by Randi Rigby
My Brother’s Best Friend
Sweet Mountain High
Randi Rigby
For Colby, Corban, Emmett, and Liam
My favorite blue-eyed boys
Contents
1. Harper
2. Luke
3. Harper
4. Luke
5. Harper
6. Luke
7. Harper
8. Luke
9. Harper
10. Luke
11. Harper
12. Luke
13. Harper
14. Luke
15. Harper
16. Luke
17. Harper
18. Luke
Epilogue
About the Author
More from Sweet Heart Books
1
Harper
I hated running. And I knew I wasn’t alone in this. Seriously, when was the last time you saw a runner smiling? I mean, outside of the obvious—when they stopped. For the record, I was on Sweet Mountain High’s track team for one reason only: my mom was the coach. Talk about reverse nepotism biting you. She went to Duke on a full-ride track scholarship. She loved everything about running. She couldn’t begin to comprehend why I didn’t.
“It does wonderful things for your legs.” Mom’s idea of a pep talk. She’d already put me down as the anchor for the 4 x 800 and 4 x 400 relay teams. Our kitchen table was papered with upcoming meet schedules and the times she’d logged from everyone at practice today. She tapped a pencil against her teeth, and her dark head bent in concentration as she squinted over the puzzle that was this year’s team. She was officially done talking about it.
“Stop whining, Harp.” My twin brother, Cal, bumped me with his hip. Our faces looked as identical as fraternal twins could, even down to the placement of the moles just under our right eyes and bottom lips. We’d both ended up with the Adams’ heavy brows, high nose, and full lips—and hit the jackpot when we inherited the Turner green eyes instead of Dad’s murky brown, near-sighted ones. But Cal wore his dark hair short, while mine swung below my shoulders. And at six foot two, he had four inches on me. The twelve minutes that separated us at birth officially made him the oldest, something he reminded me of daily.
He stood at the kitchen island, layering slices of cheese over an already impressive stack of lunch meats, pickles, tomatoes, and lettuce on a couple of hoagie rolls. It suddenly struck me that for a guy who pretty much existed in hoodies and long shorts, he was looking oddly posh. I tried to remember the last time I’d seen him in khakis and a button-down. He’d even taken pains to use hair product rather than his usual cramming of a ball cap onto his head. Weird.
I frowned. “I wasn’t whining.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. You were.”
“Don’t you have someplace you need to be?”
“Luke should be here any minute.”
Psh. There’s no way you got this cleaned up for Luke. “Did you leave anything in the fridge for the rest of us?”
“Baby carrots.” He flashed an unrepentant grin at me. “There’s a whole bag on the bottom shelf. Knock yourself out.”
Still frowning, I pulled them out, tore the seal off, slid onto a stool just out of reach of Cal’s bony elbow, and plopped the sack of carrots on my lap. What was he up to?
Luke Drake knocked at and burst through our kitchen door at approximately the same time. Luke had been Cal’s best friend since third grade. We were all seniors now—that was a long time to have to put up with someone. I didn’t care if most of the female student population at Sweet Mountain High were swooning over him. They didn’t know him like I did. “Hey, Harpy.” He dug a carrot out of my bag and popped it into his mouth, flashing his dimples. His electric blue eyes met the storm brewing in my green ones. “What’s got you so pouty?”
“Mom’s making her run track again,” Cal said, sliding his sandwiches onto a couple of plates.
I glared at him. “I wasn’t pouting.”
“You went to State,” Luke said, sounding slightly irritated. Actually, that wasn’t uncommon when it came to me.
“So?” I tightened my grip on the carrot bag.
“So…” Luke lifted his ball cap, raked a hand through his mop of thick, dark hair, and replaced the hat on his head but backward this time. At least he was still on-brand. “Why wouldn’t you?”
I raised my chin. “Just because I can run fast doesn’t necessarily mean I want to.”
“That’s such a Harper Adams thing to say,” Luke scoffed. He leaned back against the kitchen countertop across from me and stretched his long legs out in front of him, making himself right at home. Given how much time he spent here, it was surprising my parents hadn’t offered him his own room.
I made a face at him. “Weren’t you leaving?”
“Knock it off, you two. We don’t have time for this.” Cal pushed a sandwich at Luke and went to the fridge for the pitcher of lemonade I’d just made. Luke was already getting glasses out of the cupboard. He stood three inches taller than Cal, and unlike my brother, who’d had to fight for every pound of muscle he’d gained, Luke was a genetic freak who’d somehow always been taller and stronger than anyone else our age. He was broad-shouldered and trim-waisted, a wall of solid muscle who took up a lot of room in our kitchen.
Curiosity got the better of me. “For what?” It was a school night. They’d already finished with baseball practice for the day. I turned on my stool so I faced both of them. “You do know it’s rib night tonight, right?”
Luke had just been about to take a big bite of the sandwich Cal had made for him. He immediately set it back down on his plate.
“What?” Cal said.
“It’s rib night?” Luke looked pained.
“I made you a sandwich.”
I felt rather than heard Luke’s sigh.
