Without Merit

“Nice,” Luck says. “Let me grab some shorts.” He begins to walk out of the kitchen, but turns to me. “You’re coming, too, right?” Luck says this as if it’s a plea not to leave him stranded with the rest of my siblings.

I am the only one he’s had any interaction with beyond an introduction. I nod. “Yeah, I’ll come.”

Sagan is just about to round the corner when he hears me accept Luck’s invite. He looks over his shoulder at me with a moment of pause, but then continues walking.

“Where’s Moby?” Victoria asks.

“I put him to bed already.” I let that be the end of our conversation as I head toward my room.

Earlier today I was regretting running into Luck at the store, but now it seems I might finally have a friend in this house. I never go swimming with Utah and Honor because they never seem to want me to, but I’m afraid if I don’t go tonight, Luck will bond with the three of them and I’ll be odd man out again.

I grab a one-piece and an oversized T-shirt and head back into the hallway. Sagan is walking out of his room and pauses when he sees me. He opens his mouth, but before he says whatever he’s about to say, Honor opens her door. His mouth clamps shut.

Now I’ll be wondering what he was about to say for the rest of the evening.

They follow Utah and Luck outside. I stop by the bathroom and grab a few towels. Before I reach the front door, I look up at the statue of Cheesus Christ.

I wonder if God answers prayers before they’re asked of Him? Is that why Luck is here? Is he the distraction from Sagan that I prayed for earlier?

“Are you responsible for His sacrilegious outfit?”

My father’s voice jolts me from my thoughts. He’s standing a few feet away, staring at the statue.

“Nope,” I lie. “It must have been an immaculate conception of wardrobe.”

I go to close the front door and I hear my father’s muffled voice from the other side. “If the Cowboys lose, you’re grounded!”

The Cowboys chances of losing are good. The chances of my father actually following through with a threat are not.





Chapter Six

One of the most utilized vehicles in our driveway is the Ford Windstar. It holds seven people, but at the rate our household is growing this month, we’ll need an upgrade soon. I was the last one to the van but Honor’s boyfriend sat in the back and left one of the middle bucket seats open for me. Luck is in the other one. Honor is in the front passenger seat and Utah is driving.

We live in the middle of nowhere, in a town too small to be significant enough for a hotel with a pool. It’s twelve miles to the nearest store and even farther to the hotel we’re heading for. This will be at least a fifteen-mile drive. But in a rural area like this, it’ll only take thirteen minutes to get there.

“So . . .” Utah says. “You’re Victoria’s brother?”

“Half brother,” he specifies.

I chuckle under my breath because he seems to want to claim Victoria as much as we do.

“Where are you from?”

“Everywhere,” Luck says. “Victoria and I have the same father, different mothers. She lived with her mom and I lived with our father and my mother. We moved around a lot until my parents divorced.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Honor says.

“It’s fine. Happens to everyone,” he says, matter-of-fact.

No one follows that comment up with a question.

“You didn’t tell me you had an identical twin, Merit,” Luck says, directing his attention at me.

“You talked the whole time we were in the car,” I respond, looking away from him and out the window. “Wasn’t much room to fit in my whole life story.”

“Not true, because your life story was precisely what I was trying to get out of you,” he says with a laugh.

“And you didn’t get very far, did you?”

“Far enough to know all about the guy you have a crush on,” he says.

My head snaps in his direction. I raise an eyebrow in warning, letting him know he went too far with that comment.

“Wait,” Honor says, turning around in her seat. She looks at me. “You have a crush on someone?”

I roll my eyes and look out the window again. “No.”

“Who is it?” Honor says, directing her question at Luck.

I scratch at my jeans nervously, hoping he doesn’t open his mouth. I don’t know him at all. He might get a kick out of embarrassing me.

“I can’t remember his name,” Luck says. “Ask Merit.”

Honor turns back around in her seat. “Merit doesn’t tell me things like that.” Her voice is accusatory.

I glance at Luck and he’s staring at me. “You two have a weird dynamic for identical twins.”

“No we don’t,” I disagree. “There’s a false stigma attached to twins.”

“Exactly,” Honor says in agreement. “Not all twins have things in common beyond their appearance.”

“I think you two have more in common than you think,” Sagan says from the backseat. Honor glances over her shoulder and glares at him. I’d like to turn around and glare at him, too, but I actually feel things when I look at him, unlike Honor. I don’t even know if Honor is attracted to him. She doesn’t look at him like I would look at him if he were my boyfriend. And if he were my boyfriend, I’d be sitting in the backseat with him and not in the front seat where Honor is sitting.

I feel bad for him. He’s got so much more invested in this relationship than she does. I could tell that simply by the way he kissed me when he thought he was kissing her. He’s moved in and committed and she’s just waiting around until a less healthy guy comes along.

Luck turns around and faces Honor’s boyfriend. “How do you fit into this family?”

“He fits in with me,” Honor says from the front seat, answering Luck’s question that was actually posed to Sagan.

If he were my boyfriend, I’d let him answer his own questions.

“How did you and Honor meet?” Luck asks him.

I keep staring out the window, but I listen closely. I’ve never asked either of them this question directly, so I’ve only heard bits and pieces from eavesdropping.

“I had an allergic reaction to something I ate,” Sagan says. “Ended up in the hospital and that’s where I met Honor.”

Luck faces forward. “Were you in the hospital, too?” he asks Honor.

Honor just shakes her head, but she doesn’t elaborate on why she was in the hospital. I have half a mind to tell Luck that Honor was there saying goodbye to yet another boyfriend when she unknowingly set her sights on Sagan, incorrectly assuming he was about to meet his demise.

“Honor was visiting a friend,” Sagan says, now answering for Honor.

They can’t answer their own freaking questions?

No one speaks for a few minutes, even though I have a million questions for Luck and a million more for Sagan. When we pull into the long driveway of the hotel, Utah finally throws a question over his shoulder.

“Why does your sister hate you so much?”

“Half sister,” Luck clarifies. “She’s still mad at me for something I did over five years ago.”

“What’d you do?” Honor asks, unbuckling her seat belt.