Tate

---

“I don’t care if this photographer is the best in the world, he’s a sleazeball,” I whispered to my twin, Aerie.

Aerie adjusted the top of the maroon tankini she was modeling, tugging it lower and assuming a different pose in the sand. “No kidding,” she murmured back. “He’s giving me the heebie-jeebies.”

We were on location in the Caribbean doing a shoot for a fashion manufacturer that was poised to become a very big deal. It had been a last minute job, the girls originally booked for the shoot having canceled at the last minute. We’d almost declined, but our agent, Lacy, and our manager—who was our mom—had insisted it would be great for our career. We were already reaching the top of the profession, and Lacy said this job would seal the deal. We decided we would put a vacation on hold for a little while longer and, besides, wouldn’t a job in the Caribbean be sort of like a vacation?

So, here we were on a beautiful beach, with a crew of people looking after our every need, yet both of us could hardly wait to take a shower—and it wasn’t because of the heat, sand, and makeup.

I was wearing the same bathing suit as Aerie, although mine was a deep indigo color. The suits were part of a sleek new tankini line made by one of our Instagram sponsors, who was a new designer getting a lot of buzz.

I shifted my pose slightly, drawing my left thigh up and leaning against Aerie. The photographer, who went by the name of Ulf, was a middle-aged man with a paunch he was desperately trying to hide along with the bald spot on the back of his head which did nothing for his skinny little manbun. He dropped to his knees in the sand, shimmied forward, closer to Aerie and me, angling his camera just so, snapping a dozen photographs in rapid succession before checking them. His two assistants stood by to hold reflectors and provide whichever camera or lens was needed.

“Very good, very good,” Ulf cooed. “Now, Aerie, I think you should sit up and play with your hair. Tate, go to your belly and look backwards at me.”

Ulf watched—a little too closely, if you ask me—as Aerie and I assumed the poses he’d suggested. His eyes followed our every movement, whether through the viewfinder of his camera or not, and when we bent or shifted so our assets jiggled, he would adjust himself…and not subtly, either.

Ulf was the best photographer in the business, our manager insisted, and she told us to just do what he said and get the shoot over with. In other words, deal with Ulf being a sleazy perv. Don’t insult him, don’t call him out, just let him ogle you and snap his shots—deal with it. Just deal with it.

Easy for Mom to say, since she was our manager, and all she had to do was arrange our bookings and schmooze her way around the various media events. She wasn’t the one being ogled and photographed and leered at, since she was safe and sound in her New York penthouse with our dick of a step-father, Bob.

We went through at least a dozen different outfits and a dozen different poses for each one, all provocative, with Ulf snapping hundreds and hundreds of photographs. The sun rose higher as the morning wore on and it got hotter and hotter. The glam squad had to constantly dab at the beads of sweat on our foreheads and reapply and retouch, and twist our hair back into the perfect spirals, and keep the flyaways matted down…so yeah, modeling is not easy. It really isn’t. It’s a hell of a lot more than just getting photographed.

As usual, we’d been patient and professional, doing all that was asked of us but, finally, my patience was running out.

“How many more shots do you need, Ulf?” I asked. “We’ve been here for four hours now.”

“We’re almost done, my dear, almost done.” He said this to my breasts as I stood up. “Just a few more poses.”

He moved over behind me, toying with my hair, twisting the strands just so. And then he bent and scooped up a handful of sand, and smeared it over my butt so it stuck to the sticky layer of sweat. He didn’t just smear it on, though. Oh, no. He cupped, and squeezed, and petted, and got all kinds of handsy with me. I know one of his assistants saw it happen as I heard him take in a sharp breath and mutter “Jesus” under his breath. He stepped forward to diffuse the situation, but he was too slow.

Four hours in the hot sun on a Caribbean beach, dealing with the gallery of tourists watching us, sweating, without craft service, without coffee, without so much as fresh bottles of water, working our asses off and then, on top of it all, dealing with this old, overweight, leering asshole…

I just lost it.

I danced back out of his reach, twisted around, and socked him square on the jaw. Have I mentioned that Aerie and I train three days a week with the best Krav Maga teacher in New York? So this pretty little model knows how to hit, and hit hard.

Ulf spun around like a hippo in pointe shoes and hit the sand flat on his back, camera bouncing off his chest. He was out cold.

“What now, BITCH?” I shouted, stepping over him. “Grab my ass? I don’t think so!”

Aerie was the first to pull me away. “Tate, calm the hell down.”

“Calm down? Calm down? He’s been staring at my tits for the last four hours! And now he grabs my ass like he owns it, and you tell me to calm down?”

Lacy, our agent, stepped quickly but carefully across the sand in her four-inch-heel Louboutins. “Tate, what in the world has gotten into you?” she hissed, as she reached me.

