[Barley Cross 01.0] Being Brooke

by Emma Hart

  Two bottles? Does he want to hold my hair while I vomit?

  “Candy.” He pulls a selection of bright-colored packets out of the second bag, then empties the third by grabbing the bottom and tipping up. “And way too many chips, but they were on sale, and you know I can’t resist chips when they’re on offer.”

  “Or when they’re full price,” I muse. “I’m amazed you bought me wine. Although if I drink all that, I’ll vomit.”

  “Yeah, well, it was unintentional. Besides, if I bought you one bottle, I knew I’d get the “Why did you just buy one?” speech, and I’m too tired for your crap.” He flashes me a panty-melting half-grin and opens a cupboard door. Then another. And another. “Uh, B? Where are your glasses?”

  “In the box over there?” I point to the big pile of still packed boxes. “Or...Maybe the ones in the bedroom. I’m not sure.”

  What? I was working all day. And I hate unpacking anything. Even multipacks of panties. They just sit in my dresser until I’ve made it through every pair, and then the package stays there until it annoys me. I’ll be an excellent wife one day.

  “One of those? Somewhere?” I shoot him a sweet smile. “And how can you unintentionally buy wine?”

  Easily, Brooke. Very, very easily, as you well know.

  “Wow. One of any box in this entire apartment. That’s real helpful, Brooke. Thanks.”

  I don’t think I like his attitude. Shithead.

  “And I didn’t go to the liquor aisle to buy you fucking wine,” he continues. “It was a decision I made when I got the beer. I told you—I’m tired, plus I had a shitty day at work.”

  “Ah, yes. Catcalling all those hot women walking past while you work your muscles and your builder’s butt crack is on show must be so hard.” I roll my eyes as he crosses the room and takes his pocketknife from his pocket.

  “I don’t catcall. And I don’t have a builder’s butt crack.” He slices open the top box. Being a builder has its perks, and one is apparently the constant presence of a pocketknife upon one’s person.

  The downside is apparently this builder doesn’t show his butt crack. Someone should start a petition to make it a law. Sign me up!

  I pick up the wine bottle and stare at him. “If you didn’t mean to buy it, why is it chilled?”

  “They had some in a fridge.”

  “The store doesn’t have wine in the fridges.”

  He sighs, stands, and puts his knife back in his pocket. “Goddammit, B, do you have to argue everything?”

  “As a rule, yes. If I don’t, how would you know you’re wrong?”

  Cain pulls a wine glass out of the box and takes the bottle from me to pour it, firing me a quick, half-hearted glare. “You’re exhausting, woman.”

  “Really? You’re just figuring this out? For shame, Cain Elliott. I pride myself on being exhausting. That’s how I get people to leave me alone.” I take the glass he offers me, a grin stretching across my face.

  He shakes his head and tries to hide his own smile. “Can you order that pizza now? I’m starvin’. Look. I’m wasting away.” He lifts his shirt slightly, his toned abs peeking out, and he pinches one whole centimeter of “fat” on his stomach.

  “Yes.” I drag my eyes away from his body toward the packet of red hot Cheetos sitting on the counter. The open, half-empty packet. “Because you didn’t eat on the way over, did you?”

  He turns from putting his beer in the fridge. “It’s past my dinner and I have a physical job. I need feeding.”

  “Good god, you sound like my brother,” I grumble. “Except the only physical exercise Ben gets is with his right hand over the latest porno mag or whatever it is now that Playboy stopped publishing nudes.”

  “Ah, yeah. Sad times.” He nods.

  Men.

  I grab my cell and dial Domino’s to Cain’s laughter and the strangely satisfying pop-hiss of him opening his beer bottle.

  I love that pop-hiss. Someone needs to make empty cans for the freaks like me who just want to sit and open them for no other reason than to sigh happily at the sound over and over and—

  “Hi, Brooke! What can we get you today?” the Domino’s chick asks, cutting through my internal monologue.

  Yeah, I order it so much they’ve saved my number. That’s always a point of shame when I call, yet I can’t stop calling... Go figure.

  “Medium pepperoni passion and the BBQ one, please,” I order. “Oh, but I have a new address now.”