“Where are you guys going anyway?” I asked. Now I was dying to know.
“Nowhere,” Cal said firmly.
“Really?” I stood up. My hair still felt damp from my shower. I’d wound it up into a messy bun just to get it out of the way, and I’d put on a five-minute face—there was a slim chance my best friend, Erika Chambers, and I might make a frozen yogurt run later—but I had on yoga pants and an oversized T-shirt. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. “You didn’t get this dressed up for Mom’s birthday.”
At this, Mom pulled out of her virtual track season. “You look very nice, son.” She smiled sweetly at him. “How come?”
“Geez.” Cal threw his hands up. “I just felt like changing it up, alright? Is that okay with everyone?”
I looked at Luke for some kind of explanation, but his sandwich had suddenly become the most interesting thing on the planet. “Fine. Don’t tell me. You know I’m going to find out sooner or later anyway.”
“Find out what?” Dad said as he walked in through the door that connected the kitchen to the garage. He’d already started loosening his tie with one hand as he dropped his keys on the little shelf placed there for that very purpose.
My father was a heart surgeon, so when he was on call, we couldn’t ever be sure when he’d be home. But tonight, he’d scheduled himself off, and he’d marinated a rack of ribs with his special sauce before he’d left for work earlier this morning. He’d volunteered to take care of dinner while Mom got her season organized. Dad wasn’t much of a cook, but he slayed at grilling, and his ribs were legendary. I could almost see Luke weighing his loyalty to Cal against his standing invitation to dinner at our home anyti
me he wanted. He must really love my brother.
“Hey, Dr. Adams,” Luke said, immediately getting to his feet. “We’re hitting up Randall’s.” And he looked Dad squarely in the eye. The batting cages? Luke Drake was incapable of even bending the truth when it came to my father, so that had to be where they were really going. But if that was the case, why didn’t Cal just say so? They went to the batting cages all the time—it wasn’t a big deal. And why the need for him to get all dressed up? Luke wasn’t.
Cal quickly cleared their dishes. “We gotta run.” He kissed Mom on the cheek. “Good luck with sorting out the team. You got this, Mom. Go Panthers!”
“Not too late, boys,” she said absently.
“But it’s rib night,” Dad protested.
“Save me some?” Luke said over his shoulder as he reluctantly followed Cal out the door.
Of course, we would. Dad made enough to feed a small army. I didn’t realize how much Cal and Luke actually ate until I had to hunt down containers to hold all the leftovers. As soon as I helped clean up the kitchen, I excused myself to head upstairs to my bedroom to tackle homework. But I couldn’t concentrate. Instead, I stared at the persuasive essay I’d written exactly 267 words for and wondered why Cal and Luke couldn’t have gone to the batting cages after rib night. And what was with my jock twin suddenly going all GQ? His idea of fancy usually just meant it wasn’t wrinkled.
I texted Erika. Still up for a Toppings run?
She sent back the praying hands emoticon.
Pick you up in 5. I texted back. I stopped at my closet only long enough to grab another layer to ward off the evening spring chill and my flip-flops. I thought briefly about changing into something stealthier in black, but the sun still hadn’t gone down—what would be the point?
“Hey babe, how do you feel about stalking?” I asked Erika when she slid into the front passenger seat of the pale-blue Fiat I’d been given for my sixteenth birthday.
Erika lived in the same neighborhood as me in Sweet Mountain, North Carolina—the Heights. She had swingy platinum blonde hair, four ear piercings, and a college boyfriend. We’d been best friends since middle school when I’d hastily pulled her aside and tied my pink, Juicy sweatshirt around her waist to hide the breakthrough leakage that was every teenage girl’s worst nightmare. Since then, we’d survived growth spurts (mine), several heartbreaks (hers), an overzealous eyebrow plucking incident (that would be me—thank heavens they grew back in), and flunking AP Physics (absolutely Erika—I wouldn’t dare, my parents would kill me). That kind of scar tissue was unbreakable.
“Intriguing.” She buckled her seatbelt and dropped her purse on the floorboard. “Tell me more.”
I gave her the details. “Sketchy, right?” I said.
She flicked her hair back over her shoulder and slid her sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. “I’m done with mid-terms. I say we hunt him down.”
“Okay!” I broke into a big grin at this show of solidarity. But then another, older, impossible-to-ignore instinct kicked in. “Just, whatever Cal’s up to has to stay between the two of us, promise? He is my brother.”
“On Ariana Grande.” She kissed her hand and placed it over her heart.
I put the car in drive.
The batting cages in Sweet Mountain were part of Randall’s Sports, a multi-sport practice complex that had once been just a huge piece of property butted up against a hillside—now transformed into a golf range, batting cages, an archery range, and a gun range at the far end. There were also several tennis courts. We parked at the main office, a few cars down from Cal’s black Jeep.
“Well, they’re here,” Erika said, stating the obvious. “What’s your game plan?”
“I don’t have one. I’m making this up as we go,” I replied, checking my reflection in the rearview mirror. I looked as nervous as I suddenly felt. “Come on. I think we can peek through the fence on the west side. We might be able to spot them there without actually having to go inside.”
