Space (Laws of Physics #2)(16)

Unlike her friend, Mona’s feet did not move at my approach. Her body still blocked most of the door. But she did lift her chin as I closed the distance between us. Except, I wasn’t closing the distance between us. She was in my way, and I needed to move past her in order to continue forward.

Given her inconvenient location, I was forced to slow, stop, and then wait. Clearing my throat, I kept my eyes fastened on the ski lift behind her and waited for her to get out of my way.

“Let me show you the house.” Leo lifted his voice behind me, presumably speaking to Alan. “Abram will help Melvin with the bags. We saved the top floor for you and Mona, so it’ll be quiet, just like she likes. Do you . . .” His voice drifted off, swallowed by the wind and increasing distance.

I wasn’t close to Mona, allowing her plenty of space to walk past me. If memory served, and in this case I trusted memory, Mona didn’t like people getting too close. Unless, that part was a lie too.

“Hi—hello,” she said, stepping forward but not out of the way, drawing my attention.

She was still staring at me, her face still pale, but her eyes had turned searching instead of stunned.

“I—” She stopped herself, swallowing, her gaze dropping to the front of my coat, a cute little frown furrowing her eyebrows. In the next moment, she was pulling off the glove of her right hand. Abruptly, she shoved the ungloved fingers toward me, returning her eyes to mine. “I’m Mona.”

I suppressed my disbelief at her small action before it could break my outward mask of calm. I wasn’t calm. Just to be clear, I was the opposite of calm.

The fact that she was introducing herself to me now meant that she thought I was too stupid to figure out her lies over the last two-and-a-half-fucking years. She was arguably one of the smartest people in the world, after all. To her, people like me must seem like housebroken pets. So it shouldn’t have surprised me. But it did. The tension and tightness around my ribs reappeared, squeezing uncomfortably.

Dropping my attention to her bare hand, I pressed my lips into a tighter line, dismissing the way my pulse jumped at the sight of her wrist, the olive tone of her skin under the yellow string lights overhead. Glaring at her outstretched offering, I considered telling her to go to hell.

I considered it, but I wouldn’t.

I didn’t trust myself to speak, that was reason number one.

The other reason was harder to explain, or use as a justification, or admit to myself. Staring at her hand, I braced against a sudden flare of hunger. She might consider me a lower life-form, but that didn’t change the fact that I wanted to touch her. I wanted to touch her more than I wanted to tell her to go to hell, and that was fucking pitiful.

But there it was.

Acting on the compulsion, I lifted my right hand and tugged off the ski glove, sliding my warm palm against her much colder one. Her hand felt good in my hand, the right weight, the right size, the right texture, and I inhaled freezing air.

Mona also seemed to suck in a slow but expansive breath as our hands touched, held. This brought my eyes back to hers in time to see her lashes flutter. Pink colored her previously pale cheeks. The sound of the wailing wind, the sting of the air and frost momentarily melted away, leaving just her, her soft skin warming against mine, her beautiful face filling my vision.

So beautiful.

She really was. She was stunning. I hated that she was still so beautiful to me.

She looks just like her sister.

I blinked, stopping myself before I shook my head at the bitter thought.

Except, no. She doesn’t. Not at all.

About two years ago, when I’d begun to suspect the truth, I’d compared countless images of the twins. The pictures were more contemporary than my fuzzy memories of the photos at the house in Chicago, the ones where Mona had looked twelve, and Lisa hadn’t.

I decided they looked identical, especially in pictures taken this last year. Side by side, they looked like the same person. When the suspicion became growing certainty, their similarity in photos made me feel a little better about the possibility of being so completely fooled.

But now, looking at Mona now, seeing the physical differences in sharp focus, I felt sick.

I should have known immediately. God, I should have known.

The way she’d looked at me then, the way she was looking at me now, so completely different than her sister. The last question I’d struggled with—the final puzzle piece—snapped resoundingly into place. She left after the movie.

I’d suspected, but now I knew with absolute certainty. It had been Mona during The Blues Brothers, and Lisa in the morning. That’s when they’d switched places.

Riding the wave of nausea, I pulled my fingers from hers and shifted my attention to the interior of the ski lift, no longer wanting to touch her or look at her or breathe the same air as her.

“You’re Abram,” she said, moving closer, too close.

I sidestepped her, brushing past into the small building. My tongue felt thick and dry, and a pulse of heat radiated from my skin outward, but also pushing back at me, just like the sensation when a rollercoaster takes a dive. How could I have been so fucking stupid?

Behind me, I heard the door close, cutting off the sound of the wind, and she said, “You and Leo are—uh—good friends.”

Not answering, I closed my eyes against the spike of anger. I took a deep breath. Her boots made noise on the tile floor as she drew near. She was trailing me.