  “Sure thing,” the girl chimes happily. Because your job at Domino’s is so good it warrants a chirpy-as-hell voice, right?

  This coming from the college drop-out working at BC Travels.

  Yeah, shut the fuck up, Brooke.

  I reel off my address and throw my phone onto the kitchen counter, grabbing my wine glass. I leave the kitchen and sit on the sofa, pointing to the Blu-ray box set at the side of my TV.

  “Harry Potter?” Cain asks, dutifully getting up.

  I nod.

  He pauses, the box in hand. “I can’t remember what one we got up to.”

  “The seventh,” I reply.

  “First or second?”

  “No... The seventh.”

  “I know that.” He smirks. “First or second seventh film, Brooke?”

  Of course. “Oh, um, first? I think. Maybe. It’s been a while.”

  Cain rolls his eyes and puts the appropriate disk in the Blu-ray player. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were blonde under all that dark hair.”

  “But I’m not,” I say pointedly, smoothing my hand over my chestnut locks. “And I never fucking will be.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with blondes,” Cain argues, a slight hint of defensiveness creeping into his voice. He picks up the DVD remote from the coffee table and sits back.

  I swing my feet onto his lap. Man, it’s hard not to kick him in the balls. An inch further to the right... “There’s not exactly anything right with them either,” I mutter into my wine glass, thinking of stick-thin blonde Nina. Perfect, flawless, blonde Nina, and her watermelon tits.

  “I heard that.”

  Crap. “You weren’t supposed to.”

  “I gathered that by the grumpy muttering.”

  I huff and grab the crispy M&M’s from the table, shoving one or ten into my mouth. I don’t care if he heard it. I’m tired of pretending to tolerate Queen Barbie. I’ve had fake plants realer than her.

  And you know what? I threw them all in the trash. Where plastic belongs.

  Ugh. Even I know I’m being petty right now.

  Cain taps the arm of the sofa with the remote and presses play. As he sighs heavily, guilt creeps into my stomach at my cattiness. Well, my audible cattiness, that is.

  I might be tired of tolerating her, but I do it because I love him—as my best friend. I hate her and refuse to tolerate her because I, well, love him and want him myself.

  Kinda like Verruca Salt, but an angstier, grown-up version of that demanding witch.

  Don’t care how.

  I want him now.

  Huff huff. Stomp, stomp.

  I have got to grow up.

  “Don’t be mad, pretty B,” he says, using my age-old nickname only he gets away with now. Pretty B because my mom did the Kardashian thing, except we’re all named B-names instead of K-names. And she did it before it was a thing. “Please.” He grabs my foot and squeezes.

  I squirm, my toes protesting his touch. “I’m not mad. Do I look mad?”

  “You look pretty pissed off.”

  “Then I’m not mad. Pissed off and mad are two different things.”

  “You’re not looking at me.” He chuckles, but I know it’s more at my denial than anything else. “Look, I know you and Carly aren’t Nina’s biggest fans—”

  “You could say that...”

  “But I don’t understand why you don’t like her. If you just spent an hour with her...”

  My doorbell rings, cutting him off. Thank god. I don’t think he realizes
that if I spent an hour with his girlfriend, I’d want to slice my eyeballs out with dental floss and then ask Wolverine to deafen me.

  I put my glass on the coffee table and stand, deliberately not looking at him again. I seem to lose my bravado when I do that. It’s easier to be a petty bitch about his girlfriend when I can’t see that it bugs him, and, well, being a bitch is what’s getting me through their relationship. “She’s as fake as the eyelashes and hair she wears daily. I’d wager even her boobs are fake.”

  Cain is silent as I take the pizza from the delivery guy. Delivery Guy gives me the once over as he hands me the boxes. Ugh. I’m not interested in being hit on before dinner. Or at all, actually.

  I paid for the pizza then shut the door on his perverted person. He’s supposed to deliver my dinner, not look at me like I’m dessert.

  “I take your silence as an admission of fake knockers.” I put Cain’s pizza on his lap and sit back down, crossing my legs beneath me and resting my pizza on the sofa cushion between us.

  “Not everyone is born with tits that could pass as weaponry, Brooke.” Cain glances at me, his eyes briefly dropping at my unfortunately on-show cleavage.

