Girl In The Mirror (Looking Glass Book 1)

  “Maggie?” his brother finally asked as if he wasn’t sure.

  I nodded, and Clarisse nudged me, so I began walking slowly toward them, all the while trying desperately to calm my overly emotional heart. Nicolas was immediately on his feet. He’d been sitting on something behind the counter, and he was larger than life, taller than I remembered him being at the cemetery, and even more beautiful. Those incredible eyes touched my heart in a way I’d never understand. One glance at his brother, and I could see they shared the same color eyes, but they didn’t move me the way Nicolas’s had.

  “I-I’m Xavier,” his brother said when we were close enough. He shook his head, glancing at his brother then back at me. “Jesus, you weren’t kidding, bro. After all these years, I’d forgotten how much you look like your sister. Even back then, I was never able to tell you two apart.”

  “I could,” Nicolas said with an undeniable conviction, and my eyes were immediately on him.

  “I called and left messages,” I said, my words barely audible because I was still in such marvel of what he did to me. “You never returned my calls.”

  “I couldn’t,” he said flatly, so unlike last time when he’d been so inviting.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, feeling the ache in my heart, the same anguish I’d felt in all the dreams I’d had where he rejected me. “I just need to talk to you.”

  He shook his head, staring at me now almost coldly. “I can’t.” He started to walk away.

  “Why?” I asked, feeling the warm tears fill my eyes. “You asked me to keep in touch.”

  “I just can’t, damn it!” He walked around the counter, and I watched as he stalked through the shop and out the front door.

  The roar of his bike made me gasp, and I watched, trying not to fall apart as he rode away. Clarisse touched my arm then turned to Xavier. “Then we’ll talk to you,” she finally said after having gone mute for the past several minutes.

  Xavier was still staring at me in that same way, like he was seeing a ghost. While his eyes were just as intensely green as his brothers and they shared the same masculine yet almost pretty features, the reverence behind those eyes didn’t come close to doing to me what Nicolas’s eyes did.

  “You have to understand, Maggie,” Xavier said when it seemed he was finally able to compose himself from the shock of seeing me. “Losing Madeline was—is the hardest thing my brother’s had to deal with. He’s never gotten over it. Seeing you at the cemetery after all these years did such a number on him. He’s back to the way he was when she first died. It’s like it reopened all the wounds. It’s why he hasn’t wanted to call you back. Like he said, sweetheart, he can’t deal with looking at you or talking to you.”

  Halfway through his telling me all this, I’d broken down and let out the emotion seeing Nicolas brought out in me. Xavier handed me a tissue as Clarisse put her arm around me. But I composed myself because I was determined not to leave here without any answers.

  “Did he and I . . .” I said, dabbing my eyes and wiping my nose with the tissue.

  It was an embarrassing question, but I had to know, especially after feeling it again—the profound connection to Nicolas. I knew it couldn’t just be a fluke. “Did anything ever happen between him and me?”

  Just then the other brother walked out from a door behind the counter. This had to be Joaquin. All three brothers had the same eyes and dark hair. While they all looked a lot alike, they all had their own unique qualities. Joaquin wore his beard a little longer than Xavier’s and Nicolas’s goatees.

  He stared at me, struck, just as his brothers first had.

  “It’s Maggie,” Xavier said with a still stunned smile.

  “Fuck,” Joaquin said, staring at me. “No wonder Nico’s been so screwed up lately. I would be too.”

  Hearing him refer to Nicolas as Nico did something to me. As usual, I didn’t understand it, but at this point I figured I’d likely heard it enough in my past.

  Xavier nodded in agreement then turned to me. “Anything like what?” he asked.

  It took me a second to understand what he was referring to, but then I remembered what I’d asked him. “Like anything romantic,” I asked. “I know he was my sister’s boyfriend, and up until I saw him at the cemetery, I didn’t even know of him. I know it sounds terrible, but I can’t help feeling like there’s some kind of connection between him and me.”

  “What do you mean you didn’t even know of him?” Joaquin asked, looking a little disgusted. “Your mom never told you about him?”