“He grabbed my ass,” I huffed. “And I don’t mean a little, like, oops I accidentally copped a feel. It was a full-on grope.”

“We talked about this, Tate,” Lacy said, ice in her voice. “I told you he can be difficult but he’s the best in the business.”

“I don’t care!” I shouted. “That doesn’t give him the right to grope me.”

“That’s debatable, especially if you want to make it to the top. He can blacklist you, and no one will photograph you or Aerie ever again. He has that much influence in this business.”

Aerie had my arm in a death grip. “I know it sucks, T, but…”

I whirled on her. “Oh, no. No. No. You are not going to turn on me right now, A. You’re not. No. You are my twin. He groped me. This isn’t dealing with your average sexism, this is goddamned sexual assault.”

“Now that’s a little overly dramatic,” Lacy said in her “let’s be reasonable voice”.

I took two slow, prowling steps toward Lacy, which put me in her personal space. I stared at her, glaring with every last ounce of irate fury I possessed…which at that moment was quite a bit. There aren’t many people who can stand up to my patented death glare, and Lacy Everett-Perkins is definitely not one of them.

“No, Lacy. It’s not overly dramatic.” I was speaking in my quiet-and-sharp-as-a-razor voice. “It’s exactly the truth. When a man—any man, famous or important or the best, or just an average dick on the street—puts his hands on my body without my permission, that is sexual assault. Ulf here—” I gestured at the photographer in question, who was starting to moan as he regained consciousness, “—touched me without my permission. He’s lucky all I did was punch him. If I ever see him again, I’ll break his damn arm, Lacy. How’s that for melodramatic?”

“Tate!” Aerie hissed, hauling me aside. “What are you doing? We need this sponsor, which means we need this shoot, which means we need Ulf, like it or not.”

“No, Aerie, we don’t need Ulf, or the sponsor, or the shoot; they need us. Vela Fashion is nobody. They’re nothing right now. Nobody has ever heard of them. We, on the other hand, are among the most well-known Instagram models on the fucking planet. This shoot we’re doing for Vela will put them on the map.” I gestured at Ulf, and Lacy. “I’m not going to take this shit anymore, A. I’m just not. I’m tapped out. I’m done. The last shoot we did, what happened? You remember?”

She sighed. “Of course I remember. The photographer propositioned you.”

“He didn’t just proposition me, A. He offered me five thousand dollars to spend the night with him.”

“That’s propositioning you.”

“That’s him thinking I’m a fucking whore!” My temper was up, and once that happens, there’s no calming me until my fury has blown itself out. “And besides, five grand? Really? I’m not going to whore myself out to a poor, ugly, dumpy-ass middle-aged fucking photographer, for one thing, and I sure as fuck wouldn’t do it for any money, never mind a measly five grand. I’m worth a hell of a lot more than that.”

Aerie sighed. “Tate, please.” She was trying the sweetness and light routine, which, TBH, was often rather effective in talking me down from a temper tantrum. “You’re right about Ulf being a dirty sleazeball, and you’re right about not taking it. I’m with you on this, okay? I swear I am. I’ve been hit on and propositioned too. You know that. I just…” She rubbed her forehead with a knuckle. “I don’t want to get blacklisted. I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to give this up just yet.”

I groaned in irritation, because I hate it when she’s right, and I hate it even more when she manages to diffuse my temper. I’ll let you in on a little secret: deep down, I really like getting all pissed off. It feels good to let the anger out.

“Neither am I,” I said, “but I’m not going to take that bullshit from anyone.”

Ulf was staggering to his feet, rubbing his jaw, and the crew stood around not knowing what to do. I would have put money on the fact that if they’d had to choose sides they wouldn’t have sided with him.

He glared at me. “You’ll never work again, slut. In fact, you two are done in this business.”

Aerie was the one who stomped over to him. Her hand shot out and clutched his testicles in a vise-like grip, making him go purple in the face, gasping. “Or how about this, Ulf? You’re going to shut your filthy mouth, and you’re going to get your nasty ass out of here, and you’re not going to say shit to anyone about Tate or me.” Her voice was sweet as sugar, saccharine and honey and sunshine, making her words sting all the harder. “You know why you’re going to do that, Ulf? Because if I hear you’ve been talking about us, I’m going to rip your teeny-tiny little mouse-man balls off. You got me, Ulf? So take your camera, and your teeny-tiny little mouse-man balls, and just do your fucking job. And, in case you’ve forgotten, your job is to take pictures, Ulf. You don’t get to touch the models. In fact you don’t even get to sniff the same air Tate and I breathe, Ulf.” She released his sac, and he staggered backward, gasping, clutching himself, clearly struggling to hold back tears of agony.

With that she pivoted on her heel and swept past Ulf, the crew, and a stunned, silent Lacy. All she said was, “Let’s go, T.”

