16. Emmett

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

emmett

Me:I am so sick of drama and chaos.

Also me: I messed up someone’s career, put my brother’s degree on the line, and am lying to nearly every single person in my life, all because I wanted Jonah’s dick.

It’s official. I really am the drama.

I don’t get to stay for breakfast with Jonah as planned, which sucks because getting dressed and leaving his place so fast means I didn’t even give him a proper goodbye. Instead of being on my knees or being pounded, I’m pounding pavement with my feet as I run back to the DIK house.

I’m calling Benny nonstop, but he’s not answering, and he’s probably still asleep. I’d normally climb in the window because the rest of the house isn’t allowed to see me, but fuck that. It’s time.

Plus, there’s a large chance he’s not sleeping but having sex with Harrison, and I don’t need to see that. Uh, again. Not that I’ve seen them fully going at it, but close enough, and that’s already too much.

When I finally reach the DIK house, I try him one more time before barging inside. He finally answers.

“For fuck’s sake, what is it?”

“Love you too, Benny Wenny, but we have a problem. A really big problem. It’s time.”

“Time you let me sleep? Great. Bye.”

“Time to tell your frat brothers and everyone else at this school that I’m not you. I’m walking up to the porch, and you can’t stop me.” I end the call before he can protest.

I enter the house, where no one pays attention because there is always someone coming or going in this place.

The usual breakfast traffic is in the kitchen, so I make my way in there so I can tell everyone to stop calling me Ben.

My brother appears from the hallway at the exact moment the guys lift their heads to say good morning to me.

Ben lands beside me. Every single pair of eyes staring in this direction widens. Some mouths drop open. And then an eerie silence settles over the frat house.

“What the fuck?” Big Wally finally says.

Ben shakes off the shock and brings out the jokester. “Help! Someone cloned me in the science lab!”

I fold my arms. “Benny.”

“See! He just admitted I’m the real Ben!”

“Don’t make me bring out the photos from when we were twelve and you wanted to be so different to me you cut your own hair and had the world’s shortest bangs.” I turn to the guys. “So, I’m Emmett, Ben’s twin brother. I’ve been homeless for the last six months, so I’ve been living here and kinda been pretending to be Ben. We’re sorry for deceiving you all, and you don’t need to worry, I don’t live here anymore. I just needed you all to know of my existence.”

“Wait up,” Big Wally says and glances at Ben. “You’ve been a twin for six months?”

“Technically my whole life, big guy. He’s just been here for the last six months.”

“That’s what I meant. How do I know who I’ve told what to? You know secrets, man. All my deep, dark secrets.”

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I haven’t told anyone how you have a recurring dream where you’re trapped in a Where’s Waldo book and no one can ever find you.”

Everyone in the room snickers.

“See! I told you that in confidence! And now you’re telling me you’re not even Ben?”

“In Benny’s defense, he had to tell me that story, so if you brought it up, I’d know exactly what you were talking about.”

Timmo rubs his temples. “Wait, did he tell you or Ben?”

“Ben,” I say. “And if we really want to get in on technicalities, I’m still the person you see as Ben, but I’m delightful and fun. I smile more.”

Ben growls at me. “I told you not to smile so much. You’re always trying to ruin my reputation.”

“Did anyone have any idea?” Timmo asks.

Big Wally walks over to us. His name comes from his height, and not going to lie, he’s intimidating standing in front of us. He points at me and then at Benny. “I saw you two once.”

I nod. “You did. You were drunk off your face.”

“I knew it. Everyone said I was crazy.” He holds his hands up. “Vindication tastes so sweet.”

We laugh at his antics.

“Are we all cool?” I ask. “I can give you guys back rent or whatever. It’ll take me a while because I’m on minimum wage and only work three days a week⁠—”

“That’s up to the pres,” Big Wally says. “But I’m cool with it. We didn’t even know you were here, so can we really be pissed?”

“Speak for yourself,” Jayden says. “It’s creepy. It’s like … trickery and a betrayal.”

Benny and I share a guilty look. Because this goes way beyond only the last six months, but if we only take the last six months into account …

“I really am sorry about having to trick you, but I had nowhere else to go, and I don’t even go to this school, and other than going home to Vermont, I didn’t really have any other choice.”

“Where were you living before here?” Jayden asks.

“San Diego State. Until I got kicked out.”

“For?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Benny says. “I told him he could stay with us, so if anything, it’s my fault.”

“This puts our whole charter at risk,” Timmo says. “Pres is going to be pissed.”

“What am I going to be pissed about?” Ridge enters the room, and like he has the rest of this year, he doesn’t even notice there are two Bens.

“Them.” Big Wally points to us.

