Her Best Friend’s Brother

by Feeney, M. B.

  Tell your brother I’ll be ready at 10 a.m.

  Megan’s reply dots appeared instantly on the screen.

  Will do. Thank you!!

  Although Lucy wasn’t sure why Megan was thanking her, she still responded with a ‘you’re welcome’ and put her phone back down.

  Seventy-two hours. All she had to do was survive a car journey to Boston for seventy-two hours. With Jenson Phillips.

  “Meg, he’s late. Are you sure he’s coming to pick me up?” Lucy paced around her lounge, looking out of the window for what must have been the tenth time in the space of twenty minutes.

  “I spoke to him ten minutes ago. He’s on his way. I know you’re pacing around your apartment. Will you sit down and relax?”

  “We’re going to hit traffic now, because of Jenson.”

  “It’s only lunch time traffic. Just calm down.” Lucy could hear the laughter in her friend’s voice, but it didn’t dispel the annoyance she felt toward Jenson for being over an hour late. As much as Lucy was never on time, she was never this late.

  “I’m just pissed. I wanted to be on the freeway by now.” The delay meant that it was likely she’d be stuck with Jenson for company for longer than planned.

  “Lucy, he overslept.” Megan sighed at her friend’s frustration. “He’ll be there, I promise. I have to get back to my seamstress now. Let me know when he’s there.”

  “Sure, but if he’s not here within the hour, I’m leaving without him.” How she’d manage to get her wedding gift down to her car was beyond her, but she wasn’t thinking straight.

  “Sounds fair. I’ll see you in a few days.” Megan ended the call, leaving Lucy to return to her pacing.

  She’d been so stressed about the trip, she’d hardly slept, knowing she was going to travel with Jenson Phillips. She’d had a horribly realistic dream that he had jumped off the pier by the Phillips’ family beach house, hit his head, and was floating in the sea, unconscious and unable to cry for help. No matter how much she wanted to help him, she couldn’t get her feet to budge an inch through fear, and all she could do was watch him disappear, helpless and sobbing.

  Rubbing her aching temples, Lucy sat on the couch, trying to put the dream out of her mind. A moment later, she stood back up to get some aspirin from the cupboard and washed them down with a mouthful of her coffee. Lying down on the sofa, she gazed at the TV, not seeing the show that was playing as background noise. As the aspirin did its thing, she could feel her eyes getting heavy as she fell asleep.

  * * *

  Lucy stood at the edge of the water, watching as Jenson sank up to his chin in the water a fair distance from her.

  “Come on, you know you want to jump in,” he called out, his deep voice loud in the darkness.

  “How deep is it?” Lucy asked, wary.

  “Not deep.” Jenson stood, and Lucy couldn’t help but notice the water hit him just below his navel, leaving the rest of his chest, broad shoulders, and muscled arms in full view under the moonlight. “Come on, Duncan. We haven’t got all night.”

  Nibbling at the inside of her cheek once more, Lucy debated going back to the cabin, wondering if she’d made a mistake going outside with him. Before she talked herself out of staying with Jenson, she dropped the towel she’d been clutching around her body, held her breath, and ran into the water to Jenson. One minute she could feel the sand under her feet, and the next it dropped out from under her. Instantly, panic set in the moment the water covered her head, and she couldn’t get herself above the surface. Unable to touch the seabed, she flailed her arms and legs, trying to break the surface. Suddenly, strong arms were wrapped around her waist, and she was dragged above the surface, closer to the beach where she could finally put her feet on the ground below her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you can’t swim?” Jenson sounded almost angry as Lucy walked out onto the beach and grabbed her towel, coughing water out of her mouth.

  “You lied to me. You said the water wasn’t deep, and I saw you stand up. How did you do that?” She didn’t tell him that she could swim, she just wasn’t very strong or confident in the water.

  “There was a mound of sand under the water, I stood on-” Jenson cut himself off, moving forward in the water towards Lucy. He reached out to touch her cheek gently, looking closer at her face. “I didn’t know. Are you okay?”

