Page 21 of Messing With My Brother's Best Friends

I knew our family dynamic was an unusual one. There was a lot of play and silliness, which I had loved growing up, right up until it went too far. In our family, if you were the one that started crying, you’d get no sympathy. Mum would try to jolly you out of your bad mood, and if that didn’t work, Dad would tell me he’d give me something to cry about if I didn’t stop.

And sometimes he did.

“You have to move in here until you find your feet,” Alan said. “You can’t live with those idiots. They ruined your life.”

“Nope.” I rejected his proposal and analysis of my situation. “You guys need your space—”

“We could rent somewhere bigger.” Alan looked at Barbie with a gleam in his eye. “There’s that new tower that’s just opened up near my work. Think you could get used to inner-city living?”

“Oh my god, that place looked amazing, with the views and the swanky lobby,” she replied. “Ken, we could be roommates! I could just walk down the hall and—”

“Want to choke the life out of me?” I replied drily. “Sharing a house is always tricky, and its way more complicated when it’s with friends. I’ve lost friends after we shared a house together.” I stepped forward. “I’m not losing you.”

“Aw, bestie…” She slipped from Alan’s lap and then walked over, arms wide, before enveloping me in a hug. “You’ll never lose me. You’re stuck with me forever, and if you ever try to get away, I’ll find you and never ever let you go.”

“My little stalker.” I made a show of patting her on the head. “So glad you’re on my side and not y’know, committing crimes.”

“So what’re you going to do?” she asked.

“First, I’m going to eat my bodyweight in pizza,” I replied.

“Duh! Alan.” She clicked her fingers like he was a waiter or something, which just made him smile and shake his head. “See if you can reschedule Pellegrino’s to tomorrow night and then put in an order at that amazing wood-fired pizza place.”

“The one that uses real truffles?” he asked, pulling out his phone.

“That’s the one.” She turned back to me. “OK, that’s sorted. So what’s next?”

“Well, after I’ve eaten dinner with you, I’ll go back.” I shrugged. “It was nearly ten years ago. Water under the bridge. Right now I’ve got free rent in a nice place where the bathroom is a permanent fixture. You were right—”

“Always,” she said with a wide grin.

“I can’t knock their offer back, not yet. I’ll keep looking for somewhere else.”

“Maybe somewhere inner city?” she said, clasping her hands under her chin.

“Somewhere affordable and safe,” I corrected.

“OK…” She tapped her finger on her bottom lip as the cogs started whirring inside her head. Always a concerning sight. Alan was talking on the phone, rescheduling their dinner reservation and ordering pizza as my bestie started cooking up her own ideas. “Well, my original assertion stands.”

“And what is that?” I asked with a smile. “You say so much, it’s hard for me to keep up.”

“Those boys ruined your life.” I winced internally at that summation. “So maybe it’s time for a little payback. You can play a few ‘pranks’ on them, get your own back.” Alan got off the phone and joined us in the lounge room. “You don’t have to do anything permanently disfiguring or anything, just… embarrassing.”

“What the hell are you planning?” he asked.

“To torment each one of these pricks for what they did to my best friend,” Barbie replied, the challenge apparent in her gaze.

“Shit, I’m in,” he said, plopping down on the couch. “I used to live in student housing when I was at uni and I’m pretty sure we spent more time pulling pranks than actually studying. So whaddya thinking? Just kinda embarrassing or soul destroying?”

I shook my head, starting to smile despite myself. My brother and his friends had terrorised me my entire childhood, so the idea of getting my own back kinda rocked.

“Soul destroying is probably going a little too far, but embarrassing…” It wasn’t hard to remember the many times the boys put me in a shitty position only for the family or the whole school to point and laugh at me. I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I could get behind that idea.”

“Peanut butter makes an excellent shit substitute,” Alan announced as we sat around their coffee table munching truly epic pizza.

“Um, ew…” Barbie went to toss her slice back in the box, but Alan redirected it back to her mouth.

“I say that because you can use it in a wide variety of ways to embarrass someone. God knows we did. It got so bad the cafeteria stopped serving peanut butter. Spread on the toilet seat. Wiped on toilet rolls. Wiped on doorknobs.” He grinned widely. “Makes it look like someone’s smeared shit everywhere.”

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