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

“Alexa? What are you doing here?” I guess that
answered my question.

“You’re not answering my texts or my calls. I was
worried about you.” Why wasn’t he inviting me in? He had his body in the
doorway like he was barring my entrance. Talk about hostile body language. What
the hell?

“I’m fine,” he said. “I was just on my way out. I
have to meet with the fight promoter.” He reached over to the table next to the
door and picked up his keys. Then he twisted the lock and stepped out. I didn’t
want to think he had someone else in there, but it was almost like he wanted me
to.

“Ian? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I told you, I’m fine. I just have
to go. I’m running late.” He turned his back on me and headed for the stairs. I
was freaking out a little. I went over and stood between him and the stairwell.

“Ian, talk to me. Are you angry with me? I just
needed some time, I thought you understood that. I wasn’t mad….”

“I’m not angry, Alexa, but I’m getting there. I need
to go and you’re making me late. You need to just let me go, okay?”

“Why are you treating me like this? I didn’t do
anything wrong?” He pushed past me, not literally, he didn’t touch me, but he
brushed by and went down the stairs. Again, I followed him. Maybe I needed to
learn when to give up. “Ian, please talk to me!” He just ignored me and kept
walking. I’m not sure what I thought I was going to accomplish, but I kept
following him. I was hurt and angry and really, really pissed that I was
practically begging him to talk to me and he wouldn’t.

“Ian!” I said one more time as he got into his car.
Then I stood there and watched him leave, not even glancing at me as he did. My
chest was aching and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Why would he do this to
me? If he didn’t want to be with me, didn’t I at least deserve to know why? Why
was he acting like such a jerk?

I went back home and stayed in my room the rest of
the day and night. When Dad got home, I pretended like I was asleep. I didn’t
want to talk to him about Ian. I didn’t want to talk about anything. I was too
busy obsessing over what I did to warrant Ian’s attitude earlier. I kept going
over our recent conversations in my head and I couldn’t come up with an
explanation for his behavior. Just before his ex-girlfriend got there, we had
been having a great time. What the hell happened between then and now? I knew
it was going to drive me crazy if I didn’t at least find out why. When the
reminder went off on my phone for his fight the next night, I decided that I
was going to go and afterwards, he was going to talk to me whether he liked it
or not.

CHAPTER
SIX

IAN

I went to the meeting with my promoter, sick to my
stomach about how I’d treated Alexa. I know that it hurt her, I could see it
all over her face and I had to wonder if this
was
any
better than continuing to see her would have been. I’d made a promise to her
father though and I felt like since he knew his daughter a lot better than I
did, he had to know what he was talking about. While I was in my meeting, my
phone buzzed twice. I checked it on my way out of the office and saw that one
was from my mother and the other from Kristie. Fuck! That woman just couldn’t
take no for an answer. I ignored the one from Kristie and checked the one from
Mom. It just said,

“Ian,
I’m sorry to bother you honey but if you have a minute, could you stop by
today?”

My head was already pounding, but what choice did I
really have? I texted her back and told her I was on my way. When I got there,
I found her and my dad both sitting out on the back patio. I stopped and looked
out the glass doors at them for a few minutes before they knew that I was
there. They both looked so old. They weren’t even looking at each other, both
just staring off into space as if the other one wasn’t even there. I couldn’t
help but wonder how long their relationship was going to be able to survive
this. They had been married almost thirty years and there was a time when I
would have sworn nothing could have torn them apart. But nobody could have ever
anticipated losing Emma. I know they love me and losing me would have been
hard…but losing Emma was like someone just flipped the light switch in their
world off and they had no idea how to turn it back on.

I forced myself to go out there and put on a happy
face.

“Hi guys!” I said as I slid open the door.

 
“Hi Ian,” Mom
said. I kissed her cheek.

“Hey buddy,” my dad said, getting up to give me a
hug. I sat down at the table with them and said, “So what’s up?”

Mom and Dad looked at each other and something
passed between them. Finally they both looked at me and Mom said, “We’re going
to sell the house.”

“What? Why?”

Dad looked at me with sad eyes and said, “Because
neither of us can stand to be here any longer, Ian. There are too many
memories…it’s too painful. Your mother thinks this is the solution.”

I could tell by the way he’d said that, he wasn’t
too sure. “So you’re going to sell it? You’re just going to get rid of the
memories of my sister’s childhood…and I know this doesn’t matter to anyone, but
mine too?”

“Oh Ian, honey please don’t say that. Of course
yours matter too.” Mom was getting tears in her eyes and Dad looked like
someone was shoving needles in his body over and over. I felt bad for them
both, but I was pissed. Mom went on.

“It just hurts so much to be surrounded by the
memories day in and day out. Everything here reminds us of her. It’s not that
we want to forget her honey…it’s just that neither of us seems to be able to
get past this grief. We can’t move on. We’re just stuck. We were hoping if we
sold the house and started over, we could take her memories with us, but we
wouldn’t be surrounded by them. I know this has been your home your whole life
too. Of course we thought about you. We haven’t even talked to a realtor yet.
We wanted to talk to you first.”

“So you’d sell it, and then what? Where would you go
and start over?”

“We were thinking maybe an apartment in the city.
Dad’s work is there anyways and I could find lots to do to keep me busy…Please
don’t be angry, Ian,” Mom’s voice cracked.

“I’m not angry. I’m just…confused, I guess. I know
that you need to be able to move on …and I want that, for both of you. But…”

“It feels like we’re running away.”

