Two clients’ books and files sit open on my computer screen as I organize their third quarter filings and get ready for fourth quarter. I like to keep everything neat; my psyche feels better if everything in my life, including my business, is in succinct order.

Looking over all of the forms, write-offs, expenses and tax deductible sheets each company has sent over, I double check that I calculated everything right, and then I file it all electronically, storing it in certain folders that I’ve categorized and alphabetized.

I hum along to Coldplay’s “Yellow,” the tune mellowing me out on this rainy day.

The sound of tires spinning in the sand growl loudly from somewhere down below. Maybe one of the neighbors is stuck in the mud, as the roads become nothing but washed out puddles in a storm like this. It’s foolish to try and get out.

The sound comes again, and I can’t help but think of the first week Joel and I got our licenses. God, it hurts my lips to even think his name, let alone say it out loud.

They say that losing a twin is like losing a body part. As if their death is a loss of one of your limbs, an essential part of you that functions and breathes and hurts. Ever since I was seventeen, I’ve known that to be true. Each time I take a breath, it’s as if one of my lungs is missing. Every time I walk, a foot and set of toes has disappeared.

Joel and I had passed our driver’s test on October twenty-third, our sixteenth birthdays. He’d been stoked, since Dad had bought us a used Jeep Wrangler to share. The thing had been a piece of shit, gray and scratched up. But Joel hadn’t cared. A car meant freedom, and freedom had always been the first thing on Joel’s mind.

The minute we’d gotten the shiny new cards into our wallets, my twin brother had insisted on taking a joy ride around the beach. “Live a little, sis.” He’d flashed that Joel Sayer smile at me, and I couldn’t say no. Half an hour later, we’d been stuck in the sand because he’d had no idea he had to deflate the tires. It wasn’t the first time we’d had to pool our money to get a tow truck to pull us out.

“Goddamnit.” Someone shouted from down below, and my focus was officially out the window and on whoever was stuck in the rain.

Picking up my mug of earl grey, I went to the window and peered down.

A sharp inhale stung my lungs as I backed away, as if he’d seen me staring at him from up here. In reality, Carson had no idea I was looking down on him and his pickup. His pickup that was lodged so deeply in the mud, he’d need a team of tractor trailers to haul him out.

The sound of his horn made me jump, he must have hit it out of anger. Jesus, and right in front of my house too. Fate was a teasing bitch.

I could just leave him there. Or make an anonymous call to Larry, the tow guy I knew just outside of town. But he’d broken down here; he knew what house this was. Maybe he’d even been out here trying to get my attention.

And I did feel kind of bad for how I’d treated him at lunch the other day. Sort of. I don’t know. Ever since he’d crossed back over the North Carolina state border, my head and my heart couldn’t get on the same page. I was so out of whack that Rhett laid his head on me multiple times a day, as if to comfort me. My own dog, trying to cheer me up.

And now, he was looking at me like I should do the right thing.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. You know why I can’t go down there.”

He tilts his head, questions in his brown eyes.

“Stop it. He might not even need my help.”

The damn dog lifts a paw in the air, as if objecting. And before I argue again, I stop myself … realizing I’m having a petty, childish argument with my black lab. Sighing and throwing my hands up, I go to the closet and throw on a rain jacket before walking down to the first level of my house, and out into the storm.

Carson is in a T-shirt and jeans, boots caked in mud as he kicks the tires on his pickup. His body has changed in the last ten years; where he used to be long and lean, there are now muscles. A man’s arms, roped and bulked, lead down into fists with fingers I remember like my own name. His chest, broad and tapered at the waist, is so much bigger than the one I used to know. His jeans are almost soaked through, and sticking to his thighs in a just so way that makes every carved muscle visible. That dark mop of hair that I’ve run my fingers through a thousand times.

How much this familiar person had changed from a boy into a man, how much of his life I'd missed.

"You need to call the tow truck." My voice carried over the howling wind.

Carson's head shot up, his eyes crackling with embers beneath the charcoal irises. "Blake ..."

Maybe he hadn't noticed what house he'd gotten stuck in front of. Maybe he didn't remember.

"I have the number, if you need it. But, you're not getting out of there."

His lips tipped up, the small beauty mark at the corner moving with his smile. "You don't have to tell me twice. I remember hauling you out of a pickle once or twice."

The memory was both a whip to the heart and a soothing balm to the soul.

I can't smile, even if he did make a joke. My face is unused to it, the expression has been stored in the back along with happiness and trust.

"Can I use your phone then? Mine is dead." Carson holds up a cell phone with a black screen.

It's like inviting the vampire in, but I do it anyway. "Come in out of the rain."

I don't watch to see if he follows, just simply step back inside and continue up the stairs. I take my jacket off, shaking it out in the laundry room. When I come back with two towels, I find Rhett lying on his back in front of Carson, who is rubbing his belly.

"That's Rhett. You're not special, he's a mooch with everyone." I toss him a towel and try to skirt around where he stands in the room. "I have that cellphone number for Larry the tow guy whenever you're ready."

He's not looking at me though. Instead, his eyes roam the room, his big wet body the center of the universe in here.

"It's not how I remember it."

The house, I suddenly realize, is what he's talking about. This house was as much a part of his childhood as it was mine and Joel's.

"I redecorated a lot after ..." My thoughts trail off, the second biggest loss in my life crowding my mind.

"He was a great man, Blake. The best." Carson's face is the definition of sadness.

I clear my throat. "That he was, but it's been a few years. I made it my own." I don't want to talk to him about my father.

"I know you want me to take that number so I'll leave. But ... can we just, talk? I know you don't owe me a damn thing, but this Cold War has gone on long enough. We both can't live our lives holding this enormous thing between us."

The last thing I wanted to do was talk. "No. But I'll make more tea while you call."

I turn on a wet boot and March towards the kitchen, the great room split by half a wall. He can't see me as I put the kettle on the stove and toe out of my shoes, stretching my arms over my head.

Then the familiar opening crescendos of a song begin to play, and instantly the tears gather at the corners of my eyes.

"Turn it off," I beg, rounding the corner.

Carson's eyes are as bleak as the storm outside, and he shakes his head as his jaw tics.

And the sound of my past closes in on my heart, stretching its icy cold hands around the chambers and squeezing.