Chapter 39: Madeline
The second I walk through the door, the smell of something greasy hits me—takeout spread across the kitchen table, Finn and Liam elbowing each other, Charlie flipping through a stack of papers with a pen behind her ear.
All three of them look up at once.
“Heyyy,” Finn says, grinning. “Where’ve you been?”
Liam raises a brow. “Yeah, you missed dinner. Big day at sea?”
Charlie just smirks, like she knows something I don’t.
I drop my bag with a thud, pull out the chair across from them, and sit hard. They’re all still smiling when I blurt: “You couldn’t have told me?”
That wipes the smiles clean. They glance at each other.
Charlie frowns. “Told you what?”
“It’s not enough that there’s one of him—” I jab a finger toward the general direction of the institute— “but there’s two?”
More confused stares.
“Two what?” Finn asks carefully.
“IDENTICAL!” I all but shout, hands in the air.
There’s a beat of stunned silence—then all three of them explode.
Charlie’s head hits the table. Liam wheezes. Finn nearly falls out of his chair, clutching his stomach.
“Oh my God,” Charlie gasps. “You didn’t know?”
I glare at them. “NO. No one told me. Not one person thought to specify that Reid's brother is also his twin!”
Finn wipes tears from his eyes. “We… we probably should’ve, yeah.”
“Probably?” I snap.
Charlie tries to sober up, fails. “Okay, yeah, definitely. That’s on us.”
I groan, shove my hands over my face. “First of all—I was a complete jerk to Jake. All day. Thought he was Reid. Snapped at him. Glared at him. Muttered under my breath—”
Liam starts giggling again. “Ohhh no.”
“And then,” I barrel on, “the other one just… appears. Out of nowhere. Like—bam. Double trouble. Standing there like a—like a Greek tragedy staged for my personal humiliation.”
Finn chokes. Charlie kicks his shin, but she’s laughing too hard to care.
I drop my hands, groaning. “And then, to make it worse, I had to sit in a booth across from both of them. Staring me down like twin executioners. Reid the usual jerk, Jake all calm but not helpful at all. Do you have any idea how weird that is?”
They’re useless. All three are doubled over, snickering, and I slump lower in my chair.
“Glad you’re all enjoying the slow unraveling of my sanity,” I mutter.
Charlie lifts her head, wiping her eyes. “Oh, Madeline. You have no idea how much entertainment you’ve just given us.”
“Happy to be of service,” I deadpan, pushing my hair out of my face.
They laugh again, and I want to hate them for it—but some traitorous part of me almost laughs too.
Almost.
I’m still sulking at the table, but they don’t let me stew for long. The laughter dies down into the occasional snort or side glance that makes them start up again, until Charlie finally says, “Alright, alright—since we failed spectacularly to give you a heads-up, we’ll fill in the blanks.”
“Please do,” I say dryly. “Before I accidentally mistake a third one of them for a cousin or something.”
Finn leans forward, elbows on the table like he’s about to tell a campfire story. “So. The Anderson twins. Smartest bastards you’ll ever meet. Both of them.”
“Like, how smart?” I ask, skeptical.
“Like, degrees on degrees,” Charlie says. “I stopped keeping track. Engineering, marine biology, oceanography, you name it.”
Liam chimes in. “I think Reid has two masters? And Jake—what was it—an extra biology one?”
“Biochemistry,” Charlie supplies without hesitation. “Jake went back for more. Reid said it was a waste of time, went to work on ships instead. Engineer, oil rigs, research vessels—name a boat, he’s probably fixed it.”
“Wait, Reid on oil rigs?” I blink. “I can’t even picture that.”
Charlie smirks. “Picture him now, but grumpier and covered in diesel.”
Finn snorts. “So… basically the same.”
That gets them laughing again. I shake my head, a reluctant smile tugging at my mouth.
“And Jake?” I press.
“Straight to more school,” Liam says. “Total nerd. Didn’t leave the lab for like three years. Then bam—he’s got another degree and half a dozen published papers.”
“They’re both ridiculous,” Charlie says with a shrug. “And then one day, out of nowhere, they showed up here and decided to start SWMRI.”
I blink at her. “Wait—they’re not from Northhaven?”
All three of them shake their heads.
“Nope,” Finn says, leaning back. “Nobody knows exactly why they picked this place. Reid never explains anything, and Jake—well, he explains too much but not about that.”
“That’s comforting,” I mutter.
Charlie twirls her pen, like this is all very normal. “Not even I know. They came a few years ago, bought out the two houses for the employees and stakeholders to stay in, and suddenly—boom. Research institute.”
“Like it was that easy?” I scoff.
“Well, not easy,” Liam says. “They practically lived there for the first year. Reid built half the equipment himself, Jake pulled funding out of thin air. It worked. Somehow.”
I stare at the tabletop, processing. “Okay. So they’re geniuses. And possibly insane.”
“Pretty much,” Finn says cheerfully.
“And how old are they even?”
There’s a pause, then Charlie says, deadpan, “Twenty-nine. Turning thirty in a few weeks.”
My head snaps up. “You knew that way too fast.”
She shrugs, smirk tugging at her mouth. “What can I say? I know the bosses very well.”
Finn grins. “Translation: she's their favorite and whatever we do won't change that.”
Charlie swats his arm, but she’s smiling.
I sit back, trying to take it all in. Two near-thirty-year-old geniuses with too many degrees, who somehow ended up in this tiny town by choice, running the institute that basically controls my career right now.
No pressure.
“Great,” I mutter. “So I’m working for two prodigies with matching faces, insane backstories, and mystery motives. Totally fine. Completely normal.”
The three of them laugh again, but it’s not mean. Just… amused. Like they’ve been through this too.
I groan and drop my forehead to the table. “Kill me now.”
Charlie pats my arm. “Oh, honey. This is just the beginning.”