TWIN PASSIONS: (A Logan Brothers Novel) (6 page)

After about an hour I had a
load of great notes to work with. I mean, I knew that I could have
found the exact same information online, but I didn't care. Even
though it was outside of work hours, it felt so much more gratifying
talking to people and gathering the information face to face. I
actually felt like a real journalist.

By the time I was ready to go
home it was beginning to get late and quiet on the gym floor. Only a
few stragglers remained, pumping iron and lumbering along on
treadmills. I walked off down the corridor back towards the entrance,
passing by a studio as I went.

A flurry of quick movement
caught my eye through the thin glass window and I stopped suddenly,
intrigued. Inside was a young man, his hair darkened with sweat,
launching his fists ferociously at a punching bag. He ducked and
swerved to the left and right, dancing around the bag and sending it
flying this way and that.

He looked to be about 6 feet
tall, his body shining with perspiration. He wore only shorts, every
muscle on his abs so defined as he twisted and turned. His arms moved
fast, his punches like lightning, his eyes set on the bag, never
looking away.

Then, suddenly, he saw me, his
eyes darting up towards the door and through the window. I
instinctively stepped to one side, as if caught spying. I guess
that's exactly what I had been doing.

I made a move to carry on down
the corridor towards the exit, walking quickly away. I felt
embarrassed to have been caught ogling him like that. I mean, that
wasn't what I was usually like. Before I could go ten feet, however,
I heard the door open fast and a voice from behind.

“
Like what you saw did you?”
the man spoke, his tone teasing.

I turned around and my heart
leapt from inside my body. The guy was the spitting image of a boy I
once knew, only older. My best friend when I was younger, the boy
who'd given me my first kiss.

“
Umm,” I mumbled, not quite
knowing what to say.

He walked forwards towards me,
his body glistening. “I'm only joking,” he said, holding out his
hand. “My name's Cade. I haven't seen you down here before.”

I gathered my words, still
struck by his similarity with Zack.

Zack...I haven't though about
him properly in years.

“
Er yeah, I'm just here on
assignment.”

“
Assignment?”

I nodded. “I work for
Us
and Them
...you know, the lifestyle magazine. Just been talking to
a few personal trainers for a piece about weight loss.”

He looked me quickly up and
down. “Really. So you're a journalist?”

“
I guess so,” I said,
smiling. I liked the sound of it, but my job could hardly be called
journalism right now.

“
That was impressive in there,
do you box professionally?” I continued, moving the subject quickly
along.

He nodded slowly, “I'm getting
there,” he said with an air of confidence. “Just looking for my
shot at the big time.”

Aren't we all.

I couldn't keep my eyes off his
face. He was so much like Zack it was unreal. Those rare green eyes,
the shape of his face, even the sound of his voice. I must have been
looking at him like I'd seen a ghost or something.

But then, of course, Zack did
have brothers. He told me he had several of them, actually, and that
they all had a similar look to them. Maybe this was one of them.

“
So are you going to tell me
your name?” he asked as I stared on.

“
Oh, it's Gemma.”

“
Well it's great to meet you
Gemma. Maybe you should come down here more often...not that you need
to workout or lose weight or anything.”

His eyes shot up and down my
body again.

“
No, you don't need any work
at all.”

I might have thought his words
were sleazy but for the charm with which he delivered them.

“
Thanks, that's good to know.”

My mind continued to swim. I
wanted to flat out ask him if he was Zack's brother but something
held me back. I chose a different track.

“
This is gonna sound weird, but
you look familiar. Do you have any brothers?” I asked casually.

“
Um, yeah I've got four
actually. Crash and Kyle are older and Jude's younger.”

OK, that's three.

“
And the last one?”

“
Oh, he's the same age. Well,
about 10 minutes younger actually.”

Holy shit. He has a twin!

“
His name's Zack.”

My heart literally dropped to
the floor, but I desperately tried to keep my cool.

“
Why do you ask? Do you know
one of them or something?”

Shit
. “Er, no, doesn't
ring a bell. I must have been thinking of something else.”

I had no idea why I was lying.

He looked on at me quizzically,
as if he knew I wasn't being completely honest.

“
Hey, so I need to grab a
quick shower. I just wondered whether you'd like a grab a drink
afterwards?”

This was so bizarre. Everything
about him reminded me of Zack. The way he smiled, the way he spoke,
those lights behind his deep green eyes. I wanted more.

“
Sure, that sounds fun.”

His smile grew, thin, sexy,
dimples appearing on his cheeks, just like Zack.

“
Great! Give me 10 minutes and
I'll meet you in reception?”

I nodded. “Sounds perfect.”

It was less than a week later
that I sat, for the first time, watching Cade box. He was charming,
funny, and intelligent. Pretty much everything that Zack had been.

The fight itself wasn't
something I was interested in, but I was compelled to want to spend
more time with Cade. Knowing Zack so well as I did, it was
fascinating to get to know his twin brother as an adult. I imagined
that it's exactly how Zack would be now.

Maybe soon I'd see him again,
for the first time in years. A smattering of nerves always began to
build in me at the thought.

Cade won his fight and was
jubilant after. He told me it was set to be his toughest bout yet, a
real scalp for him if he could get through it, hopefully by knockout.
He did, and with ease. He told me he'd felt inspired, more confident
than he'd ever been before.

He told me, right there after
the fight, that I was his lucky charm.

