The Substitute (The Bros Series Book 1)

by Xavier Neal

  “If they had child protective services would’ve been here to help.”

  “Throwing me in foster care as a teenager would be far from helping…” My lips briefly push together before I state, “I’m fine…Or I’ll be fine…I always am. Once I get the hell out of this place and in college, everything will be so much better. I even got my scholarship letter today. Full ride.”

  His smile finally reappears. “No shit…Really?”

  “Really.”

  “That’s fucking incredible!”

  Hearing the thrill finally come out of someone else makes my joy jump out of me faster. “Four years.” I nod. “Assuming I keep my grades above the requirement, all four years will be covered. I was so excited when I opened it, but then I remembered the fight I had with my mom and that’s when I called and ruined your evening-”

  “You didn’t ruin shit,” he insists instantly. “We were just hanging out. Next time I’ll leave faster despite Wyatt’s whining.”

  A smile threatens to cross my lips. “You didn’t need to leave faster. You didn’t need to come at all.”

  “Clearly I did.” His eyes bore into mine. “It’s okay to need me, Ainsley. You’re my girlfriend.”

  Hearing the declaration for the first time out loud causes my heart to pound heavily.

  “You’re entitled to need me, especially when it comes to good news or the fact that you’re starving.”

  “I-”

  “Don’t,” he cuts me off. “You are and you don’t wanna admit it. From now on, from this point forward, you’re never going hungry again. I don’t care if I have to slip you a twenty after class for lunch or drive over here with bags full of shit myself. I’m not going to sit idly by while my girlfriend goes hungry. That’s ridiculous.”

  I cringe and slightly pull back. “The last thing I want Nate, is to give you any more reasons to think I’m not mature enough to be in this relationship, and if you start buying me things like this, it just proves I’m not.”

  His head tilts in irritation. “That’s bullshit, Ainsley, and you know it. The only thing me buying you food proves is you trust me enough to help take care of you when you can’t take care of yourself.”

  Hating how weak it makes me feel, I glance away. I’ve done alright this long. Learned to make meals stretch and munch on other’s leftovers. Making sure to hang out at Sloane’s closer to dinner, so I could just stay and enjoy a real meal. I have a system. I started finding ways to make my food last just weeks after my father passed away and my mother made it clear I was on my own. I’ve been surviving for years. I don’t need him to help take care of me…

  “Hey,” his voice softens. My eyes travel back to his and he exhales his frustration, “Just…let me do this? If not for you than for me. Let me have this peace of mind.” I begin to waiver, which is when he adds, “Please.”

  I swallow the urge to continue the argument. “Okay.”

  Nate lets out a small sigh of reprieve. “How about I go heat this meal up and you tell me all about your plans for Ashwin?”

  The subject I can’t help but gush over causes my smile to return. “Sounds good.”

  He breaks away and I flop back down into the dining room chair. I watch while he grabs dishes from the cabinets to reheat the meal he brought. After receiving directions to all the items he’s hunting for, he lightly digs further into my love for the university. He questions on when and how it began. Eventually the conversation rolls around to his time at college and how the political science building at Clover Rose came to be named after his family.

  It doesn’t take long for me to devour the risotto along with the fresh baked bread. As soon as I’m finished, Nate clears the dishes and insists I munch on the chocolate chip cookies that he hadn’t pulled out of the bag yet.

  I hum my approval the second the first bite of one hits my tongue. Through moans, I mumble, “Dear God this cookie is incredible.”

  He looks over his shoulder from the dish he’s washing. “Don’t make me jealous of a cookie.”

  A little snicker escapes. “Sorry…”

  Nate smirks, turns back around, and says, “Wyatt actually stole that cookie recipe.”

  “What?!”

  “Yeah. There’s this world-famous pastry chef he met last year at some weird food festival in France. She’s known for many of her desserts, but he had one of her cookies and said he almost came on the spot.” He shuts the water off and reaches for a drying towel. “So being the charming, manipulative bastard that he is, he weaseled his way into her pussy then stole it by taking a photo of the recipe from her personal cook book in the middle of the night.”

  I swallow the last of the treat at the same time he turns around. “You’re shitting me.”

  Nate puts away the clean dishes and states, “Unfortunately not.”

  My fingers break another cookie in half, trying not to consume them all in one sitting. “That’s crazy!”

  “That’s Wyatt.”

  “Who’s the chef? Can I like Google her?”

  He makes his way back towards me. “I don’t remember her name. She cooks for some royal family in another country.”

  “Which country?”

  “I have no idea.” After I chuckle, he motions his head, “Come on. Why don’t you show me your room?”

  Standing up, I flirt, “Are you trying to seduce me, Teach?”

  To my surprise he says, “Not tonight, Kid.”

