Wrong Bed, Right Brother (Accidental Love)

by Rebecca Brooks

  Noah sipped his coffee.

  He knew it pissed Luke off that he didn’t respond. But he wasn’t doing it to be a dick. He honestly didn’t know what to say.

  Because he didn’t know “what the fuck was going on.” He and Amanda weren’t just some fling anymore. But were they serious? Was it a relationship? What would happen next week when he was gone?

  If they weren’t serious, why did he need to talk about it with his brother?

  And it if was serious…then what was he doing with half his room packed into boxes and Luke staring him down like he was about to explode?

  “Are you sleeping with Amanda?” Luke asked.

  Noah tried not to spit out his coffee. He tried not to react at all.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes.”

  Which was, frankly, an idiotic thing to say. Sure, he wasn’t literally fucking her every second of every day.

  But he certainly thought about her every second of every day. He certainly wanted to be sleeping with her every moment.

  It wasn’t a sometimes thing. It wasn’t an occasional thing.

  It had turned into pretty much an all-the-time, big-deal part of his life.

  Which was why Luke was sitting here, shaking his head. “Dude,” he said.

  Noah raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m not mad,” Luke went on quickly, as though trying to get out the words before Noah could say something. Which he totally didn’t need to be doing, since Noah still had no idea what those words should be.

  “She was never my girlfriend,” Luke said.

  “I know,” Noah said. But it sounded more defensive than he’d meant. Like he kind of knew it still wasn’t okay.

  Luke stood and stretched with a giant yawn like this was all no big deal to him—even though he was the one who’d stayed home, waiting for Noah. He was the one who’d set up this whole ambush, and he was the one who was going to be ridiculously late for work because of it.

  Not like he cared about being late, but still, Noah wasn’t fooled.

  “I’m trying to look out for you,” Luke said.

  “I appreciate that.”

  “We’re moving next week,” Luke said. “Moving because you wanted a change. It’s only been four months since I could barely peel you off that couch. Don’t go tangling it up right as things are about to take off.”

  Noah tried to swallow down his frustration. “It isn’t a problem.”

  Luke made a very Luke face. Noah knew that when the lights were on, he could never be confused for his brother. It wasn’t just the dimples. That look was one of the top reasons why.

  “The whole reason we’re going is because you wanted a change after getting out of a huge, long-term relationship that went south. Seems like not a great time to be giving up everything for some new girl you hopped into bed with because you don’t want to be alone.”

  The disparaging expression on Luke’s face deepened. It said, What the fuck are you doing, moron? It said, like their mother, Don’t make me repeat it.

  Noah put down his Danish. “I’m not giving up anything,” he said. Quiet. Steady. Trying to hold onto his heartbeat. Because if he let go, if he messed up, it would slam out his throat.

  Luke cocked his head. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Noah repeated.

  But sure of what?

  Sure he wanted Luke to drop this line of questioning. Sure he had to get some work done today. Definitely sure he didn’t want this whole thing to blow up in his face.

  But sure he had his life together, sure he was following his plans, sure he knew a goddamn thing?

  Standing there in front of his brother, insisting everything was under control, he knew what he was doing, he had not just jumped into bed with the first person he’d found…he felt like an actor playing himself. He was watching some character named Noah Miller move his arms and say things. He was a fraud.

  The truth was he didn’t know shit.

  And the way Luke was looking at him right now, Luke sure as hell knew it, too.

  “You can do whatever you want,” his brother said, at last, striding past him to reach for his keys. “Fuck whoever you want. Hell, I’m just glad you’re getting some and moving on. And I’m not going to ask how it is.”

  He held up a hand like that was why Noah had just opened his mouth so sharply, like Noah was dying to dish about Amanda’s velvet body and waterfall sighs—when it was really that referring to kissing Amanda, being inside Amanda, falling asleep with Amanda as “getting some” made him want to clock his twin brother and very best friend in the nose.

  Inhale, exhale. He kept his fists by his sides.

  He’d never hit Luke. He’d never hit anyone. But it made something rise inside him, an angry tide he didn’t know he had in him, to hear her talked about that way. Dismissed, like she meant nothing to Luke. Like she was supposed to mean nothing to him, too.

  Luke stood by the door, and Noah willed his brother to walk out. Just walk out the door and be done with this.

  Give him the day to think it over so he could figure out what he wanted to say.

  But Luke opened his mouth one last time, and Noah knew like a hit to his chest that this wasn’t done, it wasn’t ending anytime soon, and he was in more trouble than he’d thought.

  “You asked me for L.A.,” Luke told him, looking him straight in the eye. “You came to me and asked if I’d do it with you, and I said yes. Because I wanted to be there for you. And I thought you’d be there for me, too. We signed a lease together, Noah. We’re supposed to be there next week.”

  Noah nodded, his throat dry. “I know.”

  “Then don’t forget that there are plenty of girls in California. I’d say I’ll see you tonight, but I doubt it. So whatever, man. I just hope I’ll see you on the plane. Because otherwise, what the fuck am I going to do?”

