My Best Friend's Brother (Hometown Heroes Book 3)

by G. L. Snodgrass

  “No, he didn’t say anything that made me think he was acting weird,” I said. Technically I was right and therefore not lying.

  Jenny sighed heavily on the other end, then once again returned to her new favorite subject, Chip Huntington.

  “You know,” she said as she began to wind down. “That was fun last night. We need to find someone for you. So, we can all hang out together.”

  “Why? Did Luke say he was unhappy or something?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  “No, no,” Jenny said and I could just see her brow narrowing in confusion. “No. But you guys had to be bored out of your mind. It would be so much better if you had a boyfriend. I mean, of course, if Chip and I, … You know what I mean.”

  A sharp sword slashed through my heart as I realized just exactly what she meant.

  “Well, I don’t think we need to worry about that. Anyway, it’s probably better that you and Chip just hung out together and got to know each other. You don’t need a bunch of other people there. They’d just get in the way.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” she said after a slight pause. “But then, that brings us back to the beginning. Maybe I’m getting ahead of things. I don’t really know anything. It’s killing me.”

  I bit my tongue to stop myself from telling her how I felt about her brother. About our kiss, everything. I wanted to share it. I wanted to scream out about it from a mountaintop. But instead, I had to hold it all in.

  “I’m sure it will work out,” I told her “Give it time.”

  She sighed again and I knew she was nodding in agreement. “You’re right, I am probably over thinking things.”

  I smiled sadly.

  “Should I call him?” she asked.

  “You will see him tomorrow at school. I’d wait.” As I said the words, my heart broke. This was so unfair. To all of us. All I wanted was to talk to Luke. But I didn’t have that option.

  A BEEP interrupted us. Jenny paused for a moment then squealed.

  “It’s Chip, what should I do?”

  “Hang-up on me and answer him,” I told her as I cringed inside at the jealousy rising up inside of me. She was getting what she wanted. I was stuck out here in the cold. My heart being torn into pieces. Like I said, it wasn’t fair. But that didn’t mean I should be a bad friend. She deserved better.

  “Bye,” she said before she disconnected. I guess I should feel privileged I even rated a curtesy before she hung up, I thought with a humorous laugh.

  Sighing heavily, I put my phone into my back pocket and grabbed my crutches. Suddenly, all I wanted was to lay down and storm at the universe for putting me in this position. Dad saw me pass and wisely kept his thoughts to himself. I swear if anyone had talked to me, I would have bitten their head off.

  It was several hours later before my phone woke me from a restless nap. Turning over, I grabbed it off my bedside table. It was the Prescott’s house line. Jenny must need to charge her phone after spending the afternoon talking to Chip. Although, why she couldn’t just call me with it plugged in, I would never understand.

  “Yes,” I said with a groggy greeting.

  “Did, I wake you?” Luke said sending me into instant awareness. I swung my legs off the bed and stared at my phone, suddenly unable to think of what to say.

  “Um, no, … um yes, sort of, maybe,” I said as I fumbled my way through life.

  He laughed, “What, you don’t know if you were asleep or not?”

  I sighed heavily. “Don’t tease me, I have a broken foot, remember.”

  He laughed again and my world returned to normal. Luke’s laugh could turn my stomach inside out, but it meant the world was all right. Suddenly, a vision of Jenny walking in on him flashed into my mind. If she found him talking to me, she would freak.

  “Jenny?” I asked as I held my breath.

  “She’s taken Bailey for a ride. I swear, she has been acting weird all day.”

  I laughed inside. But I made a new rule. I was not going to talk to Luke about his sister’s love life. I might be a bad friend, but I wasn’t that much of a witch. Then I realized, I was keeping secrets from Luke. How could I do that to him? This guy meant everything to me.

  We hadn’t even talked about us, or even a possible us. And I was already keeping things from him. How could I ever make this work?

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” I told him.

  He snorted like he didn’t believe me but he had enough sense not to push me on the issue.

