Best Friend's Brother #4 (Best Friend's Brother Romance Series - Book #4) (3 page)

I felt like he’d just punched me in the gut. What
was I supposed to say? I
was here because I couldn’t stand
the thought of being without her and her father was here, telling
me I
was hurting her and she didn’t need me. I need her.
 

“I never had any intentions of hurting her. I care
about Alexa and she and I have been helping each other through this thing with
Emma…”

“If you’re helping her then why is she so
miserable?”

“Like you said, this is not an easy thing to deal
with for any of us…” he kept interrupting me. I was talking faster, trying to
get my own point out before he did.

“She’s grieving over Emma, but this is more. This is
her starting to think that what she has with you is more than you leaning on
her and her leaning on you. This is setting her up to fall hard. You’re not
helping her, Ian. She’s not happy. The best thing you can do for her if you
truly care about her like you say…is walk away now.”

“What if that’s not what she wants?”

“She’s confused and hurting. She has no idea what
she wants or needs right now. Leave her alone and she’ll be okay. She’s
strong…but if you hang around and keep hurting
her
when she’s already broken…you could leave a permanent scar. I’m sick of seeing
her come home from being with you looking like her heart has been broken…again.
Just leave her alone, Ian. She’s a good girl. She deserves better.”

I had no intentions of hurting Alexa. Even if things
didn’t work out for us dating, I still cared about her. She was Emma’s best
friend and that alone gave her a special rank. But there was more than that…so
much more. I wanted so badly to continue to explore it and figure out where it
was going. This was all new to me. Of course I’d had girlfriends before…but
none of them had affected me the way that Alexa does. How am I supposed to just
walk away from that?

“I never wanted to hurt her.”

“I doubt that was your intention…but she’s hurting
nonetheless. So now you need to man up and do something about it.”

“And you think that walking away from her now is not
going to hurt her?” I failed to see how just walking away when she was still
going through all of this crap was manning up.

“Not as badly as it would hurt her on down the road.
People get into relationships and let themselves believe that it’s going to be
forever. They throw themselves into it 100% and then when it doesn’t work
out…they feel like they’ve lost everything. After what she’s been through, I
don’t know if she could handle that. It would be devastating.”

I wondered what made him think it wasn’t going to
work out. I had been taking this thing with Alexa as it came a day at a time. I
hadn’t considered much farther into the future than that. Was I ready to commit
to forever? No. I wanted her; I knew that as much as I knew I’d be taking my
next breath. Did I want her forever? Was she going to want me forever? I
couldn’t answer that question, and maybe that was what he was talking about.

“So you think I should just not contact her anymore?
I shouldn’t at least talk to her about this and see what it is that she wants?”

“I think not contacting her would be best. She’s
confused, Ian. She’s hurting and she doesn’t know what she wants. If you walk
away now, before she gets too attached, her feelings will be hurt, but at least
her heart won’t be broken.”

I felt numb. I wished he was wrong but what if he
wasn’t? I had already hurt her quite a bit in the short time we’d been
together. I was, by history, a screw up. What made me think it would be any
different from here on out? Was it okay for me to risk hurting her because of
what I wanted? Not if I really cared about her…and I did…I do.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay? You’ll leave her alone?”

He sounded surprised. Maybe I had given in too
easily. Fuck, I have no idea.

“Yeah, I’ll leave her alone. I don’t want to hurt
her.”

“Thank you, Ian.” He looked relieved and I realized
that he knew I really had the power here to refuse. Did it make me less of a
man for not refusing him, or more? I had no fucking clue, but lately, that was
a permanent state of mind for me.

I went home, feeling like a bigger piece of crap
than I had before. I lost my sister and now I felt like I’d lost my best
friend. I wanted to hit something. I paced around the apartment for a while
like a caged animal and finally went to the gym.

I went straight for the bag. I wanted to just wail
on it, I was so frustrated. But I knew that I had to find some control
somewhere, so I just ran it like a regular circuit workout. I started with my
right leg, doing low kicks for five reps. When I worked out on the bag, I’d
gotten good at using my imagination to picture my opponent and where my kicks
and punches would be landing on a live person. Today, I pictured Kristie. I
would never, ever hit
her…but it was cathartic to think
about it.

I kicked the lower half of the bag, picturing her
legs…those long, overly tanned legs. I did a pivot on my support foot and
turned my hip as I delivered the kick. Maximum power. Then I switched legs and
did another five before switching to high-kick. I kicked the top of the
bag…aiming for her overly made-up face. I did five of those on each leg and by
that time I was starting to sweat. I tried to visualize the stress leaving my
body with the sweat.

I let myself really start punching then. I started
with twenty straight punches, alternating hands. I guess I’m not a complete
asshole because even though I tried to visualize Kristie’s head snapping back
as I threw the punch, I couldn’t do it. I replaced it with a visual of the guy
I’d be fighting for the championship, Gilbert “Gil” Morris. I didn’t have any
problem picturing his head bobbing with the impact of my fist.

I switched to a left hook and did twenty of those
too and then did it all again with a right hook. I finished up with a knee
strike…I did five of those on each leg.

Before I left the gym I showered, and on the way
home I got something to eat. By the time I got back to my apartment, I was
feeling a little better. I walked in and dropped my bag and spent the rest of
the afternoon and evening vegging out in front of the television, watching
mindless sitcoms.

I was getting ready to call it a night when I heard
my text message tone. I realized then that I had left the phone in my gym bag.
I hadn’t even missed it. I went and fished it out and when I saw the text was
from Alexa, I felt a sharp pain in my chest. This was the moment of truth. Was
I going to keep the promise I made to her dad? Did I want to? The answer to the
second question was no. I didn’t want to. I wanted to reach out to her. I ached
for it. But I’d made a promise and with good reason. I didn’t want to hurt her.
She did deserve better than that. With a “Fuck!” out loud to the empty room, I
turned the phone off, tossed it back in the bag and went to bed.