  He stormed out of the apartment and slammed the door.

  Noah took three steps across the room, as though to go after him. But in the silence that echoed after the door closed and Luke’s footsteps faded down the stairs, he stopped. His heart was pounding. His fingers clenched.

  “Fuck,” he swore out loud.

  He had no idea what to do.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  All morning, Amanda was walking on clouds.

  Kissing Noah good-bye while he was still lounging in her bed. Thinking of him the whole subway ride. Imagining his lean body stretched out on her sheets and then picturing him rising, pulling on his clothes, brushing his teeth in her bathroom, drinking coffee from her favorite mug.

  The world seemed brighter. Everything was more vibrant, more alive.

  Is this, she wondered as she pushed through the subway turnstile, what love is? Is this why it makes people do stupid things and get all googly-eyed and giddy?

  She practically danced her way up to the office. When she caught sight of Luke, she waved. He didn’t wave back.

  “You look like shit,” she said, spinning him around in his desk chair before she went to sit at her own desk behind him. “Rough night?”

  It was the way she usually was with him, and she did it without thinking. But this time, it didn’t feel like trying (badly) to flirt, or doing anything to get his attention, or finding excuses to be near him however she could.

  She didn’t feel that way about him.

  And she was beginning to realize her world was in technicolor for a very specific reason. One that had nothing to do with the man in front of her—handsome even when he was scowly and still had a little bit of bedhead. And everything to do with the man she’d left in her bed that morning, handsome especially when he was smiling and sleepy in the mornings, with a whole lot of bedhead and scruff.

  “You’re in a good mood today,” he grumbled, kicking his chair into place and stopping her from moving it again
.

  “And you’re a total grump.” She folded her arms and stalked back to her desk. “Tinder let you down?”

  “Just busy with the move,” he said and then spun around so he was facing her where she sat. “You do remember I’m moving, right?”

  “Yeah,” she said slowly, feeling herself frown. “You kind of haven’t let me forget.”

  “Then you know that means Noah’s moving, too.”

  Just hearing his name—it felt like there should be clarion bells ringing, fireworks booming, something to mark what it meant.

  Then again, this didn’t seem like an occasion for celebrating the way her heart was leaping out of her chest, full of feelings she’d never had. Never known she could have.

  Not with the way Luke was looking at her. Not with the way he’d spat out his brother’s name.

  “What’s going on with you?” she asked carefully, doing her best to sidestep the whole thing about Noah and moving and the way it made her heart burst and twist all at once.

  “Nothing’s going on with me—that’s the point.”

  They were starting to draw notice. They never fought. Certainly never in the office, with people milling all around.

  He rolled his chair over. She wanted this whole damper on her awesome mood to go away, but she couldn’t help it. She leaned closer so he could whisper to her.

  “The point is what’s going on with you and my brother,” he told her, and she couldn’t move. She couldn’t look up. She couldn’t confirm or deny or shake her head or run away or jump up and scream, “Yes, and I think I’m in love!”

  Because she couldn’t speak. Everything in her was frozen, from her toes all the way to her tongue.

  How did Luke know? What had Noah told him? Noah had said he wanted to wait. So why the hell hadn’t he talked to her first?

  “Although who am I kidding?” Luke went on. “I should have known that Noah moving wouldn’t bother you.”

  “What are you talking about?” She knew she shouldn’t get into it, but still. He was being so cryptic, so weird. And such an ass.

  “I just mean that Noah has this whole serial monogamy thing going on where Kristina dumps him and he immediately has to find someone else to spend all his time with. But that’s not your thing, is it? ‘Serious relationships?’” He said the words as though they were in air quotes. As though the two of them were sharing some in-joke about how love was made up and never lasted anyway. The kind of thing she might have said before she’d felt it. Before she’d had reason to believe it was real.

  “You won’t be pining over him when he’s gone.” Luke said it with a shrug, twisting the knife even deeper, and Amanda swallowed. He didn’t know shit. He didn’t know her. Suddenly, she wasn’t even sure how well he knew his brother.

  For the first time, she could see him. Really see him—not as the guy she’d painted some unattainable fantasy of for all those years but as a person. A man. Leaning over her desk and trying to hide how shitty he felt.

  Luke didn’t want her. She knew that. It was obvious—and it always had been, if only she’d bothered to do any looking.

  But that didn’t mean he wanted anyone else to have her.

  It didn’t mean he wanted her to choose someone else.

  He was used to having all the attention. From the way Noah put it, Luke had been used to having all the attention for a very long time. It had to be disorienting to feel that slipping away. Not just to realize his friend and his brother were having a relationship without him, doing things he couldn’t be a part of, getting closer in ways he’d never know.

  But more than that. The idea that Noah might do something without him, period. Make a decision, make a change with his life. Not a move to L.A. that they could do together, but the opposite. A decision that had the potential to cleave their relationship forever.

  It almost made Amanda want to reach out and hug him, so palpable, so very real and desperate was his pain.

  But her pain was real, too. She kept her hands by her sides.

