Badd Luck Read online

  "I agree. But before we do another thing I gotta get something to eat. That work out was a killer and my body is screaming."

  "Yeah, you're right. Let's take a break, get cleaned up and get something to eat and then come back here and work on that tune."

  I played a riff I'd had rattling around my head lately, and Canaan listened as I repeated it and messed around with it, trying to find the rest of the tune. Then I picked up the mandolin and played a sequence that circled around my riff, which led to several hours of jamming, figuring out the rest of the song, and then we retreated to opposite corners of the studio to work on the lyrics.

  Typically, we write the music together, and then work separately on the lyrics, and then join together again to weave our separate ideas into a single unit. This works for us, since being twins we can sort of read each other's minds to some degree, and we always understand where the other is coming from.

  By midnight, we had a complete song, which we then played through a few times, until we were sure we had it down.

  Canaan set the mandolin back on the stand and collapsed onto the couch along one wall of the practice space, rubbing his face with both hands. "Are we crazy to write a song about the girls like this? We agreed not to jump into anything, yet here we are writing a song about them. Do you really think this can be a thing with the girls, Cor, or are we acting like horny teenagers? I mean, if we were gonna hook up with Tate and Aerie, wouldn't we have done that already, way back when?"

  "Canaan, we wrote a song, not a marriage proposal. Besides, I think something like this might be kinda of fun."

  "Yeah, I hear you, but just humor me for a minute. If we got serious with the girls and they get serious with us--and that's all a big if--how is it gonna work? Who's with who? I mean, we've never really talked about this seriously. You and I have double-teamed a couple of times, but something tells me that's not how this is going to work."

  I winced, trying to picture a multiple-partner situation with my brother and the Kingsley twins. "Yeah, that's not happening--not ever."

  Canaan shook his head. "Ah, no. Definitely not."

  I shrugged, lifting my hands in the air. "I have no fucking idea, bro. Back in the day, we kind of did everything together, but I guess I did spend more time with Aerie. But on that Skype call, I felt more of a connection to Tate. But things could be totally different when they're here in person. I just don't know, man."

  "Me neither."

  "We're just gonna have to wing it, Cane."

  Canaan scrubbed his face again, and then abruptly burst out laughing. "Love is in the air in Ketchikan, huh?"

  "That's what we said. Are we wrong?"

  "No, but now I'm wondering if you jinxed us to be next in line in the Badd family."

  "There are worse ways to go than ending up with a Kingsley twin, Cane. Just sayin'."

  He stood up and headed for the stairs. "Very true, but I'm just not sure I'm ready to settle down yet. Bast is married, Brock and Claire are serious, Bax is all still fucked up over Eva, Zane has a wife and baby...we're all gonna be tied down to this place, and as much as I've had fun being here these last few months, I'm not sure I want to be here forever."

  I let him go up alone, because I needed time to think. I still had my guitar on my lap, so I plugged a pair of headphones into the amp and let my hands work the strings absently while my mind wandered.

  For once, I wasn't sure if I agreed with my twin. I liked it here in Ketchikan. I liked the slow pace, the quietness. I liked not being on a tour bus with a bunch of dudes. I liked not being on tour in general, being in one place rather than traveling constantly. I liked being in control of our own music, doing it our way. I even liked working at the bar. It was fun, challenging, and never boring, and Cane and I got to hone our stripped-down sound.

  When we were touring as Bishop's Pawn, we had a bassist and a drummer, and both of those guys were, like Canaan and I, multi-instrumentalists, so we'd switch instruments from song to song. I'm more of a rhythm and percussion guy, so I end up on the cajon or drum set more often than not, but I also do okay on guitars, whereas stringed instruments are Canaan's real forte, even though he does okay on percussion. And Brett and Toby were both able to pick up other instruments, acoustic guitar, bongos or whatever, and Brett was a killer on the upright bass while Toby was a whiz with the drums, where I'm better at hand drums.

  Yeah, it's complicated.

  Point being, I like the stripped-down set, just me and Canaan, like in the old days.

  I'm not sure I want to go back out on tour, back to the chaotic whirlwind and the groupies and a new city every day and living out of a suitcase on a tour bus.

