Page 41 of Falling for my Brother's Best Friend

I bring her bags into the apartment before shutting and locking the door. “Termites?”

“Yep. Can you take my suitcases to Kingston’s room and change the sheets? I’m not sleeping on those.”

“He rarely brings girls home,” Juno offers, not saying anything about how I was supposed to take Kingston’s room.

I clear my throat.

Juno looks at me. “Grandma, Savannah was going to sleep in there now.” But she bites her lip and shrugs as though to say, ‘I doubt this is going to change anything.’

“Why would you leave Liam’s? You’re already settled there. Plus, this is my excuse to teach Juno how to keep an orderly house.” Grandma Dori picks up the stack of torn-out magazine pages and heads toward the kitchen.

Juno flings the blanket off her lap and stands from the couch. “Grandma, what are you doing?” She watches in horror while Grandma Dori throws them in the trash can. “There were instructions on how to build a bookcase in there.”

Grandma Dori looks at me with a “yeah right” expression. “That’s sweet, Juno, but you were never going to finish it.”

“Thanks for the encouragement,” Juno mumbles, opening the trash and taking out the magazine pages. She opens a kitchen drawer to shove them in, but it’s filled to the max. So is drawer two. After going through three more, she opens her oven and throws them inside.

“Back to me taking Kingston’s room.” I return the conversation to the topic at hand.

Grandma Dori waves at me. “That’s ridiculous. I know you guys had a lovers’ quarrel last night, but you’ll get over it.”

“We’re not lovers.”

“You know what I mean. Liam is a part of this family, so you two need to make up and stop being so angry at one another.”

Just when I think she might understand what I’m going through.

She disappears into Kingston’s room. “Savannah, I thought you were going to change the sheets?”

I look at the two suitcases and back at Juno.

“Hey, I don’t want her here either,” Juno whisper-shouts.

“How did Kingston become a neat freak and not you, Juno?” Grandma Dori calls from down the hall.

Juno’s eyes bore into mine. I already straightened his room since I was taking it. The boy is not even close to a neat freak.

“Grandma…” I sigh and take her suitcases into the room. “I really think Liam and I need space. After last night, it’s not wise for us to live together. We probably shouldn’t have done it in the first place.”

She turns to look at me from where she’s digging through his drawers. If he only knew. Her shoulders fall and she sits on the bed, patting the spot next to her. I follow her order and sit.

“You two need to be friends. Liam understands you.” She lowers her voice. “Maybe better than me, though I don’t want to admit it.”

My forehead scrunches. “He doesn’t know me. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t.”

“Hmm.” Grandma Dori rises and falls on the bed as though she’s testing the mattress.

“What are you doing?” Juno asks from where she’s leaning against the doorframe.

“I’m testing out the bedsprings.”

Juno stares at her. “Why?”

“Get your mind out of the gutter. I have a bad back.”

“Can we get back to the termites thing?” I ask, a little exasperated.

Do I want to live with Liam? Hell no, but it’s a better option than living with Grandma Dori. Poor Juno.

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