Brothers & Best Friends

by Rose, Ashley

  "Janine, no guy is that nice," Larry said.

  She sighed. "I know, and that's what he tried to tell me. But I wouldn't accept it. So...I was there for a while, and we started making plans for the future. He was even going to take me to meet his friends the night he came home and found me packing, which made me feel like a real jerk. But my mom called and I told her about the baby and she yelled and told me I had to come home, so I came home, because I'm stupid, and..." She sighed. "It was just a sucky situation. And I left. He didn't come after me, not that I expected him to. He did call me yesterday, though, but I was at work. I haven't talked to him since the day I left, but we had a really bad parting and he wouldn't answer the phone when I called. But now he called, so hopefully I'll get to talk to him and he won't hate me anymore."

  "Think you'll get back together?"

  She half smiled and shrugged. "I don't know. Probably not. He asked if I was coming back and I told him no. He could even have a new girlfriend by now," she said, hating the way her heart jumped to her throat at the thought. "Rachel from NYU, or Casey, the crazy one, or some other girl. That's probably why he's calling. He's had time to lick his wounds and...I guess get over me, and he's probably calling to smooth things over. That should be good, and it is good, but at the same time, it isn't good. Usually, people only do things like that because they've moved on and they want closure, and closure means it's really over. Why would he want closure if he didn't move on? John hasn't said anything to me, but John wouldn't. He likes to protect me. I'm just selfish. I should feel good and happy that he has moved on, that he's happy now. After all, I told him I wasn't coming back, so I should be glad that he's...found someone, but I'm not, and...I guess I better get over that before I talk to him."

  "Jealousy doesn't make you a bad person," Larry told her.

  "It does make me a bad person. I shouldn't want him to be alone just because I am. I should want good things for him. I should want his happiness more than anything. I should be able to look back on our short amount of time together and just be happy that we had that long."

  "But you're not."

  "No, because I'm greedy. It's not enough that I had him for a little while. I don't want anyone else to have him. But I have absolutely no right to feel that way, because I'm the one who left." She sighed and glanced over at him. "I'm sorry, I'm rambling to you. This is my crisis," she said with a smile.

  "Was he your first love?"

  She nodded. "Yeah."

  He nodded. "You know, it's all right."

  "What is?" she asked, looking over at him.

  "To have feelings for your first love. A lot of people do. They have a special place in your heart. My first love still has a place in my heart. They'll always be...different, you know? But it doesn't actually mean that they're the only one for you."

  "I didn't say that," she hedged.

  He smiled. "No, you didn't have to. I could see it on your face when you said you were the one that left. You looked like you wanted to smack yourself."

  She half smiled. "I did. I do. He was just...perfect. He's just perfect."

  "No one's perfect. I'm sure if you had been around him long enough, you would have found out that he leaves his clothes all over the floor and he burps at the dinner table."

  She chuckled. "Well, I already know he doesn't pick his clothes up, but it doesn't bother me that he's messy. And I didn't mean that he's actually perfect, I just mean that he's perfect for me."

  "Maybe he was just a perfect first love. You might be surprised. When you talk to him, you might not feel the same way."

  "I doubt it. I've been in love with him forever."

  "So you're going to stay single for the rest of your life because you can't have him?"

  She frowned slightly. "I don't know. I've never really thought about it. I guess I've never pictured myself dating anyone but him."

  "Ah, but other guys can be dated, too. Maybe if you give it a chance..."

  She shook her head. "No. Any guy who dates me now would have the wrong idea about me," she said.

  "Why?" he asked with a frown.

  She chuckled. "Larry, look at the protruding stomach. I would feel like a guy would only ask me out because he thinks I'm easy."

  "Why? Why don't you think someone would be attracted to you because you're beautiful and smart and funny and fun to be around?"

  "Because I'm not. And besides, I'm pretty much an introvert, so I doubt anyone would notice the good qualities about me."

  He snorted. "You think you're an introvert?"

  "Of course. I've always been an introvert."