  Not sure how to cope with him being so near to her, Lucy shoved him away, ignoring how it felt to touch his bare chest. She couldn’t believe she’d fallen for his ‘joke’.

  “I’m sorry, really I am.”

  Jenson followed her and wrapped his own towel around his shoulders, and Lucy couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed by his action. They walked away from the water and sat down with the pier looming above them.

  “Why would you come out here if you didn’t know how to swim?” he asked, his voice gentle.

  She tried to work out how to respond so as not to let on she’d been curious about what it would be like to spend time alone with him. Eventually, she decided not to answer his question and went on the defensive instead.

  “I trusted you, Jenson. I know now that was a mistake.” She gave into her need to yell at him. “You’re exactly what I always thought you were; an immature asshole who doesn’t care about anyone else if you’re getting a laugh out of it. I shouldn’t have come out here with you.” She would have stormed away from him, but she was suddenly exhausted and wouldn’t have been able to stand, even if she wanted to.

  “Why? Because of that?” He gestured to the spot where she almost drowned. “I know I shouldn’t have done it, but you sound like you hate me, Lucy. Why?” He took a deep breath, as if he was about to say something that had been bothering him for a long time. “For as long as you’ve been friends with my sister, you’ve given off the vibe that you don’t like me, and I don’t know why. What did I ever do to you?”

  He had it wrong… she didn’t hate him. Far from it. Trying to act indifferent around him to hide how she really felt had obviously backfired.

  “Hey, you know what? I don’t think I want to know.” Reaching out, Jenson tucked a flyaway strand of hair behind Lucy’s ear. “For whatever I’ve done, I’m sorry. I really am.” His eyes locked onto hers, almost pleading with her. “Forgive me?”

  Unsure how to react, Lucy reigned in her anger, knocked his arm away from her face, and turned to face him.

  “Forgive you? I can’t even trust you, Jenson. I’ve always known who you are. I’ve seen what you do.”

  “What do you know about me and what I do? We’ve barely spoken before tonight. You’ve only ever seen me when I’m with my friends, not when I’m alone and myself.”

  “Forget it. It doesn’t even matter. I’ll forgive you for tonight because you didn’t know I couldn’t swim very well, but I’m done with you. I’ve seen and heard enough.” Lucy turned away from him, ending the conversation, or so she thought. To her surprise, Jenson put his hand on her arm and pulled her towards him.

  “I think I have an idea what you’re talking about. You see me as a player, heartbreaker, an ‘enemy’ to nice girls because you’ve seen a snippet of my life.”

  “Pretty much,” Lucy agreed, embarrassed that he seemed to have seen right through her, and her feelings.

  “You have no reason to believe me, but it’s not like that. I’m honest with girls – I make it clear I don’t want anything serious. They accept that, at first. Then we go to a party, I have a little too much to drink… she expects more than I’m willing to give. Is that fair on me?”

  “Not really.” Lucy felt bad for him; something she hadn’t expected. She’d only ever seen one side of the story; the girls who hung on his every word, the way he would wrap his arm around a different girl on different days. He was never short of female company, which made her hidden jealousy flare. She could also relate to how he felt; Matthew had only known her for two weeks when he declared his love for her in front of everyone they knew. All she’d ever done wa
s treat him as she treated all her friends.

  “These girls don’t know me, not really. They claim they love me, are in love with me, but they don’t even know me. They love the idea of me, the idea of being in a relationship with me to prove a point to other girls. To be seen at school and admired or envied.” He took a shaky breath before continuing. “But you, you’re different, Lucy.”

  “What? Because I hate you?” Her words made Jenson laugh a little, which eased her feelings of guilt from having yelled at him.

  “Yeah, maybe. Maybe it’s because around you, I don’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not.”

  * * *

  The booming on the door to her apartment jolted her awake.

  “I’ll be there in a second,” she called out, confusion fogging her brain, making her movements jerky and uncoordinated as she sat up and grabbed her phone off the table. It had been almost an hour since her call with Megan had ended, so she knew it was Jenson hammering on her door, and he was over two hours late picking her up. Anger flooded through her again.