  “I think,” she said, and then when her voice came out small and hoarse, she cleared her throat and tried again. “I think that’s probably going to be for Noah and me to decide.”

  It wasn’t a This Is Serious statement. It also wasn’t a You’re Right and It’s Nothing and I’m Fine.

  But it was true, no matter what. It wasn’t Luke’s call.

  He shrugged, whole paragraphs written in the line of his shoulders, the lean of his hips. “I’ve known you for almost four years, Mandy,” he said, using a childhood nickname that sounded so strange right now, when she didn’t feel like her kid self at all. “In all that time, you’ve never had a real boyfriend.”

  “You don’t need to tell me that,” she practically snorted. Trying to keep things light. Trying to get back to how their friendship had been before she—well, she wasn’t going to say that she fucked it all up. Nothing about what she was discovering with Noah felt like fucking up at all.

  But before things had changed.

  “It’s like the end of senior year of college,” he said. “You know when everyone was hooking up like we were all going to die tomorrow, so might as well get in that last fuck with the person you never thought it would happen with?”

  He laughed, and she nodded like she knew what he was talking about. Like she could relate. She had no idea why Luke was thinking about that until he said, musing, like it was all some funny gossip he had to share, “I guess Noah decided it was time to get laid again before we get the hell out of here.”

  She was too stunned to speak. Too pissed to look at him.

  “Anyway, I didn’t mean to keep you.” He slapped the desk lightly with his palm. “I should probably let you get cracking, since you came in so late and all.” His eyebrows did a little dance, like this was back to being one big joke. Like he hadn’t just stabbed a knife through her chest, pulled it out, and was walking to his desk with blood on his hands as she sat there, staggering, feeling her own heart drain out its life.

  Like she and Noah were just sleeping together.

  Like he was using her for some quick, work-your-stress-out fuck before he moved on to his new life.

  Like this was nothing. She was nothing. Her heart was nothing, and anything that might have made it feel like more was simply Noah rebounding after Kristina. Noah looking for someone to warm his bed at night. Noah being confused.

  And so what? She wanted to shout after him, after she pressed her hands to her abdomen and realized that no, that knife wasn’t real. And yes, she was still upright, still ostensibly fine.

  So what if they were fucking? So what if it was nothing but fun?

  It still doesn’t give you the right, she wanted to yell.

  But instead, she picked up her bag and stormed out. If she needed to be at work today, she didn’t care. If Luke had anything else to call after her, she didn’t care, either. It wasn’t until she looked at her phone when she was in the elevator that she saw the text she’d missed from Noah.

  NOAH: Luke’s in a pissy mood.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” she said out loud and headed for Central Park.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Noah got to the park early, forgetting that meant he’d just be hanging around waiting for Amanda, who he expected to be late. But he didn’t mind. He hadn’t been able to spend another second in the apartment, Luke’s words echoing in his head.

  He knew how it looked to have jumped so quickly from Kristina to Amanda, starting something that took up so much of his time right before he had big plans to move. Plans he’d roped his brother into. Plans he needed to follow through on.

  But that didn’t mean his brother knew what he was talking about. Noah sighed, watching little kids playing in the grass. He wished he had a run scheduled for today, something to distract him. He wished he could see Amanda’s face right
now and feel centered again.

  To his surprise, she texted and said she was already in the park. Maybe he was rubbing off on her, he thought with a smile. She must have known exactly what he needed.

  But when she got there, following his directions to the bench, he could immediately tell that wasn’t it. Something was wrong.

  Her eyes were rimmed with red, her cheeks flushed. She looked like she was trying not to run up to him but wanted to run up to him but also didn’t want to want to run up to him—a kind of half jog, half stumble he didn’t understand.

  If she’d been smiling, he’d have known it was because she couldn’t wait to see him—even though they’d kissed good-bye only a few hours ago. But the stormy look in her eyes, the pink of her face, said differently. Maybe she did want to see him. But that didn’t mean something wasn’t wrong.

  “Was work okay?” he asked in concern as she came up.

  “Work was fine—I left early.”

  He frowned. “But you got there late.”

  “And I’m sure the zombies will miss me.”

  “Amanda, what happened?” She loved her job. She never talked like that about it.

  “Luke was there.”

  Noah groaned. “I wanted to tell you—he pretty much accosted me at home, saying he knew about us.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” she said. “I didn’t get your text until he’d already said his piece.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. And he was. Sorry about Luke, sorry about not telling her sooner, sorry about how all of this went down. He’d so wanted to shield her from anything painful that might happen. It hurt to know how much he’d failed.

  “He’ll get over it,” he said gently, reaching to take her hand and reassure her this was going to be okay.

  But she slid her hand away before he could touch her. “I don’t think this is as not-a-big-deal as you’re making it.”

  He thought about the things his brother had said. But that had been heat-of-the-moment stuff. Mad at Noah stuff. Nothing Amanda had to be upset about.

  “I know Luke,” he said firmly. “He’ll be dramatic for a while, but things will calm down.”