Canaan and Corin looked the part of the rock stars they truly were. They had my height, both of them standing near six-three, but they carried it razor-thin and lean. Canaan wore his hair long and loose and messy, and it was constantly falling into his eyes, and he had the beginnings of a beard going. Corin was the edgier of the two, sporting a severe undercut with the top left long and brushed back over his scalp, the ends dyed virulent neon blue. They both had full-sleeve tattoos started, blank spaces showing where future tats were going to go, and they were both dressed in tight jeans that sagged around their waists with holes in the knees and thighs, faded graphic print T-shirts and Sharpie-decorated Converse All-Stars to complete their looks. Individual styles that still somehow managed to almost-but-not-quite match, enough individuality that you wouldn’t ever mistake one twin for the other.
They’d played that game for a while, though, dressing alike and looking alike so you never knew which twin you were talking to. They used to fuck with the audience at shows, too, one of them playing lead guitar and lead vocals and the other doing bass and backing vocals, and then during a lighting change they’d switch guitars and mics. They even made a funny little gimmick out of it, tossing guitars back and forth while harmonizing, so you never knew which one was which. The label had cut that out of their act real fast, though. Which, in retrospect, had been for the best, as it had forced each of them to find their own niche as musicians, forcing them be more serious about the music rather than just showing off.
“Thought you’d never come out,” Canaan said.
“She must be really something to keep you in there for seven fuckin’ hours,” Corin said.
“Or, rather, for seven hours of fucking,” Canaan said, grinning.
I turned the bear hugs into headlocks on both of them. “Keep a respectful tongue in your damn heads or I’ll rip ’em off, you little punk bastards.” I punctuated this by squeezing until both of them started struggling and squawking.
“FINE! LEMME GO!” This was Corin, the more vocal of the two.
I released the headlocks then, but didn’t let them go entirely. I spun them to face me. “Serious, guys. No bullshit about her. Got it?”
Canaan eyed me curiously. “Who are you and what’d you do with my real brother?”
I shoved him hard enough that he hit the back of the couch and toppled over. “It’s really me, dumbass. I just found a girl I really like. Don’t make big deal out of it.”
“It kind of is a big deal, though, isn’t it?” Xavier asked. “Didn’t I hear you once say love was for pussies who couldn’t haul down ass like a real man?”
I sighed. “Yeah, I think I did say something like that. But first, I was drunk when I said it, second, that was before I met Dru, and third, I was kind of an asshole back then.”
Xavier’s lips quirked. “That was less than a year ago.”
“A lot can change in a year, kiddo.”
Baxter laughed. “A lot can change in a single day, I think.”
“Truth,” I said, and then had a realization hit me. “Wait. If I’m here, and all of you are here, who’s working the bar?”
Zane answered. “The committee decided to close the bar for a day. We’ve all spent the last several days traveling, and you were…otherwise indisposed.”
Corin raised his hand. “Plus, minor point here…none of us know what the fuck we’re doing down there.”
“Who’s the committee?” I asked.
Zane waved at the room at large. “All of us.”
“And I’m not part of the committee?”
Zane laughed. “Well, you are now, I guess. But when we made the decision you were balls deep in the missus, so you missed out.”
I growled. “Watch your fuckin’ mouth, asshole.”
He raised his hands palms out and shot me a look that said he was having as much trouble recognizing this new protective version of me as the twins were. “A joke, man, it was a joke. Relax. I’m the last one here that’ll talk shit about that chick, seeing as my balls still ache from her foot.”
Canaan and Corin swiveled on Zane and spoke in unison. “Wait…Bast’s girlfriend kicked you in the nuts?” It was fuckin’ freaky, how they could speak entire sentences in precise synch, including inflection and emphasis. I often wondered if they practiced doing it.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I snarled. Then the events of the last day and the things we’d said and shared earlier today rifled through me, and made me rethink that position. “Well, maybe she is. We haven’t nailed anything down. Point is, yes, she’s a badass, so fuck with her at your own risk.”