  “And your mom?” I asked.

  I just knew his brow had furrowed. “She and Grandma went shopping.” He paused for a second. “In fact, I am here all alone.”

  “Oh, you poor boy,” I told him. “But you are the loner type. All you Dark Knights are that way. You sort of prefer to be alone.”

  “Not anymore,” he said with a tenderness that tore me in two. He was talking about me. He would rather be with me. Oh, how could life get any better than this?

  “You think you’ve got it bad,” I said once I was able to get my racing heart back under control. “At least you’ve got Nellie. I’m here all alone in my bedroom, with a glob of plaster on my foot. Laying here, staring up at my ceiling.”

  He laughed and said, “Want company?”

  “What?” I asked as I sat up. “Here in my room?”

  He laughed, “Sure, if you can guarantee your dad won’t shoot me. If not, then maybe we could go somewhere and talk.”

  My heart froze. He was serious. “Where?” I asked him as I quickly glanced at my closet to see what I had to wear.

  “Does it matter?” he asked with that Luke Prescot smirk in the tone of his voice. And darn it, he was right. He could have said he wanted to take me to a slaughterhouse and I would have agreed.

  “No, not really.”

  He laughed and said, “I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

  “Make it thirty,” I told him as I hoped across my room, desperately looking for the right thing to wear.

  “Okay, half an hour.”

  I pulled back from the closet and focused on the phone. “Um … what about Jenny?”

  He sighed heavily and I just knew he was giving me that look that said I was worrying too much. “She won’t suspect anything. Her head is so high in the clouds she isn’t aware of anything around her unless it is named Chip Huntington.”

  I laughed, he was right, I shouldn’t worry, besides. Luke was coming. How could I worry about anything?

  “Thirty minutes,” I told him, “I’ll meet you out front.”

  He snorted again, “What? I thought I’d spend some time talking to your dad, he seems like a really interesting guy.”

  Now I snorted. “Not on your life. And I mean that literally.

  “Okay, see you soon,” he said and hung up.

  My heart jumped. Just like that, the connection was broken but it was still there, this need pulling me towards him.

  “Get your head on straight,” I told myself as I wrapped a plastic bag around my cast and turned on the shower. Don’t get ahead of yourself. See what he wanted to talk about and take it from there.

  The fact that we might end up kissing each other didn’t cross my mind more than six or seven times every minute.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Luke

  I knew I had it bad when I found myself humming a Green Day song on the way to Amy’s. Jesus, if the guys could see me now, they’d be laughing their heads off. Me, wrapped around a girl’s finger.

  But I couldn’t deny it. She made me feel special. Wanted. As if I was important to someone.

  My heart soared when I turned onto her street and saw her standing in her yard, leaning on her crutches. The girl was heart-stopping beautiful. A cute top, jeans slit up the calf over her cast. A smile that could launch a thousand ships as the story said.

  Everything about her said ‘Girl.’ The long chocolate colored hair. The big eyes with a hesitant, yet hopeful look. But most of all, the curves that pulled at my gut
and sent a burning need through me.

  Swallowing, I tried to get myself under control.

  She opened the door before I could get out to help and said, “Do you want to come in? My dad went to the hospital. He won’t be home for hours.”

  Her eyes held mine for a long moment as a thousand thoughts passed between us. Alone, together, in that big house. Of course, I jumped to things I probably shouldn’t be thinking. But I couldn’t have stopped myself if I tried. And no way was I stopping those thoughts. They were too much fun.

  “Sure,” I answered as I turned the truck off.

  When I joined her, my insides turned over. Be careful, I reminded myself. This was Amy. Don’t do anything to screw this up. For once in my life, I was determined to think before I acted. I know, probably impossible. But this was too important.

  When we stepped inside, I paused for a moment and let it sink in. The girl was rich. There was no other way to say it. The house was huge, with a giant entrance way. A large living room on the right. A flight of stairs on the left.

