Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
“How long has it been since we played the game?”
Bene had to really think about that. “I don’t ... maybe fourteen?”
Beni’s chuckles reached his spot and he turned his head to the side to find his twin rested in the same position as him with one leg stretched out on a pool floaties and his other knee drawn up to rest his arm on. He couldn’t see Beni’s eyes behind the sunglasses but he really didn’t need to. Other than the drip drip drip of the fountain at the far end of the room, the mansion was quiet.
Funny.
Considering last night for their eighteenth birthday, the mansion had been wall to wall with people. For once, their parents actually let them throw a party at the house. With whatever they wanted because they left for the weekend. Halls were closed off, yeah. An entire wing was off-limits. Guards were posted all over the fucking property and the cameras stayed on.
But shit ...
They raged.
Hard.
Getting all their brothers there—and Les tagged along from Nevada with Corrado, like he usually did; something they never asked about—had just been the icing on the cake.
“Are we playing, or not?” Beni asked.
“I lost my train of thought,” Bene admitted.
“Focus.”
His laughter skipped over the pool.
He was just a little high.
Right, right.
The game.
“Tell you something you don’t know,” Bene mused to himself. His mind flashed with memories of many years past where they had done something similar to this very thing. With quiet all around, the twins would close their eyes, and Bene always asked his brother to, “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Bene always asked.
Beni always answered.
It had been a running joke—something they had been doing for longer than Bene could remember. Like when they were little and used to talk in babbles that no one else but them could understand. They always did it ... until they didn’t.
His first real memory of playing the game, even though he knew they’d been doing it for longer, was their fifth birthday party. A neighborhood kid who must have been feeling like a little shit that day decided to make fun of the twins for being ... well, the same. He said they weren’t real—robots. Called them creepy because when they weren’t paying attention, their movements often mirrored each other. They never liked having it pointed out. It wasn’t something they could help or even noticed ... and they certainly didn’t care to change it.
It was a part of them.
Whatever they were.
Nonetheless, they were five and kids. Someone picking on them didn’t make anything easier. Bene went through a whole phase of wanting to look exactly like his brother. Beni had a moment where every time someone mixed the two of them up, he flipped out.
They came back to steady ground.
It all worked out.
“This is harder than I thought,” Bene said more to himself than his twin.
A few feet away, floating in the pool, Beni hummed his agreement. “See, and that’s how I always felt trying to come up with something.”
“So, why did you keep answering?” Bene asked.
His brother shrugged. “You kept asking.”
Oh.
Then, Bene had a thought.
He did know something.
“You’re seven seconds older,” Bene said, grinning.
Beni’s head turned in his direction, but he couldn’t see his brother’s eyes under the dark sunglasses. “You asked Ma and Dad—and never told me?”
Well ... it wasn’t that big of a deal. The twins never cared. Their parents never offered the information except when Bene and Beni would tease each other about it. Sometimes, people lied about which one was older just to use it as an excuse for one thing or another.
“I really thought it was me,” Bene admitted.
That had his twin laughing.
Bene cracked up, too.
Best birthday morning ever.
Chapter 4 – August POV
“Oh, that one,” Cara said, her finger tapping the screen while she gestured at the photog’s assistant. On the computer screen—where the photog’s team had their entire set up ready for them to easily look over the pictures and do any surface editing during and after the shoot—a particular shot of Beni and Bene sitting on the floor with baby Marcus between them was blown wide on the large frame. “Mark it down? I know the perfect spot for it.”
August grinned, never unamused with her mother-in-law’s passions. Because they never ended. The woman found as much creative energy in reading and writing as she did photography and even gardening. Just to add to it, Cara also managed to raise four sons, maintain a career, as well as being a wife and her own woman. And since most of her sons had married now, Cara still didn’t stop.
In fact, she brought her son’s wives into the family folds as though they had always belonged there. She made time for each of the girls whether it was coming over to chat over coffee and sweets or reading a book together and chatting about it every night on the phone.