Ridge turns to us, doing the same double take when he takes us in. “You’re a twin?” His eyes dart between Benny and me. “Which one of you is Ben?”

“They both are. Apparently,” Jayden says.

And okay, I get it. They’re bitter and feel tricked.

“We really are sorry,” I say. “Or, I am, at least.”

“I’m sorry too,” Ben says. “Sorry that my brother has been here for six months and not one of you has been smart enough to notice.”

Big Wally goes to open his mouth, but Ben keeps talking.

“You don’t count. Everyone told you that you were too drunk and seeing double, and you believed it.”

“No, I didn’t,” he mumbles. “Well, I did, but only because Ben having a clone seemed too far-fetched.”

“Love how you immediately jumped to clone and not twin,” I point out.

“You suck,” he says, pouting.

“You’re all allowed to be pissed. You can ask me for money to pay my way, and I’ll pay it off in installments or something, but⁠—”

“You don’t need to pay us,” Ridge says. “Accepting money from you would be admitting we had a non-student stay with us. Are you moved out now?”

“Completely.” Well, mostly.

“Then if anyone asks, the most Ben’s twin ever did was crash here a couple of times. That’s the official story, and if any of you fuckers go and ruin that, it’s all our asses who wouldn’t have a place to live when we get shut down. Got it?”

There are murmurs of reluctant agreement before the president is back on me.

“And you’re never allowed to sleep here again.”

“Deal,” I say quickly. “I wasn’t here last night at all, so I’m already acing that rule.”

Beside me though, Ben stiffens. “Where were you last night? I know you weren’t at Harrison’s because he told me.”

“Uhh …”

Ben slumps. “You were with Professor Brooks, weren’t you?”

“Professor Brooks?” Big Wally exclaims. “Wait, is that what all that drama was about last week? Everyone thought you slept with the professor! Man, having a twin sounds like so much fun.”

Yeah, you’d think that, but it’s gotten to the point that I wish we didn’t have each other’s persona to fall back on. Would I change things if I could? Fuck no. But it would be easier if we didn’t resemble each other so damn much or know each other inside and out that it’s too easy to wear that mask. If we’d never started switching places, we never would’ve gotten ourselves into half the situations we do.

“That’s why we need to go,” I say. “He has a meeting with the dean to talk about what happened in the quad on Friday because everyone is spreading shit. Everyone thinks Jonah slept with his student.”

Ben glares at me in the way I can tell what he’s thinking. I don’t even need to be his twin to know what he’s trying to say. Technically, he did sleep with his student.

Ergh. Maybe I shouldn’t have forced Ben to tell his frat brothers, but if I’m taking back who I am, I can’t be Ben anymore. With anyone.

I drag Ben into the administration building because even though this is the right thing to do, my brother is in selfish mode.

“You know, if we let him take the fall for this, they won’t question why I dropped his class, and then we won’t be risking having everything exposed.”

I let him go and stop completely. He has to be joking.

“Actually, I’m having issues in my ethics class too. Can you sleep with that professor too?” He’s smiling and carefree, but I can’t help thinking he’s actually being serious. You know, one of those jokes that actually holds truth.

“Do I really need to explain to you⁠—”

He holds up his hand. “I’m joking. As much as I’d love to use this as an excuse to get out of the mess we made, I know I need to face the truth eventually, but I was hoping I could face the truth at home in Vermont and never reveal our complete history here.”

“You want to do it where we don’t face any consequences.”

“We never have before, why start now?”

Because we’re not only fucking up our lives but now other people’s. Jonah could lose his job because of us, and if he gets fired his first year teaching, does that mean his entire career is over?

“When do you plan to tell West and Jasper that you were diagnosed with dyscalculia?” Thinly veiled threats? Me? Never.

“When do you plan on telling them you got kicked out of school?” he throws back.

“Touché.”

“If I tell them about me, you know they’re going to fly out here, so you better be ready for that.”

Also true. Damn it.

“So if you really want me to be completely selfless, I could call them right—” Damn him calling me on my bluff.

“Fine. You win. But you’re not getting out of helping Jonah because he did nothing wrong in this scenario. We’re the ones who dragged him into our fucked-upness.”

“Correction, you’re the one who did that. I was happy to leave his class and never interact with him again. You’re the one who sat there pretending to be me and then decided to sleep with him as you.”

Benny still isn’t taking this situation seriously, and it pisses me off so much. Only, I don’t think it’s him I’m mad at. It’s me. It’s just easier to take it out on him.

