My Best Friend's Brother (A Bashir Family Romance Book 1) (2 page)

The fact was, despite the cultural differences, going to Annika’s house was the highlight of my day. The Bashirs owned the nicest hotel in Fairview and several others in nearby Dallas. Sometimes Annika and I would go swimming at the hotel pool and later she would sneak a key to an empty room where we would watch cable and gorge ourselves on Snickers bars and Doritos from the supply room until the front desk clerk would call and warn us Annika’s brother was looking for her.

Annika had two. Her younger brother, Rasheed, was two years younger and a perfect target for our torture and jokes with his plump belly and his funny lisp. I seemed like a nightly occurrence that his mother would chase him out of the kitchen smacking him with a kitchen towel and yelling.

“Rasheed, put that cookie back! You’ll be too full for dinner!” She screamed in her thick Indian accent like a mad-woman.

Her prediction was never right because I don’t recall a single time he was too full for dinner. Looking back now, I guess eating was his way of dealing with all the teasing at school. He was the darkest in the family and had the most ethnic sounding name. Sometimes the kids called him “Fatsheed.” And the fact that he couldn’t even pronounce his own name correctly because of the lisp just added to the humiliation.

“My name is Rath-eed!” he would yell, correcting the little monsters who would attack at recess.
All his quirkiness aside, I liked Rasheed. He was funny, friendly and never full of himself—a complete contrast to his brother.

To say that Annika’s older brother by four years, Dev, was quiet and aloof was an understatement. The few times I witnessed him talking, I noted his British accent was stronger than Annika’s and Rasheed’s, and he had the English superiority complex and snobbiness to go with it. Mostly, though, I avoided him. And after one particularly rude interaction when I was 14, we mostly stopped talking to each other altogether.

It was a hot Texas summer day and Annika had invited me over to swim at their country club-size backyard pool. When we pranced outside with our bottles of suntan lotion, magazines, iced teas and beach towels, my smile faded when I saw Dev on the diving board.

Hopefully he’ll go away soon
.

I suddenly felt self-conscious in my white two-piece which Annika had convinced me looked “really sexy” on me. I felt like an idiot instead.

“Annika, let’s swim tomorrow,”  I begged her as I watched Dev emerge above the water from his perfectly executed dive, his long, lean muscles enhanced by his bronze smooth skin.

“Can’t. We’re leaving on our trip tomorrow. Just ignore my stupid brother. The pool’s big enough for all of us.”

Dev swam up to our side of the pool and grabbed the edge, his handsome face in a full-on smirk.

“I can leave if you want, Scarlett. I mean, it is
my
pool, but I will be happy to vacate it if it makes
you
more comfortable. The public pool must be closed today?”

“No, it’s fine.” I forced a fake smile ignoring his clear jab at me. I decided he was too much of a jerk to let ruin my day. He pushed off the edge and started swimming a freestyle lap. I couldn’t help notice how nice he looked in his navy blue swim trunks.  He was tall and muscled from hours spent on the soccer field every day. The fact that he was attractive made me his rudeness sting even more.

I found a spot in the far corner of the shallow end of the pool to submerge my body, keeping it hidden from Dev. It was becoming curvy and womanly, and I didn’t like the attention it was bringing me when I walked down the street, especially near construction zones. Regardless, I knew that Dev would ever see me as anything but a vapid trailer park kid mooching off his family.

Annika had gone inside to bring us some more ice tea when Dev swam over and stopped for a breath. I thought I would try and show him I could engage in civilized conversation—that I had a brain.

“Annika tells me your family is leaving on a trip tomorrow. Where is it you’re going?” I asked, making sure to annunciate each syllable perfectly.

He wiped the water from his large, dark eyes, and smiled at me incredulously.

“The U.A.E.”

Where was that
? I tried to look like I knew what he was talking about, but he didn’t buy it.

“Do you know where that is, Scarlett?” he asked, his smirk returned. I felt my cheeks burn.

