Caged(99)

"No. That's another part of it. Just . . . I need to start at the beginning." Deacon faced the window, bracing his hands on the ledge. "I don't know what the hell my parents were thinking, naming identical twins Deacon and Dante. No one could keep our names straight, let alone our personas. Then again, most of our life we didn't have separate identities. We had a singular moniker-the Westerman twins."

"Did that bother you?"

"Not that I remember. We were a package deal until high school. Dante was a fucking brain and got into all the advanced-placement classes. I was a jock. He claimed he lifted weights and ran with me because he didn't want to be seen as the weaker twin, but the truth was we preferred spending time together. We were more than brothers; we were two halves of the same whole. But we were always competitive. So it pissed me off that smooth-talker Dante kissed a girl before me. The smug fucker bragged about meeting her under the bleachers for make-out sessions. Since few could tell us apart, I showed up pretending to be him."

"No. You didn't."

"Yeah, I did. For a week after that, everyone could tell us apart since I had a black eye. He ensured I wouldn't be kissing any girls either, since he also gave me a fat lip." 

Molly laughed softly. "Sorry. I shouldn't laugh, but you deserved it."

Deacon allowed a smile because the sharp pang of loss was bearable for a change. "True. Dante wasn't a fighter, but that didn't mean he didn't know how to throw a punch."

"So you two together were the brains and the brawn of the Westerman family?"

"Tag told you that our granddad started the family oil business. Granddad expected his sons to learn the ropes from the ground up. Our dad expected the same from us. The summer after our freshman year, we were sent to our uncle Jesse's ranch. He had a dozen working oil rigs on his place, so we learned to read them like real oilmen. Dante was more interested in the science side of the oil business-engineering and the geological aspect. He studied. I did the dirty work and ran wild. I raced dirt bikes, cars, horses, tractors, you name it. Even then it was obvious to everyone in the Westerman family that Dante would head up JFW Industries-which is now JFW Development-one day."

"Was your dad happy his son would follow in his footsteps?"

Deacon shrugged. "I guess. He sent us there for two summers. While Dante came back full of ideas about future business-development plans, I came back rougher around the edges, which infuriated our mother. She obsessed about 'my station in life,' constantly berating me about acting like an heir to a multimillion-dollar business, not like a roughneck running the rigs. Dante could do no wrong in her eyes. He had a way with her. Hell, he had a way with all the girls. So it wasn't just his looks that had girls flocking to him. We were identical, and girls weren't falling all over themselves to get with me like they were with him."

"So neither of you tried to look different and set yourself apart from the other?"

"Nah. I imagine we would've done that at some point, but we never got the chance."

Molly's bare feet shuffled across the carpet as she moved into his peripheral vision.

"The first week of junior year, I started dating Cassidy, much to everyone's surprise."

"Why?"

"She was a year older than me. A good girl. She'd been designated class sweetheart three times. I wasn't a bad boy." He shot her a quick look. "No tats, or a motorcycle, or shaved head at that time. But I'd gotten into trouble for fighting. She didn't care. Before too long I was spending all my time with her, but Dante was cool with it. He always said, Brother, I got my own deal going on. Don't worry about me. But I did. I never wanted him to feel left out."

Maybe if you would've left him out, he'd be alive today.

"Anyway, that fall Cassidy was elected homecoming queen. I escorted her to the football game and took her to the dance. Since Dante didn't have a date, he went to a party out in the boondocks. When Cassidy and I got there after the dance, Dante was drunk-not the norm for him. Usually Cassidy didn't drink either, so I didn't think anything of it when she went off with her friends. I stayed by the bonfire, listening to Dante's drunk talk about a girl I'd never heard of. A girl he claimed he'd been having sex with since school started, which made me so mad . . ."

"Why?"

"Because he always told me everything right away. And he'd kept something that goddamn important from me for two months. So I'm grilling him about it, scheming on how I can get Cassidy in bed to even things up with my brother." He closed his eyes. "That's how I spent my last hour with him. Bein' mad at him for losing his virginity first. Bein' mad at him for pulling away from me because I knew that was the start of us having separate lives."