After a month of solitude, Drew was sick of being alone. She was also tired of avoiding contact with everyone. The only one who would speak to her was Jack, but Marc and Nathan from her Spanish class were friendly. (Well I'd call it flirty, but she'd say they were just nice. Silly, naive little Drew...) At her wit's end, Drew decided to sit with Marc at lunch. She'd seen him and his friends before and knew they had the same lunch as she did. The only question was whether his friends would be okay with the intrusion. All three of them looked a bit scary if Drew was entirely honest.

Nevertheless, a determined Drew is nothing to laugh about. She marched over to their table the very next day and sat down in the scant space between Marc and a tall blonde she didn't know the name of. Drew was pretty sure he was in her Computer Programming class, but after a closer look, she could see that his bearing was very different from the boy she'd seen previously. A glance across the table told Drew that his identical twin was the boy she shared the class with. (That's our beautiful detective!)

The boys were so surprised that anyone had dared sit with them--uninvited!--that none of them spoke for a few seconds. That was enough time for Drew to grab her lunch out of her bag.

Last week she'd given up on her usual put-together meals and started grabbing a soda and sometimes a pop tart on her way out the door. Drew still made her siblings (even Parker and Avery) nicer lunches, she simply didn't care about her own anymore.

When they got over the shock, Marc was the first to speak to the trespasser. "Heyyo Drew. I didn't know you'd be sitting with us today."

That statement was meant a lot less passive-aggressively than it sounds. Drew didn't know that, but she chose to ignore it. (Drew ignores too many things, particularly signals—if you ask me for a humble unbiased opinion.)

"Well, here I am! Want to introduce me to your crew here?" came her upbeat response. Faked, obviously. This wasn't exactly a cheerful time for her, poor thing.

Marc shrugged. After exchanging a look with Raven, he began introductions. "The tattooed one is Raven, the twins are Brandon and Corey. No worries if you can't tell them apart, we can't always either."

Drew cocked her head to the right. She recognized the name, Corey. So the one who was in her class must be Corey, making the other one Brandon. Gesturing towards each one, in turn, she named them off. "You're Brandon, you're Corey. Easy."

Brandon's eyebrow rose. "Good guess."

Drew was offended. "Not a guess, a logical conclusion. Corey is the one in my computer programming class, so I knew that you," pointing across the table, "were Corey, making you" nodding at the boy next to her, "Brandon."

Raven laughed. "You saw his clothes and recognized them. Good job."

"No," Corey corrected his boyfriend. "We have computer programming on B days. It's an A day. She couldn't have seen me earlier."

Marc looked at Drew quizzically. "In that case, how did you know?"

Drew smirked. "I'll keep my secrets, thank you."

Brandon rested his head on his arm as he turned to look at her. "In that case, this has gotta have been a lucky guess. No way you could repeat it."

Drew glared back. Nobody was about to tell her what she could and couldn't do. (Yass queen!) "I guarantee I'll have one hundred percent accuracy. I did not just guess."

Corey spoke up. "I know how you could prove it."

"How?" Brandon and Drew asked in unison.

Corey laughed. "You're so in sync you could be soulmates." (Could they be? Interesting idea, Corey :)

"They are not!" Marc kicked Corey under the table. Is someone jealous?

"Anyway, what I was saying is that Drew can come with us after school. Brandon and I can change clothes and see if she can still identify us," Corey said.

Drew remembered her siblings. They would be horrified if she went home with a group of boys she barely knew... and that sealed her decision. (Even though this was a highly dangerous idea. They could be serial killers for all Drew knew!) "Alright then, if somebody can drive me and get me home after."

"No problem." Marc smiled. "I can take you."

"Are you coming too, then?"

Raven grinned. "We all are little one. We live together."

Drew wasn't sure what to do about the pet name, so she chose not to comment. Ignoring problems had gotten her this far in life, after all. She instead addressed the other part of his statement. "How come you live together?"

"Foster brothers," Marc winked. "So we all get to spend time together this afternoon."

It was just then that Drew realized she might be in over her head. Four hot boys after years of sibling-only activities? She was certain to either melt or straight-up die.

When Drew walked into the apartment where the boys lived, she was pleasantly surprised by the cleanliness. Though it wasn't quite up to her late grandmother's standards (nothing was), the sink was empty of food-covered dishes and no dirty laundry could be seen anywhere. Awarding a smile to Corey, who was closest, she said, "Great job keeping the place neat. It's gotta be hard sometimes with four boys sharing."

