The Substitute (The Bros Series Book 1)

by Xavier Neal

  Finally, I reply.

  Me: Working.

  An unmistakable grumble of discontent comes from him. I smirk at the same time he tries to brush it off as a fake cough.

  Teach: Call in sick.

  Before I can deny his request he sends another message.

  Teach: Please.

  I cut him another glance this time receiving one filled with pleading.

  The tip of my thumb nail unconsciously slips between my teeth as I weigh the choices.

  My phone flashes a new message and I open it.

  Teach: Please Kid.

  Like he was hoping, the nickname shatters the little self-defense I had left.

  On a low, deep sigh, I reply.

  Me: I’ll meet you there.

  I watch Nate’s shoulders drop in relief and the pained expression he was carrying begin to fade.

  At least I know he still cares…You know…all couples fight. I guess this was bound to happen eventually. I just hope everything works out by the end of it.

  After readjusting my shoulder bag, I let myself into Nate’s apartment and find him waiting impatiently for me on his couch. The slightly disheveled look of his loose red tie and ruffled brown hair tempts me to offer him a smile of comfort. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this…unhappy.

  “Hey…” he quietly greets me, leaving my beloved nickname to linger on his tongue rather than in the air.

  “Hey,” I basically whisper back as I enter the room. I place my bag beside the edge of the couch and have a seat close to it.

  Nate glances at the gap between us and his demeanor seems to drop. Without prolonging any longer he proclaims, “I’m sorry about yesterday. I overreacted.”

  The words fly out my mouth before I can stop them. “You were being a jealous asshole.”

  He seems taken back by my statement.

  “Admit it,” I command in a calm tone.

  His hands link together and his arms rest on his legs, eyes still locked with mine. “I was being a jealous asshole.”

  There’s a thoughtless whine in my voice. “Why?”

  “I told you I overreacted.”

  “No,” I quickly deny his cop out. “You’re not just going to toss that out there, give me some well thought out robotic speech, and all will be forgiven, Nate. You treated me like a child, which I didn’t deserve and like a cheating bitch, which I also didn’t deserve!”

  Frustration flashes briefly in his eyes.

  “Why?”

  He remains silent.

  “Tell me why Nate or I’m going to walk out that door.”

  “I don’t know!” He explodes, hands flying into the air along with his body. “Happy now?”

  My expression widens at the sight of him on his feet.

  “Look, I didn’t mean to treat you that way yesterday. I would never intentionally be a dick. There’s just something about that Josh dickhead that rubs me the wrong way. And I know I’m the older person in comparison to him. I’m the one who should be more secure and understanding, but fuck! Every time I see him anywhere near you, I just wanna ring his neck. I hate that he can walk around with you like you’re his girlfriend. Like he’s the luckiest guy in the world. I hate entertaining the idea that maybe you two are better matched because of your age, but I did yesterday. And it made me beyond fucking jealous. And instead of talking to you about it like an adult, I….I….”

  “Threw a tantrum like a teenager,” I quietly offer trying to hide the humor in my voice.

  “Precisely.” He catches wind of the smile creeping onto my face. “Don’t…Don’t smile about this. I’m fucking 30, Ainsley. I should be over this territorial bullshit.”

  The grin grows. “You love me and you don’t want anyone to threaten that.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I get it. But you need to realize Nate, I wasn’t lying when I said there was nothing between me and Josh. There is nothing. There will never be anything. Even if you hate him you have to trust me because I haven’t done anything to break that trust.”

  He nods slowly. “I know…I’m sorry.”

  There’s a small lull between us. I allow for him to truly soak in what I just said before presenting him with what could potentially be gasoline on the fire.

  Once Nate sits back down, this time directly beside me, I state, “You should know Josh asked me to prom yesterday.”

  “Motherfucker.”

  I place a hand on his thigh. “Relax. I said no, but it did lead me to telling him the truth about having a boyfriend. Though I…smudged a few of the details.”

  His expression remains displeased. “It’s shit like that, Ainsley, that makes me worry.”

  “What?”

  “Fucking prom,” he grouses. “I can’t take you. I can’t even pretend to take you.”

  Defensively, I snap, “Who said I wanted to go?”

  “Of course you wanna fucking go! It’s your senior prom,” the words leave his mouth and shortly after he grumbles, shaking his head. “Fuck…you’re a senior in high school…What the hell am I doing?”

  A disgusted feeling creeps up the back of my neck. “Now you have a problem with my age?”

  He grunts, “No. Now I see the difference in our ages.”

  Baffled at the reply, I toss my hands in the air.