“Um, is it in Eastern Europe?”

He laughed at me. “I keep forgetting how most Americans don’t realize there are other places besides Canada and Mexico. No, it’s not in
Eastern Europe
.”

My initial embarrassment turned into anger.

“It must make you feel good about yourself…pointing out the flaws in others,” I accused him.

For a moment, he looked guilty, like I could see something in him he thought he had hidden. He shook it off.

“It stands for the United Arab Emirates, Scarlett. It’s a small country off of—”

“—Saudi Arabia.” I interrupted. “I know where it is. You must be traveling to Dubai, the capital and home to the world’s tallest building,” I finished like I was in the middle of an oral geography exam.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I guess you’ve heard of it then.”

“The acronym threw me off.”

He chuckled, amused there was something of substance in my empty head.

“I didn’t know Glamour Magazine covered any topics beyond make-up and dating.”

In that moment, I hated him. I turned away and climbed out of the pool, hoping he would notice my hourglass figure and would instantly kick himself for insulting such a goddess.

When he saw I was going, he threw me a stale crumb of an apology.

“Sorry Scarlett. Don’t be so sensitive.”

I grabbed my towel and put on my flip-flops. Annika walked out with two glasses of ice tea just in time to see my dramatic exit. Before rushing past her through the door, I shouted over to the pool in my most dramatic soap opera tone, my chest heaving in pent up rage.

“Dev, do me a favor.
Never
talk to me again!”

And he didn’t. For years.

But whenever I ate with his family, I could feel his eyes scowling at me, his disapproval like an invisible toxic cloud. For all the years I played at Annika’s house, I tried not to let his silent judgment affect me. I had better things on my mind, like studying for my advanced Algebra class, gossiping and laughing with Annika into the wee hours of the night, and wondering what his mother was cooking for dinner.

Whatever it was, it was certainly better than what I had waiting at home, which oftentimes was a peanut butter sandwich on white. Dad worked long hours as a mechanic and cooking just wasn’t his thing. So we had kind of an unspoken deal: he grabbed a hamburger at Dairy Queen and I ate at Annika’s house. I had a standing invitation.

Sometimes after dinner there would be an “extra” shirt or dress that Mrs. Bashir “accidently bought,” and would I mind taking it home with me to save her the trouble of returning it at the store? The nicest clothes I had were “accidental” purchases like this. It took me a few years to realize that this was her clever way of mothering her daughter’s motherless friend without making me feel like a charity case. Mrs. Bashir was very good to me.

I really miss that about her.

“
Scarlett, we’re moving to Nevada.”

I stared blankly at my dad in shock but he kept his gaze at the TV.
Couldn’t miss even one minute of the Dallas Cowboys versus the Vikings, could we, dad?

“What do you mean? Are you kidding right now?” I half-hoped it was a lame joke, but my dad never joked.
The world had made his weary, jaded and without the ability to find humor in anything.

He turned to me and clicked off the TV.
Holy hell. He’s serious
, I thought.

“I got an opportunity in Reno…managing a shop for my cousin. He wants us out there by next month. I figured you could finish your year out there.”

Nevada? An even drier, more god-forsaken place than Texas? Really?

“Dad, we’re not moving to Nevada. That’s crazy. Who is this…
cousin
? Do you even know what you’re doing?” I stammered, trying to undo the decision that had obviously already been made
without
my input.

My dad rubbed his eyes. He was tired and worn through. He was a man hitting middle age with nothing to show for it, and I could sense this meant something to him.

“Scarlett, we need to get out of here. There’s nothing for us in Fairview.”

This utterly sucked. I was editor of the school paper. I was working on an internship for Texas Monthly, the state magazine. These were accomplishments I needed to highlight on my applications for college so I had
some
chance of getting a scholarship. Otherwise, there was
zero
chance I was going to school.

And school was my only way out of my trailer park existence.

My plans were deteriorating before my eyes and my dad was back to watching the football game like I wasn’t having a silent emotional meltdown.

