Page 40 of Messing With My Brother's Best Friends

“They hate fucked in a closet?” he said.

“No, dickhead, that was a fifty dollar bet. Twenty dollars was whether or not they liked her.”

“Have declarations of love been made?” he asked. “Because sometimes you get carried away. Remember when you thought that gay barista liked Kendall.”

“I’m pretty sure Kyle would’ve licked pussy for Kendall,” she replied.

“Ahh, Kyle was pretty upfront that he liked to bottom,” I said. “And I am missing the most important piece of anatomy to make that happen.”

“Strap ons, baby!” she shot back.

“Bottoming for big, burly guys with facial hair.”

A slut for truckers was how Kyle had actually put it, but whatever.

“OK, fine, fine, Kyle is out, and these idiots are in. Alan, they made her furniture. Do guys make furniture for women they don’t like?”

“Flatpack?” he asked, and she relayed the question.

“Um… no, from scratch using some really nice wood—”

“OK, fine.” I heard a slapping of hands down the line. “No guy is going to waste good timber on a girl he’s not into.”

Alan’s words felt like a punch to the guts because I had heard this line before.

“Maybe they like you,” one of my school friends had giggled during a sleepover.

“Yeah, right.” I raked my hair back. “Like to force me to smell their farts more like. Speaking of which, you’re going to want to make sure the door stays locked. They sneak in here sometimes and mess with shit.”

But she hadn’t. Instead, she’d snuck up the hallway sometime in the night, only to be marched back to my bedroom by Mum.

“I think those boys care about you more than they’d like to admit,” Mum said as I sat on the kitchen table, nursing a skinned knee. I’d dared to try and play whatever game they were focussed on, and that had resulted in me being shoulder checked and falling face forward.

“If they cared about me, they wouldn’t have laughed at me when I cried.”

I’d sniffed back tears, but that didn’t stop more falling.

“No,” I said, then, now. “No, Barbie—”

“Oh my god, that’s why they want to talk. It’s not the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ talk. It’s the ‘I love you and want you to have all of my very pretty babies’ talk. Alan. Alan!”

“Right here, Barbie,” he drawled.

“I’m going to be an auntie! We need to set up a baby registry and select all the cute things…”

Hanging up on someone was rude, and hanging up on your best friend as she rhapsodised about your future children was unforgivable, but I did it anyway. I just stared at the phone screen as a call from Barbie came through, but I didn’t answer it. The musical tones of the ringer echoed around in my head as I retrieved the bag of glitter I’d been forced to stash when Connor knocked on my door.

It was only now that I understood why they had pranked me so mercilessly. It wasn’t just the quicksilver pleasure of catching someone unawares, feeling like I was the most clever, most cunning in that moment. Instead, it was this sensation of being filled with too much and knowing all of that… stuff that was roiling inside me needed to go somewhere, because I couldn’t deal with it.

I marched down the hall, pushing the first bedroom door open and knowing instantly it was Van’s. It wasn’t just the predominantly blue colour scheme, but that scent. Of salt and pine trees on a summer day, the resinous oils released from the blanket of needles you traversed to walk deeper into the forest.

Place the glitter on top of the fan blades, one article had suggested, so when it was turned on, craft herpes was spread all across the room. I picked up an armchair that was left in the corner of his room and plonked it under the fan then climbed up with the bag of glitter in hand. My hands shook as I tore it open, then I forced them to still. I needed to apply a trail of glitter along the middle of each blade. Not too much, or it’d go cascading down before the prank was pulled, and I couldn’t have that. I covered each blade carefully, then glanced up at the light fitting above the bed.

He’d see the glitter if he turned the light on, and that’s not what I wanted. His bed lay open, the blankets all bunched up, inspiring me further. If I could send a cloud of glitter down from the fan and coat his sheets with it, it’d cover Van head to foot, but he’d never fall for it if he could see what he was doing. I jumped down, turned the light switch off, and then loosened the bulb until it no longer turned on. The rest of the glitter was scattered all over his pillow, between his blankets, even in his work boots until the bag was finally empty.

I surveyed the mess I’d created and then nodded sharply to myself, scrunching up the empty bag and tossing it in the kitchen bin as I left Van’s room.

“If you’re up when we get home, I wouldn’t mind having a quick chat.”

---