I followed her, trying desperately to suppress my laughter. We walked up the beach, past the tourists who were clapping and giving us a thumbs-up, and made it out of sight of Lacy and Ulf, when I gave in to snickering, giggling hilarity.

“Oh my god, A! Teeny-tiny mouse-man balls?” I collapsed backward against the side of the tiki bar. “That was epic, seriously epic.”

She let out a breath and shook her shaking hands, and then laughed with me. “It was, wasn’t it?”

“You don’t even get to sniff the same air?” I said, through wheezing gasps of laughter. “Where did you come up with that shit?”

“I don’t know! I just lost it.”

“I thought I was the one with the hair-trigger temper?”

She shrugged. “Nobody calls my sister a slut but me.”

I sighed. “Seriously, though, thanks for having my back.”

“I’ve always got your back, you know that.” She peered around the corner, watching Lacy arguing vehemently with an enraged Ulf. “I think we may have just sunk our career, though.”

“Nah. No way. We’re too pretty for that.”

Aerie just rolled her eyes at me. “Tate, looks can only get us so far. If we develop a reputation for assaulting our photographers, Ulf won’t have to blacklist us, we’ll do it to ourselves.”

“Everyone knows Ulf is a handsy pervert,” I said. “He may be the best photographer around which is why people work him in the first place, but everybody knows who he is and what he is. We’ll be fine.”

We slipped into a hotel bar further up the beach and took seats, ordering coffee and breakfast burritos. As we waited for our food, we pulled out our phones and spent a few minutes just sitting quietly—it wouldn’t be long before Lacy would come to find us. I eyed my twin. “So, Aerie, now what?”

Aerie rolled a shoulder. “Our dear sweet momager has us in Portland in three days for some kind of festival. And then we’re back in Manhattan to shoot for Prada, I think. Or maybe it’s Mui Mui. Something like that, I don’t remember right now. And then we have that music video thing we’re doing in Venice.”

“Venice, Italy, or Venice, California?” I asked.

“Um. Italy, I think? I don’t know, now that you mention it.”

I sipped my coffee and looked out at the ocean and thought about the nonstop, itinerary our mother/manager—or, momager, as Aerie called her—had us scheduled for. I felt overwhelmed and exhausted just thinking about it.

“I’m thinking, A,” I said, turning to her.

She snorted. “Careful, sis, you might hurt yourself.”

I threw a creamer at her head. “Oh, shut up, dweeb.” I leaned forward and grabbed her wrist, directing her attention from her phone and onto me. “I feel like Mom is overextending us.”

“Well, we are busier than ever, that’s for sure.”

“We’re modeling, blogging, auditioning for TV slots, acting in music videos…we never have any downtime, like ever,” I said, squeezing her wrist. “We’ve been on the go, without a single day off, travel time excluded, since we were sixteen. I’m tired, A.”

Aerie sighed, nodding. “The only downtime we ever get is traveling from one shoot or audition or event to another. I don’t even remember the last time we got to just sit around in sweatpants watching TV.”

“We don’t even own a TV, and Mom would never let us be caught dead wearing something so pedestrian as sweatpants.” I let go of Aerie’s wrist as the server brought us our food, and we were quiet as we dug in. Once I’d taken a few bites, I said, “My point is, we need a vacation.”

“Mom won’t let us.”

“Is this our career, or Mom’s?”

“Mom’s, obviously,” Aerie joked. “When you say vacation, what exactly do you have in mind?”

I shrugged. “Something extended, and remote. Something that will allow us to get back to being who we really are—normal girls who watch The Bachelor and attend baby showers and backyard barbecues, girls who don’t have to deal with all the unrealistic bullshit of modeling and international travel.”

“How about Fiji for a week?” Aerie offered.

I shook my head, washing down my breakfast burrito with too-hot coffee. “I was thinking about something more than that. Like…maybe going home, for a month or two, and just getting back to basics…trying to be normal.”

Aerie paused, I’d obviously surprised her. “Home? You mean Mom’s condo on the upper east side?”

I shook my head. “No, Aerie, that’s never been home. You know that.”

She swallowed hard. “What are you suggesting, T?”

“I’m suggesting we take an indefinite leave of absence from our career and hole up in Ketchikan until we’re ready to face the world again.” I waved my hand at the beach. “That, back there? That was the last straw for me. I’m sick of being photographed. I’m sick of being made up and having my hair done and eating like a damn bird and exercising like I’m trying out for the fucking Olympics. I’m even more sick of sleazy photographers, and being hit on, and propositioned, and molested, and talked down to, and treated like I’m nothing but an ornament. I want to eat cheesecake and cheeseburgers, and drink myself into a stupor, and maybe even have sex with someone and actually stick around for coffee the next morning instead of doing the walk of shame from the dude’s bed to a photo shoot, smelling like condoms and apathy.”