I step closer to my brother, the one person I’ve always vowed to have his back. “The only reason I was in that class in the first place was for you. And now because of that, I can’t date the one guy I’ve been interested in since we moved to California. So maybe don’t throw that in my face when all I’ve ever done has been for you. If it weren’t for you, I’d—” I cut myself off because I can’t blame Benny for my decisions. Sure, I’d probably be in the NHL by now or preparing for it, but it was my choice to follow Benny to California. “Sorry. None of this is your fault alone. I just can’t bear the thought of ruining Jonah’s life.”

Benny blinks at me. And then some more.

“Sorry,” I say again.

“No, you’re not. But that’s okay because I’ve decided something.”

“You hate me and are disowning me as your brother?”

“No. That this guy must mean a lot to you for you to be this uptight. For you to get in my face like that. Therefore, Jonah means a lot to me, and even though doing this is bringing unwanted attention on both of us, I’m going to stand by you. Because you’ve stood by me on way many more occasions without question. Even when you should have questioned me.”

I hang my head.

“Like giving up hockey. You didn’t stand up to me then, but you did for Professor Brooks? I need to acknowledge that.”

“Hockey’s different,” I mutter. “I agreed with you on, like, ninety percent of what you said.”

“You gave up the NHL for me, and now that I know it, I’m going to make it up to you. By getting you the man of your dreams, even if it means risking my degree.”

And this is what it’s like to be part of an unbreakable bond. We get pissy, we disagree, and we can even fight sometimes, but when it’s something important—like giving up hockey or how I feel about Jonah—we’ll always have each other’s back.

Behind us, the doors open and Jonah walks in. His skin is pale, and he looks nervous, and when his eyes meet mine, he does a double take and then glances at Ben. Back and forth, back and forth, his gaze darts between us.

I know it’s a shitty thing to be hopeful for, and I can’t expect everyone to automatically know the difference between Benny and me. Harrison picked it up quickly, but that doesn’t mean Jonah will.

His eyes settle on me, and his lips quirk. “Did you have to drag him kicking and screaming like you thought you would?”

Ben’s mouth drops, but mine breaks into a smile.

“How did you know I’m me?”

Jonah scoffs. “Please, you look nothing alike.”

I glance at our arms to make sure our tattoos aren’t showing.

“Fine. I was only eighty percent sure it was you.”

Eighty percent is still more than a lot of people in our lives can tell. It might sound crazy to some—that the biggest turn-on for me is someone who can tell the differences between Bennett and me—but it plays into the whole being unable to use each other’s identity as a crutch.

Everyday individuals can’t hide who they are, Photoshop and catfishing aside. In an everyday situation where they have to go into work and speak with others, they don’t even have the option of hiding behind a twin, and I think Benny and I have taken that for granted.

It’s codependent as fuck, and I’m finally in a place where I can’t do it anymore. I don’t want to do it.

Jonah turns to Benny. “And, Ben, I want to say I’m sorry for confronting⁠—”

He puts up his hand to stop him. “Don’t need to apologize. It’s not the first time we’ve been mistaken for the other, and if anything, this has blown back on you more than me. I’m the dude who slept with his professor; I’m a legend. Or, I was, until Emmett went and ruined it by telling all my frat brothers he exists.”

“I’m so sorry my existence is an inconvenience for you,” I snark.

“It’s okay. You’re forgiven. Now, who do we have to tell we’re twins so you don’t get fired and you did nothing wrong?”

“The dean,” Jonah says.

This is exactly the type of situation we try to avoid—bringing attention to how easy it is for us to switch places.

“It’ll be a quick prove who we are and get out, right?” I ask.

Jonah touches my arm. “Are you having PTSD from getting kicked out of San Diego? You do know you’re not going to get in trouble, don’t you?”

“Sure. I mean, of course.” I do know that, logically. But my brain isn’t being very logical right now. For some reason, I have it in my head that if we bring attention to the fact we’re twins, people will automatically assume we cheated in classes.

There’s no jump in which that makes rational sense, but I think because we’d gotten away with it for so long and did it so often that I expect to be caught out eventually. What if today is that day?

Ben doesn’t seem to have the same hesitance. “Let’s do this, then.”

Okay. Doing this.

Doing it.

Going. To. Do. It.

Neither Jonah nor I move.

“Okay, I’ll do it.” Ben turns on his heel, forcing us to follow him. Because if I know my brother at all, he’s going to go in there and say something stupid.

Too late.

“Hi, Dean Kirwin. I want you to know that even though Professor Brooks accused me of cheating on my boyfriend with him, I can assure you that I didn’t. Uh, cheat. I wouldn’t do that to Harrison. Wait, no. I didn’t sleep with him at all. My twin brother who doesn’t go to this school did. Not me.”

I facepalm. Could he sound like he’s lying any more?