“Don’t say anything, just open it,” Tim said. “It’s about time you got spoiled.”
I pulled open the mouth of the bag and reached in, took out a matching turquoise box and prised open the lid.
Dean paused scribbling on the music paper. “They’re from me,” he said.
“They’re beautiful,” I exclaimed, studying the diamond earrings. They were set in gold and dazzled from their soft cream sponge. “Thank you so much. I love them.”
“Good,” he said. “You can wear them later, at Christmas dinner.”
“Christmas dinner?” I didn’t think a microwave meal for one warranted wearing diamond earrings. “What do you mean?”
“You’re coming to our home. Mum makes a fabulous roast and on Christmas Day she goes all out with the trimmings.”
“But it’s family time, you don’t want me there.”
“You really think we’d let you eat alone?” Tim asked, frowning. “And of course we want you there.”
“But, but I can’t just show up.”
“You’ve been invited,” Dean said with a shrug. “Who do you think I called last night when we arrived here?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t think about it.”
“Mum and Dad are dying to meet you,” Dean said. “Your name has come up in several conversations with both of us lately eh, Tim?”
“Yep, they’ll be pleased to finally meet the face behind the name.”
I reached for my coffee. My fingers were itching to open my other present but I needed to clear something up first. “If my name has come up in conversations with both of you, does that mean…” I struggled to find the right words. “Does that mean they get it if you both, you know, like the same girl.”
Tim placed his hand on my cheek and turned me to face him. He let out a low sigh. “I ought to explain,” he said quietly. “When we were setting up the band, we both fell for Harriet Drew in a big way. She was a trainee journalist doing a story on up-and-coming groups. She liked us too, both of us. She dated Dean and then me over the course of several months until one day I came home from the gym early and found her in bed with Dean.” He paused and glanced at his brother. “She’d been with me the night before and I saw red.” His eyes darkened. “To cut a long story short, I punched the hell out of Dean—”
“I punched you right back, asshole,” Dean huffed.
“Yep, you did.” Tim rubbed his jaw as if remembering an old ache. “And then she walked out and we never saw her again.”
“We decided there and then never to fall out over a woman,” Dean said. “We made a pact that if we liked the same girl we would share. Why not, it was only what we’d always done with our stuff over the years. Mum had made sure of that.”
“So when Heidi came along a while back, we made her a proposition,” Tim said. “We were both into her and she liked us.” He shrugged. “It made for a great arrangement for nearly a year.”
I cast my mind back. Heidi. I vaguely remembered the name but I couldn’t recall seeing any pictures of her. But then it was only the last couple of years the boys had really been hounded by the press. “What happened?” I asked. “In the end.”
“We had lots of fun,” Dean said with a lopsided grin. “Mum and Dad thought she was cool, we took good care of her, but then her ex swooped back onto the scene. We didn’t need to be Einstein to work out she’d never really gotten over him.”
“Yeah, her eyes went all gooey when he walked into the restaurant that evening,” Tim said. “A bit like yours did last night when you’d had that mulled wine and were snuggled up to me on the sofa.” He leaned forward and pressed a light kiss to my lips.
My stomach did a somersault as the tip of his tongue touched mine.
“So we let her go,” Dean said. “And there’s been no one that’s taken our fancy until you emerged like a beautiful butterfly from your depression.”
“My depression?” I pulled back from Tim and looked at Dean.
“Yeah, the darkness, your hibernation, over what’s his name…Nick.” Dean pulled a face.
“Ancient history,” I said, frowning at the mention of Nick. “I don’t know what I saw in him for so long. There’s certainly no danger of me going gooey over him ever again.”
“Good,” Tim said firmly.
“Yeah, that’s music to our ears,” Dean said. He cocked his head and studied me. “We knew you’d get out of those drab clothes eventually, find your spark and come back to life and wow, when you did, I just about embarrassed myself in the studio that morning.”