Twisted Hate (Twisted 3)

Jules knocked her knee against mine. “She thinks we’re joking,” she hissed.

“I know.” I cleared my throat. “Ave…”

“Honestly, I’m impressed you guys put aside your differences long enough to come up with this plan.” Some of Ava’s mirth had finally subsided, though her grin remained.

“Ave…”

“Is this payback for Vermont? Because that was months ago, and I had no idea there’d only be one bed.”

“Ava, we’re not joking!”

My declaration rang through the room, followed by thick, stunned silence.

My sister’s grin disappeared. “You’re not…” Her eyes darted between us again, taking in our tense expressions and the way our thighs touched. Horror dawned on her face. “You’re actually dating? How is that possible? You hate each other!”

“Welllll…” I dragged the word out. “Not anymore.”

Jules chimed in. “We’ve been working together at the clinic—”

“It started as a no strings attached kinda thing—”

“We didn’t plan for this to happen—”

Our voices overlapped in a rushed explanation before Ava held up a hand and cut us off. “How long have you been dating?”

I winced. “Er, a week this time around.”

“What do you mean, this time around?”

Goddammit. We definitely should’ve come up with a script for this.

Since it was too late, Jules and I forged ahead and told Ava everything, starting with our sex-only arrangement and ending with our reconciliation last week. We left out the ugly details about Max and chalked our breakup up to a misunderstanding, but otherwise, it was a pretty comprehensive summary.

By the time we finished, Ava’s skin had taken on a faint green tint. She glared at me. “You’re telling me you’ve been sleeping with my best friend for months?” She pointed at Jules. “And you’ve been sleeping with my brother for months? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me earlier!”

Jules gave a helpless shrug. “I never found the right time to tell you I was banging your brother.”

The green tint on Ava’s skin deepened.

“You did the same with him!” I gestured toward Alex, who watched the scene unfold with a bored expression. He didn’t even try to help. Traitor. “You guys were dating for months before I found out. Don’t be a hypocrite.”

“That was different,” Ava growled. “We didn’t loathe each other with a burning passion, then turn around and start making out.”

“I know this is a shock, considering my past…differences with Josh.” Jules’s bottom lip disappeared between her teeth. “But with us working together at the clinic and seeing each other so much, it just sort of happened. We really hadn’t planned to keep it from you for so long. We just weren’t sure it was even going anywhere, and we didn’t want to tell you until we were. It would make things too awkward.”

“Right.” Ava closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Alex, bring me a knife.”

I paled. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I held up one hand and drew Jules closer to me with the other. “I’m your only brother. You love me. Remember when I gave you the last of my Milk Duds at the movie theater? Good times.”

Ava ignored me until Alex returned with the requested knife.

I scowled at him. So this was how I was going to die. Betrayed by my best friend again and stabbed to death by my sister. Julius Caesar had nothing on me in terms of a shitty death.

My heart pounded as Ava grasped the knife, leaned forward…and opened the dessert box. She sliced off a piece of cake and took a bite.

Silence descended.

“Should we say something else?” Jules whispered.

“She still has a knife in her hand,” I whispered back. “Let’s wait.”

We watched while Ava finished eating with an unreadable expression. But when she spoke again, her voice had lost some of its hard edge. “How serious is this?”

Relief loosened the knot of anxiety in my chest. I recognized that voice. She was coming around.

I wasn’t worried about her cutting us off forever because we snuck around behind her back, but I also didn’t want to spend weeks on the outs with my sister.

“I no longer want to kill her every time I set eyes on her, so pretty serious,” I joked before sobering. “Listen, I know this must be weird as fuck for you, but I promise, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t serious. You know what I asked you when I found out about you and Alex? What you said?” I flicked my gaze to Alex, whose bored expression gave way to one with more interest. “I feel the same about Jules.”

“Ava.” I stared at her in shock, trying to make sense of a world that had turned upside down. My sister and my best friend. My best friend and my sister. Together. “Do you…love him?”

There was a short pause.

When Ava finally answered, her voice was soft but steady. “Yes. I do.”

Present Ava stared at me a second longer before she stood and tilted her head toward the kitchen. “Let’s talk. Alone.”

Jules gave me a semi-nervous glance as I stood. I responded with what I hoped was a reassuring smile before I joined my sister in the kitchen.

“Did you mean what you said?” Ava asked once we were out of the others’ earshot. “About what you feel for her?”

“Yeah.” My face softened. “I love her, Ave. We may still fight and argue sometimes, but at the end of the day…she’s it.”

I would take a thousand fights with Jules over a thousand easy days with anyone else.

Because I didn’t want easy. I wanted her.