  My lips curl slightly, but I reach down and yank my tank top up over them anyway. “Hey, I’m not judging the mosquito bites! I happen to be very proud of my natural D’s. If my mother gave me anything good, it was the girls.” I pat my boobs appreciatively.

  Never mind the boob-sweat issue I have to deal with every summer or the whole sizing up a shirt to accommodate them thing.

  Cain snorts, ripping his box open and dropping the lid on the floor because he knows it bothers me. “You’re crazy. Remind me why we’re friends again?”

  I take a slice of pizza and rip a bite off. “Because your life would be so damn boring without me,” I say as I chew.

  “You’re more of a man than I am.”

  “Why, thank you.” I wink and take a smaller bite of pizza. “You know it’s why you love me. Deep down, I’m just one of the guys.”

  He grins and shoves half his pizza slice in his mouth. “No, you’re not,” he says through his mouthful of food. God, we’re classy. “You’re too pretty to be one of the guys.”

  I hide my blush. “Aw, you big creep.” I nudge his arm.

  “I think your manners mean you cross over though. Not to mention the last time we all went out, you drank half the guys under the table.”

  “They proposed the tequila. You don’t drink tequila if you’re a beer guy.” I look at him pointedly.

  He forgets I drank him under the table that night too.

  “Oh, shush!” He looks at the TV. “Hermione is on.”

  I shake my head and grin again. His obsession with Emma Watson is something else—only when she has long hair, though. I actually find it kinda cute, in a freaky kinda way, but only because I also love me a bit of Tom Felton.

  After a few minutes of us both eating—less animal like—and watching the movie in silence, Cain’s phone begins to buzz on the table. The screen lights up, and the short name on the screen makes me have to fight a frown.

  I know it’s Nina. It always is. It’s like she has a Brooke-dar. She can sense whenever Cain and I are alone and hanging out.

  My heart sinks, slowly but heavily, and I school my expression into one of not caring. I refuse to look away from the TV now.

  Cain hands me his pizza box, which I take, begrudgingly, then he leans forward and grabs his phone. He waits for the buzzing to stop, then unlocks it and turns it off vibrate.

  Then? Then he shoves it under the table, screen down.

  Ho. Lee. Shit.

  I gape at him. I can’t help it.

  A piece of pepperoni drops off the slice of pizza in my hand—the same one that’s frozen halfway to my mouth as I stare at him in total disbelief. Did he really just do it?

  “What?” Cain shrugs and takes his box back, grabbing a piece of half-eaten, meaty pizza and shoving the end in his mouth. The crust crunches as he bites down.

  I swallow and glance at the coffee table. “I don’t think you’ve ever not taken a call from her.” I can’t help the derogatory way I say ’her’. It’s not intentional—honest. It’s ingrained in me to be vicious to other women. I think it’s a female thing. Self-preservation and all that.

  “I don’t think I ever haven’t either.” Cain tilts his head to the side and meets my gaze, a suspicious glint in his green eyes. “But the point is, we haven’t done this in weeks, and I’m having too much fun to leave. Besides, we have all this junk food. If I don’t help you eat it, you’ll eat it all, then it’ll be my fault when your pants don’t fit.”

  Oh my god.

  “Does she know you’re here?” I smirk slyly and raise my eyebrows.

  He shifts uncomfortably. With a cough, he puts his pizza down and grabs his beer bottle to swig from it.

  Oh. My. Shitty. Life.

  “She doesn’t, does she?” I sit up straight, throwing my half-slice back into my box and shoving his shoulder. “Cain!”

  “No,” he mumbles, scratching the back of his ear. “She doesn’t know.”

  I laugh. I can’t help it. It’s totally immature of me to delight in the fact he hasn’t told the Prissy Princess where is he and he’s ignoring her calls, but I do. It’s hilarious.

  And, okay. I’m smug. Totally smug. There’s only one reason he hasn’t told her, and that’s because she hates me too.

  Bitchy Best Friend Mission: Level Up!

  “And tell me.” I snicker, just about holding back the volcano of laughter threatening to erupt. “Where does Nina think you are?”