  "You realize you talk more than everyone else at work combined, right?"

  She blushed. "I do not."

  "Yes, you do. I can't believe that you think you're an introverted person who can't be dated. Guys at work hit on you daily and you flirt right back."

  "They do not hit on me, they're just teasing me. And I do not flirt. I am the most subtle flirt in the world. My idea of flirting is smiling. I tease, but teasing is not flirting. Teasing is what you do when someone teases you so they know you also have a sense of humor."

  "Janine, I flirt with you."

  "You do not!" she protested. "You tease me!"

  "What is the difference between teasing and flirting?"

  "You tease co-workers. It's how you keep a nice, friendly environment. You flirt with...other people. And when I flirt, it's usually just smiling."

  "Janine, maybe I'm dense, but don't you smile all the time?"

  "Yes, but that's a friendly smile," she informed him.

  "And don't I smile at you all the time?"

  "Yes, mostly when you're teasing me."

  "How the hell did you get pregnant?" he asked rhetorically, shaking his head. "When a guy at work teases you and smiles at you and throws pizza dough at you, he's flirting, or he's an idiot—or maybe both."

  "No," she said, shaking her head. "I just have a pleasant working attitude. I refuse to believe you."

  "Why? You've seen the other two girls that work there."

  She gasped. "Mean! Jessica happens to be a very nice person."

  "Yes, I'm sure she is," he said with a nod. "But so are you and you also happen to be damn cute."

  She inwardly uttered so many swear words she felt like an Osborne. "I think you're wrong. The guys at work are just nice."

  He sighed. "Okay. Remember the other day when Ron was standing by you and he smiled at you and said he was hot?"

  She nodded. "I remember."

  "Do you remember how you responded?"

  She shrugged. "I think I said something about the stupid heavy shirts we have to wear and how it seemed too warm for September."

  "Do you happen to remember that it was about sixty degrees in the shop that day?"

  "Well, yeah, but he was wearing a layered shirt underneath."

  "He wasn't talking about the weather, Janine. He was hitting on you and it went so far over your head. Everyone at work thinks you should have been born blonde."

  "Is that why they call me Blondie all the time?"

  "Yep."

  "Do they know that I have 3.75 GPA? I am not an idiot. I just wasn't aware that I had to watch for flirting at work. It's right in the handbook that you're not allowed to date co-workers, so what's the point?"

  "No one listens to that," he said, rolling his eyes.

  Her eyes widened slightly. "But it's a rule. Can't you get fired for it?"

  "Maybe if the manager enforced it, but he doesn't. Last year he was sleeping with one of the counter girls, so nobody's really worried about it."

  She grimaced. "Hopefully she was older."

  "I think she was twenty-three."

  "Isn't he, like, forty?"

  He shrugged. "Demi and Ashton broke the ice." He put on his turn signal and turned into the ice cream stand.

  "That's kind of gross," she said. "Thank you for that information."

  He smiled that teasing smile. "Anytime."

>   She smiled back and he rolled his eyes. "That was flirting," he stated. "Do you need classes or something?"

  "Just now?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

  He nodded. "Couldn't you tell the difference in my smile from a second ago?"

  "Yes, this was your mischievous smile. It's the one you use to make fun of me like my brother does."

  He snorted. "I assure you, my intent was not to be brotherly." He shook his head. "You need a babysitter."

  She smiled. "You are so mean to me."

  "Well, it's true. If you can't tell the difference between a smile where someone's picturing you shirtless or a smile he would give his grandparents, you need a keeper."

  "If you were trying to picture me shirtless, I will be forced to hit you."

  "I wasn't," he said with a smile. "But it was still a fully loaded smile. It wasn't a casual smile."

  She shook her head playfully and climbed out of the car, but as soon as her back was to him her eyes widened and she muttered a curse.

  Janine managed to get through ice cream by acting like a complete ditz, and then he took her home, shaking his head at how oblivious she was.

  ***

  "Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot," she muttered as she got home, closing the door behind her.