  Canaan and I have always been together, always agreed on what we wanted out of life and how to go about getting it. We've never even had to really talk about our plans out loud, we just instinctively knew what we wanted and how to get it.

  This...

  Hmmm.

  Seems like it ain't just love in the air, but change, too.

  3

  Tate

  * * *

  We were sitting at our gate at LAX, waiting for our flight from LA to Seattle to board. The past month had flown by--literally--and we were finally beginning our break. Aerie was standing at the window, watching the planes come and go, her phone pressed to her ear, chatting animatedly to someone. I wasn't sure whom. Which was unusual.

  I had my iPad out, catching up on last-minute social media, posting about our upcoming period of complete radio silence, dealing with fan emails and bloggers and Instagram comments. Aerie typically handled this stuff--the social media bullshit. I hate it, personally. I'm the live-and-in-person sort, the one who schmoozes at parties and charms ad managers and does live stream Q-and-A videos and all that, while Aerie answers messages and PMs and DMs and responds to comments. But she was on the phone, so the job fell to me.

  God, I was looking forward to unplugging in Ketchikan.

  I dreamed about Corin, last night. He was shirtless and we were at the beach together.

  It was like a dream I had about Corin years ago. We'd spent the day at the beach together, Aerie and I in matching bikinis, which were super crazy revealing and made us feel all grown up and sexy, and that was the first time I'd ever noticed either of the boys looking at us like not just girls and their best friends, but as women, with women's bodies. They couldn't keep their eyes off of us, and Corin in particular kept staring at me, and I'd catch him and he'd look away.

  It was also the first time I remember looking at them as men, as objects of attraction. Up until then, they were just Cane and Cor, the boys. The twins. But that day at the beach, they were wearing these super low-slung board shorts which showed off their V-cuts, and their abs were all shredded and their arms were veiny and muscular and they were so fucking sexy I couldn't handle it, because it was Cane and Cor, the boys. But they weren't just the boys, anymore. They were men. And I'd kept staring at Cor, at the bulge in the front of his board shorts, and wondering what those shorts hid, and maybe even possibly daydreaming about finding out.

  Later that night, I'd had a dream about Corin, and finding out what those shorts hid. Of course, being sixteen, my experience had been limited and so the dream had conveniently glossed over the actual dimensions of his cock, since I'd never seen his, and only had messed around with a couple other guys at that point and hadn't gone all the way yet. The dream had then jumped forward from him dropping those sexy-ass board shorts to us being naked together in the dark, and he was all around me and I was touching him, feeling him, and he was making sexy desperate little sounds. I'd woken up just before he'd come, which had left me wildly frustrated.

  I had glanced at Aerie, asleep across the room, and then had slipped my fingers between my thighs and made myself come, not once, not twice, but three times.

  While thinking about Corin Badd the whole time.

  I'd felt utterly bizarre about it, too. Conflicted. Disturbed. Confused. He was my best friend. And Cori
n and Aerie were always tighter than Corin and me. We'd all go out together, and Corin and Aerie would sit together on one side of the booth and Canaan and I would sit on the other. If we shared popcorn and a Coke, it would be Aerie and Corin sharing, and Canaan and me. Conversations would flow naturally between Canaan and me, and Corin and Aerie. We'd all talk and it would often be unintelligible chaos to anyone else, but to us it was just...us; only us always meant me and Cane, and Aerie and Cor.

  And the dream last night was about him again. Similar situation, him shirtless, and me thirsty for him. Only...in the dream last night we were adults, and his gaze was hungry and knowing, as if he knew I wanted him. And planned to do something about it. It wasn't just an innocent, teenage wet dream short on details. It had been...very lucid.

  Aerie was done with the phone call now, and was prancing across the waiting area to where I was sitting. She was wearing a plaid miniskirt that came almost to mid-thigh, teasing anyone who looked at her with any hope that she'd move just so and the skirt would fly up. With it she wore a simple white V-neck T-shirt and no bra--it was chilly in the airport so her nipples were standing out. She wore basic black flats to complete the outfit, with a Tory Burch watch and a slim Prada clutch. Her hair was loose as usual, brushed to a shine and curled into loose spirals.

