I Copied My Twin Sister Until She Screamed "I QUIT!" novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Seven Coffees

Gwendolyn cannot order a coffee without matching someone, so Tiernan tests her rule three times; he takes her pulse, admits he is H, and shows her Cordelia's message: after day seven, she'll copy YOU next.

At 7:15 the next morning, I stood in the lobby cafe of Harcastle Gems and could not order a coffee.

I had a rule for this.

I took out Cordelia's phone, opened her saved orders, and read the first one aloud to the barista.

"Oat flat white, extra hot, one sugar. That's $5.75."

"That's Cordelia's order," said the barista.

"I know. I'm having it."

"She hasn't been in today."

"Then I'm having hers first, so she doesn't miss out."

Tiernan O'Malley was standing behind me in jeans and a barn jacket, holding the door open with one boot.

He had come to drive me to the office, because I had spent the night at Cordelia's condo staring at her ceiling and he had decided that was a bad idea.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I told you. The flat white."

"That's Cordelia's. I'm asking what you want."

I looked at him.

It was a hard question.

I had a laminated list in my phone, titled MATCHING LOG, with 412 entries going back to the left leg.

I had never needed a list of things I wanted.

"The same," I said. "It's seven days, Tiernan. I'm not starting a new personality in the lobby."

"Black coffee," he told the barista. "Three-fifty."

"Same," I said.

"Large oat cappuccino with cinnamon. Five twenty-five."

"Same."

"A hot chocolate with a shot of cherry syrup and a shot of espresso."

"Same," I said, a little faster.

The barista looked at him.

"That's a Dirty Cherry. It's nine fifty."

"Make it two," said Tiernan.

I opened my mouth.

I closed it.

If he had two, I had two. That is how it works.

"Two," I said.

He put down a fifty and did not say anything while the barista made all of it.

There were nine drinks on the counter.

Five were mine.

I carried mine out to his truck in a cardboard tray, with the flat white balanced on top, and took the passenger seat with the tray in my lap.

"Drink one," said Tiernan, getting in beside me.

I drank the flat white.

It was fine.

"Drink the next."

I drank the black coffee, which was bitter, and then the cappuccino.

I was halfway through my first Dirty Cherry when my hands started shaking.

"You don't have to finish it," Tiernan said.

"She'd finish it."

"Cordelia hates cherry."

"Then I'd finish it for both of us."

He took the cup out of my hand and set it on the dashboard.

Then he put two fingers on the inside of my wrist, right where the pulse is, and looked at his watch.

I stopped breathing.

It was a coffee thing, I told myself. It was caffeine.

His hand was warm and dry, and rough along the thumb from reins, probably.

I was aware of every place where our skin touched.

"A hundred and forty," he said.

"That's normal for me."

"It's not normal for anyone."

He let go.

His jaw worked once, and he started the truck.

I decided he was tired.

I said the other thing instead.

"You texted Cordelia."

"What?"

"Last night. Her phone lit up with a message from H."

He didn't answer until we had pulled out onto Larimer Street.

"Yes," he said. "That was me."

"You wrote that I'm not allowed to copy anything for seven days."

"I was repeating what she asked me to do. She said it first."

"Why aren't I allowed to copy anything for a week?"

Tiernan kept his eyes on the road.

His hands were tight on the wheel, I noticed, and the knuckles were pale.

"She wouldn't tell me why," he said. "She asked me to do it and I said yes. That's all I know."

"That's not all you know."

"No," he said. "It isn't."

I waited.

At the red light he took out his phone and handed it to me.

It was open to a thread with my sister's name at the top.

The last message from her was sent at 7:58 on the night of the gala, an hour after her text to me.

It said: *When she asks why, say you don't know. After day seven she'll copy YOU next. Don't let her.*

I read it twice.

"Copy you," I said. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know."

"You said that fast."

"I've been saying it all morning," said Tiernan, "and it's getting less true."

The light turned green.

Somebody behind us honked.

I sat there in my red dress from the night before, with four cups of coffee in my stomach.

My wrist was still warm where he had touched it.

It was exactly where I'd have put my own hand, if I had ever put it anywhere first.

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend