Page 7 of Crushing On My Brothers BFF

At least this attraction is one-sided. Hopefully, that’ll make resisting my insane desire far easier. Even so, I watch her walk back down the hallway. My gaze moves over her legs, her wide hips, her big, perfect ass. She deserves so much more than me obsessing over her right now. What’s wrong with me? I feel like I’ve been drugged. Taking my coffee into the waiting room, I sit next to her.

“When do the doctors think he can go home?” I ask, deciding to keep everything about Paul. That way, I’ll constantly remind myself why I can’t act on this feeling.

“They said it depends,” she replies. “If he wants to pay for a nurse and all the necessary stuff, maybe less than a week.”

“I’ll sort that,” I tell her.

“Really?” she asks.

I wave a hand. “Don’t even think about it again. I know how much Paul hates hospitals.”

She nods, not needing me to say anything else. We both remember her parents going in and out of the hospital, both fighting cancer, failing, and repeating the cycle until it came to a catastrophic end we never saw coming.

“Thank you,” she says after a pause.

“He’s my best friend,” I reply.

“Where are you staying?” she asks.

“I’ve got a hotel,” I say, a complete lie, but she’s polite. It would only be natural for her to suggest I stay at her and Paul’s place. I know they’ve got a four-bedroom near the beach.

If I stayed there, though, this would be impossible. It’s difficult enough now not to lay my hand on her leg, both for lust and for support.

“Okay, good,” she replies in that same cold tone.

Pathetically, I find myself getting offended. It’s a reaction I can’t control. There’s just something off about so much coldness between Sophie and me, even if there shouldn’t be, even if I shouldn’t care at all. I almost wrap my arm around her and kiss the top of her head, the sort of romantic thing I’ve seen in movies but have never actually done.

She’d probably jump out of her chair and push me away if I tried anything like that. I can imagine her response.“What’s wrong with you, you old creep?”

We sit in silence. I can tell she doesn’t want to speak, and that’s just fine with me. At least, itshouldbe. I shouldn’t care if she wants to sit in the steely, uncomfortable silence because it’s only steely and uncomfortable on my end.

As we sit here, I remember what I told Tyrone before I left.“I will explain about the video as soon as I arrive. They’ll understand.”Yet now that I’m here, it feels seedy and wrong to bring it up. That must have something to do with this newfound hunger in me, this sudden surge.

After around an hour of waiting, during which I took two business calls in the staircase lobby, the doctor tells us Paul is ready for visitors. I let my woman go first. Forfuck’ssake. I letSophiego first. Not my woman, obviously.

When she returns, eyes red, she murmurs, “He’s really excited to see you.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.” She looks at me for a few long moments, a lingering look that makes me wonder if she’s jealous or something. “It is.”

I turn away from her, which is more challenging than it should be, and follow the nurse to his room. Paul’s leg is in a cast, propped up, his head shaved and covered in bandages. He’s hooked up to a couple of machines, too. When he sees me, he makes a visible effort to sit up. It clearly hurts him to turn his head, but he does it anyway. He smiles shakily. “It’s good to see you, man. You didn’t have to come.”

It takes him a long time to get these words out. I sit next to his bed, leaning forward and gently placing my hand on his arm. I’m barely touching him, just enough to let him know I’m here. “Of course I did.”

“But I mean… Remember what we were talking about last week? The company? The downturn?”

“A quarterly blip. You don’t need to worry about that, Paul.” He didn’t need to worry about itbeforehis injury, but especially notafter. He left the company and went to live the life of his dreams. “Just focus on getting better.”

“They… need you, though,” he says.

Glancing over my shoulder, feeling like a guilty ass, I make sure we’re alone. Then I tell Paul about the video I’ve started to make, despite my concerns. “Tyrone thinks it’s a way to kill two birds with one stone. I can be here, help you, and hopefully produce—I don’t know—a viral video. Apparently, the more intimate it is, the better,but…”

I lean forward, looking at him firmly. It’s how we’ve looked at each other countless times over the years and how he looked at me when he said he was leaving the business. We know that when we get like this, we mean whatever we’re about to say.

“If you want me to kill the idea, I’ll do it right now.”

“No,” he replies. “I’m glad you’re here. I won’t lie, but you need to take care of business. Get your camera out.”

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