I didn’t actually have anything that I needed at the store, but I needed to get out of the house and get out of the bedroom that Michael and I were headed to. I just needed a second to breathe, not that I believed anything that Adam said about it, because I didn’t. I just wasn’t feeling quite in the mood right now to go and have sex.

“What do you need at the store?” he asked. “I can grab it for you if you want.”

“Nope,” I said as I grabbed my jacket off the back of the chair. “Girl stuff. I need to go look myself.”

“Sure thing,” Rob said. “Come along and get whatever you need. I’ll take the girl stuff answer over the I’m pregnant one any day of the week.”

I laughed, but it was more of a nervous laugh than an amused one.

“Do you really need to go right now?” Michael asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded quickly.

“I’ll come with you,” he said.

“No it’s fine, I won’t be long,” I said as I started out the door before Rob even had a chance to catch up.

I could feel Michael’s confused stare boring into the back of my head. It would be fine. I’d come up with some sort of story to tell him about why I needed to leave for the store so abruptly once I got in the car and had a second to think about it. I stood by the car door and waited impatiently for Rob to come and unlock the car. Once we were about a half a mile down the road, he turned to me in the passenger seat.

“Want to tell me what that was all about?” he asked.

“Not really,” I said as I sighed so big that it was hard to miss my frustration. “Okay, actually yes, I do want to tell you what it was about. But I need you to promise me that you won’t tell Michael about it.”

“Uh oh,” he said as he shook his head slowly. “That disclaimer definitely doesn’t sound like a good idea. I thought you two were all done keeping secrets from each other.”

“We are,” I said. “But this is different.”

“Please tell me that this doesn’t have something to do with whatever you were shouting at Adam about. Because if it has to do with something between you and Adam, then I really don’t feel comfortable with keeping it a secret from Michael. You probably just shouldn’t tell me.”

“No, it isn’t something between me and Adam,” I said. “It’s something between me and Michael, but I don’t think it’s true and I need your help with it I think.”

I stopped myself and took a deep breath. I needed to calm down so that I could think straight and not sound panicky.

“I know it’s not true,” I said as I corrected myself. “I just need your help in proving that something is a completely unrelated coincidence before Michael finds out about it so that he doesn’t freak out, that’s all.”

“Alright,” Rob said reluctantly. “What is it?”

“Adam found something while he was researching Michael’s father. He found Michael’s birth records, and on the birth records it shows that his father’s first name was Jack.”

“So what?” he asked. “You need to stop letting Adam get in your head so much. It’s starting to make you paranoid. You know that he still would take you for himself if he could, so keep his motives in the back of your head and take everything he says to you with a grain of salt.”

“I know that,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean that I still don’t trust Adam. I forgave him for what he did at The Sanctuary and I’m not being paranoid. That wasn’t the piece of information that I need figured out.”

“What is then?”

“The address on Michael’s birth certificate is the same address as my father’s.”

Rob abruptly turned his face to look at me. “Fuck.”

“Okay, well that wasn’t exactly the reaction that I was hoping you would have,” I said with a frown. “Weren’t you just the one telling me not to be paranoid. There’s a logical explanation for this. It’s probably a mistake or something.”

“That would be one hell of a coincidental mistake,” he said.

“Can you please just look into it for me?” I asked. “Use your police clout or something to check it out and get an answer as to why his birth documents would have my family’s address on them.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll try.”

“Thank you,” I said as we pulled into the store parking lot and I got ready to get out of the car. I didn’t really need anything at the store, but I was going to go inside and walk with Rob while I figured out what explanation to give Michael for why I left the cabin so quickly just now.

“Lisette, what if Michael’s father and your father were the same guy?” he asked before we got out.

I took my hand off the door handle and turned to look at him.

“That’s not possible,” I said. “I’m not even the least bit worried about it because it’s such a completely absurd notion to even consider. Michael and I grew up in opposing families on opposing campuses. Both of our moms were rivals and our dads were rivals too, at least until his died and mine faked his death. Everyone in town would have known if we had the same father, and our mothers certainly wouldn’t have kept it hidden, at least not from us.”

“If you’re not worried about it, then why did you run out of the cabin to come to the store with me instead of staying at the cabin to make love to Michael?”

“I just wanted to talk to you about it and ask for your help,” I lied. The truth was that I just needed to get away from everything for a minute. “The only thing I’m worried about is that Michael will find out about it and end up worrying needlessly about something that is obviously untrue.”

“Oh okay,” Rob said. He didn’t look at all like he believed what I was saying to be true. “I thought that maybe you ran out to come to the store with me because you were afraid to go back in that bedroom with Michael right now.”

“Why would I be afraid of that?” I asked.

I could feel my face getting hot and my palms getting sweaty.

“Because if what Adam is implying is true, and by the look on your face it sure seems like you are at least slightly concerned about it; then that would mean that you and Michael are siblings.

There wasn’t even a word to describe how tangled the knot in my stomach was becoming.

It felt like there were at least a few thousand butterflies waging a war inside my abdomen.

When we got back from the store, I was initially worried that Adam might have already told Michael what he had found. But since the two of them seemed to be in good spirits with each other, I knew that he hadn’t. I needed to remember to get Adam alone for a few minutes and tell him to keep his mouth shut before he was tempted to open it. At least until Rob had found some solid evidence to disprove the crazy theory.

Rob took his laptop outside to sit and do some work, which I knew meant that he was actually doing what I asked him instead, since he had been planning to work on his cycle today and not do any computer work.

I came up with a halfway believable story about needing to grab an emergency box of tampons, which not only provided a good excuse for why I rushed to the store, but also gave me a reason for not wanting to have sex for the next couple of days. It was a good thing that none of the guys seemed to know when my cycle came and went, because otherwise that excuse wouldn’t have worked.

Rob spent most of the afternoon outside on his laptop and phone. I had to give him credit for putting a valid effort into helping me whenever I asked him to. I went out to the greenhouse to clip some of the herbs that had been growing to use in a homemade pasta sauce for dinner. When I turned around after cutting a few sprigs of basil and oregano, Adam was standing just inside the doorway and it made me jump.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I actually wanted to talk to you anyway.”

“So do I,” he said. “Lisette, you need to stay away from Michael, at least physically.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “Of course I’m not going to stay away from him. This whole theory of yours is ridiculous and Rob is working on figuring it out right now.”