Corey blushed. "Well, five. Axel lives here too, but he's at work. Most of us are fairly organized anyway, except Raven."

Drew had the distinct impression that she should not ask about Axel, but she disregarded it. "And who is Axel?"

None of them met her eyes as Marc answered "Our guardian." in a flat tone. "He's only a year older, but we need someone eighteen years old to get an apartment."

"Cool," Drew said. She dropped the subject. "So are the twins going to challenge me or not?" she asked instead.

"Give us a minute to change clothes." Brandon and Corey headed for two different doors off the narrow but well-lit hallway.

"Want a drink?" Marc offered, his tone was hopeful. "I make the best coffee."

Drew had never had coffee before, and she was a bit embarrassed to tell him that. She figured it would be easier to ask for water... but Marc was giving her puppy-dog eyes. Drew stared at them and realized for the first time that they were two different colors. One eye was green and the other blue. They were mesmerizing.

She found herself saying "Sure" and hearing him cheer as he raced towards the kitchen and a fancy-looking machine.

"If you don't mind, can I make you a surprise drink? I'm good at choosing things people will like, I promise," Marc yelled from the kitchen as he pulled ingredients from the fridge.

That seemed like the solution to her conundrum of lack of coffee knowledge. Drew just hoped she could act like it tasted good. "Sounds great."

Raven stepped closer to her to whisper (well, it was a loud whisper, but he tried), "You did his day, letting him do this. Thank you."

Drew was pretty sure he meant 'made his day' but she didn't correct him. She was too busy noticing how little space there was between them.

And when Corey (she knew it was him, even though he had changed clothes and was attempting to walk differently) accidentally bumped into Raven, there wasn't any space between Drew and the Russian. Their arms touched, and there were those little tickly sparks again.

Drew jumped back in shock. How was her luck this bad? The one boy she'd touched since the kiss just happened to be the soulmate she was attempting to avoid?

Raven similarly jerked backward. Were those... soulmate sparks he just felt? Right after telling his boyfriend that the plan to find the runaway soulmate was disbanded? Rutabaga.

Neither Drew nor Raven knew what to do at this moment. Both hoped to avoid an awkward moment and weren't sure if the other had even felt it. So they both stopped making eye contact and tried to play it off as surprise over Corey's arrival.

Axel, who'd just entered, was momentarily astonished to see a pretty young woman in his house. He walked in right as Raven and Drew made their skin-to-skin contact--and Axel was observant enough to notice the looks in both of their eyes after that instant. He knew something had happened between them, but also that they wished to hide it. Luckily for Drew and Raven, Axel could play it cool better than either of them and chose to do so.

"Is anyone going to introduce me to the cute little stray you brought home?" Axel asked the room at large.

Drew took a second to look around, confused. Was there a kitten or something in here? Then she realized. And blushed like a tomato. The man who'd spoken was quite attractive, and he'd just called her cute! Also a stray, but she'd take it.

"Hi!" she said, waving in the long-haired stranger's direction. "I'm Drew. The boys know me from school."

Axel nodded at her politely. "Pleasure to meet you. I'm Axel Toma."

"Nice to meet you, too, Mr. Toma. You have a lovely home."

Axel chuckled. "I'm only a year older than I assume you are. No need to treat me like an old man. Axel is fine."

Drew's blush, which hadn't gone away, grew darker and spread to her ears. "Okay, then."

Brandon came out into the main room, dressed in a Star Wars t-shirt. This was presumably an attempt to seem like Corey, however, my dearest reader... he wore it backward. A clear signifier, if Drew couldn't have already guessed, was that this was not the nerdy twin. Well, the obviously nerdy twin.

"Hey, Axel." Brandon nodded before turning his attention to the sole female in the room. Drew was beginning to feel the testosterone as a physical mist or something. "So, Drew. Time to prove yourself. Which twin am I?"

"Brandon."

"Shiz nuggets! I thought I'd fooled you."

Marc made his way over to the group that now congregated in front of the hallway entrance. "Clearly Drew is far smarter than you." With that, he handed Drew her coffee.

Drew noted the characters written on the side of the blue ceramic mug, though she couldn't identify them. She drank from it mechanically. Then she straightened up and looked at the amateur barrister with wide eyes.

"Wow!" she exclaimed. "That was actually sweet. I thought coffee was bitter."

Marc grinned lopsidedly. "It's typically bitter, but there's a lot of sugar in this particular blend. It's called a mocha, and there's cocoa powder in there along with a ton of sugar and cream. I figured you were more of a sweet tooth--and it looks like I figured right!"