I was sitting in a bar with my brother, my heart racing, my palms sweating and my anxiety in overdrive. Of all the places to go, he’d picked a seedy bar. Fine, it wasn’t seedy, but it also wasn’t a place our parents would’ve approved of, which was equally shocking. Parker Spears, the golden child, going against parental expectations.

The waiter had already brought us our drinks, mine my typical soda water and lime. There was no way I wanted to have any of my senses impaired for this conversation. When I had agreed to meet him, it was mostly to get him to leave, but after spending an hour baring my soul to my godmothers I felt at peace with the decision. Not that it made the follow through any easier.

“I don’t know how to start.” Parker looked every bit as nervous as I did. I wished I could figure out his end game. I’d spent a lot of time building my life here and it could all crumble before me with a simple, well placed media slip up, something my mother was good at.

“What is it you want, Parker? I’m never going back. I don’t even know why you want to talk to me so badly now.” I hated my lack of composure, my raw nerves showing. I had to force myself to stop tapping the table and gave up telling my knee not to bounce.

“What? Why wouldn’t I want to talk to you? You’re my brother. I mean, I was hurt when you disappeared, when you cut me out, but I love you. I’ve been wrestling with myself for a long time. Too hurt to look for you. And then when I did start looking, not sure exactly why. But a couple weeks ago, I realized no matter how much I was hurt, it didn’t matter. You are my brother, my twin, and nothing changes that.”

So much for controlling my tapping fingers. As his words barreled at me, I wanted to scream. He was hurt. He? That was rich given the way he, my twin and an alpha, allowed my parents to treat me like chattel.

“You think being brothers covers everything up? You’re so fucking self-centered, Parker. I abandoned you? What about my pain? Why didn’t you come when I needed your backup when Mom and Dad tried to force me to marry that asshole?”

Heads turned in my direction as I lost it on him. I couldn’t give two fucks.

“What? What the fuck are you talking about?”

My rage fell away as his soft quaking words hit my ears. What the fuck? He hadn’t known.

“Do you really not know?” I needed to be sure. If that huge of a misunderstanding was between us, I needed it to be gone. I hadn’t realized until this moment how much I missed having my brother in my life. Not the man I thought he had become when I’d fled the family, but the man he’d been before we’d split for college.

“I’ve never heard anything about any kind of marriage.”

“I thought… I…” I swallowed, trying to regain the tiniest bit of composure. “Mom and Dad had been pushing me for months to meet with this alpha or that, and I kept putting them off.”

“I remember you telling me about that.”

“Occasionally, they’d ‘forget’ to tell me about a guest they had invited to dinner, and I thought that would be the worst of it. I was so wrong…”

The waiter came back with a second round of drinks and we stopped for a moment. Neither of us had even finished our first. I stared at the bubbles for a few seconds before going back to tell Parker what had happened, crossing my fingers he didn’t give any indication of recognition as I did. I wanted so desperately to believe he truly didn’t know what had happened, but the texts…

“There was this one guy, Vincent Lowell—Mom and Dad just wouldn’t give up on pushing me at him. I—”

Parker’s hand reached across the table, taking mine, and I allowed it. I’d missed him so. Even in my anger, he was still part of me. Shit, we shared a womb for goodness sakes.

“You don’t have to tell me if you’re not ready.”

“No… I want to tell you. Maybe not all the details but…” There was no way I was ready to open up about the attempted rape, the one my parents had not only condoned, but apparently suggested as a way to get me to agree to become that bastard’s omega.

They were freaking trapped in the Dark Ages where an omega was useless once “soiled,” and thought I would accept him simply because I was useless for all others. You know, because omegas don’t freaking have sex all the time before they mate—I mean, not me, but most. But that was another secret I kept locked up. Thankfully, I had been trained in self defense by our security detail and was able to get away. My parents were probably still kicking themselves for allowing those lessons.

“Anyway, something bad happened.” I skipped over all of the evil bits. “They tried to force me to marry Vincent.” I forced the tears in my eyes to stay put. “I texted you. Because you’re my brother. My twin.”

That was the part that hurt the worst in all of this. More than my parents being assholes, because that was just who they were. More than the bastard thinking he could make me his, because evil is evil. I was livid at him, but not disappointed. I’d never expected anything positive from him. No, it was the radio silence from my twin that had, and still did, crushed me the most. “We’ve always been there for each other. But this time, you told me that I needed to submit to Mom and Dad. That they knew best.”

“Fuck… Marcus, you’ve got to believe me, I didn’t send those messages.” He was shaking with anger, and it only took me a moment to figure out what had happened, even before he opened his mouth with the details. “The week you left, I was… messed up. I basically didn’t leave my room all that week. Mom came down for a few days, I told her it was the flu, but it was really me. I just couldn’t deal. I didn’t even look at my phone for a week after she left, and when I did, I couldn’t find it. I bought a new one, and that’s when I found out about the fight with Mom and Dad. They said you disowned them. And that you disowned me.”

The bitch had taken his phone. “I didn’t—I never. What the fuck did that bitch say?”

“Can we start from the beginning?” He wasn’t deflecting. He was hurting, and while I wasn’t ready to agree to anything yet, all the new information achieving nothing more than a brain fuck, I didn’t want to make it worse by pushing.

“I don’t know if I’m ready to start there. I’m not really ready to relive it quite yet. But can we start from here? What are you doing? How are you doing?” I gave his hand a squeeze. The past was too hard, but the present, the present I could handle. I hoped.

“We can absolutely start from here, Marcus.” He smiled and we spent the next half hour chatting about dumbass things that meant nothing; his new place, my job at Om, and his trip to Japan. When we parted ways, we hugged for the first time in years. It felt good to be back with him. I wasn’t ready for it to be more than it was, but it was a start. Maybe this city would become less lonely now that he was here.

On my way home, I made an impromptu stop at my favorite salon. I felt like fully embracing my new nickname, Blondie. I justified that it would avoid confusion or weird looks next time Parker and I were in the same place, but it wasn’t that alone. I liked my nickname.

It was late when I made my way into my building. I stopped at the mailboxes, pulling out the junk mail that seemed to congregate there. To my surprise there was also a small package labeled: Blubby c/o Marcus. The return address: Sally.

I ran up the stairs, needing to open the package now. It turned out to be a small dogfish statue for Blubby’s tank. Killian had sent me a gift. A thoughtful, adorably executed gift. He was still thinking of me. By some miracle, I hadn’t ruined all things. I sat watching Blubby float around his new decoration, seemingly unimpressed, but what did he know? That little statue was priceless.