The Bet (Winslow Brothers 1)

This is for the best.

Ten steps later, I’m standing in front of the elevator. With one push of the button, the doors open and I’m inside.

And by the time I’m stepping into the lobby and heading toward the entrance, I start to believe that what I’m doing is the right thing, even though every step I take feels like I’m going in the wrong direction.

Obviously, I just need some time to process it all, but once I do, I know this is how it has to be because Jude Winslow doesn’t get attached to anyone.

And he sure as hell doesn’t let himself fall in love.

Thursday, April 5th

Sophie

When I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop the damn tears from streaming down my cheeks, I forced myself to get out of bed. The sky was still dark, but I knew my favorite bakery up the street from my apartment would be open.

So, I threw on some clothes, don’t even know what clothes, and walked the two blocks.

But when I got there and ordered my usual—a glazed donut and a coffee—I couldn’t even lift the donut to my mouth to take a bite. Couldn’t even take a drink. The idea of food or anything else made me want to puke.

I also think the fact that Rose, the little old lady who owns the shop, kept looking at me with sympathy and concern on her face wasn’t helping my current distraught state.

Surely my red-rimmed eyes and blotchy cheeks weren’t giving her any reassurance.

To be honest, I hate that I’m so affected by what Jude said to me. By how he acted. By the way he seemed to turn into a completely different person when faced with the idea of more happening between us.

I feel as if I’ve taken ten steps back in the progress I thought I’d made.

I know I come with some serious baggage, but I also know that what I saw and felt couldn’t have been a figment of my imagination. He feels something for me.

Or felt something for you, at least.

More tears stream down my cheeks, and I swipe my hands over my face as a shaky breath bounces around in my throat.

Just. Stop. Crying. For. Fuck’s. Sake.

On a deep inhale, I force oxygen into my lungs and continue my path to the only place that makes sense right now.

The sun begins to make her way over the horizon just as I pass the doorman standing outside Belle’s building and step into the lobby. I know it’s early and I know she and John are probably in bed, but I can’t seem to find it in me to care.

I need my twin.

On the elevator and up the ten flights to her floor, I stare down at my shoes the whole way. They’re the oldest pair of gym shoes I own, and by the looks of the stains and ratty shoestrings, I should’ve thrown them in the garbage a long-ass time ago.

But who cares about shoes when you feel like someone tore your heart out of your chest, amiright?

The mental joke has the opposite effect. Instead of being a careful avoidance of my reality, it only serves as a stark reminder.

Cue more fucking tears.

Frankly, if Justin Timberlake didn’t actually write “Cry Me a River” about Britney Spears, then he could easily just tell the world I was his muse.

Am I pathetic for feeling like this? Maybe it all really was a figment of my imagination?

After another swipe of my hand across my face, I pull the key to Belle’s apartment out of my purse. It’s the one she gave me for emergencies, and considering I feel like I might be one crying jag away from someone having to put me in a straitjacket and ship me off to Shutter Island, I’d say right now qualifies for this 9-1-1, unexpected arrival.

When I step inside, John’s and her apartment is completely quiet, and I meander around in her kitchen for a little while, hoping that maybe she’ll wake up and come find her twin sister having a mental breakdown by her fridge.

But when the silence becomes too much for my racing mind and time feels like it doesn’t budge a second, I pull a Cristina Yang and walk straight into my sister’s bedroom, slip off my ratty shoes, and climb into bed with her and John like they’re my Derek Shepherd and Meredith Grey.

Thankfully, from what I can tell, they’re not naked. But at this point in my emotional rock bottom, I don’t even think I’d care about that.

Belle stirs in her sleep and turns on her side, her eyes blinking open and groggily staring into mine. “Sophie?”

“Hi.”

“Am I dreaming?”

I shake my head.

“So, you are, in fact, in bed with me and my husband.”

I nod.

John is awake now, sitting up on his elbows a little to look over Belle’s shoulder and directly at me. “Ah, hell. This really is happening.”