Page 30 of My Brother's Best Friend

Especially with what had happened right after our accidental kiss.

“What’re you smiling about?” Mrs. Wolfe laughed.

Quickly, I pushed the thought away and shook my head. “Nothing.”

HadIhelped him through it?

While that wasn’t exactly how anxiety worked—I had tried that method of leaning on Vera during my time with Spencer—I couldn’t help the butterflies fluttering around inside my stomach. Maybe I hadn’t cured his anxiety, but I hoped I made it a bit easier for him.

Or maybe this was all a weird coincidence.

After all, Alec Wolfe didn’tlike, likeme. He had only wanted to fuck me, and I wasn’t even sure about that when he had called out Sandra’s name after we had sex on Friday night, and then he’d—I gritted my teeth—fucked another girl.

She glanced down at her buzzing phone and bit back a smile.

“Sweetheart,” she said, peering up for a moment, “your brother just texted me that he’s coming over to check on Alec. If you don’t want him to catch you, you should probably get out of here. He just left the hockey stadium.”

I arched a brow.Why did my brother have her number? And why was he texting her? Isn’t that a bit …weird?

I shook off the thoughts and retrieved my purse from the front room. I guessed it wasn’tthatweird. I had Ms. Rodriguez’s number in case of an emergency. After grabbing my keys, I hollered a thanks and hurried out the front door. I didnotwant Oliver to catch me here.

If I didn’t make it back to my house before Oliver did, he would be searching all over Redwood for me, would even probably call Piper’s father to ask him to put out a search warrant for me and then put me on house arrest, just for leaving without telling him where the hell I was going.

And I especially didn’t want him to think there was anything going on between me and Alec.

CHAPTER17

ALEC

Abright light blazed overhead, jolting me awake.

“The hell did you go, dude?” Oliver asked, walking into my room.

I scrambled in the bed, hurriedly looking around for any sign of Maddie. She had fallen asleep with me here earlier, and if Oliver found us together, he would attempt to kick my fucking ass harder than we had kicked Spencer’s a year ago.

When I realized that Maddie wasn’t in bed—or even in my room with me—I blew out a low breath and slumped my shoulders forward.

“Can you turn off the light?” I asked, squinting my eyes. “It’s too bright in here.”

“Get out of bed,” Oliver said. “We gotta tal?—”

He paused, peered down at the sheets, and gritted his teeth. Maddie’s pink Redwood Academy T-shirt lay on my mattress.

My eyes widened.Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He snatched it from me. “You skipped out on watching the game for a fucking girl?” Oliver growled, suddenly cold. He hurled Maddie’s sweatshirt at me. “Come on, Alec! What the fuck has gotten into you lately? A girl?!”

I grabbed the sweatshirt that she must’ve left and swallowed. “No, Oliver.”

“Don’t lie, Wolfe. You didn’t show up to practice, you skipped today’s game, and?—”

“Shut the fuck up!” I snapped. “You don’t know what the fuck I’m going through.”

“By the looks of it, you’re going through half of the damn pussies in Redwood.”

After gritting my teeth, I leaped out of bed and shoved him toward my bedroom door. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“So, you’re going to fuck around and abandon your teammates like that?” he snapped, nodding like this was my choice, like it had been my choice to get raped at his party. “You’re a fucking piece-of-shit friend if you’re going to do us like that.”

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