Chapter 6: Hey Brother!

Kit & Chris:

Kit wondered why Chris had this obsession of possessing everything that Kit considered his own. Chris’ need to take from his twin brother was more than just a tantrum. He still remembered that night when he walked into Chris and his then girlfriend Meredith, wearing nothing but each other.

A few years ago….

Kit frowned at his phone as he read the fifth message from his girlfriend. It was the usual threats of breaking up because he wouldn’t give her a real commitment. Getting married was something Kit wasn’t sure he was ready for. But Meredith Samuels came from a nouveau riche family that had managed to build a construction company, up from three men with hammers to bulldozers and forklifts. It had taken them only twenty years to do it, and that impressed Harry Henry and made Meredith his ideal daughter-in-law. The fact she was an only child didn’t hurt. Especially since Duke, his first-born, had gone and married a hula girl with no pedigree.

So, Kit’s father had planned it all, the marriage and the taking over of the Samuel’s construction company. The ring had been bought and all that waited was for Kit to propose. He was running two months behind schedule, according to his father. Luckily for Kit, the Henrys owned a bunch of companies that needed their constant attention, and it was Kit’s latest project that allowed him to delay the engagement for as long as possible.

“Christian!”

“Yes, Father.” Kit walked into his father’s den, a weight on his shoulders. His father was about to yell, Harry just didn’t know it yet. Their father abhorred three things in his life: weakness, laziness, and a lack of family honor. In other words, if you didn’t want to be on Harry Henry’s bad side, you only needed to do everything he wanted. Deviating from the path set out for you automatically turned you into a villain. This time, Kit had been left with the workload assigned to him and Christopher two days ago. Christopher had since been busy with more important things, including partying all night and having random sex with women he’d only known for five seconds.

So, a job given to two had, as usual, fallen into the hands of one. And the one hadn’t finished it yet.

“Where is it?”

“It” was a marketing plan that Harry had asked his twin boys to come up with, in order to draw in the young demographic. They were more than qualified for the job, since they were just twenty-three years old and fresh from Harvard Business School. The joke was, although technically, two Henry boys had been enrolled, it had only been one who’d attended the classes and done the assignments. Kit was nice enough to let Christopher take the finals for himself. The story of his life.

“I haven’t been able to finish it yet,” Kit said.

Harry’s head lifted from the newspaper his eyes had been glued to the entire time Kit had been in his office. His eyebrows joined together in a frown, his eyes squinting. “I?”

“I mean we haven’t finished it yet,” Kit quickly corrected.

The three things Harry Henry hated, and Kit had just managed to strike one off.

“You said ‘I’.” Harry stood up; his hands dug into his pockets as he paced the room. “Where is he?”

And “he” was the second of the list, but this time Christopher had struck it off. Since they were twins, it added up to Kit’s tally.

“Doing research.” Technically, Christopher was doing research, engaging with other youths, especially the female gender, finding out what they liked, and how and where they liked it. “You will have it in the morning, sir.”

Harry just nodded. Kit wasn’t an idiot and he knew his father wasn’t a fool, either. Kit knew Harry knew that he was lying. But covering up for Christopher was now part of Kit’s daily routine. Kit rushed out of the room, afraid taking too long would earn him a tongue-lashing. He had to get Christopher, at least so he could pretend he was actually helping Kit with their assignment.

Kit took the train from Chelsea to Brooklyn and decided to walk the four blocks to Christopher’s love nest. For some insane reason, Christopher thought having a bachelor pad in Brooklyn meant their father didn’t know. But sometimes Kit wondered if Christopher knew who paid their credit card bills. Kit wrapped his coat around him as he shivered from the biting cold. As he was walking, he passed a man with a cardboard sign: “War Vet”. He didn’t understand how people who gave so much ended up with so little. He took out a wad of cash from his wallet and his coat and gave it to the man, who didn’t say anything. Instead, the man stared at him with haunted eyes that froze Kit to the bone more than the cold weather did.

Kit ran the rest of the way to the apartment. He used his key to get in. The music, the pungent smell of alcohol and smoke that invited Kit in, told him Christopher had guests. What Kit didn’t expect was for one of those guests to be Meredith. When Kit stepped into the living room he saw Meredith in her birthday suit, dancing to a very attentive audience: his brother.

Meredith froze when she saw him and when Christopher turned around, he had a surprised—but not remorseful—look on his face. Kit wasn’t really sure how to feel yet. He stood there as the music continued to play, as Christopher smoked his cigar and gulped down his whiskey, and Meredith scrambled to cover her nudity.

“Meredith, what are you doing? He doesn’t care. Don’t stop dancing,” Christopher said.

