Best Friend's Brother #2 (Best Friend's Brother Romance Series - Book #2)

Best
Friend’s Brother #2

BOOK
2

By
Alycia Taylor

Copyright
2015.
All rights reserved.

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CHAPTER
ONE

IAN

I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth and finally
feeling like everything in the world didn’t suck. I was riding the high that
came from a night with Alexa. It wasn’t just the hot sex…although that was a
large factor, it was that I was so comfortable with her and being with her made
me happy. My heart still hurt when I thought about poor, sweet Emma, but after
being with Alexa tonight I at least felt alive again. Since I got the call
about Emma, nothing has felt good…and then again, nothing has really felt bad
either. It’s all been just numb and sometimes I think that’s a worse feeling
than bad. Tonight I didn’t feel numb, I felt amazing.

When I first met Alexa, I felt a connection to her
right then, as soon as I started talking to her at Emma’s funeral. I thought
then that it was just about Emma and the fact that we had both loved her so
much and we were both grieving. But after tonight, I’m positive there is more
to it than that. I’ve been with a lot of women and none of them had made me
feel the way she does. She gets me and she has the same feelings that I do
about Emma so I don’t have to describe them to her. And then there was the
sex…Damn
!
 
I’m
not usually the kind of guy who seeks out the inexperienced ones and I’ve never
really seen the draw in virgins. I never wanted to have to be a teacher in my
bed. But with Alexa, although it was clear that she was inexperienced in the
sexual acts, the feeling of every one of her touches was so overwhelming that
the rest of it was just as powerful.

I finished brushing my teeth and I looked at myself
in the mirror. I was actually able to smile and not feel guilty about it. I
think Emma would want me to be happy. Most importantly, I think she would
appreciate the fact that around Alexa I can be myself. I can be the person that
Emma knew. That’s the guy who comes out when Alexa is around. He’s the real me
that not many other people know…not even my close friends. I don’t have to
worry about what Alexa is thinking of me or this image of being the “tough
guy.” I don’t have to stay strong for her the way I do Mom and Dad. She doesn’t
need me for that. I can just be me…a guy who just had his heart torn out and
finds himself standing and staring numbly in strange places throughout the day,
not knowing what to do. I can admit that to her and she completely understands.

I was on cloud nine right up until I came out of the
bathroom and found her clutching her clothes to her chest. She must have gotten
up and collected them while I was in the bathroom since they’d been scattered
from the living room to in here.

“Where are you going?” I asked her. At first I
thought I was joking. Surely, she was just going to put on something to wear to
bed. It was after two in the morning. She looked at me like a deer in the
headlights and I briefly wondered if she was going to sneak out while I was in
the bathroom. “Are you leaving?” I asked her, incredulously.

“Yeah, I have a lot to do today.”
Today?
Does she mean now, at two-fifteen a.m.?

“
Oookay
….but technically,
it’s not even morning yet. Don’t you want to stay just a while longer? I
thought you were going to spend the night with me.”

Her voice sounded weird and she had a different look
on her face…kind of panicky. I hoped that she wasn’t regretting what we did
tonight. I should have thought about the fact that she was younger and not as
experienced. I should have questioned more whether or not she was up for this.

“Are you okay, Alexa? I don’t understand.”

She didn’t even look at me as she was pulling on her
clothes. I watched her and I wondered if she knew how pretty she was. It would
be hard to imagine that she didn’t. My body was responding now just watching
her getting dressed. Why was she getting dressed anyways? Weren’t we just
cuddling up to fall asleep together? Shit, that felt so good. I just got up to
go pee.

“I’m fine. I just have to get going.” She looked
like she was a nervous wreck…
like
the building was on
fire, or about to explode. I tried again, “I’m really glad you came over. I had
a great time. I was hoping that you could stay a while longer…”

“Yeah, me too,
It
was
nice.” Her voice was like a robot, there was no sincerity in it at all. Did she
really not just have the same amazing time that I did?

“Can we get together later maybe? I was just
thinking that tonight was the first time since…”

“Maybe yeah,” She didn’t sound like she was even
considering it. Could I have misjudged what she was feeling that badly? If I
did, wouldn’t she at least tell me she didn’t want it to go beyond this? I
would have sworn only ten minutes before that she was feeling the same
connection that I was. Hell, she was snuggled up next to me, naked. How else
was I supposed to take it? Fuck! All I did was get up to go pee. “I’ll talk to
you later, Ian.” She had her clothes half on and she was headed out the bedroom
door. What the hell happened while I was in the bathroom? She was tugging her
jeans on as she crossed the living room floor.

“Alexa?
What the hell is wrong?”

“I said nothing!” she snapped at me. Then she
lowered her voice and took a couple of deep breaths. I don’t think they worked
because she looked like she was going to cry as she said, “It’s nothing,
Ian…really. I’m okay.” Shit! Was she thinking about Emma? Was that it?

“Is it Emma?” I had to ask her that, right? We had
both talked about how the grief hit us in waves when we weren’t expecting it. I
would just start shaking all over sometimes and start feeling
like
I needed to throw up and that was how I knew the
sadness was coming. Is that what this was? Was this her version of it?