Aerie got up and came around the table and just hugged me. “Oh, honey, I know. I know. Me too. But…Ketchikan?”

I looked her straight in the eyes. “Think about it, A! Who the hell would look for us in Alaska? Nobody, that’s who. We shut off our phones, literally. No social media, no Insta posts, no Snapping, no Tweeting, no swiping left or right on fucking Tinder, no Reddit AMAs, no Tumblr, none of that bullshit. We can eat what we want, and not wash our hair, and get pimples and fat asses and drink whatever we want and when we feel like going back to work, we can. Mom can’t run our career for the rest of our lives. We have to take charge. I’m burnt out, A. I need a break.” I lifted an eyebrow. “Plus, our twenty-first birthday is coming up soon.”

She nodded, thinking about it. “That does sound pretty awesome, now that you put it that way. I like the idea of just dropping out and doing whatever we want. Besides, I think we’d look pretty good with thick asses, actually.”

We laughed at that image. I was pretty sure we’d have to eat a lot of cheeseburgers before that happened.

“You know why else I’m thinking Ketchikan?” I asked.

“I have no idea.”

I couldn’t suppress a giggle. “Because I was surfing on Facebook the other night, and I came across this fun little page.” I pulled up the page in question and spun my phone around so she could see it—Badd’s Bar and Grill, Ketchikan, Alaska.

She scrolled through it. “The Badd brothers are all back in Ketchikan?”

“All of them.”

She lifted her gaze to mine. “All of them, meaning, all of them? Even Canaan and Corin?”

“Especially Canaan and Corin,” I said.

“You know…” Aerie said, pinching to zoom in on a photo of the twins, “I’ve always wondered what those boys have been doing over the past few years. I’m surprised they’re back in Alaska. I mean, I know they’re pretty big in the music business…but Alaska?”

“I’ve wondered the same thing.”

“They’re hot, successful, moderately famous like us, they’re twins, and they were our best friends growing up. It’s kind of weird that we’ve lost touch.”

“I know they valued our friendship a lot, even in high school when every girl there was throwing themselves at them. I’m sure they learned everything they know in the sex department thanks to those girls. That’s probably why they always kept our friendship totally separate,” I said.

“But we barely see them now, and they’re even sexier than they were as teenagers. I have to admit, I’m dying of curiosity. All the girls back in high school always talked about how amazing they were in bed, and that was years ago. I’m sure they’ve had a lot of practice since then, you know?”

“But what if seeing them again is weird?” I asked.

“Oh, it will probably be a little weird at first, but you have to remember we were always best friends growing up. Their brothers always treated us like little sisters,” Aerie said, putting my phone to sleep and handing it to me.

“So we’re going back to Ketchikan to reconnect with the Badd twins?”

Aerie grinned at me. “Remember, it was your idea to go back to Ketchikan.”

“True.” I laugh again. “I suppose catching up with the boys now they’re back in town may or may not have crossed my mind already.”

“Catching up, huh?” Aerie rolled her eyes at me.

“Yeah, you know, just…see how things stand.”

She gave me a meaningful stare. “I’m definitely curious to see how things stand with Canaan and Corin.”

“Which does lead to the question of how things would break down, if you know what I mean,” I said, eyeing my twin.

She sighed. “How we would split up, you mean? Which twin with which twin?”

“Exactly.”

A long pause. “That…yeah, that could be complicated.”

“As kids, it was always you and Corin, and me and Canaan,” I said.

“I know,” Aerie said with a sigh, “but what if it’s different now? We haven’t seen them in a couple years, and we’re different and they’re probably different, and what if…” she trailed off uncertainly.

I finished my coffee. “I’m curious, though, is my point,” I said. “Deeply, intensely curious.”

“Me too, T. Me too.”

Our conversation ended right then, when Lacy found us. She slid into the booth beside me and took off her heels. Her feet must be killing her.

“Girls,” she began, “you can’t just—”

“Before you get started, Lacy, I feel like you should be on our side,” I interrupted. “And not just because you’re…you know…our agent, but because you’re a woman. You should totally understand our position. There shouldn’t even be a question in your mind.”

“I am on your side, but I also have to have your future and career in mind as well.”

“You know what’s in the best interest of our career?” I snapped. “Not being sexually assaulted.”

“Oh, stop being dramatic.” Lacy sighed. “He grabbed your ass, it’s not like he tried to rape you.”

I gaped at Lacy. “Did you just…did she just…” I looked over at Aerie, and then back at Lacy. “You did not just say that.”

Aerie was frowning at Lacy with an expression of stunned incomprehension. “That may be true, Lacy, but do you believe men have license to help themselves to whatever they want? Is that what you believe?”