  Suddenly feeling like one, I try not to pout. Is it because he knows I can’t afford to take care of myself? Because he fed me dinner and washed the dishes? Is it because-

  “You need some rest,” Nate explains, tugging me into him by the hand. “And as much as I love fucking you senseless every night, you need some sleep. Some real sleep.”

  The corner of my lip tugs upward.

  “I won’t rush off right away. I’ll lie with you for a bit. Now, which way?”

  With a warm feeling racing through my blood, I link our hands together and lead him to my little corner of paradise in this hell.

  My mother is wrong. Spending time with Nate isn’t ruining my life. It’s making it so much better. Something she’s never done and never will.

  NATE

  “Are you skipping school today?” Holden questions with laughter in his tone. “Playing hookie? Too much pussy got you calling in sick? Wait. Can subs call in sick?”

  I stretch my legs out onto my coffee table and have a swig of my beer. “When you’re a perm sub, yeah, but it’s not recommended. And I’m not skipping class, asshole. It’s a teacher in-service day.”

  He drops down onto the edge of the couch on the opposite end. “A what?”

  “Teacher in-service. The school is closed and we’re supposed to be in training all day. What really happens is we train for the first three hours and are given the rest of the day to catch up on shit, which I don’t need to do.”

  Holden twists the beer around in his grip. “Because you’re anal retentive.”

  “Organized.”

  He rolls his eyes and has a gulp of his beer. “So, if there’s no class today then where’s your school girl fantasy?”

  I groan at his choice of words. On one hand, they’re disgusting. They’re demeaning. She’s much more than just some real-life version of my favorite porn. But on the other hand, fuck, when she calls me teach it’s one of the sexiest things out of her mouth.

  “Working,” I state sharply. “She’s got a job. She’s not like the other students at Ollander who spend mommy and daddy’s money like it’s a competition. She’s responsible.” Too responsible to be so young. I fucking hate the way her mother treats her. It’s not like I got the pick of the litter for parents either, but at least I never had to worry financially. Even now, my choices in a cheaper living style are because I choose to live this way despite their willingness to foot the bill for something more extravagant. “She’s more mature than you think.”

/>   Holden braces his back against the arm of the couch. “Uh-huh…Fucking your teacher during a pep rally is mature?”

  A small chortle is freed before I have another sip of my beer. With an innocent shrug, I admit, “That happened once. We’ve learned to be more discreet.”

  He lifts his eyebrows as he slowly nods. “More discreet?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s why her torn panties are hanging out by that lamp beside you?”

  I glance over and quickly grab the shredded object. Tucking it out of sight between the couch cushions, I defend myself, “We’re at my apartment. That’s a little different. We’ve….dialed back on the public shit. Neither of us wants me to get fired. Hell, she won’t even stay the night here unless it’s the weekend to keep her best friend from asking questions or raising suspicions by us showing up around the same time.” And I know it’s killing her not to have someone to talk to about us. In a way, I’m lucky. I’ve got three assholes to gripe to or brag to any time about what’s going on with us, not that I typically do. But I can. Ainsley on the other hand is limited on what she says to Sloane down to the point she can’t even vaguely speak on having a boyfriend without sending her best friend snooping. That’s really the last thing we need. It’s not that I don’t trust her from personal experience. I don’t trust her because she’s an eighteen-year-old girl and drama is her real best friend. “We keep leaving the apartment to a minimum to help prevent the possibility of being seen by someone we shouldn’t.”

  Holden places his beer down on the coffee table. “Fuck me for asking, but wouldn’t it just be easier to quit and teach somewhere else?”

  “I told you-”

  “Yeah, I know what you told me and I remember what I told you. Quit and keep sleeping with her.”

  “Dating.”

  “What?”

  “We’re dating,” I bravely correct. “We’re…together.”

  “You’re together? Like exclusive? Like only fucking each other?” He tries to hold back his urge to chuckle. “Like she has her own toothbrush here and a sock drawer?”

  I scowl. “Why is that funny?”

  “Why wouldn’t that be fucking funny!” Holden let’s his laugh go. “Nate Greene, ass clenched so tight he shits 14 carat diamonds, is finally relaxing enough to not only get laid, but have a girlfriend. We made a bet a couple months after you left the hospital this day would never come.”

  My look of disapproval deepens. “What?”

  “Yeah, I took the shit odds. I figured you’d unclench somewhere closer to forty, have an edge of midlife crisis moment and marry a senator’s daughter or…the barista who makes your coffee every morning. Wyatt put his money on a life of celibacy via the priesthood while Pax put his money on you switching teams.”

  “I’m not gay,” I grunt my annoyance. “Never have been.”

  “You’ve convinced me, but Pax has questioned your loyalty to pussy since you soberly denied that three way our junior year.”

  “They were strippers!”

  He shrugs. “Didn’t matter to Pax. You know how he is.”

