This was what my life had come to. Stuck on carpool duty.
I rubbed at my eyes as I fought a wave of irritation. Why Alex couldn’t just get a ride from one of his buddies? Or, heaven forbid...take the bus?
The mere thought of the family’s golden boy riding a school bus with a bunch of freshmen was enough to make my lips twitch with amusement. After another few minutes, I finally got out of the car and leaned against the hood of the red sports car.
Of course it was red. This car was flashy and ostentatious just like Alex. Just like our dad. I shook my head, taking in the old surroundings as I waited and tried not to think about the confrontation to come.
My dad had been relatively quiet since I’d come home for break. Too quiet.
We’d had a blowout before I’d gone back to school in September when I’d tried to bring up the topic of switching majors. I wasn’t exactly psyched to go through this conversation again.
I almost hadn’t come back home for break. I would’ve rather gone to my mom’s for the week, but the semester would be ending soon and I needed to figure out what I was going to do. The next time I saw her I needed to be able to tell her I had a game plan or she’d worry.
I hated making my mom worry.
So, she was the reason I was here trying to figure out how badly I wanted a college degree. Badly enough to put up with my dad ruling my life for another two years?
I brought a hand up to pinch the bridge of my nose and ended up shoving some of my dark hair out of my face. Maybe it was a good thing I hadn’t gone to my mom’s. She would have complained that my hair was too long and made me go get it cut. She’d probably insist on buying me some new jeans and T-shirts while she was at it since she hated when I wore anything frayed or holey.
I might not have your father’s money, Cristian, but I can keep my son in new clothes.
I sighed as if she’d actually just said it, that’s how loud her voice was in my head. No, she didn’t have his money. She’d had nothing close to the fortune our father had before they’d gotten married and he’d made sure she’d gotten as little as possible after it ended.
That’s what prenups are for, he’d said once when I’d finally gotten up the nerve to call him out on his crap.
Lovely role model, right? It was no wonder that Alex was a self-absorbed little prick after living almost entirely with our dad these past few years since the divorce.
Mom had gotten partial custody but we’d lived with our dad for most of the school year and only saw her every other weekend and on holidays. My dad had claimed he’d wanted primary custody because he could give us a better life and because he couldn’t stand the thought of being away from us.
Please.
My dad had been and always would be a control freak. That was the only reason we’d lived with him for most of the year and the only reason he’d agreed to pay for college.
Thanks to college, I’d only had to endure one year under dad’s roof. Alex had been putting up with it alone ever since I’d gone off to school. That was the only reason I cut him any slack these days.
I was pretty sure the little punk had even more baggage than I did.
I’d been going to the school of my dad’s choosing for two years now, and it was time to make a change. He’d chosen the school, and that was fine. But having him dictate what I could study, which paved the way for what career I’d have…
My dad was seriously trying to plan out the rest of my life. So this was why I was home. I had a decision to make. Stay at school and make my dad happy. Stay and get a degree, but live under his thumb…
Or quit.
Quit and make my father sneer. Quit and disappoint my mom.
Quit and prove Alex right that I was a loser and a dropout.
I tipped my head back and looked up at the bright fall sky. As I leaned back to stare up at the clouds I mocked myself for that last thought. Who cared what Alex thought about anything? That kid was so lost in his self-absorbed little world he wouldn’t know reality if it bit him in the butt.
On cue, the doors to the high school swung open and there was Alex, walking out in the midst of a sea of sycophants. They were all dressed in sweats and carrying gym bags filled with their basketball uniforms, no doubt.
Alex with his blond hair and gleaming, whitened smile looked like a king in the midst of his entourage.
No, a prince. That was far more accurate. Our father was clearly the king of our world—dictating just about everything he could.
Which wasn’t much any more for me—just what I studied and where—but for Alex?
I grimaced as he and his buddies headed toward the parking lot where I was camped out. He was still living under the King’s tyranny.
Sometimes I almost felt bad for the kid.
Almost.
But then again, he was so far in my dad’s pockets I doubted he would even know where to begin to find some independence. Heaven forbid one day he discovered that he wanted a different life than the one my dad had planned for him…
“Hey loser,” Alex said with a grin when he caught sight of me. He turned to his friends. “Check it out, guys, my dad hired a new chauffeur for me.”
He laughed at his own joke and I swore his friends brayed like donkeys. Whatever sound they’d made, it couldn’t be described as laughter.
I gave them all an admittedly condescending smile. Have your jokes, children. We’ll see who’s laughing last when you leave your little self-made kingdom of Lakeview High.
Real life would hit some of these cocky bros harder than others. I’d learned that firsthand in college. And some—like my spoiled little brother—had no idea what was in store for them.
“Get in,” I said, my voice gruff as I pushed off the hood to get back in the driver’s seat. I didn’t look back to see if he’d follow my orders.
I didn’t have to.
A lifetime of being brothers had established that I wasn’t just older. I was bigger. And while I might not spend my every waking second working out to look like a hotshot on the court or flex my muscles for a gaggle of brain dead cheerleader types, I did stay in shape and we both knew I could take him down in a fight.
