Rolling my aching shoulders, I cracked my neck and rubbed a hand over my eyes. Fuck me, it had been a long day. I can’t believe Austin talked me into that crap with Anna. All I wanted was to go and hang out with Kit. I had spent an insane amount of time with her since arriving at CFA, but it never seemed enough, despite Lucy jokingly calling me their third musketeer, which was pretty flattering, considering.

“Oh quit it, Cal. It wasn’t even that difficult, and you know it.” I loved my twin, I swear I did, but sometimes I honestly wanted to deck him. The “King Twin Treatment,” as Austin liked to call it, was nothing quite as bad as it sounded. We had discovered a year or so ago that loads of girls fantasized about having a threesome with identical twins, but when push came to shove they rarely went through with it. The anticipation and lead up, the flirting and dirty talk, always seemed to be enough to have girls spilling their guts on any questions we managed to subtly slide in.

“It was exhausting. It always is, putting on a show like that. You know I’m not as good of an actor as you. And her information wasn’t even worth it! What did we learn? That the gym teacher turns a blind eye to students cutting class if they pay him and that Mr. Gregoric is using a false identity? That could be for a million reasons. She gave us shit, and you know it.” I was constantly snapping at Aus these days, even without meaning to. Ever since we’d arrived at CFA, he had been acting like a total dick. The way I’d heard him speak about Kit made me want to throttle him. The reaction concerned me, considering it was a pretty extreme feeling of protectiveness for a girl I barely knew.

“Whatever, bro,” Aus muttered, but I could tell by the tightening of his mouth that he was disappointed.

“You know she’s probably going to tell the whole school that she slept with both of us.” I shuddered at the thought. Not that I didn’t like occasionally sharing with my brother—we shared DNA for God’s sake—but I would just never go there with Anna Greengate. Something about the high-pitched, screeching sound of her voice made my skin crawl. The fact that Aus didn’t seem bothered by her spoke volumes to how messed up he still was from Peyton’s bullshit. Austin was already walking a thin line by making out with Anna in public, but at least I knew my brother had enough standards not to have actually followed through on half the shit she was bragging about.

“So?” My dickhead other half put on a mulish look. “Why are you suddenly so concerned with what these people think of you? We will hopefully be gone from here soon, so what difference does it make if they think you’re a man-whore? Or is it a certain clumsy, airheaded redhead that you’re worried about?”

I punched him in the arm, a bit harder than playful but not hard enough to make him hit back. Asshole had a point; I was worried about Kit hearing Anna’s bullshit. I had looked for her at lunch, but Lucy had said she was studying. Clearly a lie, but I couldn’t call her out on it without being a dick.

“Whatever, bro,” I repeated his line back at him, not wanting to have yet another argument about my friendship with Kit. We had done that enough since meeting her, and it was getting old. I knew we wouldn’t be in Cascade Falls for long, but I also didn’t see the harm in enjoying myself while we were here.

Being around Kit made me insanely happy—more so than I’d been in a really long time—so I wasn’t letting Austin’s stupid, girl hang-ups fuck with that. As it was, I had been making the most of every opportunity that presented itself to spend time with her, even though she didn’t seem interested romantically. It had seemed we might have had something—at least the night of the storm. Yet after? Well, she’d gone out of her way to keep our interactions platonic since then, so I was fairly sure I’d been friend-zoned.

I decided to give it a day—can’t look too desperate—and text her tomorrow if I didn’t hear from her before then. Failing that, I’d stop by her room on Sunday. We had spent a bit of time in there this week studying, so I didn’t feel like it would be too invasive for me to drop by over the weekend.