Forgotten Rules: A Brother's Best Friend Romance

by Eliah Greenwood

  “One beating wasn’t enough, huh? You need more?” Will grips the chubby man’s collar and punches him to the ground. That’s my cue. I’m at Will’s side in seconds, holding him back before he dives in for round two.

  “Will, stop!”

  “What the hell? I told you to stay in the car!” Will shouts, worry crossing his features when he sees me. The man jumps at Will’s inattention, seizing the opportunity to crawl into his car and bolt. The vehicle roars down the street before we know it.

  “Fuck!” Will kicks the trash can by the trailer in anger. “I have her fucking money right here. I…” He gestures to his own car. “She couldn’t have waited a goddamn hour. She had to…”

  Realization of what’s happening here makes me sick to my stomach. I wanted to give his mother the benefit of the doubt, but the evidence is damning.

  She’s prostituting herself.

  In exchange for her fix.

  And I’m guessing Will is paying for her shit because he would rather give her money himself than watch her…

  Oh my God.

  Then, as if it wasn’t bad enough, the door creaks open. A frail woman who seems to be in her early forties stands on the other side, her post-sex, honey-colored hair cascading down her shoulders. Wearing a lilac bathrobe, she looks like she just woke up. Her delicate features peek through the dark spots under her eyes. I’ll admit, she’s nothing like what I pictured.

  Sure, she looks older than her age, exhausted and a bit worn-out by a hard life, but she’s still beautiful—Will had to get his charm somewhere. Her good looks solidify my hunch. I’m sure she’s got plenty of dealers willing to negotiate.

  “Honey, y-you’re here early.” She tries to smooth down her hair. “I thought I heard something.”

  Lady, you thought you heard something? How about a violent altercation and a glass bottle being smashed against your house? I don’t know what she took, but it’s working.

  “Oh.” She notices me. “Baby, is that her? Your girlfriend? William, she’s so pretty.”

  It’s strange.

  Hearing her call Will by his full name.

  “Kassidy, is it? It’s so nice to meet you.” She holds out her hand to me.

  I see it now.

  She’s the kind of person you want to believe. Charismatic, seemingly harmless—manipulative. Must be how she keeps her son wrapped around her pinky. I lift my hand to meet hers, but Will stops me, catching my fingers into his.

  “You’re not meeting her. We’re out of here. Come on.” He urges me toward the car.

  “William!” She runs after us, too intoxicated to notice the glass cracking under her slippers. “Why are you leaving? Sweetie, what’s wrong?”

  Will spins. “What’s wrong is you fucking called Steve!”

  His mom stops short.

  “Honey, you have to understand, he… He’s helping me. He said he’d find me a job.”

  Will’s anger decreases. Don’t tell me he’s falling for it. I squeeze his hand in the dumb hope it’ll knock some sense into him. Much to my surprise, it works.

  “Let me guess, as his own personal whore?”

  His mother’s jaw hits the floor, her skin paling.

  “Save your breath. I saw him sneak out.”

  She smacks her mouth shut, knowing damn well she’s busted.

  “You were never looking for work, were you?”

  “William, please. It’s just not the right time for me, I’ll… I’ll get back on my feet soon, I promise.”

  Will opens my car door for me, willing me to slide into the passenger seat. As he rounds the vehicle to reach the driver’s side, his mom leaps in his way.

  “William, wait,” I hear her beg through my opened window.

  “What?” he snaps.

  Slightly trembling, she has the audacity to ask, “Do you have it? The m-money?”

  Wow.

  “Are you kidding me?” he hisses. “That’s what you care about right now?”

  “Of course not. Y-you know I love you, baby. So much,” she backpedals. “But I need it. I’ll pay you back when I find work. Please just… give it to me.”

  He huffs a scoff.

  Climbs inside the car.

  And speeds away.

  We spend the rest of the day driving around, listening to music and pretending like our “lunch” with his mom didn’t go to hell. I don’t bring up what happened once, talking about anything but the elephant in the room. Will seems to appreciate it, entertaining my drivel without hesitation.

  The sun is setting by the time Will drives us up the hill he first took me when he came back into town, snatching a parking spot that’s the equivalent of a front-row seat to Mother Nature’s show. He kills the ignition, leaving the radio on and keeping quiet for a while.

  “Do you see it now?” he eventually breathes out.

  “See what?”

  “Why I didn’t want to bring you into this?”

  Pain spreads through my rib cage.

  “Jesus, your first time meeting my mom and she…” He throws his head back against the headrest. “I can’t imagine what you must think of me.”

  He can’t imagine what I must think of him?

  “I’ll tell you what I think.”

  I unbuckle my seat belt, propping my foot up on the seat and hugging my knee to my chest.

  “I think you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.”

  “Right,” he scoffs.

  “It’s true. I think you were dealt a shit hand in life, and you did the best you could with what you had.”

  He once told me he didn’t want me to look at him like he was broken. What he doesn’t know is…

  I’ve yet to meet someone who isn’t.

  “Listen to me.” I snatch his hand into mine. “You’re insane if you think this could ever, in a hundred lifetimes, make me look at you differently. Are we clear?”