It was that night that he kissed
me for the first time. I felt almost guilty doing so at first but was
drawn to him like a magnet. That kiss turned to sex in his apartment,
a beautiful open planned space overlooking the river.

He was wild and insatiable, his
body brimming with adrenaline following his victory. I couldn't help
but be caught up in it, even though it wasn't what I'd usually do. I
had only met up with him a couple of times. Usually I'd go at least
four or five dates before putting out.

In the month that followed he
fought twice more, each time insisting I come watch him. He said my
presence gave him an edge he didn't have before, that he was sharper,
faster, stronger, under my gaze. I hated the fighting, but I couldn't
say no, didn't want to say no.

He ended up winning both fights
as he had before, early and by knockouts. His intensity in the ring
was in such contrast to his energy and jubilation afterwards, this
bustling smile exploding from his face as soon as he saw me after his
victory.

Things moved faster than I'd
ever have imagined, but still the image of Zack lingered in my head.
Cade spoke of him often, of his family, of his father, but I never
revealed the truth: that Zack had been my best friend, my first kiss,
the first boy I'd ever really cared for.

Then, roughly six weeks after I'd
first met him, Cade's father was murdered, shot dead in an hotel
room. I didn't see him for about a week after as he spent time with
his family. I wondered if he'd told them about me, if Zack knew. It
made me nervous to think that he did.

When Cade invited me to the
funeral I knew then that I'd be seeing Zack again. I thought about
not going, but Cade told me he really wanted me there.

When I saw Zack, standing next
to Cade over his father's grave, I felt a huge surge of nerves. I
wondered how much he remembered of our time together. I wondered
whether he even cared.

I guess, soon, I'd find out.

Present Day

Cade

I sat in a large leather seat, a
stripper coiled round a pole on the stage in front of me. A waitress
came over, scantily clad in a little black and red corset, and set
down a glass of whiskey on ice beside me.

She smiled seductively as she
pranced off back towards the bar, her eyes lingering on me. I was
getting used to that sort of attention these days from random girls,
so it was nothing out of the ordinary.

But this last week, things had
blown up. My fight against Ron Renton on Friday night had gone viral,
and not only because of the way I despatched him. It was my gesture
to Gem at the end that got people talking, and now half the girls in
town were wondering who she was and what was going on between us.

Frankly, I didn't give a fuck
about all that attention. I'd always been good with the girls, and
didn't want the spotlight to come down on me any more than it already
was. I had a single focus: win my fights, work my way up the ranking
and maybe, just maybe, get a shot at the belt some day soon.

Crash had called me over to the
casino earlier that afternoon when things started kicking off on
Twitter. He warned me not to talk to the press if they came knocking,
not to talk about the family at all. There was always a lot going on
behind the scenes with Crash that I didn't know about, and he didn't
want anyone prying into our family life.

I had a feeling it might have
something to do with our father's murder. Crash had been closest to
dad, and was desperate to find the culprit and get some revenge. He'd
brought us all together a couple of months ago to tell us that that's
exactly what he'd done, that the guy who was responsible for his
death had been dealt with. If that was true, I could understand
exactly why he didn't want anyone peering at us all too closely.

If my profile kept rising,
however, that might just become inevitable.

I took a sip of my whiskey and
drank in the sight of the stripper now gyrating in front of me. She
was impossibly sexy. God knows how Kyle managed to keep it in his
pants for so long when he ran this place.

I felt a hand come down on my
shoulder and twisted my neck to see Zack fall into the chair beside
me.

“
So what's going on bro,” he
asked, “you sounded pretty serious on the phone.”

I'd always call Zack when I
needed advice or had a problem.

“
Yeah, it's about Gem.”

“
Oh yeah...” he said
quickly, his eyes on me and nowhere near the stripper.

“
The girl's fucking crazy bro.
When you walked in on us on Friday she turned all weird. We had this
fight and she stormed off. She hasn't called all weekend or today. Do
you think, like, I should call her?”

He was silent for a moment, the
cogs turning in his head.

“
Well it depends. Do you still
wanna be dating her?”

“
Well, yeah. She's my lucky
charm, you know that. If I lose her, my form might turn to shit, you
know.”

Both this eyebrows arched up. “So that's why you want to be with her? Because you think
she gives you luck when you box. Mate, seriously, that's not good
enough.”

“
Why not? Anyway, it's more
than that. I like the girl. She's cool, she's funny, she's fucking
beautiful. I mean, I don't wanna lose her, no.”

“
Well call her then dumbass.
It's not rocket science.”

“
To be fair though, I don't
see why I should call her. She's the one who went all psycho on me. I
did nothing wrong. Why should I call her?!”

I'd never chased after a girl
before in my life.
Why the fuck should I chase her when she was
the one who'd caused the problem?

“
Well just be the bigger man
and grow the fuck up. Seriously, what actually happened?”

“
First of all, fuck you.
Bigger man! I'm bigger than you dickhead. Second, I told you what
happened. You walked in – thanks for that by the way – and she
just closed down. I guess maybe she got embarrassed or something.”

“
Yeah, and then what?”

“
I dunno, she started talking
about the girls in the audience and how they all wanna fuck me, or
some shit like that. I joked that maybe those girls would like to be
in her position and she flipped out.”

Zack sat back in his chair and
laughed. “You fucking moron, how do you think she's gonna take
that. You always did have a sensitive side Cade.”