Dad hit the nail on the head. It felt like they were
running away. As stupid as it sounded, it felt like they were abandoning me. “I
guess it feels that way because we are,” he said. He gave my mother another
sideways glance and said, “We went to a grief support group last week and when
we mentioned that we’d thought about doing this, the response was
overwhelmingly negative.” I suddenly knew this was entirely Mom’s decision, not
his. He was going along with it for her peace of mind, I guess. I was just
afraid they’d go through with it and not find the peace they were looking for.

“Why was the response negative?” I asked. I’d never
lost a child, but the people at this group my parents went to have. It would
stand to reason that they’d know a lot more about it.

“They say that a lot of people do it, thinking it’s
going to help, and it doesn’t,” Mom said. Then she looked at me with those sad
blue eyes and said, “But Ian, we’ve tried everything else.” She glanced back at
my father again. He wasn’t looking at either one of us but he started talking
again,

 
“They also
talked about the siblings,” he said, looking at me finally. “They talked about
how your own grief overwhelms you so much that a grieving parent tends to
forget that their children are grieving too. I think we’ve done this to you and
we feel so badly about it. I’m worried that you’re going to look at this as
another way we’re leaving you behind.”

“That’s not it!” Mom said, crying again, “I just
can’t stand another day sitting in this house thinking that it’s always going
to be this way.” I pulled my chair over closer and hugged her. I could see my
father out of the corner of my eye. He looked so broken. God, I hate this.

I held my mom and let this all run through my head
and then I said, “I’m going to say this and then you two can do whatever it is
you think is right. I love you both too, and I know you love me. I know that
being around Emma was like breathing life itself in, and it’s hard to breathe
without her around. She wasn’t my child, so maybe what I’m feeling is
different…but the way that I’ve been able to cope and get out of bed each day
since this happened was by hanging on to the memories. I need to say her name
out loud and tell stories about her. Alexa and I have spent a lot of time
together talking about her. It makes losing her feel less final. I know the two
of you remember her every second…but you don’t talk about her. Like I said, she
wasn’t my child so I could be wrong…but I don’t see that getting rid of the
memories…the very things that are keeping her alive is going to help.”

“I feel the same,” my father said. Mom started
crying again and I spent a really long time just holding her and letting her
cry. By the time I left, over an hour later, they were at least talking to each
other about exploring some other options before they made such a huge decision.

 
I hate this
shit and every time I feel this way the only thing I want besides my sister
back is to talk to Alexa. Now I’ve screwed that up and I didn’t know what to do
with all of the emotions. I got in the car and just sat there for a while.
Then, I looked at the phone and as badly as it worked out the last time, I
actually read Kristie’s message.

“Ian.
I’m sorry I showed up without calling the other night. I understand we’re not
together, but can’t we still be friends?”

On impulse, like I seemed to be doing everything
lately I texted her back,
“Yes. We can be
friends. I could use one today.”

Almost immediately she responded,
“Are you at home?”

“Heading
there now.”

“I’ll
be right there.”
 

Damn it! What the hell is wrong with me? I glanced
up at my parents’ house and I made a mental list: My sister is dead. The girl I
thought I might be falling for is out of my life. My parents are selling the
only real home I’ve ever known and all of my sister’s memories…Kristie is
willing to be there for me. I can’t stand the thought of being alone right now.

I put the car in reverse and backed out of the
driveway. I gave the house one more glance. I saw the image of my sister,
playing soccer in the front yard when she was seven and she decided she wanted
to be Mia Hamm. As crazy as it sounds, I waved at her. She waved back with that
big, classic, Emma smile. I let the tears overwhelm me and I cried all the way
back to my apartment.

I saw Kristie’s car as I got close to the parking
lot so I circled the block once and cleaned up my face. When I finally pulled
into the lot, she got out of her car and came over to meet me.

“How are you doing?” she said. She sounded sincere,
or I wanted to believe that she was.

“Up and down,” I told her. She hugged me and my
first thought was how much better it would feel to hug Alexa.

“You want to go get a drink or something?” she said.

“No. I have a fight tomorrow. I don’t drink before a
fight. It gets me all bloated.”

“Okay. Maybe I could just hang out with you for a
while then?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Why I didn’t just say no? Why had I texted her back
in the first place…I had no idea. I put myself into these situations. I guess
the drama distracted me maybe from the grief. She followed me up to the
apartment and we went inside. I got us both a bottle of water and we sat down
on the couch. It was uncomfortable. I had no idea what to say to her.

“Ian?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“I know things have been bad between us lately, but
I am really sorry about what you’re going through. I wish you would let me
help.”

“I appreciate that,” I told her, “but I’m not sure how
you can.”

“You need a friend…”

Reality washed over me and I said, “We never really
were friends, Kristie. We were lovers…at best.” She looked hurt and I felt bad,
but it was the truth. That was the big difference between her and Alexa. I
really felt like Alexa was my friend, not just because she was Emma’s friend,
but because she and I legitimately had a lot in common.

“I don’t remember it that way,” she said. “We did a
lot of other things besides sex. The sex was fantastic.” She looked at me as if
looking for confirmation. I kept my face neutral. Once again I was thinking,
“Not like it is with Alexa.”

“But we did other things.”

 
I finally
nodded. If that’s how she wanted to remember it, I guess it didn’t really hurt
anything and it made her feel better. It was at that moment it dawned on me
that as crazy as I accused her of being…maybe a lot of it was my fault. How
many times have I texted her lately because I was desperate for company, only
to end up telling her to get lost?