  Standing, Lucy moved toward the door, making a quick stop to check her appearance in the mirror in the hall. She was shaken by the trip down memory lane her dreams had taken her on, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it. Her hair was stuck to her face, a bright, red imprint of her arm glowed on her check, and it was clear she’d been drooling, if the wet patch on the collar of her shirt was anything to go by.

  Her nerves were on edge as she made her way to the door to open it for Jenson. She’d only seen him a handful of times since that night under the pier, but he’d never seemed to notice her much. Eventually, she sucked in a deep breath and pulled the door open.

  Jenson Phillips was leaning against the wall opposite the door, his face turned away from Lucy as he held his phone to his ear.

  “Yeah, I got it. Talk to you later.” His deep voice was still the same, despite the fact his hair was longer and he was sporting a delectable amount of stubble across his jaw and chin. He put his phone in his jeans pocket and looked at her, his clear blue eyes standing out against his tan. “I thought I was going to have to break your door down to check to see if you’d changed your mind.” He wasn’t smiling.

  “Jenson, it’s been a while.” Lucy greeted him, biting down her anger at him.

  “Yeah, likewise.” He brushed past her, not bothering to wait for an invitation inside. “I need to use the bathroom. Where’s yours?” he asked, his tone abrupt and harsh.

  “It’s down the hall.” Lucy bit the inside of her cheek to prevent herself from snapping at him as he strode away without another word.

  Grabbing her phone, she opened a text, ready to complain to Megan about Jenson being no different than he was before, if not worse. Deciding against it, she threw her phone onto the couch in frustration as Jenson emerged from the bathroom, wiping his hands on the backs of his jeans.

  “Is this your luggage?” he asked, pointing at her bags that were stacked just outside her lounge.

  “Yes, but there’s more. I need help with the painting.”

  “The painting? What painting?”

  Lucy pointed to the large bubble wrapped ‘package’ to the side of the lounge.

  “We’re bringing that with us?”

  “Yes.” Lucy crossed her arms and looked at him in silence. Eventually, he stepped forward and lifted the package a few inches before setting it back down, the solid brass frame clearly causing issues.

  “Shit. What’s in it, solid gold?”

  “Yep. I added some bricks and lead weights to it too, just for you,” Lucy responded sarcastically. Jenson eyed the package warily. “Please be careful with it. It’s fragile and it’s for your sister.”

  The two of them took hold of either side of the well-wrapped painting to take it downstairs to the street. Once there, and ignoring the ache in her back, Lucy scanned the parked cars.

  “Stronger than you look there, Duncan. I didn’t think you’d make it all the way down to the sidewalk.” Jenson smirked at her. Ignoring his snide remark, she scanned the streets once more.

  “Which one is your car?”

  Jenson smiled softly as he stepped forward, unlocking the car directly in front of her. It was vintage and gorgeous, despite the rusty green color, but she wasn’t sure it was up to a three-thousand-mile journey though.

  “We’re not driving to Boston in that, are we?”

  Leaning against the taillight of his car, Jenson smiled as he pulled a pair of aviators onto his face. “That’s the plan, sweetheart. Problem?”

  “Three thousand miles in a car that’s over fifty years old…”

  “And?”

  “Will it even make it all the way?”

  Jenson shrugged, filling Lucy with fear that they’d end up stranded on some deserted freeway in the middle of nowhere.

  “Sweetheart, this is a 1971 Dodge Challenger. She’s built to be on the road.”

  “Isn’t that the same car that’s in the show about those demon-hunting brothers?”

  “That’s a Chevy Impala… don’t you know the difference?” He groaned at the idea of her getting his car mixed up with one from a show – even if the Impala was a beauty.

  “You know what? We’ll take my car. It’s not very big, but-”

  “Look, this car hasn’t let me down once. I’ve driven to Texas and back on more than one occasion. It’ll be fine.” He popped open the trunk. “I’ll ignore the fact that you’ve insulted Martha here.” Lucy ignored the fact that his clunker had an old lady name to match its age.