  I shook my head. God, how could I tell them what she’d said about their brother? About all of them?

  “Not until I asked about it after I saw him that day.”

  “That’s fucked up,” Joaquin said, shaking his head.

  “Doesn’t surprise me,” Xavier said. “I know she hated him in the beginning, and even once your rebel sister turned eighteen and dated him openly, I never bought that your mom ever truly accepted him. Didn’t even give him a chance to see you or say good-bye before she just took off.”

  “We had to leave as soon as I was released,” I said, feeling the need to defend Mama. “She’d taken enough time off work to be with me in the hospital. We were supposed to have moved months before when she got the promotion and they transferred her to Denton.”

  Xavier and Joaquin exchanged odd glances. “Madeline never mentioned to Nico that you guys had any plans of leaving Huntsville,” Xavier said. “He was stunned when he found out you two had left town. Everyone in town was. No one had any idea you’d even been released from the hospital until weeks after when the local paper went to the hospital to try and interview you or your mom.”

  “Only person who knew,” Joaquin said, “was the guy who she rented the house from. He told the reporter who went looking for you guys that your mom said you were moving to Connecticut.”

  “Connecticut?” I said as my heart began to speed up.

  “Yeah.” Xavier confirmed with a nod. “When you never tried to reconnect with any of us, we all figured like Nico: you were just taking it real hard, and it was too painful to reconnect with anything from your past. It’s why he never reached out to you, but he had no idea you’d lost your memory until he saw you at the cemetery that day.”

  Joaquin shook his head with a frown. “Did he see her today?” he asked, turning to Xavier.

  Xavier pressed his lips together with a nod. “Stormed out of here.”

  “Can’t say I blame him,” Joaquin said, turning back to me. “No offense, Maggie, but I can’t even imagine what he feels looking at you. It’s weird as shit for me, so it’s gotta be brutal for him. You look just like her. And Nico . . .” He frowned sadly. “He’ll never be the same again. For months after she passed, we took turns keeping an eye on him. He was so fucked up we were afraid he might do something. Where’d he go now?” Joaquin asked, looking at Xavier a bit concerned.

  “I dunno,” Xavier said, glancing out the front windows. “He just took off.”

  “I’ll go call him,” Joaquin said, walking out through the door he’d walked in from.

  “You never answered her question,” Clarisse said, reminding me too that he hadn’t.

  “You and Nico?’ he asked, already shaking his head. “No way. Not a romantic one anyway. Maddie was his life. Had been for years.” He smiled, a bit melancholy. “His peanut.”

  The pain in my heart was so brutal I clutched my chest as I cried out. Joaquin had just walked back in the room. “What the fuck?” he asked, as alarmed as I knew Clarisse was as she held me, keeping me from going down.

  “Is she having a heart attack?” Xavier asked, rushing around the counter. “Q, call nine-one-one.”

  “No,” I said, trying desperately to regain my composure, but the flashes in my head were relentless

  An Easter basket full of M&M’s with peanuts.

  A bouquet of yellow M&M bags.

  A Christmas tin full of M&M’s.

  A giant M&M pi
llow on a bed.

  It finally slowed, and I was able to calm my breathing.

  “. . . like triggers. But it’ll pass,” I heard Clarisse explaining. “She’ll be okay.” She rubbed my back as I began to calm, and Xavier gave me a chair to sit on. “You’ll be okay,” she said in a calming tone as I sat down. “See? All done,” she said, smiling big.

  But I wasn’t done. I had even more questions now. “Why did he call her peanut?” I asked, turning from one brother’s startled eyes to the other’s. “Was it because she liked M&M’s with peanuts?”

  “You remember?” Joaquin asked, squinting his eyes.

  They all stared at me, every bit as stunned as I felt, including Clarisse. “It was the flashes just now,” I explained to her then looked at Xavier and Joaquin. “I saw a bunch of stuff about M&M’s in the yellow bags. The kind with the peanuts in it.”

  “Yeah, they were her favorite,” Xavier said, leaning against the counter. “I don’t know the whole story, but he gave them to her all the time, and he called her that for as long as I can remember.”