  “She thinks I’m at Mom’s.” He looks at me, his lips flattening into a thin line. “Stop laughing, B. No, don’t shake your damn head. I fucking mean it. She’s a little insecure over my friendship with you and Carly, that’s all. Sometimes it’s easier to just tell a... little white lie.”

  “A little white lie? She thinks you’re at your mom’s!” I laugh harder and wipe at my eyes because they feel a little too wet.

  “I just want the best of both worlds right now, all right?”

  “What is the best of both worlds? Pizza with me and blow jobs from her?”

  “She chooses not to eat gluten. Until she finds a gluten-free recipe she likes, I can’t eat pizza when she’s around.”

  Which is a lot.

  I raise my eyebrows again. “Your girlfriend won’t eat gluten but she’ll happily put your dick in her mouth?”

  “Brooke. Don’t be a bitch.” He chucks a piece of chicken from his pizza at me, his eyes narrowing.

  I’m dying. I think this is it—this is how I die, laughing at Cain’s lame excuses for lying to his girlfriend about spending time with me.

  “Oh my fuck. This is hilarious. Seriously. Someone call Comedy Central.”

  “Brooke.” He says my name again, this time quieter.

  I stop laughing. Just about.

  “I’m sorry. I just think it’s funny. You want me to be nice to her but you lie to her about spending time with me.” I shrug a shoulder and peel a piece of pepperoni off my pizza. I’m not even that hungry anymore.

  He sighs, putting the top down on his box, and sits back. “She thinks there’s something going on between us.”

  I laugh even harder because I might cry if I don’t.

  Hi, breaking heart. Grab the tissues, yo.

  There’s an awkward silence hanging between us now. It’s not the first time someone has thought that, but given that the more time I spend with Cain, the more I seem to fall for him, it’s awkward. Especially since he’s lying to her just to hang out with me.

  I clear my throat and look up at him. “That’s ridiculous. You’re my best friend. Like anything would ever happen between us. I can’t put up with your shit taste in music, for a start.”

  “Exactly,” he replies in a quieter voice, scratching behind his ear again. “It’s fucking stupid. I can’t stand your taste in music either. Who the fuck like
s Justin Bieber?”

  “People who think Kanye West should retire.”

  He swings his gaze to me, his lips twitching.

  More awkwardness buzzes between us, and as I’m looking right into his bright, green eyes, the awkwardness is igniting the air with something I can’t put my finger on, but something I feel incredibly uncomfortable about.

  I down the rest of my wine and get up to refill it. When I have, I open him a bottle of beer bring it back to the table for him.

  “Thanks, Brooke.” He grabs my hand and squeezes it when I sit back down. “Hey, I’m sorry for bringin’ Nina up tonight.”

  “You didn’t.” I smile brightly at him even though I know he’ll see right through it. “I did, I guess. Plus, she did call. Let’s not think about her for the rest of the night. Okay? You can dream over Hermione while I imagine Tom Felton and Matthew Lewis fulfilling my wildest porn fantasies.”

  He squeezes my hand and lets go, even with an eyebrow raise. I swing back around on the sofa and rest my feet on his lap again. He pats my legs, and I drop the Domino’s box on the floor to rest the M&M’s between my knees. Cain leans over and grabs a huge handful, grinning at me, all awkwardness and cattiness gone.

  I smile back, grabbing my own handful of M&M’s, only to throw one at the side of his head. He launches one back, and I catch it in my mouth, which only makes him laugh a deep, rumbly, belly laugh that makes the hairs on my arms stand on end.

  No... No.

  It’s definitely not a good thing if you’re in love with your best friend.

  I grumble and curse Carly’s ability to get up at seven a.m. It’s my day off, I’m standing at the corner of my street by the park and I’m wearing damn running clothes.

  Yes. You heard right. Running clothes. I’m going jogging.

  I figure the pair of muffins making themselves comfortable on my hips aren’t gonna leave by themselves, especially not after my diet the past couple days, so I’m taking up jogging. There is a slight issue—that issue being that I don’t run. At all. I’m pretty sure I can overcome it. Maybe next year is more likely, but I’ll give it a go.

  I hear a high-pitched yap and wonder if I have enough time to run back to my apartment and fake illness. The dark head that bobs around the corner tells me no.