We headed for the network of dividers and squeezed into a narrow break between a couple of cement pillars, my body pressing against Erika’s back.
“The screens are in the way,” Erika sighed, shifting slightly to look up at me. “You’re taller. Can you see anything?” The top of her head came to just under my chin. I stood on my tiptoes and peered through the chain links.
Luke. I could see Luke. He batted left-handed, so his body angled, facing our direction, but he was focused on slamming balls out at a pretty healthy clip. I could hear the crack, crack, crack reverberating from here. Finally, he paused; then he put his bat down, took off his cap, and swiped at his forehead with a muscled forearm. I waited for Cal to wander into view—it had to be his turn—but Luke just took a deep pull from his water bottle and picked up his bat again.
“Harp.” Erika tugged on my sleeve.
“What?”
She pointed at the small opening to the left of us that allowed a glimpse into the golf range. There stood Cal, his arms around some blonde girl, their hands on a golf club as they swung out and hit a teed-up ball. From our vantage point, we could hear the sound of their laughter and the rumble of Cal’s deep voice telling her she was a natural.
“Who is she?” Erika whispered as we crept over to the break in the screening.
“No idea.”
“I didn’t know Cal golfed.”
I squinted at them. “Define ‘golfed.’ He’s gone with Dad a few times. We spent a week at a resort last summer, and he took lessons from the pro there because he thought she looked like Margot Robbie. I’m a better golfer than he is.” I was having a harder time wrapping my brain around the fact that my twin was putting the moves on someone I didn’t even know. Someone he obviously wanted to keep a secret. “What are you doing?”
Erika was taking pictures with her phone. “You’ll thank me later.”
“We need to get out of here before he sees us.”
“Okay, I think I’ve got some clear shots. Let’s go.”
We backed out and made a beeline for the Fiat. Erika scrolled through her pictures and studied them as I drove us to our date with frozen yogurt. “Recognize her yet?” I asked.
“No. Maybe she’s an older woman. Maybe Cal has a cougar.”
I rolled my eyes. “This is Cal we’re talking about. And she didn’t look any older than we are to me.”
“Well, she’s not from around here,” Erika insisted. “I know everyone at our school, and I know I’ve never seen her before.”
My brain felt like it would burst with unanswered questions by the time Cal and Luke finally got home later that night. With my face clean of make-up and my hair down and loose, I padded silently downstairs in my bare feet and pajamas. I found the guys sitting in the kitchen, devouring leftover ribs like they hadn’t eaten in days. Cal seemed almost giddy. Luke put his rib down and started to wipe his fingers on a napkin.
“Hey, Harp. We’re having a snack. You want some?” Cal said, waving a sauce-covered rib in one hand.
I leaned against the island countertop across from them. “No. Thanks.”
“Are you sure? They’re really good.”
“I know. I had them for dinner.” I eyed them both.
Luke finally raised his head. I wasn’t prepared for what I saw there.
For once, he wasn’t irritated with me. He was furious.
2
Luke
I knew I shouldn’t have said anything about Randall’s. Me thinking Harper could take a hint and respect Cal’s not wanting her to know about Jasmine until he was ready to tell her, obviously gave her too much credit. He would tell her. The two of them had always been tight—I envied them that. Maybe it was a twin thing. I just knew no one in my family cared about me the way the two of them had always looked out for each other.
Not that my family set the bar real high. My stepfather had never liked me. My own father took off shortly after I was born. My mom’s life was wrapped up in her new family. Little ki
ds took a lot of time, and I guess she figured I could take care of myself. She was right.
I’d stumbled into Caleb Adams on the first day of third grade. He was the kid with an easy smile and a ton of friends. It wasn’t surprising that he’d immediately included me—Cal was like that with everyone. But somehow, over the years, he’d become the brother I’d never had. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for him, including being his wingman.
We’d met Jasmine Amis a couple of days ago at Toppings, our favorite place to grab ice cream in Sweet Mountain. Personally, I didn’t get the obsession Cal had with her. Sure, she was pretty, if you liked that too skinny and that was all she seemed to talk about, fake nails, fake tan kind of thing. She screamed high maintenance to me, and I didn’t like the way her eyes kept traveling my direction when it was obvious Cal was the one who liked her. She’d just moved here and, given everyone was in the middle of mid-terms, would be starting at Sweet Mountain High after spring break. She had no idea just how lucky she was to have met Cal, because just like he’d done for me and countless others, he’d make sure she was accepted.
Cal wasn’t thinking about that when he’d offered to help her with her golf swing. I’d almost choked on my cone when he’d told her he could give her some pointers. I mean, the guy was an athlete. I’d played on football, basketball, and baseball city league and school teams with him for years. But I knew more about golf than he did, and neither of us had any business being on a green. Jasmine called his bluff. That was Tuesday night. The minute we were done with baseball practice Wednesday after school, Cal dragged me over to Randall’s Sports so he could practice his drive before his big date Thursday night.