His thumb slides next to the name.
Ian Torres.
“Isaiah’s my twin brother,” he says, folding his wallet and returning it to his pocket. “My identical twin brother.”
Swallowing the hard ball in my throat, I rub my lips together, studying his face. I suppose when you’ve only known someone a little over a week and you don’t see them for the better part of a year and you don’t know they have an identical twin … it’d be easy to make assumptions when someone bearing their likeness walks into your life.
But out of all the crazy explanations my mind’s been crafting up these last few days, this one seems to be the most plausible.
And it makes sense—the way he carries himself, the way he’s dressed.
Nothing about the man sitting in front of me is familiar besides his golden stare and chiseled features.
“He never told me he had a brother,” I manage to say.
Ian smirks, rapping his knuckles against the table top. “Yeah, well, we don’t exactly speak to each other these days. He likes to pretend I’m dead.”
I can’t stop staring as I let this sink in.
“After I went back to work the other day, I got to thinking about the way you were talking to me, like I was familiar to you, and then it dawned on me,” he says. “You thought I was my brother.”
“I’m sorry. I truly am.”
He waves his hand. “Look, I’ve been cleaning up after his messes my whole life. This is nothing new. I just wanted to sit you down and tell you this in person. I just started a job in Brentwood at Cottage Financial Group so on the off-chance we bump into each other around town, I figured I should clear this up.”
“Thank you, Ian. I appreciate you taking the time to do this.”
Ian shrugs. “My brother, uh … he’s got some demons. Let me just put it that way.”
“Demons?”
“He’s not a good person, Maritza. I’m sorry you got mixed up with him.”
“I didn’t get mixed up with him. We spent a week together before he left for his deployment and we exchanged some letters and then I never heard from him again,” I say. It sounds so simple when I summarize it.
Ian chuckles. “Yep. Sounds like him.”
“What, is this his M.O. or something? Does he do this sort of thing a lot?” I ask.
His jaw juts forward as he contemplates an answer. “Let’s just say he’s a creature of habit.”
Great.
“Isaiah tends to write people off once he gets what he needs from them,” he says. “And then he moves on. I’ve seen him hurt people and destroy lives and not think twice about it. It’s like he doesn’t have a conscience.”
My gaze narrows. “That sounds nothing like the guy I met.”
“I know, right? He’s good at what he does. He’s good at seeming normal and likable and being the good time guy everyone thinks is cool, but he’s anything but,” Ian says.
We linger in silence, me soaking up this new reality and Ian reaching his hand across the table to cup mine. It’s a sweet gesture if not a little awkward, seeing how we literally just met two days ago.
“Did he come home?” I ask. “From Afghanistan?”
Ian exhales through his nose, studying me. “He did.”
My eyes burn, but I blink them away, hating that there’s an ache in my chest more intense than the one that was there before.
“Look, I can see that he hurt you,” Ian says, his palm still cupping the top of my hand. “But believe me when I say this, Maritza, you’re better off without him in your life.”
Thirty-Five
Maritza
* * *
“So yeah, we were lying on his couch last night watching Interstellar and his phone kept going off. I saw him silence it. A half hour later he got another text and then he started acting weird and said I should probably leave because he had a test to study for all of a sudden …” I tell Rachael about my night with Blake as we stand outside the back entrance to the café, waiting for Hollie to unlock the door. “So I called him on it. I refused to leave until he told me why he was acting so weird and then he confessed.”
“Confessed what?” she asks.
“That he has a girlfriend,” I say. “And he’s had one the whole time.”
“But you two weren’t dating, right? And you haven’t slept together.”
“Right,” I say. “But I don’t want to be someone’s side piece and I feel like we were headed in that direction.”
Hollie opens the door and we shuffle in, one of the chefs staying a few steps behind us with his nose buried in his phone.
“I just feel like he left out a crucial piece of information,” I say. “So we’re done hanging out. I can’t trust a guy who has a girlfriend and tries to meet girls on Tinder at the same time.”
“That eliminates ninety-five percent of men in LA.” Rachael clocks in and shoves a pen in her apron.
We check in at the hostess stand with Maddie and get our table assignments, but halfway through the morning rush, a new patron is seated at one of my tables.
“Ian. Hi,” I say, flipping my notepad to a clean page.
“Morning.” He glances up at me with a honey-brown gaze that crinkles at the sides. “Think I’ll try one of those pancakes today. The guys at work won’t shut up about them.”
It’s been a little over a week since I met with him at the coffee shop and he dropped an armful of bombshells in my lap. And I have to say, as wild of a ride as that was, I finally have some semblance of closure.
Everything makes sense now and it boils down to this ugly truth: Isaiah is a womanizer who lied and used me.
Nothing else really matters.
“Good choice,” I say, jotting it down. “And coffee with room for cream and sugar?”
“I forgot. You’re psychic,” he says with a wink and a smirk.
Everything about Ian is sweet and disarming today, and while I don’t know him, we almost have this common bond, this shared secret.
Leaving to grab a coffee carafe from the back, I return to fill up his mug, leaving a couple inches at the top. “Going to work today?”
Ian adjusts his tie. “How’d you guess?”
“Promise I won’t make you late this time.”
His mouth curls at one side as he makes his coffee.
“I’ll be back in a bit, all right?” I ask, resting my hand on his shoulder for a brief second.
“Oh, hey,” he says when I turn to leave. I stop, spinning to face him once more. “Do you maybe … want to grab a drink sometime?”
His question comes out of nowhere and my lips part but nothing comes out until I manage to muster a quick, “Can I … can I think about it?”
“Of course.” Ian’s confidence doesn’t appear to be shaken in the slightest and he reaches for his coffee mug with a steady hand.
Returning to the back, I bump into Rachael hanging a ticket on the line.
“Ian just asked if I wanted to get drinks sometime,” I tell her, leaning close.
“What? No, he didn’t.”