Kit still didn’t know how to feel. In honesty, he didn’t care what Meredith did or who she did it with. And Christopher? Well, this wouldn’t be the first time he had slept with one of Kit’s girlfriends. However, not knowing what to do was a feeling Kit wasn’t accustomed to. So, he walked out.

That was how it was with them. Chris wanted something and Kit let him have it. Life was easier this way, especially since Kit was never that attached to anything. He had always felt out of place in his family, so whatever Chris thought should be his, Kit let him have it without a fight. But Danny, she was the second thing that he had wanted for himself. The first being his military career. Chris enjoyed the luxuries the Henry name afforded him too much to give them up to become a serviceman. While he served Kit enjoyed something he never experienced before, singularity. It was difficult to be an individual with an identical twin. Everyone expected twins to do things together, Chris believed that as well, only when it benefited him but Kit craved his independent, his sense of self. 

The military helped him gain that independence and he fell in love with the life that he had away from his twin, secure in the knowledge that Chris wouldn’t step into his world anymore. That security ended when he found Danny. Kit expected it, prepared himself for Chris stealing her away from him. It was the reason why he didn’t want to commit, the fear of having his heart stolen by his brother. When Kit came back to life, he returned with a new resolve, to desire, to want, and to fight for what was his. 

Kit was not going to let Chris interfere with his family. Duke had warned Kit about Chris’s return but, what he should have done is warn Chris about Kit. He wasn’t the same man anymore. Kit clenched his fists and did his breathing exercises trying to push down the rage that was slowly rising within his chest. Chris was about to find out how different he was.

***

Christopher was used to getting everything he wanted, even if his twin Kit had it first. Like he’d taken Meredith, Kit’s position in the company, and everything else, he was determined to take Danny for himself.

Chris would never forget the day his father almost disowned him because Kit sold him out. First, it was because of the project he and Kit were meant to work on together, the second was when his father found out about Meredith.

Chris hadn’t actively participated in the putting together of the bid and planning of the project, but he had expected Kit to cover up for him as usual. Kit said it was a slip of the I instead of We. Chris didn’t buy it, especially since the topic of Meredith had quickly followed. Kit had betrayed him and Chris was determined to get him back the only way he knew how. For the majority of their lives, no one had been able to tell them apart physically, but once Kit became a do-gooder, it was easy to spot the differences. Kit was the one at the office working late hours with the team and doing their father’s and brother’s bidding. Chris was not.

Every time people compared them both it was how good Kit was and how terrible Chris was. He was fed up, and decided it was time to make Kit look bad. Their father had decided that Chris was useless and Kit was more than enough and very capable to handle the project on his own. Now that Chris wasn’t on the project, he could pull off the perfect ‘prank’ and walk away hands clean. He leaked the bid documents to the competition, sat back, and waited for all hell to break loose.

However, it didn’t. Kit was Mr. Capable and Duke was Superman, somehow the two of them managed to secure the project and Chris was left feeling as useless as ever. Sure, their father demoted Kit for being reckless and gave the project lead job to Chris. Then Kit pulled the finest trick out of his hat, cementing Chris position as the screw up by leaving him wide open for everyone to see, he joined the Navy. Now there as no one to make him look good and cover up for his screw-ups. His twin had abandoned him.

The comparison between Chris who had to go to work every day and Kit who was nowhere to be seen continued. He remembered having a conversation with Danny, once again Meredith became his pawn, and once again Kit came out looking like the white knight he was.

“He is everything I’m not. God, you don’t know how tired I am of hearing that. But we are alike. He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Worse than I am.”

“I doubt that,” Danny muttered under her breath.

Chris reached into his pocket and pulled out a picture. “Kind and thoughtful, that’s what Meredith sees in him. His new fiancée, my ex-girlfriend. I guess she also thought he was more of a man than I was.”

They stood in a square formation, Chris, Kit, Danny and Meredith. Chris knew his lie wouldn’t hold water, especially not with daggers Kit stared in Meredith’s way.

“What’s going on here?” Danny had asked.

“Meredith is my ex-girlfriend,” Kit said.

“But you told me they were getting married.” Danny angrily pointed at Chris, her voice a bit too loud for the crowd they were in.

“You said what?” Kit bellowed.

“All is fair in love and war. I was losing, so I made sure you weren’t going to get her,” Chris trying his best to look nonchalant as he watched his latest plan to thwart his brother crumble in a not so magnificent fashion.

However, when Kit went missing in the middle east, Duke had done what he did best and hired the best to look for his brother who had gone missing in action. It wasn’t difficult on Chris’s part to intercept any reports that were meant to be delivered to his bog brother. Duke didn’t have his trusty Smith the mountain that could not be moved with bribes or any sort of enticement. Plus, Duke’s son had also been presumed dead in the train accident.