We knew because I’d done it. Many times. I was undefeated when it came to beating his butt and he wouldn’t dare risk being emasculated in front of all his basketball buddies.
Sure enough, I heard him reach the passenger side door and I’d just started to open mine when a girl’s voice shouted his name and had us both stopping short.
“Alex, wait up!”
I just barely held back a sigh when I saw a pretty blonde running toward us, her long hair waving in the breeze like she was the star of her own freakin’ shampoo commercial.
I couldn’t see Alex’s expression because he’d turned to face her so his back was to me. He’d better not be thinking about settling in for some long conversation with this chick with the megawatt smile.
“Hi,” she said to him again as she got closer, her voice breathless from running and her smile somehow even bigger, which I hadn't thought possible.
The girl was pretty, in a blue-eyed, blonde-haired Barbie doll kind of way. But she wasn’t beautiful. She was...cute. There was something about her features that kept her from being a knockout. As she grew closer, I noticed it—the way her eyes were just a little too big, her mouth a little too wide. She wasn’t deformed or anything, but her larger-than-life features made her look more like an adorable anime character than a supermodel.
Cute. That was definitely the word for her. Cute and freakishly smiley.
“Avery,” Alex said, sounding surprised. “What’s up?”
She tucked some hair behind her ear and I waited to be ignored.
I knew the score. Girls like this—the braindead cheerleader types who adored my little bro—they were scared by the likes of me. If Alex was their white knight, I was the big bad villain they’d been raised to fear.
I had tattoos, the only color I wore was black, and inst
ead of my father’s pretty boy golden locks and easy smile, I’d gotten my mother’s darker coloring and a resting face that said get off my lawn.
At least, that was my mom’s joke. She said I’d gotten her dad’s crotchety old man behavior. He’d passed away the year I was born and she was superstitious like that.
Anyway, all this was to say, I knew the routine. She’d pretend I didn’t exist, which meant I was free to watch this awkward interaction and laugh—inwardly, of course. Despite the impression I might give of being a miserable old coot, my mother raised me to have manners, which meant I didn’t outright laugh at ditzy, besotted airheads no matter how much I might be inwardly mocking them.
“I was hoping I’d catch up to you,” she said as she came to a stop a foot away from our car. Then she did something unexpected.
She looked right at me.
Eye contact and all, she aimed that beaming smile in my direction as she said. “Hi, Cristian.”
I blinked. She’d even addressed me by my name.
I had a feeling my answering stare was more like a glare because my shocked face was even more grim than my resting face, but that huge smile never faltered as she turned back to my brother, seemingly not aware that she’d just rocked my world with that simple hello.
Don’t get me wrong. Girls liked me. I wasn’t unattractive and I had an appeal of my own...but that appeal wasn’t appealing to girls like this one.
Avery, he’d called her.
I didn’t remember her. But then again, I’d tried to steer clear of Lakeview High girls when I went here and she would have been a sophomore when I was a senior so...not at all on my radar, no matter how pretty her smile.
She and Alex made some painful-to-listen-to small talk about her play rehearsal and his basketball practice and—yawn. Could we leave already? I thought about jingling the keys or just straight-up interrupting and telling her to ask him out already because we had places to be but her next words made me freeze.
“I was hoping we could talk about our baby,” she said.
My insides turned to ice because, holy freakin’ crap did she just say—
“Our baby?” Alex sounded just as confused as I felt and I swear, for a second there, I forgot how much I couldn’t stand the guy and for the first time in a long time I just saw him as my little brother.
My mind raced to come up with solutions. Dad had enough money. He could help support Alex’s kid. Mom and I would help out, obviously.
I shoved my hands into my pockets, the car keys biting into me in my awkward rush to try and disappear in plain sight.
This was not a conversation I should overhear. I stared down at the macadam beneath my feet and cringed at this sweet-looking girl’s upbeat tone in the face of adversity.
“Yeah, you know...our baby.” She sounded like she was laughing and I…
Ah crap, I wanted to go over there and hug the girl.
Maybe even hug my brother.
What a freakin’ mess. But if she could be so calm about this then I’d make sure Alex—
“Oh right.” Alex started to laugh. “Totally forgot.”
She laughed too.
What the… What was I missing here?
“I got Buttercup from Mr. McClusky,” she was saying. “The program will start tomorrow after school and it will last for a week. The software inside it tracks the different type of cries and their duration...”
“Uh huh.” Alex scratched the back of his head and even from here I could see him turning his head, his attention already on something one of his buddies was shouting on the far side of the parking lot.
Alex was barely listening, but I couldn’t stop. I was paying attention to every word. The more Avery talked the more it became clear there was no real baby. This was some assignment and I…
I was such an idiot.
“So that works?” Avery asked. “We can share duties this weekend?”
“Hmm?” Alex shifted. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”
I watched the pretty blonde beam at my moronic little brother. All at once it was clear. So ridiculously clear—to me, at least.
She liked him.
I had no idea why this realization landed like a punch in my gut, but there you had it. I was officially winded and nauseated all at once as the knowledge struck like a blow.
