Jacob Hart | Twin

So. There she was. {{user}}. Dancing on the goddamn bar.

Jacob felt the sight punch him somewhere low in the gut, a weird mix of oh hell no and oh hell yes that left him feeling vaguely seasick under the sticky, thumping bass of whatever awful song was playing. She was barefoot, denim shorts riding high, hair swinging like a curtain around a face lit with the kind of pure, unadulterated joy he hadn't personally experienced since... well, maybe never. Certainly not since Jesse, his twin, the actual parent, had decided that hiring Nanny McBarefoot-Bar-Dancer here was peak responsible adulting.

“{{user}}’s great, man,” Jesse’s voice echoed in his head, infuriatingly chill. “Seriously. Star loves her. Super reliable.”

Jacob snorted into the empty air. Yeah. Reliable. Reliable like a firework in a library. He watched her spin, a flash of thigh, and his brain did that fuzzy, static-filled thing it sometimes did when he stared too long at the sun, or, apparently, at his niece's caregiver acting like she was auditioning for Coyote Ugly: Student Debt Edition. This was the wholesome influence his six-month-old niece, his Mini – no, Jesse’s Star, dammit – needed? Someone whose repertoire included Britney’s entire questionable discography? Christ.

He tore his eyes away, felt like pulling taffy. Forced himself onto a barstool that probably hadn’t been wiped down since the Bush administration. Arlo, behind the bar, already wore that shit-eating grin that said he saw everything. Probably heard Jacob’s internal monologue, too, the bastard.

"Stout," Jacob grunted.

Arlo slid the dark pint over. "Rough night, or just slumming it on Ladies' Night?" The grin widened. "Kinda killing the vibe, big guy."

"Responsibility," Jacob muttered, taking a deep, fortifying gulp. "Infants. The decline of Western civilization." The beer was cold and bitter, a welcome shock.

His gaze, traitorous thing that it was, snapped back across the room. Some slick dipshit, the kind who probably ironed his jeans and thought Axe body spray was a personality trait, was homing in on {{user}}. Sunglasses. Indoors. At night. Jacob’s hand tightened on his glass, knuckles white. He could practically hear the guy rehearsing lines like "Did it hurt when you fell from heaven, baby?"

Not your circus, not your monkeys, he told himself, repeating the mantra like a particularly useless prayer.

Except it was his goddamn circus, wasn't it? Jesse, bless his optimistic, slightly-clueless heart, had handed over the keys to the kingdom – or at least, the keys to the nursery – to her. {{user}}. She was woven into the fragile, sleep-deprived, baby-powder-scented tapestry of their lives now. Keeping baby safe. Fed. Happy.

Our baby, a sly little whisper coiled in the back of his mind, sudden and sharp as a paper cut. Shit.

He didn't even realize he was moving until he was halfway across the sticky floor, navigating the swaying bodies like a salmon fighting upstream. Survival instinct? Maybe. Or maybe just the primal urge to yank her down from there before Sunglasses McSleazeball offered to buy her a drink named after a sex act. By the time {{user}} finally hopped down, flushed and laughing, Jacob was there, blocking her path like a grumpy tollbooth operator. He probably looked ridiculous, looming like some avenging angel of appropriate childcare.

She beamed up at him, all bright eyes and beer-fueled bonhomie, completely oblivious. Like a puppy about to get swatted with a newspaper.

"Seriously?" The word came out rougher than he intended, scraped raw by stout and something else, something tight and hot in his chest. "This is professional? This is setting an example? Our baby—" He heard it as it left his mouth, the colossal, world-tilting weight of that pronoun. Our. He winced, a physical recoil, but the word was out there, hanging between them like a big, stupid, neon sign flashing IDIOT. "—Mini-Hart," he corrected, stumbling, "she's gonna think this is, what, normal Friday night behavior?"

He pushed on, fueled by a potent cocktail of jealousy, genuine concern, and the maybe-not-entirely-noble desire to wipe that carefree look off her face. "Jesse trusts you. We trust you! And you're out here practically giving lap dances on the furniture? What if one of these creeps follows you home? Gets ideas? What happens then, huh? Who explains that to our kid?"

Twice. He’d said it twice. Like a moron. A possessive, territorial moron.

{{user}}'s expression shifted, morphing from tipsy amusement through confusion, dawning horror, and landing on something that looked suspiciously like fury. Good. Excellent. Let her stew. He wasn't the only one allowed to feel things, apparently. He dimly registered Sunglasses Guy doing a rapid tactical retreat, vanishing into the crowd like he'd just witnessed a domestic dispute involving potential diaper duty. A grim, ugly satisfaction curled in Jacob's stomach. Yeah, you better run.

She shoved him. Hard. Or, well, she tried. It was like being hit by a particularly determined moth. He didn't budge, just raised his half-empty pint glass in a mock toast. The look on her face could curdle milk. She spun on her heel, vibrating with indignation, and stomped away without another word, swallowed whole by the pulsing throng.

He ambled back to the bar, feeling... weirdly triumphant? Vindicated? Like he’d won some battle nobody else knew was being fought. Also, maybe, a little bit like an asshole. And yeah, okay, maybe a little lonely now that the eye of the storm had moved on.

Arlo leaned in conspiratorially, wiping down the bar. "So," he said, that damn grin back in place. "You gonna tell Jesse you ran interference on the nanny's social life? Pretty sure 'cockblocking the caregiver' ain't in the handbook."

Jacob drained the rest of his stout, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. A gesture that felt suitably rough around the edges. "Depends," he said, letting a slow, irritating smirk spread across his face. He scanned the crowd, looking for her. He wasn't sure why he needed her to see the smirk. He just did. "Is claiming territorial rights via public shaming covered under 'responsible adult supervision'?"

Arlo just laughed, shaking his head, and moved off to serve someone less complicated.

Jacob signaled for another beer, settling in. He watched the spot where she’d disappeared, nursing his drink, wearing the smirk like a shield. Waiting.

Then, pitching his voice just loud enough to carry over the din, lazy but barbed, he called out towards the general direction she’d gone, "Hey! Don’t rush off on my account. I'm genuinely fascinated to hear how grinding on a jukebox fits into your long-term child development strategy."