  “I see you’re just as sweet and thoughtful as I remember.” Lucy was chanting not to punch him in her head as she rested an arm on the painting next to her. Jenson simply laughed as he took a step closer to her, his familiar scent teasing her senses. Removing his sunglasses, he looked down at her, his eyes challenging her somehow.

  “And what do you remember, Lucy?”

  Jenson

  From the moment she’d opened the door, Jenson had been prepared for Lucy to yell at him for being late, so he’d decided to act like an ass from the get go; really give her a reason to be pissed at him.

  They hadn’t seen one another in over a year, when they’d both been at his parents’ home for some celebration or other. They’d avoided one another like plague victims, but he could remember admiring her from afar.

  When Meg had asked him to pick Lucy up and drive her to Boston, his first reaction was to refuse, despite the shiver of thrill that made its way through his entire body. He’d let himself be talked into it, even though he knew it was a bad idea. When Meg had texted him to say Lucy would be ready at ten a.m., he had almost backed out completely, but decided against it. Ever since that night under the pier, he and Lucy had actively avoided one another. They were adults now; maybe it was time for them to finally talk it out, and where better than trapped in a car together for seventy-two hours?

  * * *

  Running late was not in Jenson’s plans. He’d woken up early to make sure he had everything he needed, then had to deal with a problem from work. By the time he’d sorted it out, he was already over an hour late, and ignoring calls and messages from Meg. Lucy was going to be pissed, even more than usual whenever they were together, but he was finally on his way across the city to pick her up. Less than five blocks away, his car ran out of gas, so he’d had to walk to the nearest gas station to fill up a can and back to Martha.

  Eventually, he was in her apartment building, hammering on her door. There was no answer, and he wondered if she’d left without him. He banged on the door again and heard her call out. Feeling relieved he didn’t have to break in, he tried to settle his nerves as he waited for the door to open. Then his phone rang.

  Naturally, that was the exact moment Lucy opened the door. Despite planning on giving her a reason to be pissed at him, this wasn’t part of the plan; thankfully, he managed to end the call pretty quick and barged into her apartment looking for the bathroom.

  By the tim
e they made it down onto the sidewalk, he could see she was regretting her decision to travel with him, and her staunch refusal to look at him gave him ample opportunity to take in her appearance.

  Lucy Duncan, as far as he was concerned, had always been pretty, but now she was beautiful. And clearly didn’t know it. There was a quiet confidence to her now, one that had never been present when she’d been hanging around his parents’ house with his sister, and it made her even more attractive to him.

  Being the quarterback in high school, there had been an expectation of Jenson. He needed to be good-looking – he thanked his parents for those genes – gifted at football, and a player with the ladies. Having a crush on his little sister’s best friend didn’t even come into the equation, so he hid it for so long. It was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do and regretted it constantly. Looking back, peer pressure was a complete bitch and he wished he’d never succumbed.

  As they stood on the sidewalk, holding onto Lucy’s painting, he waited for her to answer his question. She had a faraway look, as if she was remembering something. It hinted that she was lying when she finally responded with two words that cut him to the quick.

  “Nothing much.”

  “Hang on, Lucy. We’re almost there.” Lucy clung to Jenson’s back as he guided both of them towards the entrance to the pier. With only the thin, wet fabric of her two-piece separating their skin, Lucy struggled to concentrate on not falling off his back, but he’d insisted he carry her because she’d left her shoes back at the cabin. Ignoring the heat from his body warming parts of her she didn’t need him to be aware of, she beat herself up for believing the rumors about him. He was different from what she’d thought; he was honest and had made her feel more alive in the few minutes they’d been together than anyone had in her entire life so far.

  As they moved across the sand, she could feel the muscles in his back shift, and when they reached the bright lights, Lucy unwound her arms from his neck, slipping to the ground. Side by side, the two of them walked away from the pier, towards the cabin. Instead of walking inside, Jenson sat on a long, flat rock rising out of the sand, hidden from the lights of the pier and the beachfront cabins. When he pushed his hair back from his face, Lucy caught sight of a wide smile. He glanced at her standing over him before leaning his head back to look up at the stars above them.