Page 43 of Messing With My Brother's Best Friends

“You know it’s not gonna be as easy as just declaring your fee fees to my sister.”

His words and my worst fears were having really ugly anxiety babies inside my head.

“I know.”

Fuck, I was trying to put on a good front right now and failing utterly. Finn smirked, the prick always able to tell when there was blood in the water.

“I haven’t seen her stick to a bloke for longer than a month or two, ever.”

“Yeah?” That was supposed to put me off, but it didn’t. Instead, I searched my mate’s face, looking for confirmation.

“Yeah.” He shook his head slowly, then drank down a long mouthful of beer. “It’s always ‘the vibes are off,’ or ‘he snores too much,’ or ‘he wants to sleep with my best friend.’ Women.” He snorted, making it clear he was just joking. “Speaking of which, have you seen that friend of hers—?”

“Nope.” I blinked. “I mean, yeah, because that’s how we found Kendall. Barbie rang about the ad for a housemate and brought Ken around. She seems nice—”

“She’s a fucking underwear model, Van.”

His brows creased as he stared at me.

“I don’t give a fuck what she does,” I shot back. “She’s not Kendall. That’s what you don’t understand. Since the moment I started growing hair on my balls, it’s always been her.”

“Seems like you spent a lot of times balls deep in other women if she was the only one for you.”

His words hit hard because he was right. I had. I tried to smile, tried to think of something sarcastic or smart to say and failed. There was no escaping that fact.

“I know.” I wrenched my gaze away from him and gazed out over the darkening field, feeling the chill of the night air on my sweaty skin. “But all I ever saw was her. I called out Kendall’s name one night with Cindy Matthews.”

“You fucking what?” I thought he’d be pissed, but his lips just twisted into a vicious smile. “She said you couldn’t get it up. Told everyone at school you had a little dick.”

“Better that than the truth.” I couldn’t smile, joke, or reminisce about old times with Finn, so instead I just stared, willing him to understand. “That it didn’t make a shred of difference who I was with, because all I wanted was Kendall.”

He didn’t want to accept this, that I knew, but he reached out and slapped my shoulder.

“Well, best of luck, mate, because you’re gonna need it.”

“We need to get flowers,” I said as we piled into the van, ready to drive home. “Chocolates too.”

“She always liked those ones in the purple box,” Gage added.

“Flowers, chocolates, a ten-piece band playing that song by Tracy Chapman. The one with the lyrics about saying sorry.” Connor gripped the steering wheel of the van tight, the plastic creaking in protest. “Fuck, we shouldn’t have gone to footy tonight. Our time would’ve been better spent working this out, working out how to convince her to forgive us.”

“But we didn’t.” Gage shrugged. “We will.” He glanced at me then Connor. “Whatever it takes, but we have to start with the truth.”

“And some flowers.” The two of them stared at me, but I just grinned. “Woolies is always selling bunches of them, and they have plenty of chocolate on the shelves, so…”

Connor let out a little bark of a laugh.

“Woolies it is, then home.”

The three of us stood at our front door, shifting restlessly, smiles forming and fading. The plastic wrap around the flowers crackled in my palm, and Gage was juggling the biggest box of chocolates we could find like it was a football ready to be kicked. Even Connor had gotten into the act, finding a little teddy bear in the kids’ aisle and grabbing that, his cheeks burning bright red when the cashier asked if it was for his kid. He held the bear cradled in one arm as he shoved the key in the lock and turned it.

“Guess we better get inside.”

I dunno what the others were thinking, but in my mind Kendall would be chilling on the couch, watching some rom com or something. She’d look up as we walked in the door, and then she’d see it. The flowers, and the chocolate, and the goddamn bear, but also this. Our masks were down, our arses were hanging in the wind because we were completely and utterly vulnerable right now, ready to confess exactly how we felt.

Only to find the house quiet, still, and dark.

I blinked, surging forward to turn the lights on in the hall, the lounge room, then the kitchen, but I caught no sight of her.

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