Dropping her head back with a laugh, Vannah shook it. “That’s different. That did concern me. I’d been looking everywhere for my dangerously inebriated friend and then someone tells me some horndog who looked like he wanted in her pants bad, had just walked out with her. Then I see you trying to get her in your car. How was I supposed to react?”
Wrapping his arms around her again firmly, Byron groaned letting his head fall back now. “As pissed as I was at first about the accusation, in hindsight even that was hot as fuck. The way you charged to her rescue with a purpose.”
Shrugging, Vannah had to smile at him gazing down at her. “She would’ve done the same for me.”
He pecked her as he continued to peer at her. “I still have more questions. You still have more answers?”
Taking a deep breath, she went on. “We stopped dressing alike in grade school. Yes, we’ve been known to finish each other’s sentences but not all the time. Despite my experiment about not telling everyone I’m a twin first thing, I do like being a twin. I wouldn’t have it any other way. This was just me wanting to try something new for a change. And even though my sister is the more brazen and I the more timid of the two, there is no evil one.” Vannah giggled in spite of what she just said. “She can be when she wants to be, but I suppose anyone can be. Only in a fun way, not a mean way.”
“I didn’t know there was a fun way to be evil.”
“Sure, there is.” She smiled big. “Like when you tease someone over something silly to embarrass them. Or like the times we tried tricking people into thinking we were the other. That was always her idea.”
“Anything else?”
Vannah thought about it for a moment. That was pretty much all the things most people asked them when they first got to know them. Then she remembered. “Oh, well if you’d ask Nena, she’d say I’m the smarter one. But don’t let her fool you. The girl’s brilliant, I’m just the better student. It’s why I was always labeled the brainier one. Yet, we always got the same grades which if you think about it. That probably makes her the smarter one. I was forever reading, studying and meticulously preparing for tests while she usually just winged it and the outcome was always pretty much the same.”
“Just means you’re more organized and like to be prepared, not that she’s smarter.” He sprinkled kisses at the corner of her lips, down her chin until he gently sucked her neck for a second making her entire body tingle, before coming back up. “You probably would’ve done just fine if you’d winged it too.”
They moved things to the sofa in his small front room. He took a seat first pulling her down over him as he lay back until she was lying over his big hard body. “That it?” he asked as he wrapped his arm around her and pulled a strand of her hair out of her face with his other hand. “Because I’m curious about something else still.”
Tilting her head, Vannah thought about it. “That’s about all the usual stuff people want to know.”
“Seriously? Mostly about your differences? I mean I get it. Most people think twins and instantly they think, polar opposites. I’m curious about what you two have in common. Despite your differences I’m sure you have a lot in common.”
Even this made her heart swell. Most people focused on the questions to answers that might help them tell them apart. “Well, we both like to cook. But then that goes with the territory. Our family owns multiple restaurants.”
“Multiple? Did not know that. You made it sound like your family owned a restaurant. We’ll get back that, go on.”
“We’re both well . . .” She paused feeling a little guilty. “Up until I left for school, we were both really into our YouTube channel.”
“Yeah, I was surprised you hadn’t mentioned that before.”
“Because I knew you’d ask for the name or link and then you’d find out I had a twin. I figured once you knew I’d tell you about it.”
“What’s it called?” Wincing, Vannah couldn’t help giggling against his chest. “What?” he asked sounding even more curious now.
Bringing her head up she chewed the corner of her bottom lip. “We started it in high school, and she chose the name so . . .”
“So what?” He peered at her with a smirk.
“Sizzling Sisters.” She laughed outright. “But it’s a play on words,” she added quickly. “We originally planned on it being all about cooking, so the sizzle was about the cooking not us being sizzling. And at first it was, until we started getting more into fashion and makeup and then we started doing hair and makeup tutorials. We could’ve changed the name. Still can, but the links are all over the place now with that name, so we never did.”
Those smoldering eyes bore into hers. “Guess you can say the name still works.” He must’ve misunderstood her reaction, because of her inability to take a compliment like a normal person to mean something else, since he was quick to add. “I mean not that I was checking out your sister, in fact I could hardly look her in the eyes after what happened today, but you are identical twins and you’re sizzling as hell.”
“I would never think that.”
“That you’re sizzling?” he asked looking so incredulous she had to laugh in spite of her inability to just accept a compliment with ease.
“No.” She shook her head. “That you’d be checking out my sister.”
“Good, ‘cause I never would.” He smirked. “Get the feeling she’d call me out on it right quick.”
“She would,” Vannah laughed.
He chuckled nodding as if he had no doubt. “So, you do cooking and fashion tutorials?”
“We do a lot of everything now, anything that might pick us up more followers.”
Vannah explained more about how it worked. They were actually making money now from the sponsors that reached out to them to advertise on their channel. How the channel was part of the reason Nena decided to put off college for the first semester. “She’s still undecided about whether she’d rather not go to a trade school instead and learn more about film and editing and possibly take that route instead of a traditional career. We also post commercials about the restaurants and even film there often when we have some kind of promotion going on.”
“I still think you should stick with a career in the culinary world.”
Before she could respond, he kissed her deep, and it went on for a long time. Squirming as her entire body trembled in response, Vannah would never get enough of his kisses. A phone ringing in the other room barely registered and neither moved to acknowledge it. Until it started up again and Vannah had to pull away. “That might be my parents,” she said ruefully as she pushed herself up and away from him. “They’re the only ones who’d call back-to-back like that.”
She got up and headed to the kitchen where she’d left her purse with her phone in it. As soon as she reached the kitchen, she realized it wasn’t her phone. Glancing down at the screen on the counter, it rang one last time, but she caught the name, Irma.
As her stomach began to tighten, she reminded herself that A. This could be anyone. It could be a client or family member or even just a friend. And B. She and Byron had only technically been going out a week and he hadn’t made it clear until today how he wanted this fun arrangement to work.