasn’t having any of that. “Damn it! I don’t know how to explain how he found you at the party.”

  My mouth fell open. “He’s been following me, hasn’t he? Maybe not on campus, but everywhere else.” I knew the answer before I’d even formed the question. I’d dreamed about Laith. And whether or not he was stalking me in the daylight, he was most certainly stalking me in my sleep. “Answer me!”

  “Yes, I think he probably is.” He grabbed ahold of the front of his jacket and pulled me until I landed in his arms. He locked his arms around me and held on tight. “But, Ava, you need to stay away from him. He’s dangerous. There’s way more to this than you know. It’s complicated, and I honestly don’t know how to explain it all.”

  “You keep saying that, but what does that really mean? You know what’s going on, but you don’t want to tell me?” I was sure I’d have bruises from the violent hammering going on behind my ribs. The secrets, the dreams, the inexplicable pull that held me tethered to Maddox, and now his brother—it was all too much for me to process.

  He reluctantly nodded. “That’s part of it. But before you assume I’m playing some kind of game, let me assure you I’m not. I care about you.” He squeezed me to his chest. “God, you have no idea how much I care about you. But it was inevitable my brother would find you.”

  “I’ve been dreaming about him.” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them.

  “What?” Maddox tensed again, his body vibrating with anger. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I wrenched myself out of his arms again. “Tell you what? I’ve been having dreams about you, but it’s not you? I thought I was going crazy or that my subconscious was having doubts about us. Not in my wildest imagination would I have guessed my dreams were premonitions.”

  He shook his head as if it hurt him to do so. “Not premonitions.”

  “What?”

  “They’re not premonitions, Ava. They’re memories.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I woke up in a cold sweat, dark memories swirling around in my head like a bad dream, a bad dream that came with a horrible hangover. I’d barely had anything to drink last night, but my headache thought differently.

  Unfortunately for me, last night wasn’t a dream. Unlike the boy slaying the dragon and boy in the field of flowers, this Laith was all too real.

  It would figure, just when something in my life started to go right, my boyfriend’s twin brother would waltz into town to mess things up. Laith was like a category five hurricane, blowing into shore and battering everything in his path into a pile of rubble. I’d spent less than thirty total minutes with him, and I couldn’t shake his overwhelming presence from my thoughts. Or the taste of him from my lips.

  Oh, God. How would I tell Maddox about the attraction I felt for Laith? How could I explain that the pull I felt for his brother was just as strong as the feelings I had for him? The answer was simple: I couldn’t.

  I climbed out of bed in a fog. Everything I believed in had been turned on its ear. In that old story of girl meets boy, girl falls in love with boy, and they both lived happily ever after, nowhere did it say the boy’s brother would try to sweep girl off her feet with his dangerous charm.

  And worst of all, I suddenly had no idea what to believe. Maddox promised to explain, but according to him, he needed to do something first. Story of my life. That boy always had something to do. Or somewhere to be.

  After the requisite time spent feeling sorry for myself, I pulled on a pair of loose-fitting jeans and one of my dad’s faded blue Hoyas sweatshirts, tied my hair into a high ponytail, and wandered downstairs to eat something. I couldn’t think on an empty stomach.