Page 62 of Seein’ Red

“Mine.”

Dustin’s mouth falls open, Camden’s not far behind, the two of them looking like a pair of cartoon characters, complete with eyes bugging out of their head. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Noel shaking his head. I don’t know why I expected more of a reaction out of him—he already knew. He’s had a couple of days to adjust to this news.

“What the fuck? When were you going to tell us?” Dustin asks.

“I’m telling you now. Although, don’t tell Willa you know. She’s a little sensitive right now and there’s probably some rule about her being the one to tell people.”

“I don’t mean about the pregnancy. I mean the fact that you slept together!”

“Sleeping…err, well, fucking,” Noel clarifies for me with a smirk.

“As in more than once?”

Dustin looks between the two of us, aghast. I just shrug.

“Can’t a man have his secrets?”

“Not this secret!”

Running his hand through his hair, Dustin shakes his head, as if that’s going to shake all the pieces into place and make it all make sense. I get it. It’s a lot to take in.

More than that, if Willa had told the girls, they didn’t turn around and tell the guys. Filing that away.

“Holy shit…” Dustin mutters, looking up at me. “So the answer was fuck it out…”

“What?”

“We’ve long debated if you and she needed a boxing ring or to be locked into a room to fuck it out. All the bickering,” Camden clarifies. “Although, if you were sleeping together already, I don’t understand the arguing.”

“It’s called hate fucking, Doc,” my brother says. “And apparently these two have been the king and queen of it for ten years.”

“Ten years?” Dustin chokes. “Ten years. That’s before I left. The whole time I was gone, you two were sneaking around?”

“I clearly need to be brought up to speed,” Camden says.

“Don’t worry, Doc, you’re not the only one he left in the dark. I didn’t know ’til earlier this week.”

“Your own twin didn’t know?”

“It’s complicated,” I tell him.

Dustin scoffs, still incredulous, turning his attention to Noel.

“Don’t look at me like that. I just told you I didn’t know. Trust me, if I had…”

I sigh, closing my eyes. I deserve this. They also deserve to know what’s going on. We’ve kept this secret for a long time. Two-thirds of the people with me at this table don’t even know what the catalyst of it all was. Hell, even Noel only half knew.

I owe it to my best friends to come clean. To bring them in to everything I’ve been feeling for all these years and why I’ve kept it to myself.

I have a lot of explaining to do.

Looking up, I turn to each one, holding their gaze for a moment, then let out the heaviest breath of my life. “Long story short—I am the world’s biggest dumbass.”

I launch into my story, starting way back in time. I leave nothing out.

I tell them about how Willa was my first crush, the first girl I ever thought about naked and had my first dirty fantasy about. I own up to the reason we snuck out that one night to spy on the girls skinny-dipping being that she’d secretly taunted me with a story about it, and that I’d jerked off so many times to the thought I might as well have rubbed myself raw. I explain how I was so nervous asking her to prom, even as a friend, that I threw up—twice—on the ride over, and nearly did it a third time when her older brother Hux answered the door and then stood there, joined by Milo, as I asked. Thankful as a pardoned turkey and happier than a bird with a French fry when she said yes.

They nod along, allowing me to talk, my story flowing out of me now like the Nile. I continue, going into detail about how much fun we had at the dance, and our agreement to lose our virginity to each other. At one point Camden looks like he has a question, but he keeps it to himself.