Chris found out his brother was alive and kept it to himself. He would only tell once he had married Danny and taken the one thing his brother treasured away from him. He couldn’t wait to wave the marriage certificate in Kit’s face, his show of glory.

Cold-hearted, maybe.

Evil, definitely.

But Chris craved something, he wanted to be adored the same way Kit had been. All he had to do was step into his brother’s shoes for a little while. And when Kit came back, people would love him more than Kit. Then he would be satisfied, only then, knowing that he had been better than his brother, more adored than his brother, more loved than his brother would this obsessive desire to thwart his twin end.

Uh-but Kit was like a whack-a-mole game. He kept popping up, and for some reason, he always had a trump card.

“Danny and I are getting married,” Chris announced to the room.

“You can’t,” Kit said.

“Why, because you said so?”

“No, because she’s my wife.”

Chris felt the air shift as the whole room went silent and still. The rage built up in his head, he was sure it would explode.

“There is no baby. There never was,” Danny mumbled. “You didn’t give me a chance to explain. And you were so willing to marry me—”

Baby? What baby? This was his game and yet Chris felt like he was watching from the stands.

“I don’t care,” Kit blurted out. “Let’s go home.”

“I care.” Danny stood up, and angrily pushed him. “I care that I almost died thinking that you were gone. I care that you decided to stay away instead of being with me. I care that once again; the SEAL code came before me.”

“She doesn’t want you,” Chris said as he put his arm around Danny.

Danny shook him off and stepped up to Kit.

“Christian, my Kit. My Kit, I love him, I still love him.” Hope swelled in his chest only to have a pin stuck into it. “But he keeps leaving me.” She had said something Chris never thought he’d ever hear, “I’m leaving with Chris.”

Danny had chosen him, even if it was for a moment, Chris was finally the first choice. He had beat Kit where it mattered the most. Triumph surged through him, He should have cherished it, because it was so short lived.

“Danny, where are you going?”

Danny froze at the sound of Chris’ voice. He’d caught her trying to sneak out of their apartment again. What excuse would she use now? “I’m going to see my niece and nephew. I want to help Eve out. It’s the first night with little Dennis home.”

“Are you sure?” Chris walked out of the light of the bedroom and into the darkness of the living room. He looked so intimidating. “It’s ten o’clock at night. You are going to see my brother, aren’t you?”

Yes. “I don’t want to argue, Chris. I told you this before we got together in the first place. I will always love Kit.”

“I got that. Your outburst during our engagement dinner: ‘I love him, I still love him.’ It was ridiculous and embarrassing, considering everyone heard you.”

“I thought the love of my life was dead. Then in true Eve fashion, he walks in during our engagement dinner. You were trying to keep me from him.”

“You left with him that night. You had sex with him, am I right?” Danny didn’t say a word. She knew it was better to be quiet when Christopher got this riled up. “Why won’t you have sex with me? I have been patient for a whole year.”

“Me too.” Danny shook her head, not quite sure what she was doing with Christopher, or why the wedding was still on. Their mothers had decided that they couldn’t take the embarrassment of disinviting everyone. She wondered if their shame would survive when she was being carted off to prison for bigamy. “I couldn’t be with you because I couldn’t cheat on my husband.”

“What!”

“Kit and I…we are married. I have to be with him.”

Danny’s phone shrieked from her purse. She wasn’t going to be rude and pick it up just as she was ripping Chris’ heart into shreds—although she wanted to. She intended to take any opportunity that would help her escape the tension in the room.

“Answer it. It’s probably your husband.”

But it wasn’t. It was a call from the private investigator that the Kent’s had hired to find their long-lost daughter. Chris had decided to act the nice guy that night and escort Danny to her meeting, just in case Kit appeared he would see them together. Chris and Danny got on the train, but only one of them walked away from it. Chris had got off the train a stop early when he was satisfied Kit wasn’t the one she was going to meet. It was so packed with people that Danny didn’t see him. Moments later he heard a loud explosion and smoke filled the station. Chris could have tried to find Danny, but instead, he walked away. Call it shock, or fear, or guilt. Whatever he could call it, it also happened to be the reason he disappeared. He thought Danny was dead, how could he face her family and tell them that he had taken her to the train station then got off and left her to die on her own.

Guilt, it was new to him, it had been his reason for leaving. The desire to win, that he knew very well. It was the reason he came back.

Chris’s phone buzzed in his pocket. No one had his new number that meant the call could only be from one person, Duke. Their big brother had very mysterious ways of finding out things that he needed to know. If only Duke had put as much effort on his personal life. Chris still found it hard to believe that two women had pulled the biggest con on Superman, for so long. These were women he didn’t mind meeting at all. Maybe they could tell him how he could finally best his twin.

Duke knowing he was back meant Kit was aware of it as well. There was no need delaying their meeting. Chris got out of his car and walked up the driveway to the front door.