Lacey quirked an eyebrow. “It’s par for the course in this business. In any business, really. I was in stock futures before I became a talent agent, and I can’t even tell you how often I was groped on the floor, or in the hallways or elevators. It sucks, it really does, but men can be pigs, and it’s what we women have to deal with to get anywhere in this world. It doesn’t make it okay, but you can’t go around punching everyone who touches you inappropriately.”

“Actually, I can,” I said. “And I will. I will punch, kick, knee, bite, gouge, and otherwise physically injure any and every male who touches me without my permission. It is not something I just have to deal with to get anywhere in this world. Your acceptance and complacency makes you complicit, and complicity makes them think it’s okay. I guarantee you Ulf won’t be putting his hands on me ever again, because I cleaned his clock the first time he did it. And maybe he’ll think twice about trying something like that with someone else. Lacy, I’m totally willing to work with him again, as long as he keeps his filthy paws to himself and just does his damn job.”

Lacy hesitated. “Yes, well, after this, I’m not sure he’ll work with you again. I barely managed to convince him to not press assault charges.”

“Have you seen the news lately?” I laughed. “Please, please let him press charges. I’ll take him to court and I will sue the sleaze out of him. By the time I’m done with him, he’ll be a monk.”

Aerie cut in. “All this is moot, anyway, Lacy. Tate and I are taking an indefinite leave of absence.”

Lacy gaped. “You…what?”

“We’re taking a very, very long vacation,” I clarified. “So long, in fact, that we may not come back.”

“But…but…” Lacy stammered. “You’re booked through next February!”

“We will honor our commitments through the end of the month—” Aerie said.

“…and you can cancel the rest,” I added.

“We’ll be completely incommunicado. All social media will be deactivated—” Aerie started.

“And our cell phones will be shut off. No email, no calls, no texts,” I finished.

“And that goes for Mom, too. She can find someone else to manage for a while—” Aerie said.

“No forwarding address, either,” I said. “Meaning, we’re going so far off the grid, even the CIA won’t be able to find us.”

Lacy stared at us, speechless, looking from one of us to the other, trying to absorb what we were saying. We don’t do the twin-speak very often, when we alternate like that, but when we do, it really throws people off.

“But—but…” Lacy stammered yet again. “You can’t just…disappear. You’ll lose your social relevancy. You’ll be finished in the business.”

“Modeling was never our dream anyway,” I said. “It was just something we fell into because Mom pushed us into it. It’s been fun for a while—”

“But we’re tired of it now, and we need some time to decompress and reassess what we want out of life,” Aerie said.

“Plus, we’re sick of eating like dainty little birds. We want cheeseburgers and chocolate cake,” Aerie added.

“And lots of alcohol and sex,” I continued.

“I’m lost,” Lacy said. “Does your mom know about this?” She said this with a bit of trepidation in her voice.

We knew Lacy was scared of Rachel Kingsley—like just about everyone else in the business—and we knew she would definitely not want to be the one to tell her about our new plans.

Aerie patted Lacy’s hand. “Just relax and don’t worry. We’ll take care of letting mom know about our decision.”

“So—so…when does this indefinite leave of absence start?” Lacy asked, clearly mollified.

Aerie and I traded glances. “We’ll do Portland, Manhattan, and the music video in Venice, and then we’re done,” Aerie said.

“Speaking of Venice, is that Venice, Italy or Venice, California?” I asked.

Lacy had her phone out and was typing furiously. “Italy, obviously. It’s a shoot for Gucci.”

“Ooh, Gucci,” Aerie cooed. “I love Gucci. Will we get freebies?”

“No, you don’t get freebies,” Lacy snapped. “You do the shoot and you get paid in U.S. dollars like everyone else.”

“I’m just saying, I’d work for free if we got to keep the wardrobe,” Aerie said.

I lifted my hand. “I’ll take the dollars, if it’s all the same.”

Lacy just sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

She shot a look at me and then Aerie. “Now, I have to ask—when do you plan to let your mom know about this?”

“Not immediately,” Aerie replied, “but we’ll let her know before we get back from Italy.”

Lacy winced. “Your mom is not going to be happy.”

“Too bad!” Aerie and I chorused together.

“Well, if you don’t mind, I have to excuse myself and start calling your sponsors and coming up with explanations and apologies. We’ll stay in touch over the next month. Meantime, you two need to be on a plane tomorrow morning, which means you have the rest of today to yourselves.” She glared at me. “Try not to maim anyone else, Tate.”

I shrugged. “I’m not making any promises.”

---

Later that evening, in our hotel room, Aerie and I were at the fun end of a couple of bottles of wine, which we’d scored thanks to Lacy’s assistant.

“Do you want to Skype the boys and let them know we’re coming to Ketchikan?” Aerie asked, apropos of nothing.