  He stares blankly ahead of him, drawing small circles on the inside of my hand with his finger.

  “Are we clear?” I press.

  He doesn’t give me words.

  But he gives me a nod.

  Small victories.

  “Can I ask who that guy was?” I change the topic.

  He exhales deeply. “That was Steve, the dirtbag that got us off the street. Also the guy who got my mom into hard-core drugs when I was nine.”

  My heart cracks.

  How is he so casual about it?

  “We moved in with him a year later. Long story short, he’s the typical abusive, piece-of-shit stepdad. Slapped my mom around for years, but he kept the dope coming, so she stayed. Then I started fighting.”

  This piece of information alone fills a hundred gaps.

  He learned to fight to protect her.

  Not himself.

  Her.

  “He kept his hands to himself for a while. He knew I could take him. Until I moved out. The second I left, he started again. Gave her a black eye two months ago. So, Kendrick came over, and we returned the favor.”

  There’s a whole part of him I don’t know. Hell, I don’t even know my own brother.

  “I got my mom into the car, moved her somewhere I knew he wouldn’t find her. She promised she wouldn’t tell him where she was. That she was done, and she’d get her shit in order, and well… you know how that turned out.”

  I’m angry for him.

  She went running back the second the withdrawal hit.

  “And I know I shouldn’t give her money. I’m only enabling the problem, but I don’t know what else to fucking do. I… I can’t just sit back and watch her screw any willing dealer.”

  I’m at a loss for words.

  This is awful.

  Downright awful.

  “Anyway, there you go. My sob story summed up in a few sentences. Anything else you want to know?” He heaves a resentful laugh. I know he said it as a joke, and this may be the worst moment to bring this up, but…

  I have to ask.

  “Actua
lly, there is.”

  He waits for me to elaborate.

  “Yesterday, when you were drunk, you… you said something about a girl. That asshole Dixon mentioned her at Zoey’s birthday, too. Lyla… I think?”

  As if you don’t know what her name is.

  That’s what knocks his façade down.

  Her name.

  He swallows hard, his eyes turning red as his jaw flexes. He sounded so detached telling me the truth today. Really had me thinking he was okay with all of this. But he’s not. He’s been flirting with the line since this morning, flirting with the edge. His heart isn’t as solid as he’d like me to think. And sooner or later, all that is fragile…

  Breaks.

  “She was Dixon’s stepsister.” He clears his throat. “And my girlfriend.”

  I despise the sting of jealousy. Loathe it to my core. But it hurts all the same. A part of me always knew she had to be important to him, but I somehow deluded myself into thinking that she was a fling. That I was the first to gain the girlfriend title.

  “What do you mean was Dixon’s stepsister?”

  “She died. In the Blue River fire three years ago.”

  Tragic newspaper articles flash in front of my eyes, memories of the devastating fire at a local high school compressing my lungs. I can still see the headline: Eight students perish during a Saturday detention. It was all everybody could talk about for months after it happened. Rumors and false information spread through town like wildfires. They’d say it was a cigarette that did it one day, and a faulty gas line the next. No one could figure out what started the fire.

  Eventually, it was filed an accident.

  Crushed by lawsuit from the victims’ parents, Blue River High closed its doors, earning Riverside High, its competitor and the only high school I’ve ever known, a dramatic number of transfers. Then people moved on with their lives. Forgot all about it.

  Even I’d forgotten about it.

  “I’m so sorry” is all I can think to say.

  “Don’t be. It was a long time ago. I’m past it.”

  Sure didn’t look like he was past it last night.

  “Are you sure? Because yesterday, it sounded like you were blaming yourself. You said it was your fault.”

  “It was. Kind of. Took me years to forgive myself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m the one who landed her in detention. She would’ve never been in the school if it weren’t for me.”

  “Oh.” I nod, but I can’t shake the feeling that there’s more.

  I remember the guilt on his face.

  The agony in his voice.

  There has to be more.

  “You should go.”

  His request stops my racing thoughts cold.

  “What?” I blink at him.

  He can’t be doing this again.

  He scoffs. “You heard me. Go. I just told you my mom is a crack addict who prostitutes herself and my ex-girlfriend was burned alive. Why the hell are you still here? Run. Save yourself before my fucked-up life swallows you whole.” He gestures to the door. “I won’t hold it against you.”

  I’m struck dumb.

  “Is that what you think I want?”

  He pauses.

  “I think it’s what you need.”

  If it weren’t for the fact that he can’t even look at me, as though he can’t bear the possibility of me coming to my senses and taking his advice, I might actually fall for it. I might actually buy that he wants me out of his life.

  But acting was never his strong suit.

  And giving up isn’t mine.

  “No.”

  His eyes cut to my face, full of question marks.

  “No?”

  “That’s right. No. You don’t get to decide what I need.”

  A painful pit crawling up my throat, I unbuckle his seat belt, climbing onto his lap before he can protest. I straddle him, caging his body with mine, threatening to tear his walls down with a weapon he thought harmless.

  Proximity.

  If he’s going to lie to me, he’d better look me straight in the eyes while he does it. And if he truly wants me gone, he’s going to have to reach through my chest and rip out my beating heart himself.

