Page 10 of The Charade
"Are they hot?" Nash leaned forward, seeming to be almost as excited as Mack was at the prospect of new females joining the small pool of girls in our house.
"Let's just say they caught my attention." Mack pressed his lips together, obviously fighting a grin. "But if you haven't seen them yet, I won't spoil it for you."
Almost as if on cue, the doors to the great hall opened and Scarlett walked into the room with a twin on each side.
The whole room went quiet and multiple sets of eyes followed the girls as they strode down the aisle that led to the cafeteria line where they could grab their tray of food for this evening's meal.
When I looked at Nash, his reaction to seeing double didn’t disappoint.
His mouth hung open, his blue eyes blinking rapidly as if not sure they were seeing correctly. Only when the girls stepped behind a large pillar and out of our view did Nash turn back to the rest of us with an almost dazed look in his eyes. "Am I in heaven?" he asked in the overdramatic tone he used when practicing for the school's theater productions. "Because I think I may have just seen identical angels."
Did I mention that Nash and I are only half-siblings? Because, yeah, I really hoped I didn't have that kind of idiocy in my genetic makeup.
"Heaven on earth as far as I'm concerned," Mack agreed, sounding like he’d gotten the same genetic mutation as Nash. "But if you're interested, you'll have to get in line, buddy."
"You're calling dibs on them?" Cambrielle stared at our brother and Mack with a look of disgust on her heart-shaped face. "Are they property? Did we go back in time to the eighteen-hundreds or something?"
Mack gave Cambrielle one of his easy smiles. "You know you'd love to be my property if your big brothers let you."
"As if!" Her jaw dropped and she tossed a piece of broccoli at his face, missing of course and hitting his shoulder instead. "And even if I was interested, I certainly wouldn't need my brothers' permission!"
"What do you think, guys?" Mack looked at Nash and then at me. "Think you'll let me take your little sis out on a date sometime?"
"Sure." Nash glanced at our sister and winked, knowing his answer would only rile her up further. "If that keeps you distracted from those twins, then please, take care of my sister for me."
Cambrielle smacked Nash on the arm, and even though she was tiny, it looked like she hit him hard enough to leave a bruise.
"So what do you say, Carter?" Mack waggled his eyebrows at me. “Mind if I take Cambrielle to visit the falls this weekend?"
The falls—as in the waterfall which our town was named after—was also the spot that could be renamed ashookup point.
Yeah, Mack wouldnotbe taking Cambrielle to the falls.
I shook my head. "Apparently, I'm the only brother who actually cares about Cambrielle's well-being. So no, Mack, even though Cambrielle can date whoever she wants, I would most definitely pull the ‘older brother’ card and forbidyoufrom touching my sweet, innocent little sister."
Cambrielle stuck her tongue out at me, apparently not liking my answer, either.
But then, Cambrielle looked at me with her light blue eyes and asked, "I take it you're not interested in the new girls then?" She must have noticed how Mack and Nash were already scanning the cafeteria for the twins but I wasn’t.
"Nope."
"Still going strong on that girl cleanse of yours?" She arched a dark eyebrow.
"I'm focusing on my studies."
"Well, I'm sure Dad would appreciate that."
"I'm sure he would." Being an heir to the Hastings’s fortune did come with its responsibilities. "Which is why Nash should probably spend more time focusing on school instead of girls, so he won't be useless when it comes time for us to help Dad manage everything. Pretty sure Dad expects us to help out more once we're through here."
Some upper-class families let kids take a year off after high school, give them a gap year to go off and see the world.
Not the Hastings, though. Not only were we expected to be accepted into Yale, which was about thirty minutes from our small town of Eden Falls, but we were also expected to intern at Hastings Industries as we did so.
A "where much is given, much is required" sort of thing.
"I don't know." Cambrielle tossed our distracted brother a look. "Maybe we should let him run amok like Ian. One less brother to split Dad's billions with doesn't sound too bad."
I laughed. "True." But really, once you were working with billions, did it even make a difference? I spun my fork in my Alfredo noodles. "I don't know, I think I'd rather have Nash earn his keep instead of begging off his more responsible brother and sister."
