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Chapter Eleven
Abe
I woke up, and the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was my brother, lying next to me and facing in my direction.
It wasn’t the weirdest thing, we ended up on a single bed often because it was just cheaper that way when we were sleeping in a hotel. Of course, we didn’t often do it naked. Carl maybe, because he had no shame, but I never slept naked, unless I’d had a woman in my bed and we were doing more than just sleeping.
I sat up, blinking the sleep from my eyes, frowning as I glanced at my brother then around the room. I knew we were in Libreville. We were in town to see our dad, and Carl ended up dragging me to a bar. I didn’t think we were drunk, though.
Then I remembered last night; meeting Emma Davis and bringing her back with us, spending hours in bed not sleeping. I realized why it felt like something was missing. It was more like someone. I looked around again, already knowing she wouldn’t be there. I got up and went around the room, anyway. I went to the front room, and then checked the bathroom.
No Emma.
After the amazing night we had, I was more than a little disappointed to wake up and find Emma gone. It was a bit of a surprise, I’d had one night stands before where it had happened—either I walked, or the woman did—but it was implied that things wouldn’t be going further than a night of intense fucking. With Emma, though, I didn’t just want more of what we had last night, I wanted to see her.
Hell, neither of us even thought to ask for her phone number, so we had no way of contacting her later.
The first thing I thought of was going to look for her. She would probably be going back to her mom’s. She was around for the weekend, so there were two whole days to look for her.
But, we—and it was going to be we because I wanted to go and no way would Carl just sit back and wait for me—would probably just end up making things difficult for her with her mother. It was the last thing I wanted. If I had some idea when she’d left, I might have had some chance of catching her, but it wasn’t like she lived that far away.
Fuck. I was really tempted to run out after her anyway.
Because I was already up, I went to the bathroom and had a quick shower. I was coming out, a towel wrapped around my hips, when Carl woke up, sitting up in the bed so the sheets pooled in his lap and looking around, squinting his eyes. Pretty much like I had maybe twenty minutes ago.
He saw me and blinked the sleep from his eyes. “Emma?”
His memory was better than mine. I dried my hair with another towel and tossed it aside, heading for the closet to get some clean clothes.
“She’s gone. I woke up and she wasn’t here.”
I looked at him in time to catch his frown. “She actually walked out on us?”
I sighed, pulling on some pants and turning to face him. “Are you really surprised? Yeah, she was into what we did last night, but she was nervous about it, to begin with. And she was worried about people finding out, she probably doesn’t want it to get back to her mom.”
“Yeah… I remember Mrs. Davis used to be pretty strict. I doubt dad would approve, either.” He paused, laughed. “Well, if it was one of us with twins, he’d secretly approve, though he wouldn’t say it out loud because he’s supposed to be a responsible parent.”
I rolled my eyes. I didn’t know if that was true, but I wouldn’t put it past the old man.
“Go get a shower and get dressed. I’ll call for breakfast. Unless you’d rather go eat out?”
“Nah, just order something.” He slipped out of the bed, unselfconscious about being naked, headed for the bathroom. “So long as I get coffee, I won’t care so long as the food is edible.”
As he went for his shower, I reached for the hotel phone and made the call downstairs. He took a while. He was coming out when the food arrived at the door. I left him to get dressed as I went to get the food and tip the staff member that brought it up.
Five minutes later, he was sitting on the couch, pouring himself a cup of steaming, black coffee, and sitting back with it held in both hands, eyes closed as he breathed in the aroma and sighed in contentment.
I laughed.
“Fuck you.” He removed one hand from the cup to give me the finger, and then took a sip of his hot coffee
“Whatever, princess. Just hurry up, okay? We’re going to see dad.”
He groaned. “Do we have to? Didn’t we see him yesterday?”
I raised an eyebrow at that, but he didn’t see. “Yes, we were with dad yesterday. But then someone decided he was bored and we had to leave.”
“I doubt the bastard is lonely without us. He probably invited his friends over for a drinking party after the little kids left.”
“Maybe, but we’re still going. Dad called us back, remember? I doubt it was just so we could catch up, and we didn’t even get to do that yesterday. He’ll probably tell us today since you insisted on telling him we’re leaving tomorrow.”
He sighed, his expression disgruntled. “Fine, then. Just let me finish my coffee first.”
He took his sweet time finishing his coffee and then poured some more for himself once his first cup was gone. He even had a couple of the muffins I had brought up with it. I started without him, but I was done a lot faster. I didn’t know if he was doing it to be considerate of dad, because it was still kind of early, or if he just wanted to put it off.
While I waited, I went around packing our stuff. Even if we weren’t going to leave early, I didn’t want to end up in the same room, not if Emma wasn’t going to be there. I’d keep thinking about what we did instead of sleeping. Carl didn’t look surprised when I moved to the front room with our bags.
Finally, he was done with breakfast. He grabbed his bag, and I took mine, and we left with our keycards. We stopped by the desk in the lobby to hand over the key cards and pay for our stay, then left.
“What do you think dad would want?”
I glanced at Carl. He wasn’t really asking, we’d both guessed, he probably just wanted to know what I was thinking.
“Here’s an idea. Why don’t we get there and ask him?”
He grumbled but dropped it. “It better be good, making us come out here and stay for days.”
I rolled my eyes. “We haven’t been in town long enough for you to start getting grouchy over it, idiot. It hasn’t even been a week.”
“Yeah, well, this town is boring. It’s why we left, remember?” He paused, grinned a little. “Well, except for Emma. I still can’t believe we actually did that last night.”
I was surprised he would talk about it. While I’d had one-night
stands, it wasn’t really my scene, so I didn’t do it often. Carl was the opposite, with more one-night stands than dates. Sometimes, it stretched to more than a night, but I knew he was more comfortable with casual. So, it wasn’t just me that wanted to see Emma again.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Last night was amazing.”
We didn’t talk more about it, keeping silent the home way back, each lost in his own thoughts.
When we got home, I knocked on the door, then reached for the handle and twisted it. The door opened.
“I keep telling him to lock the fucking door. What if he gets robbed, or something?”
“Dude,” Carl laughed, adding in an eye roll. “Who in this town is going to rob anybody.”
“A bunch of idiotic kids doing it on a dare or some other stupid kiddy shit. You remember what high school was like, right?”
“As much as I appreciate you worrying about my health, I don’t really have anything of much value to steal in this house.”
Dad walked out of the kitchen, scaring us both. It was maybe ten in the morning, but I didn’t expect to find him up before noon on a Saturday.
And yeah, it was true he didn’t have much of value. The house looked pretty much like it did when we were little kids, he hadn’t bought anything in nearly two decades. When Carl asked why not, when we started sending him cash, he’s said something about wasting money on new stuff when the old worked just fine.
But then where was all the money going, then?
Dad eyed our bags, raised an eyebrow, but didn’t question it.
“Why don’t you two put your bags down and come into the kitchen? I still can’t cook, but I’ve got plenty of frozen stuff. It would take maybe a minute to put something in the oven.”
I let my bag fall just a few feet from the front door. Dad kept our old room for us. If we were going to stay, we’d take our bags upstairs later.
“Thanks, but we already ate.”