I’d suspected she was one of his many admirers by the way she’d come running over here, and that smile—well, that was another clue. But it was the way she was gazing at him right now as if he was the center of her solar system. As if the sun rose and set with my little jerk of a brother.
“Okay, great!” Her voice was way too enthusiastic considering his response had included the word ‘whatever.’
She was bouncing on her toes as she backed away, her grin so big it made my cheeks ache on her behalf.
“I’ll see you this weekend then.”
Alex was already turning to shout something back at his dumb friend, but Avery didn’t seem to notice as she headed back to the school.
I watched her go. I saw the way her hands clenched, the way she ducked her head down like she could barely contain her excitement because she’d just talked to Alex.
“Get in the car.” I jerked my own door open as I snapped at my brother.
I kept watching his poor pretty blonde friend until she’d disappeared back into the school, no doubt still wearing that beaming grin.
I turned the key.
That poor, pathetic girl. If she honestly thought Alex Luven could love anyone as much as he loved himself she was seriously, seriously misguided.
3
Avery
The crying.
Sweet mercy, the crying!
It. Wouldn’t. Stop.
I held the fake baby to my chest and patted its back frantically as I followed my mom from one room to the next as she gathered the last of her belongings before heading out for a romantic weekend with her new boyfriend.
“You can’t leave me like this,” I wailed.
“Honey.” My mom shot me a condescending smile. “It’s only for a weekend. And if you’d talked to me about this little…” She waved a hand at the screaming terror in my arms. “Assignment of yours, I would have told you to pick another week.”
“But you can’t just leave me here on my own—”
“You’re a high school senior,” my mom reminded me. “You’ll be on your own for real in a matter of months.” She winked at me. “You’ll be fine.”
“But...but…” My exhausted brain was trying to come up with an argument when there was a quick knock on the door and then Max’s voice calling out, “Hey, homies, I’m here!” the way she’d been doing for more years than I could count.
My mom turned to smile at me in triumph as she snatched up the necklace she’d been looking for from her vanity. “See? Max is here to help. You’ll be fine.”
I gaped at her. She couldn’t be serious. There was no one less maternal and nurturing than Maxine Fields. “She doesn’t know the first thing about babies,” I said in quiet desperation as we heard Max’s footsteps coming up the carpeted stairs.
“Yes, but you’re an expert.” My mom’s tone held just a little too much glee. “You told me yourself that taking care of babies was a breeze.”
She laughed as she turned away and greeted Max at the top of the stair.
Yeah, my mom was totally loving this. I glared at her back as she walked away from me.
Was it true that I’d said I was a pro when it came to babies? Yes. I had said that. And it was true that I might have told her I wouldn’t even need her help so it was just fine by me if she went off with Dozy Dave—my nickname for her uber boring new guy friend.
But that was all before.
That was before last night when this little demon hadn’t slept for more than twenty minutes straight. Or the next before that when this monster started screaming in the middle of the night and wouldn’t stop for a solid hour. Or before this morning, when no matter what I did I
couldn’t get it to stop crying.
“I was wrong,” I said, not bothering to hide the fact that I was on the verge of tears as Max gaped at me in the middle of the hallway. I ignored her to try one last time with my mom. “I was so wrong. I totally need help.”
My mom’s smug smile gave way to one of pity as she eyed me in all my sleepless, showerless, near-tears glory. “You have a partner, right? Why don’t you give him a call and take a break from the single parent life for a while?”
I opened my mouth to tell her I’d tried. Oh, how I’d tried! I’d texted and called Alex so many times I was afraid he’d issue a restraining order. I wanted to tell her—maybe then she’d take pity on me and stay—but the words faltered and died under Max’s concerned stare.
I just couldn’t bring myself to admit that Alex had let me down. That he wasn’t helping...at all. He’d ignored my texts and my voicemails. Maybe...
Oh crap.
Maybe Max had been right. This had been a truly terrible idea.
“Good luck, sweetheart,” my mom shouted over Buttercup’s crying. The door slammed shut behind her and I was left alone with Max who was still looking at me like I’d grown a second head.
“You have…” She brushed a finger to her cheek. “Cereal.”
I reached up and swiped, an obnoxiously large cornflake falling to the ground as I did.
Great. Just great. I was so far gone I had food stuck to my face and no one had thought to tell me.
Max’s eyes widened. “Avery, are you…” Her mouth fell open. “Are you crying?”
I shook my head. “No.”
I was. I just didn’t feel like admitting it. The tears were a dead giveaway, of course, but right now, admitting how down I was felt like admitting defeat. Especially to Max, because while my mom had no idea that this baby adventure was anything more than a class assignment…
Max knew.
She knew and when she found out how badly it had blown up in my face, she’d know she’d been right.
I’d been wrong.
And…
I sniffed. Loudly. Then I sniffed again and Max came toward me, not seeming to notice the shrieking plastic nightmare in my arms as she drew me into a hug. “Oh, Avery,” she said quietly. Too quietly, considering the wailing going on in my other ear. “I’m so sorry.”
Saved by the Crush's Brother (How to Catch a Crush Book 2) Page 2