“No, Ian! I’m fine, damn it! I have to go, thank you
for dinner and…everything,” she said. She buttoned her jeans and grabbed her
purse. She was out the door before I made it across the room. She slammed it
behind her. I looked at the clock. It was three o’clock in the morning. Who the
hell had “things to do” at three fucking o’clock in the morning. What the fuck
just happened?

I went back into the bedroom and collapsed down onto
the bed. It was so fucking surreal that literally fifteen minutes ago I was
feeling better than I had in weeks…maybe even months and now all of a sudden
I’m feeling like shit again. I tried to get comfortable, telling myself to go
to sleep and I’d just think about it tomorrow. It was after three o’clock in
the morning. I needed to get some sleep. I closed my eyes but all I could see
was that look on her face. She looked so…anxious…maybe? I don’t know what the
look was, but it wasn’t happy. We should still be lying here together, with her
pretty legs draped across mine. I have no idea what the hell I did. I said I
had to pee, she giggled and when I went into the bathroom and the light was on,
I’d glanced over at her. She had snuggled down into the blanket and she had her
eyes closed and a smile on her pretty lips. I closed the door and I was gone
less than ten minutes. How did I mess this up when I wasn’t even in the room?
My head felt like it was going to explode.

I lay there like that for another hour…maybe two
before I fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion. I woke up a few hours later,
disoriented at first. As usual, I had to remind myself that my little sister
was dead. I hated that feeling…it was
like
someone
carved a hole in my chest and just scooped out what was supposed to be in
there. Next, I had to remind myself that somehow I’d screwed up things with the
only person who made me feel almost whole again. I was used to screwing up,
hell; I was good at it even. I could probably win awards for screwing good
things up. The difference between this situation and the others was that I
could usually look back and figure out where I went wrong. This time, I still
had no fucking clue.

I sat up on the edge of the bed and looked around
the room. I guess I was hoping for a big sign to appear with an arrow that
pointed to whatever had offended her and said, “This is why she left.” No such
luck. I walked over and looked out the window. It was a nice day, the sun was
shining. That just pissed me off more for some reason. I guess I wanted the
weather to be as gloomy as I felt. How fucking dare the sun shine when I was
feeling like shit? I guess if it didn’t stop shining when beautiful, perfect
Emma died, it wasn’t going to stop shining for me.

I heard my phone buzz then and I turned around and
looked for it. It was sitting on the nightstand, up on top. I don’t remember
when I put it there. I went over and picked it up. I had a text message from my
trainer Dean. I pressed on it and read it. He just wanted to re-schedule our
session for later in the day. I also had two others, but from my crazy
ex-girlfriend Kristie. She’d been hounding me for months about getting back
together. I broke up with her because she beat up another girl that she got
some crazy idea about. I told her I wanted nothing to do with her. I told her
that I think she is crazy. Yet, she shows up on my doorstep sometimes and
knocks on the door and when I answer it she just smiles and acts like things
are normal and she’s not living in
bizarro
land.
Sometimes when I leave the gym I find her waiting by my car. I’ve told her each
time to go away and leave me alone, but nothing seems to penetrate. Emma used
to even tell me that she worried she was the creepy stalker type and I might
come home one night to boiled bunny on the stove.

The messages she had left there today were more of
the same old crap. They said things like: “I love you, I miss you, and I can’t
wait to see you.” The girl needs medication, seriously. I started to sit the
phone back down when I realized that there were two other messages from her
from last night. I looked closer and saw they had been sent in the dead of the
night. I had been with Alexa. I know that I didn’t read those, but then how was
it that they’d already been read? I checked the time on them…they came in one
minute apart from each other, two a.m. and two o’ one a.m. Fuck! I think I just
solved the mystery of why Alexa left
like
she did. She
thought I had her over here, naked in my bed while I had a girlfriend waiting
for me somewhere else. I can be an asshole if the situation calls for it, but
I’d never cheated on a girl…and I’ve never taken advantage of one. Shit! That’s
what she thinks. It made me sick to my stomach just thinking about it, but she
thinks I took advantage of my own sister’s death to get a piece of ass. No
wonder she couldn’t wait to get the hell out of here! Damn it! I wish she
would have just
asked me. I could have shown her the other
messages and told her what a crazy person Kristie is.

I got pissed then and I sent Kristie a text that
said, “Stop texting me! We have nothing to say to each other! If you don’t
stop, I’m going to get a fucking restraining order you crazy…” I left that part
blank, she could fill it in. Then I sat there staring at the phone, wondering
if I should call Alexa and explain. I wondered if she would believe me if I
did.

CHAPTER
TWO

ALEXA

I went home that night after reading Ian’s text
messages and went to bed. I stayed there most of the next day, watching sappy
love stories on the Hallmark channel and bawling my eyes out. I’m not sure what
I was crying
over
. Was it the movie? Was it Emma? Was
it Ian? I had no idea. I just knew I needed to cry. My poor dad kept looking in
on me and asking if I was okay. I think he just assumed it was Emma I was
crying over and that was okay too. I finally got up that next evening and found
my father in the kitchen. He had all the ingredients out to make a meatloaf. He
was reading a recipe and he looked distressed.