Page 13 of Rescued By My Best Friend's Brother

His remark tugs at my patience, but I ignore it. I want to move on. I want a new beginning, and this is a good place for it. Jasper would be the perfect start. If I can start over with him, I can start over with anyone. “I just wanted to come here to see if we can start over, start fresh. I don’t want this disdain for each other to keep hanging over us.”

He inhales and calmly wipes off his glasses. “Listen, Elena. I just don’t trust you, it is taking every ounce of my being to trust you with my daughter. I am only doing that because I know she is old enough to tell me if anything happens.”

I step closer to his desk. “Why though?” My voice sounds strained.

He stands up, putting his glasses back on. I forgot how much taller he is than me. “You always got Josie into trouble. You got her arrested when we were kids.” His voice rises, but it isn’t quite yelling…yet.

“But we were just being stupid. Josie wanted a few drinks, and the guy wouldn’t sell them to her, so she tried lifting them,” I argue. I don’t know why he always thinks it was me who got Josie in trouble. She was the one with all the brilliant plans. I just followed along. It felt free being around her, like I could be a teenager, instead of some in-house babysitter for my foster parents.

“Oh, stop it, Elena. Josie did all those things because you were with her. Quit making excuses.” He steps out from behind his desk, eliminating the barrier between us. I suddenly feel vulnerable.

“I’m not. But it’s a little unfair to put all the responsibility on me. Yes, I made some mistakes, but Josie did too. I don’t know why you’re only blaming me.”

“And then there was that time you were getting cozy with her boyfriend, what’s his name?” He pauses. “Wasn’t it Jack or Zach or something?”

“You mean the football player? His name was Zach, and what you saw was him hitting on me. You showing up saved me from having to deal with him.” I’m surprised that he still remembers it. I’d felt relief when Jasper had interrupted us. I just picked a fight with him, so that I could follow him out of the room as if I wanted the last word, but, I’d just needed to escape Josie’s horny boyfriend. All the guys Josie dated seemed to assume I was a slut when they found out I was in foster care.

Jasper rolls his midnight blue eyes and steps toward me. I step back. “Yeah right, Elena. You always got close to her boyfriends.”

I shake my head. “No. Josie was just too nice to see that those guys were scumbags.” My back hit the nearby bookshelf. My breath catches in my throat.

He stops a foot away. “So, you’re saying every guy Josie dated was into you. That’s a little arrogant, don’t you think?”

How did this suddenly turn into an interrogation, like I needed to defend my teenage self? “No. I’m not!” I bellow. I cover my mouth, shocked by the volume. “I mean, look, I just want to start fresh. I know you don’t like me, and I know that you probably have trouble trusting people after your—” I freeze. I didn’t come here to start a fight, and I know his ex-wife is a sensitive topic, at least by the way Josie mentioned he never spoke of her.

He steps closer, erasing the rest of the space between us. I can smell the faint cologne on his clothes. It causes my heart to race in my ears. “What were you going to say?” His voice is low and terrifying, but I’m not scared, not in the way I would be if it were another man standing before me. I’m more surprised that he is this angry. I’ve never seen him this furious, even when Josie and I came home after being arrested. Or the time he had to pick us up from the club because we drank too much in college. This is a different kind of fury.

I shrink in my spot, unable to move anywhere else. “I just understand, is all.” My voice sounds small even for my ears.

His eyes pierce through me like daggers. I search for anything to look at, anything that isn’t his intense glare. “Please leave—” I flinch at the way he spits out the word. He sucks in a deep breath and looks away. “I have to get back to work.”

“Will you at least think about it? It would make everything easier between us, and it won’t make Josie feel like she has to mediate all the time.”

He goes back to his desk, “Good night, Elena.”

I exhale and leave the room. Why does he have to be so difficult? Why does he hold such a grudge against me?

I trudge back to the guest house, where I find Josie sitting on the couch, eating from a glass container. “How’d things go?” she asks without looking away from the TV.

I sit down beside her. “Terrible. I don’t know why he hates me so much.”

She shrugs. “He’ll come around. You guys bickered like an old married couple in high school. That’s not going to change overnight.”

I lean back against the cushions and look at the ceiling. At least in high school, it was sort of fun. It made me feel like I had a home, the way he was always nagging at me. I didn’t see him as much in college since we had gone to different schools. At least back then, it felt like someone actually noticed the things I was doing. Now, it was just annoying and hurtful.

Chapter Eight

Jasper

Theemailinfrontof me blurs as I think about the other night and how Elena had startled me. The way she took me off guard. She just seems so different. It aggravates me that she wants to forget everything that happened from high school to now. She had to be wrong about everything she said. I remembered it clearly, the way she got close to Josie’s boyfriends, the way Josie always got in trouble when Elena was around… But what if I remembered it wrong? What if I only saw things the way I did because I was looking for reasons to dislike her so I wouldn’t love her.

We used to get along, me pushing her buttons when the three of us, Elena, Josie, and me, hung out. I’d steal a bite of their food or annoy them like a big brother should.

I had a stupid crush. My feelings for her had started to change early in our teens. Then, I tried to tell her the truth about my feelings and asked her on a date. I asked her to go to the movies with me, and she showed up with my sister. I still remember how a pit had formed in my stomach when I saw her show up with my sister, the same pit that had expanded when she told Adam yes when he’d asked her out. The same yes I’d received, but somehow, it hadn’t meant the same thing to her. How could she misunderstand me so completely and then start dating my best friend?

I’d felt my skin get hot when she’d almost mentioned Caty, like she knew anything. She never even met Caty. She knew nothing. Absolutely nothing.

And yet, I found myself getting angry more at myself than at what Elena had said. Noticing how she had only grown more beautiful since high school, her cheeks more defined, her lips somehow fuller, her hair longer and wavier. The curve of her hips. I hate the fact I find her attractive. This woman who I’d fought with millions of times throughout the years. Why do I have to want her of all people? Why does she have to be so gorgeous? Why did she have to come back into our lives?

---