  "What, what, what, what, what?" John replied.

  She gasped. "John!" Smiling despite her distress, she ran over and hugged her brother.

  "Hey," he said with a smile.

  "What are you doing here?" she asked.

  "I came to visit. Miss me?"

  "So much," she said with a nod.

  "So, why are you shooting?" he asked, opening the cupboard to find a snack.

  She sighed, then she saw her phone on the table and grabbed it. She couldn't believe it. The entire day, she had only gotten three texts, all from her friend Cammie. She checked her call log just to be sure—no Jess. She sighed even more heavily.

  "Hello-ooo? Janie? What's going on?"

  Janine tried to shake herself back into her conversation with her brother. "Oh, sorry. I have a very…uncomfortable problem."

  He smiled. "That's no way to talk about my future nephew."

  She glared playfully. "Very funny. No, I have a real one."

  "Okay, I'm all ears. What's the crisis?" He pulled a bag of chips out of the cupboard and opened them, popping one in his mouth.

  "His name's Larry."

  John's eyes widened and he forgot to chew for a moment, then came back to his senses and nodded. "Okay. A guy. Go on."

  "Well, he's a guy at work. I'm sure I mentioned him."

  "Yeah, I think the name sounds familiar."

  "Well, I always just thought he was really nice, but since my car wouldn't start today I needed a ride home, and he offered. Well, we stopped for ice cream on the way home, and we were talking and...according to him, he flirts with me all the time. Once he started telling me about it, it started making sense. I started remembering some of the smiles he would give me, like there was something more to them, but I shrugged it off. We're co-workers, and we aren't allowed to date co-workers, so it seemed stupid. But...now I'm worried, because he actually came out and told me several times that he flirts with me all the time. I didn't know how to respond, so I did what I always do with guys and played dumb. Now I have no idea what to do. I have to work with him. How long can I play dumb? He doesn't seem to care if I have a brain in my head or not, so what if playing stupid doesn't hold him off for long? What if he asks me out or something? He seems to think I'm this fabulous catch. I can't tell him no, because that would make things awkward. But I can't tell him yes, either." She sighed and sat down. "What should I do? Should I try to find a job somewhere else?"

  He half smiled. "Janie, you can't switch jobs every time a co-worker decides he's hot for you. That happens."

  "Well, what should I do about it then?"

  "Do you like him?" he asked seriously.

  Janine didn't know how to answer that. She couldn't seem to open her mouth to tell him one way or the other. "I don't dislike him," she finally said. "But I don't know. I've never thought about it. I feel like I would be disloyal to Jess if I even asked myself if I might like someone else. I shouldn't have to ask. If I ask, wouldn't that mean I'm looking? If I'm looking, isn't that not being loyal to Jess? So I don't ask, and I don't acknowledge that other guys even exist, and then I don't have to worry about being loyal to Jess when I shouldn't be, because I'm not actually being loyal, I'm just not liking anyone else. I'm not being disloyal because I'm not looking at anyone else. It keeps me in a nice limbo."

  He looked at her sympathetically, which somehow made her feel like a child.

  She glanced down, then back up. "Could I ask you one question about Jess?"

  He nodded, leaning forward on his arms.

  She glanced down again, feeling stupid. "Do you know...I mean...do you...does Jess...." She stopped trying and sighed, starting over. "Is Jess seeing anyone?" she asked awkwardly.

  He continued to give her that sympathetic look for a moment and she thought he wasn't going to answer her, but then he slowly nodded.

  She felt like he just ripped her heart out of her chest, and she found it difficult not to let out a groan of pain. She nodded, vaguely aware that she couldn't breathe. "Okay. Thank you. I have homework. I have to go," she said, jumping up from the table and running to the stairs.

  "Janie," he called after her.

  She ignored him and ran up the steps, her vision blurring.

  In her room, she slammed the door shut. She leaned against the door and took deep breaths, trying to calm down, but she couldn't breathe. She took out her phone and went to voice mail.

