Dopplebanger (Meet-Cute #5)

Chapter 1

ONE

Ten out of ten times getting drunk with my twin brother ended in bouts of stupidity. I’d like to think this time would be different, because we were older and wiser now.

“Hey, Ethan, remember this party trick?” Evan asked, placing his recently-emptied beer can on his forehead.

“I don’t think?—”

He lifted the can a few inches and then brought it down, crushing it in one quick movement.

Well, we were older, anyway. And since I’d made a half-hearted effort of talking him out of it, I at least had plausible deniability.

Even my drunken thoughts are filled with legal mumbo-jumbo. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. It was what happened when you studied your ass off at law school, completed an internship from paperwork hell, and did more studying in order to pass the Bar.

Man, that last shot of vodka was a mistake. The shot glasses, beer cans, and bottles of alcohol littering the coffee table swam and then doubled for a few seconds before returning to one fuzzy blur.

Let the record show that I’d requested a quiet homecoming celebration, one with maybe a drink or two to commemorate the fact that we lived in the same state again.

“One more shot?” my brother asked from the seat across from me. He went to pour the vodka and missed the glass. He laughed and tried again.

“I’m done,” I said. At least I tried to, but my tongue tripped over the words, the slurring in full effect now.

“Itss not like you have work tmorrow.”

I’d passed the Bar a little over a month ago, and when a job opened up at a law firm here in Raleigh, I jumped at the chance to move back to my hometown. I had just under two weeks to find my own place and settle in before I started a job that required early hours. And late hours. Pretty much all the hours. My ass was theirs, and since I’d been working for this moment forever, I was happy about it. “I hung out at the Drunken Kraken for most of last year, and I still haven’t drunk this much in long time. I’m already going to have killer hangover tomorrow.” Apparently, in addition to the slurring, vodka made me sound slightly Russian. “I’m calling it.”

“Okay, fine.” Evan wobbled on his chair, then put a hand out to steady himself and blinked a couple of times. “But before you pass out, I need to ask you for a favor.”

“I’m not holding your hair back while you puke,” I joked, even though his hair was more on the short side, and he snorted a laugh.

I’d deferred the question, but my spidey senses were still tingling. I’d expected it to feel a bit weird to be back home after seven years living in another state, but I didn’t expect it to feel like I’d time-traveled back to high school, when Evan would convince me to drink way more than I should and then take advantage of my disoriented state by asking for favors. He somehow always got me to agree, even as my common sense screamed bad idea.

Not anymore, though. My decision-making skills may be impaired, but he’d never take my freedom! And now I’ve gone from legal jargon to quoting Braveheart. I have a bad feeling that I’ll wake up in a strange place tomorrow, wearing blue face paint and a kilt, no recollection of how I got there.

Evan leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. “I’ll make it worth your while, I swear.”

Another familiar phrase. I wasn’t sure if it was exactly good to know that nothing changed with my brother, but clearly not much had.

“You know how when we were kids, we used to switch places?” he asked. “Like, I’d take your math tests and you’d take my history tests? Or that time when I asked Charlotte Berkley to prom while pretending to be you, because you were too chicken to do it yourself?”

That setup question was a trap if I’d ever heard one, but at this point, I figured I’d just get him to spit it out so I could say, “No, I don’t do that immature shit anymore,” and crash out on this couch that was getting more comfortable by the second. “Little lawyer tip for you: You shouldn’t lead the defense with an insult when you’re asking for a favor. And for the record, I wasn’t too chicken, you jackass, she had a boyfriend. One who punched me in the face for asking her to prom.”

Evan’s eyebrows knitted together and he scratched his chin. “Oh, yeah. I forgot about that part.”

Of course he did. He often conveniently forgot about stunts that landed me in detention for his outbursts in class while pretending to be me. In fact, I couldn’t recall one switcheroo scheme we’d pulled off where I came out on top.

“My point is that we used to switch sometimes, and it’s not like you can forget how to be me…”

“Wrong.” I kicked up my feet on the coffee table, sending a few empties clattering to the floor. “Since you’re a glorified bum who still lives like a twenty-one-year-old frat boy, I don’t remember how to be you.”

He threw a hand over his heart. “Low blow, dude. Low blow.”

In theory, he worked for Dad’s company, doing research and filing paperwork, but he didn’t spend much time in the office. Evan was an idea man, with the kind of half-baked plans that landed the people involved in trouble, and that’d always left me as the guy who had to fix it. The guy who picked up the slack and went to law school so Dad would have someone to follow in his footsteps instead of staying in his shadow. As hard as law school had been, and as much as I’d missed Evan, not having to bail him out of his messes for several years actually felt like a nice break.

“Hear me out,” Evan said, never one to be deterred. “This involves a pretty girl.”

I rolled my finger in a keep-it-going motion. “Spill it. I don’t have time to follow your bread crumbs until I get to your candy house and find out you’re a hungry witch.”

Evan cracked a smile and shook his head. “Fine. I’ll get to the point before you make another joke that takes far too much work to figure out after having…” He surveyed the evidence on the coffee table. “Let’s just say ‘a lot’ to drink…”

For getting to the point, he sure let that sentence hang there for several seconds.