I frowned at her. “Right now?”

She giggled. “Yeah, right now. I don’t think they’ll mind.”

I bit my lip, thinking. “It has been a while since we Skyped with them.”

“We should tell them we’re coming back. See how they react.”

I nodded and went across the room to get my laptop. “Very true, A, very true.”

I opened Skype and dialed the boys.

Aerie scooted beside me as the camera popped up to show us on the screen. She finger-combed her long blonde hair, twisting strands aside and plumping the rest for added volume as the line trilled.

We’re identical twins, so we both have naturally platinum blonde hair and eyes that are a dramatically vivid amber, with streaky hints of green around the rims. Having been moonlighting as models for the last few years, we were playing up the identical twins look, keeping our hair the same length and often dressing in matching or very similar outfits for shoots. In our private lives, though, we were very different. Aerie liked her hair down around her shoulders, with loose spiraling curls, while I preferred to keep mine either braided or in a high and tight ponytail; Aerie went for dark, dramatic smoky looks with makeup, while I liked to stay more natural and subtle, usually just a little blush and concealer and eyeliner.

If we did our makeup and hair exactly the same, though, it would be nearly impossible to tell us apart unless you knew us both very, very well, and even our own mother had difficulty keeping us separate if we were done up to look identical.

The line was still trilling, but unless they’d changed completely, Cane and Cor were never far from a device of some kind, just like Aerie and me.

Finally, after a solid two minutes of ringing and re-dialing, the trilling ended and the screen changed to show Canaan and Corin.

And…holy mother of Moses, those boys were hot to begin with. But now? They were incredibly sexy. They were shirtless, sweaty, and breathing hard.

Having known them their whole lives, it was easy enough to immediately identify who was who, even if they did wear their hair differently. Canaan had long hair, rock star long, past his shoulders, a deep, rich brown, while Corin had the sides of his head shaved, with the top left long enough that he could tie it into a tiny little topknot/manbun thing. Which, typically, were stupid and lame, and I hated them, but on Corin, it just…worked. They both had full sleeve tattoos from shoulder to wrist, bright color montages of jumbled imagery. They were into piercings and had rings through the center of their lower lip, and Canaan had another through his septum, while Corin had a stud in his tongue—visible when he licked his lips—and they both had multiple small hoops and studs in their ears, several each in their earlobes and more around the upper curve.

All in all, they looked like the kickass rock stars they were.

They were also ridiculously shredded. Like, CrossFit shredded. Mouthwatering, thigh quivering, pussy dampening shredded. Speaking for myself, at least, one look at them all sweaty and jacked and breathing hard, covered in tattoos and piercings and my thighs were absolutely doing the quivery cha-cha, and heat was very definitely pooling between them, leaving me squirming and turned on.

And we hadn’t even said hello yet. Live and in person? Oh boy. I’d be all over those boys like white on rice.

“T and A!” Canaan said, using their pet name for us. “It’s been way too long. What are you girls up to?”

“Sitting in our hotel room in Jamaica, drinking wine after a really shitty shoot,” I answered. “What about you boys?”

“Finishing a workout,” Corin said, wiping his forehead. “Which is why we’re all sweaty and out of breath.”

I winked. “Hey, I’m not complaining.”

Canaan and Corin exchanged glances. “Why was the shoot so shitty?” Corin asked.

“The photographer turned out to be super sleazy, and then our agent was spectacularly unhelpful when we complained about his behavior. And, as usual, our mother completely overextended our schedule so we’re flying to Italy in the morning.” I leaned forward to adjust the screen and Corin’s eyes flicked downward. I pretended not to notice, of course, but I was pretty sure he was getting an eyeful.

“If your agent is unhelpful,” Canaan said, “then why don’t you fire her?”

I shrugged. “It’s not that simple.”

Corin frowned. “I mean, it kind of is. We went through three agents before we settled on Dan. They work for you, not the other way around.”

I laughed, glancing at Aerie. “He has a point, A.”

We giggled simultaneously, and then tried to resume straight faces. “We may have gone one better than firing our agent, though,” I said.

The boys did the thing where they both quirked one eyebrow in unison, which always made my heart pitter patter a little harder.

“And that would be—” Canaan started.

“What exactly?” Corin finished.

“We just decided today that we’re tired of being international Instagram models,” Aerie said.

“So we’re taking an indefinite leave of absence,” I continued.

“And since we don’t want to be found or bothered during our leave of absence, we’ve decided we’re going to go completely off the grid.” Aerie grinned at me, and then at the boys on the screen.

Corin: “Off the grid—”

Canaan: “Meaning what?”

“We’re moving back to Ketchikan,” Aerie and I said together.

Canaan and Corin locked gazes for a moment, exchanging silent communication.