  "Hey, Janine. It's Jess."

  She held it close to her chest and started crying, pulling the covers up over her head. "I just wanted to...call and see how you were doing. I talked to John. He said you got a job. Anyway, I was just calling to see how you were. Bye."

  "It's only been a month," she said, throwing the phone down on her bed and hiding her face in the pillow.

  ***

  Janine didn't get out of bed the next day. She claimed to have a cough that was most likely contagious. It was her day off anyway. She curled up and watched A Walk to Remember. That way when people walked in and saw her crying, she had an excuse. Then she decided to watch The Notebook, but she ended up turning it off because it made her cry even more.

  John must have filled their mother in. She was acting oddly sympathetic. She kept coming up and asking Janine if she was hungry. Janine wasn't hungry. She found the thought of food disgusting, but she ate for the baby.

  John tried to come up several times, but she told him she would get him sick and that he needed to go away.

  "Janine, you are not sick," he stated, opening the door despite her warning. "You can't stay in bed all day."

  "Watch me," she said, then coughed.

  "Come on, let's go out and do something."

  "I don't want to," she said.

  "Why? Because of what I said about Jess?"

  "No. I don't care about Jess. He can date any bimbo he wants to date. I am curious though, is it the chick from NYU?"

  "No."

  She nodded. "Good. I wouldn't like him to be with someone annoying. It isn't Casey, right?"

  "No."

  "Good. Someone crazy wouldn't be good, either." She nodded as she lied, determined to be convincing. "It's good. In fact, I'm glad he found someone. It's better that he's dating someone than out drinking his life away."

  He continued to give her that sympathetic look, which made her protest even more. "John, I swear, I don't care. It's great that he's seeing someone."

  "Janie, I wouldn't have...I thought you were holding yourself back because you were still hung up on him."

  "Well, I'm not anymore. I mean, like Larry said, Jess is my first love, so he will always have that first love spot in my heart. But that's all. I'll be fine."

  "Janine...I shouldn't have said
that. I shouldn't have...I mean, you're carrying his child, and I should have...I wasn't thinking, Janie. But—"

  "John, there's something I need to tell you," she said, his statement reminding her of the lie she had yet to right.

  "Okay, but I think you should let me say my piece first, because I can't stand to see you cry. I just don't want to see you holding yourself back, either."

  "John, what I have to say is very important."

  "I know, but Janie, I don't want you to—"

  "Jess didn't get me pregnant," she blurted, cutting him off.

  He stopped talking and his jaw fell open. "What?"

  She sighed. "Jess was just covering for me. I didn't go to Jess to tell him that we conceived a baby. I went to him to tell him that I was pregnant and I didn't know how to tell you. I needed to tell someone, so I told him, but I didn't want to tell you or mom, so he offered to take the blame, to say he got me pregnant. But he didn't. Jess never touched me until I went there, and even that was at my own insistence. And we didn't...we kissed and stuff, but..."

  "Jess didn't get you pregnant?" he repeated.

  She shook her head. "No. Jess was just accepting responsibility so the baby would have a father."

  "Who's the father?" he demanded.

  "It doesn't matter," she said, shaking her head. "The point is—"

  "It matters to me. I asked you who the father was."

  "It was just...some guy, John. I don't want to talk about it, okay?"

  "It was that bastard Chatham, wasn't it?"

  "Who?" she asked, frowning in confusion.

  "Will Chatham?"

  She had no idea who Will Chatham was. "Why would you say that?" she asked, frowning.

  "Because he keeps asking about you."

  She couldn't stop her face from falling, although she did make an effort. "He...goes to school with you?"

  He nodded. "You met him at that party."

  She told her stomach to stop turning over, as he went to school with plenty of guys, and she had probably talked to several. "I have no idea who you're talking about, John." She stopped and mentally went over how intelligent it would be to tell him she had been raped at the party now. He might make his own assumptions about who did it, act accordingly and ask questions later. She didn't need him beating up innocent guys or getting kicked out of school.