He sighed. “I promised my girlfriend I’d take a road trip with her up to this wedding in Pennsylvania, but that was before I realized she and I aren’t really working anymore. My boys rented this sweet beach house in Wrightsville for the week so we could throw a big farewell party for our buddy from Fort Bragg who’s deploying, and I can’t miss it. But I don’t want to leave Gwen high and dry.”

“But you’re going to anyway,” I said.

“Not if you go with her and be me for a few days.”

“No way,” I said, and then I slumped back against the couch cushions and let my heavy eyelids close.

Evan shoved my foot, and my eyes automatically jerked open.

“Dude, don’t you think she’ll suspect your twin brother has taken your place the first time she notices something isn’t quite right about me?”

He glanced down at the ground and rubbed a hand across the nape of his neck. “She, uh, doesn’t know about you. I haven’t exactly told her that I have a brother yet.”

I lowered my eyebrows, not sure if I should be more confused or offended while experiencing a pinch of both. Then again, when I told my bestie from another testi—her phrase, not mine—about Evan, I’d warned her away and she lived clear across the nation, back in San Diego where I attended law school and completed my internship.

“Don’t give me that look,” Evan said. “It was in the plans, but you know how it is. You say ‘twin brother’ and most girls see visions of being double-teamed by two of me in their heads.”

A cocky statement, but he wasn’t wrong. Not all women, but a lot of them, were just like men in that aspect. Suddenly you became a fantasy version of yourself instead of an individual. I’d been guilty myself of putting off telling women about Evan until after we’d dated for a while. “I get it. Unfortunately.”

Obviously pleased and seeing his opening, Evan resumed his spiel. “Since the wedding is in her hometown, Gwen wanted to have someone there to support her and make it easier—she has some kind of weird relationship with the bride. Or the groom. Or was it a bridesmaid?” His forehead crinkled for a moment before he shook his head. “Anyway, she’d be crushed if I let her down, and this is me trying to not be a prick.”

“No, this is you making me the prick. I’d be the guy taking advantage of the fact that she doesn’t know I’m not you. If you don’t want to be a prick, just suck it up and go.”

“If I was planning on staying with her long-term, I would. I really like Gwen. She’s smoking hot and super sweet, and while she’s quirkier than the girls I usually go for, I don’t mind. If things were different…” He pressed his lips together, suddenly somber, and while I knew he could put on a good show, I could also tell he did genuinely care about her. Interesting. “She’s a settling-down girl. The type I’d like to meet in four or five years, when I’m ready for something like that.”

At this point, I doubted that’d ever happen. Not that I was ready for serious, either. I had a new career to focus on.

“And since I like hanging out with her so much,” Evan continued, “I kept dating her instead of ending things before she got attached. Now it’s too close to the wedding to do it without leaving her dateless and totally crushing her. Even if I went, I’d end up bungling it all up anyway—you know me.”

Yeah, I knew he could be a bit of a tool when it came to girls. This conversation was Exhibit A.

“We have a coffee date tomorrow morning at Sacred Grounds to finalize our road trip plans, and it’s around the same time I’m supposed to head out of town with the guys. If I go for coffee, I’ll have to do a rush job of breaking the news that I can’t go to the wedding with her, and then follow that up by dumping her, and the thought of seeing her sad face…” He scooted to the edge of his chair. “Please, Ethan? Just do me this solid?”

I rubbed my fingers over my forehead. I could almost see the twisted logic behind what he was trying to do to save this poor girl’s feelings, but I’d just been thinking about what a relief it was that I didn’t get roped into my brother’s crazy schemes anymore. I think, anyway. Thoughts were still a bit hazy, which was probably why I hesitated instead of shutting it down as hard as I should. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. There’s too high a chance of disaster.”

“Come on, it’s only four days, and you’d be like Evan 2.0—you could give her all the support and everything she needs way better than I would. Then, after you guys get back, I’ll let her down easy.”

I opened my mouth to continue making my case against it.

“I’ll let you drive my Camaro,” he said, and evidently my poker face needed work, because his expression made it clear he knew he’d hooked me. “Zero to sixty in less than five seconds… I know how much you love that car.”

Dammit. He’s got me there. I’d done the sensible thing when buying a vehicle and sometimes I wished I’d silenced my common sense and bought sportier and faster, with a lot more power under the hood. Maybe someday. After I made partner.

I pressed my lips together, considering how fun it’d be to take the Camaro out on the open road, but still not sold. An awkward trip followed by an awkward wedding was hardly the way I wanted to spend one of my two weeks of freedom. As much as I would like to wash my hands of the situation, I already felt for his unsuspecting girlfriend. If he didn’t obviously care about the girl, it’d also make it a lot easier to say hell no. Maybe he was still on the immature, selfish side, but he was at least making an effort to be more considerate, and that behavior deserved some positive reinforcement.

He yanked harder on that hook he’d caught me with and began reeling me in. “I’ll pay your first month’s rent, too. An entire month in exchange for four little days of getting to see the countryside with a pretty girl by your side. It’s a good deal if I do say so myself.”

“Say I was entertaining the thought of doing this for you, and I showed up at the road trip… meeting.” Calling it a “date” would just be wrong. The fact that I was even considering this was wrong. “How would I even know who she is?”

“She’s a sexy, redheaded hurricane of energy and brains. Trust me, she’ll be hard to miss.”