“Oh really?” Corin drawled.

“You’re moving back, not just visiting?” Canaan asked.

I shrugged, and I didn’t miss the way Corin’s eyes followed the movement of my breasts with the shrug. “Probably not permanently forever and ever,” I said, “but for a while. Until we figure out our next move.”

“So you’re quitting modeling?” Canaan asked.

“We haven’t decided anything for sure,” Aerie said.

“All we know is we need a break, and not just a couple days on a beach drinking Mai Thais and ogling the surfers,” I said.

“When will you be in town?” Corin asked.

“Beginning of next month,” I answered.

“We’re honoring the next few bookings we’ve got this month, simply out of professionalism,” Aerie added.

The boys were silent again, wordlessly exchanging something or other.

“Do you have somewhere to stay?” Canaan asked.

“Why?” I said, somewhat coyly. “Are you offering your place?”

“Tate!” Aerie said, laughing and elbowing me in the ribs. “Forward, much? Jesus.”

I shrugged again, because I liked the way Corin’s eyes seemed glued to my chest when I did it. “What? Just asking.”

Corin finally managed to pull his eyes back up to my face. “If we had extra space or anything like privacy, I’d offer it up in a heartbeat,” he said. “But, alas, we’re sharing a three-bedroom apartment with Bax, Brock and his girlfriend, and Lucian.”

“So unless you’re down with sharing beds…” Canaan suggested, watching both of us for our responses.

Aerie and I exchanged looks.

“We’re not sure where we’re staying,” I said, carefully phrasing my response so it was neither a refusal nor an outright admission of interest.

“Brock Badd has a girlfriend?” Aerie said, sounding stunned. “Like, a real girlfriend?”

“Pretty sure she’s not a robot, so yes,” Corin answered, chuckling.

“But I mean, she’s really his girlfriend with, like, commitment and everything?” Aerie clarified.

“Color us stunned too,” Canaan said.

“I suppose you may as well be forewarned,” Corin said. “Love is in the air in Ketchikan, Alaska.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means Bast is married, Zane and his woman just had a baby, Brock is engaged or something like that, Bax is complicated…” Corin responded. “Love is in the air, I’m telling you.”

“Maybe we should rethink our plans then, A,” I joked.

Corin’s eyes went wide, and Canaan elbowed him hard enough to elicit a grunt of surprised pain. “Good job, asshole. Now they’re not coming.”

“That was a joke,” I said, a little too quickly. “We’re still coming. We wanted to go somewhere as far away from New York as possible, and Ketchikan is certainly that.”

“But what about you two?” Aerie asked. “Is love in the air for you as well?”

“Not yet,” Corin said. “But, then, you guys haven’t arrived yet.”

Canaan spluttered, going red in the face and elbowing Corin even harder than before. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Cor? Jesus! Shut the fuck up!”

Corin just smirked. “That was a joke.”

Corin and I exchanged amused glances, while Canaan and Aerie both huffed and rolled their eyes.

“You guys are both ridiculous,” Canaan said to Corin and me.

“Filtering what you say is a basic skill of adulthood,” Aerie added.

“Fuck that.” I laughed. “I refuse to filter myself. People can deal with the truth, or they can go fuck themselves.”

“Fuckin’ A!” Corin said.

“Actually, it would be more accurate to say fuckin’ T,” I said with a coy grin.

“Fuckin’ T, then.” Corin managed to make that simple phrase into an innuendo, and my lungs stopped working and my brain fizzled.

Aerie glanced at me, and then at Corin’s image on the screen, and then at Canaan. “Um. Our mom is calling us,” she said abruptly. “We have to go.”

I frowned at her. “What are you talking about?”

She gave me a meaningful glare. “We should go.” She widened her eyes at me. “Now.”

I glared back at her, mocking her wide-eyed meaningful grimace, and then turned back to the laptop screen. “Aerie is just embarrassed. Don’t mind her.”

Aerie literally growled, then. “TATE!” She gave a fake sweet smile to the boys. “We really do have to go. So…bye!” And then she reached for the mouse, intending to end the call.

I snagged her wrist before she could click the “end call” button, and we wrestled for control of the mouse. I caught a glimpse of Corin on the screen, covering his mouth with one hand, trying to shield an amused grin.

“Sorry about this,” I said, while still fighting my sister. “She’s just easily embarrassed.”

“And you’re just a major bitch!” Aerie howled.

And then, taking me by surprise, she twisted, and shoved me sideways, knocking me off the couch. I hit the carpet, rolled to my feet, and lunged for Aerie, tackling her before she could end the call yet again.