CHAPTER
FIVE

ALEXA

After I pulled myself together, I ended up having a
good time at the mall. Everything continued to remind me of Emma, but I tried
to approach all those thoughts from the point of view of good memories. I
allowed myself to smile when I remembered how she had once walked through the
electronic toy section at the toy store and pushed a button on each toy so by
the time we left the aisle it was a cacophony of noise. I got an iced coffee at
the place where she used to buy an entire bag of chocolate covered coffee beans
and eat until she got a “buzz,” she used to say. I tried on bathing suits and
remembered being here with her last year before we left for college doing the
same thing. I choked up over that one a little bit, but I fought through it. I
was hopeful when I left there that one day all of my memories of her would
bring a smile to my face instead of a pain to my heart.

 
The time
alone was good for me; Dad had been right about that. I ended up buying a few
things, but I didn’t break the bank and I had an epiphany on the way home. I’d
spent my day thinking about Emma mostly, but occasionally I’d let Ian slip in
there. I realized when he did that I completely believed him when he told me
that nothing happened between him and his ex. I believed him right away. I
didn’t doubt him at all. I had to examine why that was and the decision I came
up with was that it was because I trusted him. I trust him. I have fun with
him. I can talk to him. I’m crazy attracted to him. So why was I torturing
myself? Maybe I was becoming addicted to the drama. I needed to get past that
crap that was for sure. I knew what I wanted and I needed to just go for it. I wanted
to be with him, more than anything.

When I got home I found Dad in the back yard, mowing
the lawn. I poured him a glass of iced tea and took it out to him.

“Thank you. So, how was it?” he asked.

“It was good. Really good. Thank you for suggesting
it.” I handed him the AMEX card and said, “I only bought a couple things and I
had enough so I didn’t use the card. But thanks Dad, for everything.” I hugged
him. He smelled like fresh-cut lawn and Dad. I thought about telling him that
I’d also decided to keep seeing Ian…but I thought maybe I should talk to Ian
first and he and I could decide together where we were at and where we wanted
to let this thing go. That way when Dad started asking questions, I would have
answers. Besides, I got the feeling it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Before I
went to bed I sent Ian a text that said, “I’d like to see you. Can we talk?”

I left it at that and went to sleep. I slept a lot
better than I had the night before. The first thing I did after I once again
shook off the horror that was beginning to be the morning norm for me, was
reach for the phone. I was literally stunned when I saw that he’d never
responded. That was strange. I didn’t let myself panic over it though,
remembering my promise to stop living in the drama. I just sent him another one
that said,

“Hey!
Did you get my text?”

I got up after that and went about my morning routine.
I refused to even carry the phone around with me. I trusted that he would text
back. I took my shower and then I stayed busy for the next couple of hours
doing laundry and cleaning up around the house. My dad had gone to visit his
friend, so I had the house to myself. I turned up the music and while I cleaned
I thought about what I would say when I saw Ian. I was going to tell him that
we needed to just start fresh and be honest about everything. I really wanted
it to work with him, and I thought that he did too. I think we have both been
so afraid that the other was only in this for the short term while the grief
passed that we were afraid to be completely honest about how we were feeling…at
least I had. I was hoping he felt the same.

After I finished the housework I let myself check my
phone again. There were two text messages. One from my dad that said,
“Hey Princess. Just checking in.
You doing
okay today?”

I texted back:
“I’m
good, Dad. Don’t worry. Have fun.”

The other message was from a girl from school named
Heather. Heather said,

“Just
wanted to make sure you were doing okay. Haven’t heard from you. Worried.”
 

Heather was a new friend, but she was a good one. I
measured all my friends by Emma standards. Most of them didn’t pass. The bar
was set pretty high. The odds were looking good for Heather though. She would
never take Emma’s place, but she could definitely work out as a long-term close
friend. I texted back
.

 
“Thanks for checking in. I’m hanging in there.
I hope you and everyone at school are doing well. I miss you guys, but home is
what I need right now. Maybe we can have dinner or drinks next week?”

I was trying to stall. I didn’t want to have to face
the fact that there was nothing from Ian. Suddenly my mind started going to
dark places. What if something happened? What if there was something wrong? No
one would think to call me if he was in an accident. No one except my dad even
really knew that Ian and I were involved. I decided I’d call him and if he
was
in the hospital or something, someone else would answer
if it rang, right? I pulled up his number and pressed send. I held my breath,
but I didn’t have to hold it for long. It went straight to voicemail. What the
hell? Maybe he was at the gym…but would that explain why he didn’t answer my
texts?

I spent the next hour worrying, pacing and trying to
call him back. I even considered calling his mom, just to see if she heard from
him. Then I thought about how horrible that would be if something really was
wrong and decided against it. It just didn’t make sense to me why he wouldn’t
text me back…or why he had his phone off. When I left his apartment, neither of
us was angry…at least I didn’t think so. I just told him I needed some space,
and he gave that to me. I told him I wasn’t angry and I don’t recall doing
anything that should have upset him. So why was he ignoring me now? There had
to be something wrong, it was the only explanation I could come up with. I
grabbed my purse and keys and headed out to his apartment to find out.

When I got there and knocked on the door, I had
butterflies in my stomach. I couldn’t stop letting my mind go to those ugly
places where something terrible happened to him and his parents and I would
have to go through what we had with Emma, all over again. He didn’t answer on
the first knock, so I knocked again, that time more urgently. A few seconds
passed and he pulled the door open. First he looked surprised…and then annoyed.
Was he that unhappy to see me?