I grabbed the remote control from the arm of his Lazy-Boy and clicked off the television.

“I’m not going!” I yelled.

My dad wasn’t too surprised by my reaction. He knew what I was working for. He knew I had my own plans. He rubbed his eyes and blinked purposefully as if to help them refocus from the TV screen to my tense figure hovering over him, and then he finally gave me his full attention.

“Dad, you know I have to finish school here. I can’t go with you. I have my whole life figured out
here
. I’m going to be a writer and that’s not going to happen in Nevada. I’ll have to…start from
scratch
at some other high school where no one knows me! I’ll have nothing on my transcript but…a job as a carny for Circus Circus.”

I could feel tears pushing their way up, but I held them at bay. The only time I allowed myself to cry was alone, where no one else could see me. I learned a long time ago that weeping in front of people translated to weakness, and I wasn’t going to look weak to anyone.
I was Scarlett after all.

His long, frail frame struggled out of his chair and then he put his arms around me: An awkward and rare hug from my father. As much as
I
was skilled at pushing my feelings down, I had learned from the Master. This hug was very uncharacteristic of us both, but maybe he had known all along I wasn’t going with him.
It felt like he was already saying goodbye.

“Scarlett, I don’t want to stand in your way, but you can’t stand in my way either,” he mumbled through my long, wavy blonde hair—a carbon-copy of what used to grow on his own balding head.
Feeling sad that he could so easily leave me, I pressed my face into his chest trying imprint the infrequent moment of fatherly tenderness into my long-term memory. I closed my eyes, the cold metal of the small, gold cross he wore around his neck against my cheek. If there was one constant throughout my childhood, it was that cross. He never took it off.

“Dad, I want to stay in Fairview.” I never thought in all my years I would ever utter such a wish, but there was no other way for me. I knew from a young age I would have to claw my way to something better than a mobile home on a dirt road. I had a decent plan for the future and I wasn’t going to let it go without a fight.

My dad let me go and grabbed for his cigarettes in his shirt pocket. I cringed as he lit one between shaking fingers stained with motor oil, and took a long, deep drag as if the toxic smoke was life-giving oxygen.
He always claimed that he couldn’t think without having a smoke. Truth be told, he couldn’t start the day, finish a meal or go to sleep without one either. I had stopped trying to get him to quit a long time ago.

“You’re too young to stay here alone. You’re only seventeen,” he reminded me, and then looked at me expectantly like I should easily solve the one problem standing between me and the rest of my life.

Thanks for your help, dad.

And that’s when I quickly hatched a plan. Annika’s brother was away at college and they had this big, empty house. Her parents loved me and I was always helpful around the kitchen. Hell, I could make Mrs. Bashir’s butter balti chicken even better than she could. (At least that’s what Mr. Bashir told me one night and then quickly swore me to secrecy.)

Maybe they would let me stay with them!

It didn’t take much convincing. Dad came over to their house for dinner and we talked about moving to Nevada. Everyone was horrified to think that I might leave Fairview. Before I could even bring up the idea of staying behind, Annika brought up the solution to her parents.

“Scarlett can live with us! She can finish her senior year here with me. Oh mom, dad, please?”  She pleaded with every fiber in her being. She was sick at the thought of facing school without me.

Mr. Bashir nodded his head so his wife could see his approval. He always told me how grateful he was “to Allah” that Annika had such a good friend. He was more sensitive than Mrs. Bashir to the difficulties his children faced at school.

Mrs. Bashir spoke up first.

“Of course she can stay here,” she said.

“I’ll pay you rent and money for food,” my dad offered lamely. He was obviously feeling some pang of guilt for abandoning his only child.

“No, no, no. Scarlett eats like a bird and she’s so helpful to us,” Mrs. Bashir graciously responded. She smiled at me as if I were a pure angel from heaven.

“Besides, Scarlett is such a good girl.”

I smiled back. I was a good girl.

At least, I thought I was.