  I was wearing a tight, fire-engine red romper, the shorts portion just barely covering the lower swell of my butt. The top had a full length and wide-open V-neck which I'd had to tape so my tits didn't fly out. But hell, it was a hot look. I had killer black heels and a few bangles on my wrists and a chunky black necklace to match the heels, a thin strap clutch-size purse, and my hair braided and draped over one shoulder. We'd both gone minimal with makeup, just a bit of concealer and blush and a pop of color on our lips.

  This was the first day of the rest of our lives and we were determined to celebrate by wearing something totally unlike what we'd probably end up wearing in Ketchikan day to day.

  Aerie pranced--she never prances--across the gate waiting area and draped herself into the chair beside me; she sat for a moment, and then, as was her habit whenever we had a few moments of downtime, she took her ukulele out the case and leaned back in the chair, picking at the strings idly.

  "Who was that?" I asked her.

  "Who was who?" she responded, examining her fingernails.

  "On the phone, you turd. Don't play dumb with me."

  "Oh. That was Corin."

  I felt a strange bolt of something hot and sharp running through me which, if I didn't know better, and it wasn't utterly moronic, I'd have said was jealousy.

  "Corin, huh?" I tried to sound casual and unaffected, and mostly succeeded. "He called you?"

  She shrugged. "I called him, actually."

  "You did?"

  She wasn't looking at me, which I found odd. "By accident."

  "You called Corin...by accident?" I couldn't help sounding skeptical.

  She nodded. "I meant to call Canaan, but I hit the wrong number. Their phone numbers are, like, only different by a single digit. I thought I was talking to Cane at first, too, but when I referenced a meme I emailed him yesterday, he was totally clueless."

  I blinked, because her explanation didn't quite add up. "Aerie," I said, sounding a lot like a disbelieving parent.

  She eyed me. "What?"

  "Are you...are you lying...to me?"

  She huffed. "Fine. I called Corin on purpose."

  "Why?"

  She flicked a French manicured fingernail at me. "I was curious to see how you'd react if I did."

  "What? Why?"

  She grinned wickedly. "Because you like Corin, and you want him for yourself. And you're jealous that I talked to him on the phone."

  "I am not!" I yelled, a little too loudly.

  "Now who's lying, T?"

  I groaned, sinking lower in the chair. "Fine. I'm jealous. But it's weird, and I don't like it, and this whole thing is messed up." I whacked her on the bicep with my phone. "You're a bitch."

  "I know." She whacked me on the shoulder. "Really, though, I didn't actually call him just to make you jealous. Although it's funny that it did."

  I laughed. "What'd you talk about, then?"

  "Oh, this and that."

  "Aaaa..."

  "T?"

  "What'd you talk about?"

  She laughed, a tinkling little giggle. "Just letting him know we were about to board our plane soon."

  "I already texted Corin and Canaan with our gate info, you dork."

  "Oh." She shot a glance at me. "So, um...full disclosure? I really did call Corin by accident, but it was a couple days ago. And we ended up talking for a few minutes."

  "I see," I said, hating the weird sting I felt for a lot of reasons. "And what did you talk about then?"

  She shrugged. "Oh, I just bored him stupid with East Coast gossip. He was...cool, with me. Like, a little distant. And, in related and also interesting news that I forgot to share with you--did you know Baxter is in a relationship with Evangeline du Maurier?"

  "What? You're shitting me!"

  "No! For real. I've heard rumblings from the Yale crowd that she'd turned down several proposals from Thomas Haverton, of all people."

  "Who in their right mind would accept a proposal from that pretentious, philandering douche-waffle?" I said. "He's horrible."

  "I know, right? Apparently her parents and his are lifelong friends, and Thomas has always been after Evangeline, and she keeps turning him down. Which, good for her, I say, because Thomas may be richer than Midas, and have an absurdly perfect jawline, but he's vain and arrogant and egotistical and a chauvinist besides. Her life would be a living hell if she ever married him.