  “Maggie,” Clarisse said, staring at me wide-eyed. “You remembered something.”

  I nodded, feeling slightly happy but at the same time confused. I turned to Xavier. “You said years. Mama said he was older than her. We were only eighteen when the accident happened. How long had they been together?”

  Xavier and Joaquin exchanged glances again, only this time they smirked and Xavier answered. “Officially and publicly about a year. Once she hit eighteen, she said she wasn’t hiding shit from anyone. But before that, they had to keep it on the down low or your mom had threatened to call the sheriff on his ass.”

  “But my mom did know they were together?”

  “Everyone knew,” Joaquin said with a laugh. “Nico made sure everyone knew Maddie was his. And Maddie . . .” Joaquin smiled big at first, but then his smile waned until his lips went flat, and I saw his big Adam’s apple move as he gulped. “She was a spitfire that one. Your mom didn’t like it, but Maddie said nothing and no one was keeping her from her soul mate. So, yeah, even she made sure everyone knew Nico was her man.” He glanced down at his phone when it dinged and tapped the screen. “Nico’s fine. He didn’t answer when I called, so I texted him.” He lifted the phone, motioning to Xavier. “Said he pulled over to check the text and respond. He’s okay, just needed some air, so he went for a drive, but he said he’ll be back later in the evening.”

  “Damn, Q. That must be a long drive he’s taking,” Xavier said.

  Joaquin shrugged. “Whatever helps.” He turned to me, shaking his head again. “Fuck, you look just like her. No wonder he can’t take looking at you.”

  Unlike all the other times I’d experienced a trigger, my heart still hadn’t calmed completely. It felt like it never would now. Why would Mama care if I knew she’d known Madeline was really in a relationship with Nicolas?

  “Why didn’t my mom like Nicolas?”

  Joaquin laughed. “At first, it was the age difference. She was about sixteen and he was nineteen when they first met. He wanted nothing to do with her at first. He knew messing with a sixteen-year-old would be nothing but trouble. But your sister . . .” He shook his head.

  “She plagued him,” Xavier said with a laugh.

  Joaquin pointed at him, nodding. “That’s what he called it, huh? I don’t know what she said or did to him when they first met. He swore up and down he hadn’t touched her, but whatever that first impression was, it got him good.”

  “I think he managed not to do anything that would land him in jail until she was a little older,” Xavier said. “But I doubt they waited until she was eighteen.”

  “Hell no,” Joaquin said, chuckling. “I almost walked in on them long before she’d turned eighteen but walked right back out of the house when I heard what was coming from his bedroom. They were doing way more than just making out from the sounds she was making.”

  For some reason, that made my face heat, and it reminded me of the trigger that first night I slept with Ryan. The visual of his head between my legs made my heart speed up.

  “Did I have a boyfriend?” I asked, feeling annoyed that I had to ask these guys I felt like I barely knew, but I suddenly felt even more desperate.

  Once again, they exchanged glances. “You were the shy one of the two,” Xavier said almost cautiously. “We’d never heard of you with anyone. But you and Nolan had started talking.”

  “Nolan?” I asked, feeling a strangeness in my heart.

  “Our other brother,” Joaquin said as Clarisse’s hand touched my arm. “Mouth,” he added with a chuckle. “Grandma gave him the nickname early on because of the mouth on him. He’s a tattoo artist?” he asked almost as if to see if it rang a bell.

  My heart was already pounding, and I could feel the breathlessness start over. “Was it serious at all?” I asked anxiously.

  “He didn’t really talk about it,” Joaquin said, pushing himself away from the counter when a couple of guys walked into the shop. “Not to me anyway.”

  Xavier nodded in agreement. He greeted the customers who’d walked in, telling them to let him or Joaquin know if they had any questions then turned back to me. “Even after the accident, your mom didn’t like any of us. We had kind of a rep in Huntsville,” he said with a smirk. “Lots of fights. Lots of girls.” He lifted his hand, catching himself. “Except for Nico.”