  Pax would dip his dick into the hole of a doughnut if he thought he’d get a good orgasm from it. Getting off is always his priority. Orgasms and then the rest of his life. He could talk about sex endlessly for hours if we let him. Probably the kinkiest fuck head out of all of us.

  “Look, I for one am happy to know you’re getting back to the real you outside of the Die Hard Christmas get together we have every year. I just want you to be careful, okay? The last thing I need is to have to use old tricks to get you out of trouble…”

  Rather than remind him we’re responsible adults now who shouldn’t need to rely on blackmail to cover their ass, I switch topics. “Speaking of tricks, what were you doing downtown today, anyway?”

  He loosens the tie around his neck. “They wanted me to actually come into the office. The new director of the main division I consult for wanted me to prove I was worth the loopholes they went through to keep me out of jail.”

  “And did you?”

  His cocky smirk is followed with him snatching his beer back up. “Do you really have to ask?”

  Glad to have the chance to fuck with him now like he did me, I joke, “I don’t know, bro. Maybe you’ve been slipping. Maybe your skills aren’t as sharp as they used to be.”

  He nods sarcastically. “You’re probably right. I mean how else would I know you’ve been looking at attending the annual black and white film festival in Cliffsworth this weekend or that you’ve been researching new mattresses to finally replace that lump of shit you’ve been sleeping on since we were sophomores.”

  My jaw drops. “You’re fucking spying on me?”

  Holden laughs and finishes the last of his beer. Afterward he gives me a cocky smirk. “Bet you’ll think twice about questioning me again.”

  I try to hide my frustration. Drawback to having a hacker for a best friend, they know anything and everything about you with or without your consent. While I know he’d never cross a line for us we couldn’t handle being crossed, I can’t say I’m not worried he’s been digging into Ainsley’s life. I don’t think he realizes how impossible he makes it for us when we actually get interested in dating a woman. “Have you….checked on Ainsley?”

  He fidgets with the empty bottle in his hands. “Do you need me to?”

  “No.”

  “Do you trust her?”

  “Of course,” I quickly admit. “I just know you.”

  Holden doesn’t deny the insinuation.

  “So….have you?”

  He immediately nods. “Do you want me to tell you what I found?”

  Tempted to take him up on the offer, I look away. It’s not her I worry about her. It’s her piece of shit mother. The trouble she’s probably buried herself under that her daughter has no idea about. The kind that could destroy the future Ainsley’s working so ceaselessly to build. I doubt anything in my girlfriend’s personal past could be a problem, but her mother’s…her mother gives me a reason to be thankful Holden does what he does.

  I drag my eyes back to his. “No.”

  To my surprise, he smiles proudly. “You must really like her.”

  With my own grin, I state, “I do.”

  For another half an hour the two of us bullshit about basketball and the shit we’ve been binge watching. The conversation eventually ends with Holden bitching about the nanny he’s going to fire and him needing to leave to grab his kids from childcare. Once he’s gone, I grab my third beer of the day, and return to the Netflix marathon I had been enjoying. Before I started dating Ainsley, I probably would’ve spent the rest of the day working. Grading quizzes. Prepping materials. Researching more examples to use during my lectures. The truth is I rarely ever give myself a break and she reminded me last night as I walked her to the bus stop that it’s okay every blue moon to relax. Which is one of my favorite things about her. Living in the present. Living for what is happening between us rather than worrying about where everything is going to end up in three months or six. Doesn’t mean I don’t have hopes for that time. Ainsley’s not much of a planner outside her college career. She’s never really understood the point. My guess is with a mother like hers, she’s never really had to.

  Half awake, the sound of knocking on my door in the late evening is unexpected. I place my beer on the coffee table and promptly answer it.

  Ainsley’s sweet face lights up. “Hey, Teach. Mind if I swing by?”

  I helplessly smile at the surprise. “Of course, Kid. You know you’re always allowed over…”

  She gives me a chaste kiss on her way in. “Then maybe you should give me a key.”

  The idea rolls around in my head. It would make things easier. She could just let herself in whenever she got off or on days like today when I should’ve been working but wasn’t, she could’ve
just hung around my apartment until I made it back.

  “I was kidding, Nate.” Her snickers bring me back to the moment. “We’ve only been dating like a month.”

  “Yeah, but maybe a key isn’t a bad idea.” Strolling into the living room where she’s shedding her jacket and shoes, I add, “You know, for those days you need an escape from your own house.”

  Ainsley’s brown eyes soften.

  Instead of pushing the issue, I head back to my spot on the couch. “Off early?”

  “Earlier than expected,” she replies, dropping down beside me and tossing her phone on the coffee table. “When I work a double they tend to cut me second, not first, but I guess because I opened today, they figured I should get to go home before anyone else.”