  “You should be….spending your weekends at parties and planning your prom, not…sitting around watching old movies with me. You should be out there…being young…being…wild…being….” Nate shrugs and leans back against the couch, “Irresponsible.”

  I turn towards him and snap, “Why?! Why should I being doing all those things? Because that’s what you did? Because that’s who you were? Did it ever fucking occur to you that if I wanted that life, I would be out there living it?!”

  His face drops.

  “Oh, and just so we’re clear, age has never been an issue for me the way it obviously has for you. It wouldn’t matter to me if you were 18 or 48, Nate. I fell in love with you. I fell head over heels for you because of how you make me feel. I fell in love with you because you make my life so much better. I fell in love with you because I realized I couldn’t imagine my life without you in it.”

  My words cause him to tighten his jaw.

  “I fell in love with you and I’d sacrifice my entire fucking future for you without thinking twice.” His eyebrows lift and I make a teary-eyed demand, “Don’t you ever fucking forget that.”

  All of a sudden, Nate’s mouth is covering mine. Mindlessly, I open it wider to grant his tongue access to its favorite prisoner. Despite the fact I know I should stop him, stop this, I don’t. I simply push back against his fevered strokes and whimper my approval. His hand wraps around the nape of my tense neck, effortlessly erasing the strain.

  Abruptly, he pulls back, breath labored as he confesses, “I think I’m scared of losing you, Kid.”

  My mouth lightly feathers his. “Don’t be, Teach…”

  Our lips link once more and our tongues tangle tightly back together. This time his touch travels gently down my anxious body. Each graze causes me to tremble and pull him closer by the lapels of his shirt.

  Unfortunately, our making up is interrupted by the sound of his phone ringing.

  Nate groans his irritation as he lets me go again. “I have to answer that.”

  “But if it’s burgers or beer drinking, you’ll tell them to fuck off, right?”

  The reference to our earlier conversation causes him to smirk. “At this fucking point it might not fucking matter. They might just have to wait regardless.”

  Hearing his desperation for me makes me moan mine in return.

  With a swift grab of his cell from the coffee table, he checks the ID. Unexpectedly his face takes an unusual form. Before I can question it, he answers, “Hello.”

  I eagerly wait to be clued in.

  “No, mom, dad’s not with me.” There’s barely a pause between
sentences. “No. We didn’t have dinner plans tonight. Are you sure he said they were with me?”

  His eyes cut me an apologetic glance.

  Well, it’s not his fault she called. However, overhearing him talk to one of his parental units does the opposite of turn me on…

  “I’m sure, mom,” Nate insists. “It’s not on my calendar.” He listens to the other end before sighing. “No. I haven’t had dinner with him since I came over to celebrate my birthday.” The annoyance with the subject grows. “No.” Pause. “No we didn’t.” Another pause. “Seriously, mom? Do you want me to send my google calendar to you? Will you believe me then?” There’s another grunt out of him followed by, “Fine. I’ll send it.”

  He ends the call, tosses the device to the side, and begins typing on his computer.

  “Everything okay?”

  Nate hesitates before he answers, “I don’t really know. My mom says she can’t get a hold of my father. She said he told her he was meeting me for dinner tonight, but clearly he’s not. I don’t know if she misheard him or what. I know her ultimate fear is that he’s going to develop Alzheimer’s like her father did and every time he forgets something or misspeaks she goes into this unnecessary panic. But the strange thing about what she said is this is the second time the two of us have met for dinner in less than a month. I haven’t seen either of them since right after Spring Break.”

  His words dart my eyebrows down. “Sounds like a miscommunication or just a mix up.”

  “Yeah well, she wasn’t taking my word for it, so,” he clicks around a bit. “It’ll only take a sec. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” I shrug and lean back against the couch.

  Suddenly, he stops his actions and turns to look at me. “Did you actually have a family emergency yesterday or were you just trying to give me shit about our fight in front of the class?”

  I press my lips together to prevent from answering right away. I was honestly hoping he had forgotten about that. Not sure I really feel like discussing it.

  His head tilts in suspicion. “What happened, Ainsley?”

  “Send your email. I’ll tell you after.”

  Nate sighs and does as requested.

  The brief moment to properly collect my thoughts is necessary.

  When he’s finished, he shifts his body to better face mine. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Well…The reason I didn’t call you the second I walked through the door was because my mother was home and decided to take her unwilling sobriety out on me.”

  A small tick appears with his clenched jaw.

  “Basically she was pissed she couldn’t find her stash. I had flushed it as punishment when I found it hidden in my underwear drawer. Apparently this sent her into a frenzy and….she kicked me out.”