  The furniture looked new and very expensive. The kind of furniture you don’t sit in, you just looked at it. Sort of like the art on the walls. That’s right. The walls held actual paintings and a large gold framed mirror. A faint aroma of money and class permeated everything.

  “Do you want something to drink?” Amy asked as she hobbled down the hall to the kitchen in the back.

  I glanced over at the stairs and realized her bedroom was probably up there. Would we end up there I wondered as a secret hope jumped inside of me?

  “No, I’m fine,” I said as I started to follow her, reminding myself to be careful and to make sure I didn’t accidentally break anything.

  Amy shot me a strange look over her shoulder as we walked into the kitchen. The room was half the size of our house. Huge, with an island and bar stools, a separate breakfast table, and enough cabinets to fill a small gym.

  “You sure?” she asked as she opened a giant refrigerator and pulled out a Mountain Dew, holding it up to tempt me.

  “Sure,” I said as I accepted it and examined the room. “Who does the cooking? You’d have to have a culinary degree to know how to use all these gadgets.”

  She laughed. “Our housekeeper, Mrs. Simms.”

  I balked, I knew they were rich, but a housekeeper?

  “Don’t worry. It’s her day off,” she said, obviously misreading my surprise.

  Our eyes locked and a silence fell between us. What now, genius? I thought. Why had I come here? Because I couldn’t stay away, I answered myself. But now that I was here. What?

  “Come on,” she said as she nodded to a door set off at the back of the kitchen. She shot me a quick grin but I could see it in her eyes. She was nervous too. Why? What did she have to be nervous about? Surely, she didn’t worry about me.

  Sure, we were all alone in this house. But she had to know I wouldn’t attack her. I wasn’t some animal.

  Well, I might be rough around the edges. But hadn’t I proven myself? We’d been alone out in the forest and I had been a perfect gentleman. No, she couldn’t be nervous about me. So, what then?

  Amy opened the door to a flight of stairs leading down.

  “The game room,” she said with a smile as she handed me her crutches and used the rail to hop down the stairs one at a time.

  I followed her down to the - quote - game room – unquote - and gasped. The room had a TV the size of a large pool table. I know this because the room had a large pool table. Speakers in four corners told me what kind of sound system and shelves filled with movies and video games confirmed the fact that this place was a teenager’s heaven.

  Amy waved at a long leather couch and a couple of lazy boy recliners that were centered around the TV and raised an eyebrow, silently asking me if I wanted to sit down.

  “Movie? Video Game? Music?” she asked as I sank onto the couch.

  I shrugged. I didn’t really care, not as long as I got to share it with Amy.

  She turned on the music system, fiddled around with the knobs until she found a smooth jazz station.

  “Okay, that is unexpected,” I said.

  “What? You said you wanted to talk,” she replied as she hopped to the couch and plopped down. “If you want something different, feel free.”

  “No, it’s fine. Just unexpected.”

  She shrugged. “My dad likes it. I sort of grew up with it always in the background. It is sort of the musical score of my life. You know, like in a movie.”

  I smiled. That was so Amy. Different, unusual, perfect.

  “Sure, I understand,” I said as I took a sip of my drink.

  Amy smiled slightly and took a sip of hers. Then the two of us sat there, neither knowing what to say next. My stomach clenched up for the hundredth time, her cheeks grew pink as she looked down.

  Why had I come here? I asked myself again and again.

  “So …” I began.

  “So, …” she said at the same time. We both laughed a little, but almost immediately, the tenseness returned as neither of us followed up.

  Get a grip, I thought. Show some guts. Just tell her what you want to tell her.

  She looked at me with tender eyes and my insides melted.

  “Listen, Amy,” I began, “about last night.”

  Her eyes grew big as she froze for a split second.

  “We really didn’t have a chance to talk things through,” I said as I took a deep breath. Determined to continue on like a steamroller until I got it all out.

  She nodded, her beautiful bottom lip caught between her teeth. Waiting.

