My Best Friend's Brother (33 page)

I handed back the key to the younger brother and thanked him for a great stay.

"We should keep in touch." Hope said suddenly to the man.

He nodded and smiles.

"Yes, you are a funny guy." I agree.

"Do you have Facebook?" Hope asks him.

"Yes, why?"

"Well you have Nate's name. Search for him and add him and I am in his friends list too, so add me too." She tells him.

"Yeah and maybe we can all hang out sometime." I add.

"Well maybe not your brother..." I hear Hope say so softly that only I heard her, making me smirk.

"Yeah that would be good"

We all said our good byes and in no time Hope and I were back on the road to home.

Since we didn't stop for breakfast, we decided to eat some of the junk we have brought yesterday and then when we get closer to the diner which we stop in on the drive here we would stop and get a bite of real food to eat.

"Can we go see Dean when we get back?" Hope asks breaking the comfortable silence, which took over the car.

"Yeah, that's a good idea. I think I’d like that" just then my phone starting ringing.

"Pick that up for me please and put it on speaker phone?" I ask Hope politely.

She nodded and reached into my pocket and dug out my phone.

Is it bad that that actually kind of turned me on?

Anyway...

She swiped the answer button and press speakerphone.

"Hello?" I said to whoever was calling.

"Hi man." I recognized the voice straight away as my brother Matt's.

I couldn't help but wonder why he was calling.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The Come On

Nate

'Where are you?' Matt voice echoed throughout the car.

Hope and I exchanged suspicious looks.

“On the road back. Why?” I said the last part drawn out.

‘Where are they?’
I heard a voice I recognized straight away in the background.

“Shh man. I am just finding out.” Matt grumbled back.

Hope tried to muffle her laugh, but didn't do so well.

At least I somehow managed to keep driving and speaking on the phone without laughing.

My expression on the other hand, to other drivers I most of looked like I really loved driving.

Matt sighed deeply. ‘As you probably heard Ricky is eager to know the whereabouts of you and his sister.’

I couldn't help but laugh this time and was forced to pull over at the side of the road.

‘It's not funny Nate. He has been like this since you first left and when he found out it was an overnight stay he has only got worse and worse over time. It got so bad that even Kara had enough and he was made to stay at ours last night. Meaning no sleep for me.’ He complained only making us laugh harder.

Ricky continues to mumble obscenities in the background but I couldn't make most of them out.

“Tell Ricky I am fine and we will see him later.” Hope speaks for the first time.

‘I'll try. But I don't think it'll do much good.’ He said the last part lowly.

“We will be back on the road when we finished on the phone with you.

When we get to that diner you and I went to on the drive from college to home we will stop and get a bite to eat and then we'll head straight home.” I tell him.

‘Do you know when that will be?’ He asked.

“We will be at the diner in about two and a half...maybe three hours. So we will be home in about four hours if all things go well.” I tell him, hoping it is enough to get the pair off our backs.

‘Ok man. See you then.’ Before I had a chance to say anything, he had already hung up.

We were soon back on the road again.

"Ricky is crazy." Hope laughed.

"Yeah, I'm glad I wasn't the one stuck with him." I laugh thinking about how mad he must be after these last couple of days.

"But if that was the case, then I would of been on this trip with Matt and I'm not sure it would of been so fun..." she says interrupting my thoughts.

"But then again..." I heard her say.

"Hey!" I exclaimed.

"What?" she said innocently.

"What?! So that's what it's like? You had your fun with me and now you’re moving on to my brother." I mumble in mock hurt.

Hope burst out laughing "Yeah that's my plan." she laughed more.

"I'll have to warn him then won't I..." I smirk.

The next couple of hours were spent mostly in silence, Hope mainly speaking when she saw something interesting out of the window.

Like the time when she saw a man at the side of the road sat on the top of a cow.

When I first heard her, I thought I had misheard her.

"A cow?" I asked and she pointed out of the side window.

Thankfully at the time we were stuck in a small traffic jam, so we had plenty of time to take pictures and a short video before moving on.

We were both still laughing not believing what we saw when we arrived at the diner we had eaten at on our first trip.

"Let's go feed my sweet angel." I coo, unbuckling my seatbelt and kissing her sweet lips.