  “What the hell do you mean she kicked you out? Where did you stay last night?”

  “With Sloane. And she didn’t kick me out yet, but she’s kicking me out as soon as I graduate. She’s convinced I’m throwing my life away for some dick guy with a huge wallet. That you’re going to just leave me when the next piece of tight ass comes along. She has no idea what she’s talking about.”

  “No she fucking doesn’t,” he snaps. “Fuck her, Ainsley. She treats you like shit. For years, you’ve had to cook for yourself. Clean the whole house. Do all the goddamn laundry. You even have to throw the money you make at her, just to keep your fucking lights on because she would rather spend the great money she makes on expensive clothes and drugs. I repeat. Fuck her. She doesn’t want you there. You don’t wanna be there. Fucking leave and don’t look back. Just move in here. You were already contemplating putting this as your address for all your Ashwin shit. Do it. Move in with me.”

  His demand warms my heart. “Not until I graduate.”

  “Why?”

  “To keep suspicions down, Nate.”

  He frowns.

  “You know as well as I do, if I move in here then we’re riding to school together, I’m not taking the bus, and people are going to start rumors when they see us arriving around the same time. Trust me. There are already plenty of rumors about me floating around. The last thing I need is more. Besides, you’ve got that job at Ashwin to consider and I’ve got a scholarship I would rather not have scrutinized.”

  That’s the way things work at places like Ollander. One wrong rumor and your entire world can come crashing down. It doesn’t matter if you think everything is secure and your future can’t be touched, it can. It can be toyed with or destroyed if you piss off the wrong people. Ollander is just a steady reminder that those with power raise their children to take over the reins at an early age. Compassion is a luxury very few students and even fewer of the staff have.

  “I don’t want anything to fuck with your ride to Ashwin,” he reluctantly caves. “We’ll wait…but the day your classes are officially over, we’re packing your shit, and moving you in here. Understood?”

  His bossy but ultimately sweet command makes me smile. “Understood, Teach.”

  The sound of his phone vibrating grabs our attention again.

  He gives it a quick check and announces, “She said he just called her. Name mix up.” There’s a small pause before he adds, “And he just texted me, insisting we have dinner next week.”

  “You should,” I encourage. “This can be your monthly visit. It’ll just be earlier than usual.”

  Nate grunts and twirls his phone around in his grasp. After a long beat, he asks, “Come with me?”

  Surprise strikes my expression. “What?”

  “Come with me,” he repeats. “Come have dinner with me and my father.”

  “You…You want me to meet you parents?”

  “Parent,” he corrects quickly. “One at a time to keep the pressure down.”

  I give him a sarcastic look.

  “Just trust me on this one. It’ll be easier this way.”

  Meeting his parents? Why does that feel like a bigger deal than me moving into his place? Shouldn’t it be reversed? But what if they hate me? What if they hate how young I am? What if they send him down the same spiral of paranoia Josh does? I know they’re not extremely close, but he does try to have a relationship with them.

  “I love you,” Nate states firmly, interrupting my thoughts. “I want you to meet them. My father first since he’s harder to deal with. He’ll be thankful to put a face to the name.”

  “They know about me?”

  “Of course they do.”

  “How much?”

  He bobs his head back and forth. “Bare minimum. Enough to keep my mother from attempting to set me up on dates and enough to keep my father from dropping hints about how he thinks I’m lying because I’m actually gay.”

  I catch my giggles in my hand.

  “We’ll have dinner somewhere nice and fancy. Somewhere your classmates are less likely to recognize us. Somewhere that gives me a chance to see you in something fancy and formal.”

  With a pointed look, I ask, “You mean like a prom a dress?”

  “Not that formal, but along those lines…”

  The corners of my lips start to lift.

  “And for actual prom, we can get away for the weekend, just the two of us. Somewhere far from here where I can enjoy you in a prom dress as much as I will enjoy ripping it off of you and throwing it on the floor.”

  Helplessly, I snicker, “I’m not buying a fancy dress for you to rip off.”

  “Then I’ll buy it.”

  “You’re missing the point.”

  “The point was you’re going to wear something fancy and I’m going to tear it off of you. For dinner with my father though, I’ll probably use my teeth…”

  The imagery causes me to bite my bottom lip in anticipation.

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Yes. I’ll go to dinner with the two of you.”

  He smirks at his victory and texts his father back. Afterward, he tosses
his phone aside once more and states, “Since we’re on the topic of people getting their way, I have something to show you.”

  “What’s that?”

  Nate grabs the television remote, switches it to show his PC screen, and loads a video.

  An excited gasp falls from me. “Our video?! You’re finally finished?”