Page 61 of Messing With My Brother's Best Friends

“It was supposed to be the four of us.” He glanced at Gage, Van, then me but evidently didn’t get what he wanted from that. “We were gonna stick together forever.”

“We did stick together, you fucking Muppet,” Gage growled, smacking one fist into his open hand. “And what good did that do us? You knew…”

Kendall pulled away from me, grabbing Gage’s arm when his voice broke, my best mate’s muscles tensing to throw off her grip right before he pulled her close. His lips went to her hair as he pressed a kiss there, and I knew he wanted, needed, to do so much more.

“You knew Kendall was the only one for us.” My dad was a cold prick, and deep down, I was my father’s son. I dropped down one step, then another, my muscles loose and ready to be unleashed. “We waited until she was out of school out of respect for her and…” I looked him up and down, not seeing a friend, but a… thing. “You. Respect for you. She was your sister…”

And that’s when I put two and two together for the first fucking time. Just a moment of kicking my own arse then I forged on.

“And that ruled you out of what we had planned.”

Finn liked sharing girls a whole damn lot. He was the one who presented it as an idea one night when a girl made clear she was up for it. Settling down with Cheryl had put a dampener on things, especially when I’d made clear we wouldn’t be joining them in any manner.

“We could’ve been friends forever.” I smiled but there was nothing but venom in it. “We could’ve stayed mates to the bitter end. We stuck it out thus far, but you… You had to take away the one person that made it all worthwhile.”

I couldn’t look at him, not with this throbbing through me. Her, all I wanted was Kendall Kennedy, and now that I knew what had kept us apart, it was all I could do to keep myself from breaking shit.

So I didn’t.

I turned then, sucker punching the little fuck straight in the jaw, the sight of him sailing through the air and landing heavily on my front lawn going some way to dousing the fire that burned in me.

But not completely.

“What the f—?”

I planted a foot on his chest when he tried to get up.

“I’ve been in love with Kendall since the moment I knew what love was. All I ever wanted was her. Gage is the same and so is Van. You knew that. We all knew that. I don’t know what you did to fuck up your sister’s chances of chasing her dreams, whether it was deliberate…” I didn’t see a flicker of guilt in his eyes, so I continued. “Or it was just a fuck up you didn’t want to own up to.”

There it was. I was a fucking expert on reading blokes, able to see through guys lying to us about being sick or bullshitting about what they were capable of on a worksite, so I caught that furtive little flinch that he tried to smother.

“I didn’t plan any of it,” he croaked out, especially when my foot pressed down harder. “I didn’t mean for the interview to get fucked up.” Finn said that to his sister. “If anything, I wanted you to get that apprenticeship. Then you’d move out on your own and away from…”

“Away from your best friends.” Kendall stepped forward, the folds of Gage’s t-shirt fluttering slightly in the breeze around her legs. “Because you knew if it came to choosing between you and me, I’d win. They were your friends, but they loved me.”

She met my eyes for just a moment, and all of the anger and hurt I felt evaporated. If she could just look at me, I’d never feel a moment of pain again.

“And you knew I’d end up loving them and where would you be?” I didn’t know how Finn bore it when she stared down at him, fierce as a valkyrie. “On the outer, like you will be now, Brother.”

I wanted to pound that fucker’s face into the ground, keeping on going until only dental records could be used to identify Finn, but I had to be satisfied with the thin trickle of blood coming out of his nose. Kendall turned on her heel and stalked back inside, but I stayed behind to clean up the shit.

“Get your crap out of the office,” I told him in clipped tones. “I’ll have the lawyers draw up a buyout deal and send it over.”

“But—”

“Accept, Finn, or you will not like the consequences. Trust me when I say that.”

I flexed my hands and felt the sting in my knuckles, focussing on that and the movement of Kendall’s legs as I followed her inside. I couldn’t take a breath until I heard the front door slam shut, the lock clicking in place. I’d had my future stolen before, the gall of Finn choking me, but I forced myself to suck oxygen in before letting it out. I’d be damned if I’d let anyone take it from me again.

Chapter 33

Kendall

Finn had… Finn… My brain stuttered every time I considered my brother’s betrayal, but right as I started to try and make sense of it, Connor switched on the tap, washing the blood from his knuckles.

He’d knocked my brother on his arse for me.

That was enough to draw me closer, to watch the drops of blood wash away and down the drain. The water felt cold, too cold when I pushed my own fingers into the stream to pull his hand out. I inspected the knuckles, reaching out to touch the wounds when a hiss from Connor made me stop.

---