  "He hit on me once at a fundraiser on the Upper East Side, even though he'd been there with a different woman, who was not Evangeline. Shady, shady, shady." She waved a hand indicating she had more info on this topic.

  "Anyway, I was emailing with Trina MacCauley who knows literally everyone and always has all the gossip. Well, guess what she told me?" And without waiting for an answer from me she said, "Thomas and Evangeline are suddenly getting married. Evangeline vanished recently, I guess, so her father was having all of Manhattan and Beverly Hills torn apart looking for her, because she apparently just...poof, vanished, and nobody could find her.

  "And Corin was talking about how their brother Baxter, the avowed bachelor and uber-player, had met this hoity-toity East Coast princess type he was calling Eva, who had told a story about strict parents and a jerk she knew named Thomas. Sounding familiar?

  "So, yeah, dear spoiled Evangeline had somehow ended up in Ketchikan of all places. She ran into Baxter, and they had a thing. But then I hear from Trina that the du Maurier's have rented out the Wadsworth, and Thomas and Evangeline are getting married!

  "I may not know Evangeline personally but, if true, this story sends up red flags in my head, because one doesn't go from turning down multiple marriage proposals from Thomas Haverton to running away and hooking up with Baxter Badd, and then going back to marrying Thomas. It stinks of manipulation or coercion on the part of Thomas and Mr. du Maurier."

  I blinked, absorbing this information. "So, Evangeline du Maurier is marrying Thomas Haverton? But she's in love with Baxter?"

  Aerie shrugged. "I'm not entirely sure. But Corin seemed interested in this bit of information, and those boys don't give a single shit about East Coast gossip, which makes me wonder about the whole situation. What makes it all the more suspicious to me is that the wedding is very sudden. Like the announcement went out a week ago, and the wedding is tomorrow. Very sudden. Too sudden, if you ask me."

  "No kidding. Too sudden indeed, unless it's a shotgun wedding."

  Aerie waved that suggestion off. "In that case they'd force her to get an abortion and keep the whole thing under wraps. They wouldn't do a shotgun wedding."

  "Yeah, that's probably true." I sighed. "It's still weird how strongly I felt about you calling Corin. I've never been jeal
ous of you about anything."

  "Well, I can tell you, I felt weird calling him."

  "What do you mean?"

  She shrugged. "Just that I was always so close to him growing up. He and I were always sharing everything, you know? Like, Cor was my guy. My best friend. Then it's like..." she trailed off, at a loss.

  "Like we lost touch, stopped seeing each other almost completely for a few years, and now suddenly everything between us is reset in some weird way?" I supplied.

  "Exactly!"

  The gate attendant finally announced boarding for our section of the plane, so we boarded and settled in for the short flight to Seattle, which would be followed by a quick layover and the connecting flight from Seattle to Ketchikan.

  En route to Seattle, I lowered my tray table, set my laptop, iPad, and iPhone onto it, and then nudged Aerie. "Your turn."

  She was deeply engrossed in a Twitter thread, and took a moment to register that I'd spoken. "What?"

  I snatched her phone out of her hand. "All devices on the table."

  She blinked at me. "Um. Did we really mean no contact with anyone? I thought we'd just...you know...check notifications less frequently?"

  I laughed. "Nope. We're shutting them off."

  "What if someone needs to get hold of us?"

  I frowned at her. "That's the entire point of this, A--so no one...and I mean no one...can get hold of us."

  "Not even Mom?"

  "Especially not Mom. She'd have us on a plane to Manhattan in under twelve hours."

  Aerie frowned. "Did we officially inform her of our decision to go on the lam?"

  "On the lam? Are we in an eighties cop drama now?" I powered her phone off, followed by all my devices. "Yes, I sent her an email while we were in Italy, and I know Lacy has spoken to her as well."

  Aerie's frown deepened. "You emailed our mother informing her that we were quitting and going off the grid?"

  "Yep!"

  Aerie laughed. "Oh my god. So, what did you tell her?"

  "That we needed some time alone away from everything and everyone to reassess our life goals, and that we would be out of communication, entirely and indefinitely, until we decided what we want to do."

  "Did she reply?"