We soon were deep in kiss and our hands were both wandering as if they had a mind of their own.

We both pulled away after a couple of minutes, both breathless resting my forehead against hers.

"I think we should finally head inside." I tease her and blush creeps onto her cheeks.

I brush my fingers across her blush and kiss her nose.

"You are so beautiful." I place another kiss. "I love you."

"I love you too." She kisses my nose, making me raise my eyebrow in amusement.

"What? You can do it but I can't?" she teases.

I just laugh. "Come on Sweet pea." I unbuckle her. "Lets go." We both get out of the car and walk towards the diner hand in hand.

I held the door for her and she walked inside and I followed, still holding her hand.

I am not going to deny the fact that I wasn't paying attention to where we were walking.

I was too busy watching and following, but she seemed to watching unlike me and led us to an empty booth.

"HOPE." A familiar voice yelled across the room, breaking me from my thoughts.

"What the hell?" Hope and I both exclaimed.

It was only then when I looked up that I noticed how full the diner was, mainly of teenagers, but I few older people too.

But that wasn't the thing that surprised me.

It was Hope being pulled out of the booth and into a strong pair of arms that got my attention.

"Ricky?" I questioned and then looked to the side to see Matt walk after him laughing.

Hope

We had just sat down in the diner, when we heard a voice that sounded a lot like my brother's yell my name.

Both Nate and I looked around, but all I saw was dozens of teenagers, a lot of them were girls and for some reason one group was glaring at me.

I just shrugged it off and went back to find the owner of the voice.

But before I had a chance I was pulled out of my seat and enveloped in a pair of arms and pulled tightly into a familiar chest.

The scent of peppermint hit my nose "Ricky?" I questioned, but my words were muffled because he was holding me to tight.

Why peppermint you ask?

Well that is because Ricky has a very unhealthily obsession with polo mints.

The amount he eats I am surprised his teeth aren't black or fallen out and not the perfect pearly white they are.

I heard laughing followed by, "Ricky I think you are suffocating her. She needs to breathe you know" the amused voice said.

I was released to see Ricky and Matt now sat in the booth I was before and grinning.

"Sorry I..." Ricky said sheepishly as we all sat down.

Me beside Nate and Ricky opposite me, sitting beside Matt.

I cut him off. "What are you doing here?" I asked with a vexed expression.

Ricky went to answer, but Matt spoke first.

"I had to bring him here. He has been such a pain these couple of days.

I was ready to kill him if he didn't shut up pissing and moaning like some little pussy."

This earned him a slap around the back of the head from my brother.

Nate laughs beside me and wrapped his arm around me and pulled me closer to him, earning him a glare from Ricky.

"Calm down Ricky." I tell him.

He mumbled something incoherent and huffed.

"Dean wasn't much better!" Ricky said defending himself.

"What does that mean?" Nate asked.

"Well you know Dean is still in the hospital. He is getting better, but is starting to get very annoyed and restless being confided to a bed all day. So me and Ricky have been visiting him and spending time with him to try and cheer him up..."

Nate gave his brother a surprised look.

Matt rolled his eyes and said "Yes, so it's no secret I find and always have found him to be a pain in the backside but he is my brother and it doesn't mean I don't still care for him."

Ricky interrupts him "Plus your dad made him"

Matt glared at him before continuing "But I would of gone anyway...eventually, he is my brother after all. Anyway while we were there Ricky and Dean bonded and spent all their time moaning and whining. Ricky's went something along the lines of Nate best not touch Hope or get any funny ideas..."

Nate and I looked at each other out of the corner of our eyes and gave a secret smile, but luckily Ricky didn't notice, but Matt did and smirked.

"...And Dean was whining about being in hospital and not having his 'Best-friend' to visit him because his stupid brother had kidnapped her. Ricky agreed and only made Dean worse. But at least Dean had an excuse, he was doped up on meds, Ricky is just..." He didn't finish because he saw the death glare Ricky was sending him and his lips snapped shut.

"So good trip was it?" Matt asked with a mischievous look in his eyes.

"Yeah. It was great. Nate took me to Lake Lure, you know where 'Dirty dancing' was filmed and we saw a hillbilly riding a cow." I laughed as I said the last part.