When I tackled Aerie on the couch, my shirt flew up, baring my butt, and then when Aerie rolled to get a better position, she bared her assets as well, in full view of the screen. Even more revealingly, we both realized this at the same time, and in our hurry to sit back down and cover ourselves, we each experienced a further wardrobe malfunction—Aerie in the form of one tit flying out the side of her tank top, and me in the form of a tit flopping out over the top of my scoop-neck T-shirt.

Corin and Canaan were trying, unsuccessfully, to act like they hadn’t been unabashedly staring.

“Um.” I laughed nervously. “Sorry about that.”

“I’m not,” Corin said.

Aerie was messing with her tank top and then, with a quick glance at me, she lunged at the laptop, grabbed it, and leaped over the back of the couch with it.

“BYE, BOYS!” she said, dodging my attempts to catch her. “See you soon!”

And then she ended the Skype call, closed the laptop, and set it down, turning to face me. “That was totally your fault!”

“What was?” I asked, faking innocence.

“Canaan saw my boob!” she yelled.

“And Corin saw mine,” I answered with a grin. “So what? And anyway, you were the one who suggested we call them.”

“I thought maybe we might flirt a little, not show them our tits on Skype!”

I shrugged. “I don’t think they minded.”

“Yeah, well, I did.” She was genuinely upset, I realized.

“Why?”

“Because—because…” she trailed off, turning away. “It’s Canaan and Corin! We’ve known them our entire lives. We grew up with the Badd family and we were like little sisters to all those boys. Cane and Cor were the two people who always understood us best out of anyone in the whole world. Now things feel different. I wanted to ease into things with them.” She resumed her seat on the couch.

I poured us each another glass of wine and handed one to her, sitting beside her. “Since when do we ease into anything?”

“Since…since I feel like this could maybe lead to something,” she said, after taking a long sip of her wine, “not just a quick tryst with a sexy local after a shoot.”

I eyed her in surprise. “What do you mean lead to something?”

She shrugged, staring at me over the rim of her wineglass. “I dunno. I just have a weird feeling about this whole thing.”

“That’s called lust,” I said.

Aerie rolled her eyes at me. “Don’t be dumb. You can’t go from being best friends with someone to having feelings of lust in five minutes.”

“You saw the twins,” I said, gesturing at my torso with a fierce grimace, flexing my muscles dramatically. “They’re jacked, stacked, and sexy as fuck. I almost had a spontaneous orgasm just looking at them.”

“Well, no shit. But that’s not the weird feeling I’m talking about.”

“Then what is it? Because I’m confused.”

She sighed. “I don’t know, Tate. If I did, I wouldn’t call it a weird feeling.”

“He saw your tit, and now you’re all horny because you want him to suck on it.”

“Which one are you talking about?” she asked.

I frowned. “That’s a really good question.” I giggled, leaning into her. “I notice you’re not denying that you wouldn’t mind having one of the Badd twins suck on your titties, though.”

“You’re so inappropriate, Tate. Jesus.” She looked away, feigning an air of disinterest. “But…I wouldn’t mind, no.”

“You wouldn’t mind.”

“No, I wouldn’t mind.”

I waggled an eyebrow at her. “What else wouldn’t you mind?”

She shrugged, trying to keep up the pretense of disinterest. And then she broke, snickering as she leaned against me. “I wouldn’t mind being the one doing the sucking, that’s what.”

I burst out in loud laughter. “Aerie!”

“What? You started it.”

I laughed. “Yeah, well, you’re taking it to a whole new level of inappropriate.”

“Why’s it inappropriate, though?”

“You’re the one who called it inappropriate in the first place!”

Aerie waved me off. “You’re impossible.”

“This is a weird conversation.”

She poured more wine. “Can we finish getting drunk? I don’t want to talk about Cane and Cor anymore. Besides, we’ve got an early flight in the morning.”

“Oh, stop lying. You want to do a lot more than talk about them.”

She shoved my glass to my lips and tilted it up, forcing me to take a sip or risk spilling it. “Let it go, Tate. Just sit on it for a minute, okay?”

“I’m gonna sit on Corin’s face, is what I’m gonna sit on.”

“TATE!” Aerie said, sputtering, wine dripping down her chin.

“What? You saw how he was looking at me.”

“Yeah, I also noticed Canaan taking a nice long gander.”

“At you or at me?”

“Both.”

I sighed. “This is getting complicated.”

Aerie laughed, then. “T, honey, it hasn’t even started getting complicated. That was just a Skype call. Wait ’til all four of us are in one place again.”

“Holy shit.” I sank down in the chair, sucking down wine like it was going out of style, as I tried to imagine being face to face with the twins again after so long, especially now that it had been established that there was serious chemistry between us. Chemistry that had never been there before.

“Yeah, holy shit is right.” Aerie patted me on the top of the head. “I have a feeling none of us have any idea what we’re getting ourselves into.”

“Now I have a weird feeling,” I said.