  “Well,” Joaquin interrupted with an evil grin. “Once he was officially with Maddie, but before that . . .”

  He laughed and, strangely, that irritated me. “Didn’t help our reps that we started getting inked early on,” Xavier added. “I’m pretty sure we were the only ones not allowed to visit you in the hospital. It was so fucked that you guys just up and left without telling anyone. Nolan never got a chance to say good-bye to you either.”

  “I don’t think it was anything serious between you and Nolan though,” Joaquin said, addressing me. “Pretty sure you two were just friends, but if you think he might have some answers for you, his shop is right up the street. He’s there now.”

  “Whoa,” Xavier said. “Shana might be there.”

  “Yeah, but like I said, I don’t think they were more than friends.

  “Who’s Shana?” I asked with that same unrelenting jealously I’d felt when I’d seen Nicolas with someone else, only it felt different.

  “His girl,” Xavier said. “And she’s kind of a hothead.”

  “She’ll be cool,” Joaquin said confidently, pulling his phone out of his pocket again. “In fact, I’ll text Nolan to give him a heads-up.”

  This time it was Clarisse and I who exchanged glances. As skeptical as Joaquin seemed about Nolan and me being more than just friends, my heart was feeling something now, and I was beyond anxious about meeting him in person.

  A few minutes later and after I heard more about Nolan and his tattoo business from Xavier, Joaquin’s phone beeped, and he read whatever was on his phone screen.

  “She’s not there,” he said, looking up at me. “And he said he’d love to see and talk to you.”

  I thanked them for all their help, and both said if I ever had any more questions, I could call them. I took their cell phone numbers because Joaquin said one of the times I called the shop Nicolas had answered the phone and it’d really fucked him up. Just as I thought when I first watched the videos of Madeline and me, they both said we sounded exactly alike too. He didn’t want to chance me calling again and his brother having to deal with it.

  “He broke up with his girlfriend after seeing you at the cemetery,” Xavier informed me, and that sucked the air out of me. “Tara was the first girl he’d begun to take seriously enough to bring around since Maddie died. And that was just what?” He turned to Joaquin. “A little over a year ago?”

  “’Bout a year and a half,” Joaquin confirmed.

  I wanted to ask why, but I couldn’t even breathe. Thankfully, I didn’t have to. Xavier went on.

  “
He never said it outright, but we all knew. So did Tara.” The pained expression on both brothers’ faces was so telling of how much they too hurt for Nico. “She called me the day he ran into you at the cemetery. He’d stopped going out to Huntsville so much since he’d met Tara. At least he’d stopped mentioning he’d been out there. But Tara said they’d been rerouted from the trip they’d taken and he decided to stop by the cemetery. Tara called me after he’d dropped her off that day because she was worried. She said he’d hardly said a word the entire way back and didn’t seem right when he dropped her off. Then he never made it home. Of course, we were all worried sick. We got a call about three in the morning from a guy we know who said Nico was drunk out of his mind at a nearby bar. We went and picked up his drunk ass. Few days later he broke things off with Tara. He just couldn’t deal with a girl right now, not after all the memories had flooded back so brutally after seeing you. But he hasn’t said much about it since.”

  I swallowed back the emotion, trying not to feel guilty about it. But I still couldn’t understand why my sister’s man could have such an effect on me. It was becoming clearer and clearer that maybe I’d been in my spitfire sister’s shadow my whole life. Maybe I envied her. Having been in the presence of Nicolas once again I could see how easily I might’ve at least had a crush on him.

  But he had three brothers. Three equally hot brothers that looked so much like him and I’d started talking to one of them. Whatever that meant. Could I really have been that envious of my much more outgoing sister that I’d coveted her man to the point it was now making me crazy? What about Nolan? I was suddenly beyond anxious to meet him and talk to him.

  And Mama . . . Boy, did I have questions for her. I could already tell I’d be blowing through her front door now with a roar. “Why the fuck did you keep all this from me!” For now, I’d keep this to myself, but I was even more convinced that going to talk to Nolan was exactly what I needed.