  He doesn’t move a muscle, his gaze drilled to the dashboard.

  “Look at me,” I command, angling his chin forward and robbing him of a choice. He winces at the eye contact. “Read my lips. I’m. Not. Fucking. Leaving.”

  I can see him fighting it. Fighting us. Swimming against the current of not one, but a thousand seas, facing a tidal wave he knows will kill him, but he’d rather it be him…

  Than me.

  “I’m going to ruin you, Kass.”

  “Then ruin me.”

  The second my lips descend upon his, he surrenders himself over, kissing me so hard I stagger backward. He holds me in position, his arm knotting around my waist. He kisses me like I’m his last wish and he’s a dying man. His lips taste like all that is bright and warm in the world.

  But… they also taste like all that is dark and cold.

  He’s falling apart.

  I can’t stomach seeing him like this.

  How long has he been denying himself anything real? How many good things has he pulled the plug on in fear of life screwing him over? All I know is I can’t take another minute of that look in his eyes. So, I do the only thing I can think of to chase it away.

  I unbuckle his belt.

  His breath jumps when I tug his jeans down with frantic, clumsy hands.

  “Baby, wait, we don’t… We don’t have to do this,” he rasps, the lust in his voice dismantling his credibility.

  He wants this.

  I want this.

  He just needs to let me give it to him. I sneak a hand inside his briefs and free him. He pops out between us.

  Straining.

  Thick.

  Hard.

  He opens his mouth to argue, and I shut him up with a slow, longing kiss, fumbling with the hem of his T-shirt and jerking it over his head. I pull back to drink in his ridiculously defined body, running my fingertips along the cut of his pecs, his abs, and finally, bunching the summer dress I wore to impress his mother up my thighs. His eyes flare as I wiggle my panties down my legs, tracking the movement with eager attention.

  I grip his length.

  He groans.

  “Kass, did you hear me?”

  I love that he’s trying to be a gentleman. To clarify that this wasn’t his end goal. And when I dig through the glove compartment of his car for protection, there’s not a single doubt in my mind. He didn’t think this would happen, hence his forgetting to refill his stash.

  There’s nothing.

  Not one condom.

  Our eyes link up, the situation’s high stakes dawning on us.

  I’ve never gone bareback with anyone in my life. And in that moment, when I look up at the damaged, blue-eyed boy in the driver’s seat, I can’t think of a better person to do this with. But there are other factors to take into consideration.

  “I’m clean. Just got checked.” He reads my mind.

  “Me too.”

  “You’re on the pill, right?”

  I nod.

  That short conversation is the green light we needed. I crash our lips together, fisting my hand up and down his shaft, working him quick and hard. He heaves a curse as I guide his tip to my entrance. Only then does he seem to realize what we’re about to do. His eyes fly open.

  “Kass…”

  It’s one word. But it holds so much meaning. I read between the lines. Hear him loud and clear. He’s telling me this is my last chance.

  My last out.

  He’s saying, If you don’t run now, I’m never letting you go. I cup his face, tears threatening to spill down my cheeks.

  “I’m here.” I tell him the same thing he once said to me, stifling a shaky plea. “Let me be here.”

  Then I sink down his length.

  In
ch by inch, I take him.

  Until he’s balls-deep inside me.

  Bare.

  For the first time.

  A grunt resonates from somewhere deep within his throat, and his hands dart to my waist. Mine grip his shoulders. I hoist myself up, then slide down, creating perfect friction.

  I do it again.

  And again.

  Will draws me in for a long kiss.

  “Fuck, this feels…” He almost sounds in pain.

  “I know,” I croak against his mouth.

  He brings me down onto his lap roughly, intensifying my moans and jerking my dress out of the way to watch as he fills me. I slip my fingers into his hair, picking up the pace with every heart-wrenching second. The sensation is so intense, so strong, it’s almost… too much. I’ve never been this emotional during sex, and based on Will’s bloodshot eyes, I’d say the feeling’s mutual. He tugs at my dress, obviously annoyed that I’m wearing so much clothes, and yanks the fabric down my chest until my breasts break free, jiggling along to his wild thrusting. He devours my skin, his tongue teasing, swirling around my nipples. I can’t help clenching around him, needing more.

  “If the World Was Ending” by JP Saxe and Julia Michaels plays on the radio, our hearts beating along to the chorus. He releases my nipples, his hand banding around the back of my neck for a hungry, breathtaking kiss. Our eyes meet, my lips dipping open when his hips press into me, pumping deeper. He nudges a loose strand of my blonde hair behind my ear.

  “Will.” I can’t suppress a breathy moan.

  It’s like a click.

  Like I just gave him his heart’s version of an insurance policy. Like he needed me to go through hell with him, see his demons up close and still come out the other side before he could say it.

  “Fuck, I love you,” he chokes out.

  My lungs feel constricted.

  My heart squashed into a fist.

  “I love you, Kass. So much. Too much,” he repeats.

  Someone tell that thing in my chest to calm down. Tears soak my cheeks, streaming down my face.

  “I love you.” I kiss him with salty lips.

  Our lips join with each thrust.