  “I know I’m not the right guy for you…”

  “Who said?” she interjected then bit her lip again to stop herself from saying anything else. I smiled to myself and shook my head. Like I had thought, perfect in every way. She knew the exact right thing to say. But I needed to get this out.

  “… I am not the right guy for you,” I said again as I looked around her Game room. I mean it was sort of obvious. “But,” I continued, “in all honesty, I don’t care. The way you make me feel. The way you make life worth living. I don’t care. All I care about is being with you.”

  She paused for a moment, her eyes searching mine. Then, before I could even register the change, she launched herself across the couch and into my arms. Her lips finding mine.

  My heart soared, my brain swirled around as I became lost in Amy. She hadn’t tossed me aside. She hadn’t come to her senses and realized I was wrong for her. All I could hope was that she never did.

  “Oh, Luke,” she said as she laid her head on my chest. “You are not wrong for me. In fact, you are exactly what I need in my life. A strong hero with a touch of tenderness. You are perfect.”

  I laughed and kissed the top of her head. For the first time in forever, I was happy with my life. I knew it wouldn’t last, but I was happy. I thought about my dad. Had he felt about Mom like this? Would he have liked Amy? Of course, he would, I realized. How could he not?

  Amy seemed to feel my contentment as she snuggled into me.

  We sat there, both of us just enjoying being.

  “What about Jenny?” she asked without looking up at me.

  I snorted. “I don’t care what my little sister thinks about all this.”

  Amy pulled back, her brow furrowed with concern. “I do. She’s my best friend.”

  Okay. Check. I now needed to worry about what Amy worried about. I was no longer the center of my own universe. Okay, got it.

  I nodded, “I understand, but really, I don’t think we have a choice. At some point, we have to tell her. She’s going to figure it out when she sees me kissing you at school. It is sort of a dead giveaway.”

  Amy lay her head back on my chest as a silence fell over us. Not so tense this time, more a sad acceptance of the inevitable.

  “Couldn’t we put it off for a few days?” she said.

  “What? You don’t want to be kissed? You don’t want to walk
down the hall holding hands? I thought girls loved that kind of thing. You know, sort of bragging without actually saying anything.”

  I could feel her smile into my chest. “Yes, I do want all that, but can’t we wait? Give me time to lay the groundwork. You know, sort of get her ready.”

  Okay, now it was my turn to frown. Did she really think it was going to make any difference? Jenny was going to be mad. Downright pissed off. But eventually, she would get over it. Of course, it might not be for a couple of years. But eventually, she would understand.

  “If that’s what you want. But I wouldn’t wait. Like I said, she is going to know the first time she catches me looking at you.

  She sighed heavily. “Yeah, or me looking at you. But if we are careful. We could get away with it. For a short while at least.”

  “That’s it then. So, we are sort of boyfriend-girlfriend but we don’t tell anyone.”

  She nodded into my chest as I wrapped an arm around her and held her close. I could live with it. Especially if it meant I got to hold her like this. I was just amazed she hadn’t refused the entire idea. I’d expected her to fight me on it. No way would she hurt Jenny, but I think she realized that what existed between us was just too strong to ignore.

  “You know,” she said as she twisted to look up at me with a big smile, “I like the idea of you being my boyfriend. Having a Dark Knight for a boyfriend is sort of every girl’s dream.”

  I laughed as I leaned down and took her lips with mine.

  Yes, life was good. Life was as it was supposed to be, I thought as she melted into me and we became lost in each other.

  I have no idea how long we kissed. Minutes? Hours? A lifetime. I did keep my hands where they belonged. At least for the most part. But nothing mattered except each other.

  It might have gone on forever if the door to the upstairs hadn’t opened and her dad hadn’t called out “Amy?”

  Both of us froze as a bolt of sheer terror passed over us. Our eyes locked in fear then we sprang apart like opposing magnets. A force field separating us as quickly as possible.

  “Are you down here?” her dad said as he walked down the stairs. Each heavy step hitting me like a bullet to the brain.