Page 29 of My Brother's Best Friend

Halfway through the door, she locked gazes with me and stopped dead in her tracks. We stared at each other for the longest few moments of my life, and then she smiled, dimples forming on her cheeks, just like her son.

She hadn’t even been here when I brought him home!

“Mrs. Wolfe,” I whispered, careful not to wake Alec. “It-it’s not what it looks like.”

She smiled even wider and slipped out of the room. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

When the door closed, I shut my eyes and slapped a hand over my forehead.Shit.

Once I set Alec’s head on his pillow, I slid off his bed and hurried out of his bedroom. I would have to face Mrs. Wolfe at some point, so I might as well get it over with now so she didn’t spill this little secret to Oliver.

Tiptoeing down the hallway, I found my way to the living area, where Mrs. Wolfe was now folding laundry with their maid, as if to busy herself. I lingered at the door, awkwardly playing with my sweaty fingers, until she finally acknowledged me.

“So, um …” I shifted from foot to foot. “I was just making sure Alec was okay.”

Mrs. Wolfe hummed in amusement and continued to fold clothes, her huge ring glimmering underneath the living room light. She placed a pair of Alec’s shorts in a pile. “You know, I always thought something was going on between you and him.”

My eyes widened. “Wh-what are you talking about? Th-there isn’t.”

“He always talks about you.”

“He does?”

She smiled. “And I always catch him staring up at you during his games.”

Warmth exploded through my body, yet I bit back my excitement. Alec always looked up at the student section—not for me, but for Sandra and his other girl groupies. I had nothing to do with those sneaky little peeks.

After rubbing my sweaty palms together, I chewed on my inner lip and rocked forward. “I know it’s none of my business, but has anything happened to Alec recently?” I asked, nervous about overstepping. I didn’t want to offend her. “Anything?”

“No, sweetheart,” she said. “Nothing that I know about, but Alec doesn’t tell me much.”

“Oh,” I hummed. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

Maybe it was really what had happened between us that threw him off. I had asked him more than once about it, but he continued to either tell me that nothing was wrong or that I wouldn’t understand. But he didn’t know that.

I had been through hell with Spencer. I could deal with whatever he had going on.

“Thinking about it …” she started. “His anxiety is back.”

“Back?”

She offered a soft smile. “In middle school, he had bad anxiety. Terrible actually. He had it for years until we finally had the doctor prescribe him medication, which he refused to take. I didn’t think he’d ever get better until his second hockey game of his eighth-grade season.”

My entire body tensed.

She and I remembered that night for completely different reasons.

“Oh yeah?” I whispered.

Oliver had had all his teammates and some popular girls over until late that night, celebrating their win against a team who had completely demolished them the previous year. We were at that age where Truth or Dare and Seven Minutes in Heaven were the thing to do at parties.

I wanted to grab a late-night snack and ignore everyone else, and Alec was retrieving a glass of water from the kitchen for his dare. We both turned the corner at the same time, tripping, and our lips smacked right into each other.

At the time, I had counted it as my first real kiss. Now, I didn’t.

It was a simple mistake …at first.

But I had never looked at him as the same annoying kid that my brother called a friend.

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