Authors: Hazel Kelly
My Best Friend's Brother: A Standalone Friends to Lovers Romance (Soulmates Series Book 2)
My Best Friend's Brother
Hazel Kelly
©
2016 Hazel Kelly
All
rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, copied,
or stored in any form or by any means without permission of the author. Your support
of the author’s rights is appreciated.
All
characters, events, brands, companies, and locations in this story are
fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons is purely coincidental.
Cover Artwork
– © 2016 L.J. Anderson of Mayhem Cover Creations
Table of Contents
“
The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
is
just
to love and be loved in return.”
– David Bowie
Prologue
We
used to call ourselves The Three Musketeers.
I
know
it's
cliché, but we were only kids.
They
usually took turns being in charge, which was fine with me. I was just happy to
go along with them.
After
all, I thought I was the luckiest little girl in the whole world. Most of my
classmates only had one best friend, but I had two: my best friend Izzy and her
twin brother.
Back
then, I hoped things would never change, but that's the problem with more. Once
I saw a glimpse of it, it was impossible to stop wanting it.
Especially
when it came to Shane.
Chapter 1: Andi
I
didn't know where else to go.
All
I knew was that I had to find someone I could trust, and unfortunately, that's
not always as easy as it should be on a college campus.
I
could taste the blood on my split lip as I raised my hand to knock on the massive
front door. But before my knuckles made contact, some random frat guy threw it
open.
If
there had been a single drop of adrenaline left in my system, I probably
would've jumped, but I spent it all just trying to make it to that side of
campus. It was a strange sensation, though, being so sober and wasted at the
same time.
The
frat guy barely glanced at me- just enough to walk around me- but he left the
door wide open.
I
stepped into the doorway and took in the room.
There
was a younger guy doing homework on a couch by the back windows. And near the
enormous fireplace on the wall to my right, under a huge plaque covered in
Greek letters, there was a group of guys playing poker.
One
by one they turned to look at me. The last one to glance over his shoulder was
Shane.
"Andi."
He stood up so fast his wooden chair shot out behind him. "Are you
okay?"
As
he crossed the sticky floor towards me, I felt some hidden reserves of energy
well up in my throat.
"Do
you need to sit down or something?" His green eyes searched mine as he set
his hands on my shoulders.
I
wanted to speak, but I hadn't even considered what I might say, and when all
the words I could think of started fighting to be the first out, I burst like a
damn.
The
tears spilled down my cheeks in uncontrollable surges. Apparently, I did have
some feeling left after all.
"Come
on," he said, his face full of concern as he linked his arm in mine.
It
was only the second time I'd ever seen him make that face.
The
first time was in high school when we were in the hospital waiting room after
Izzy's car accident.
I
remember thinking then that I never wanted to see him make that face again. And
now here I was being the cause of it. I tried to stop crying, reminding myself
that Izzy had been fine in the end.
If
anything, she became even bolder after having her immortality validated. And I
would be fine, too. Eventually.
I
might even be able to go back there again, to that stairwell where…
"You
can't just walk away from the game, Shane," his friend called. "You
have to give us a chance to win our money back."
Shane
fixed his eyes on me. "Give me one second."
I
took a deep breath and rolled my eyes up to see if I could absorb the next
round of tears.
He
turned around and shouted at the boy hunched over his textbook on the couch.
"Pete!"
The
kid lifted his eyes towards Shane.
"What
are you doing right now?"
"Tyler's
chem
homework."
"Not
anymore," Shane said. "Take my spot at the table."
He
glanced back at the workbook in front of him. "But Tyler-"
"Needs
to do his own homework," Shane said. "And you can tell him I said
so."
Two
of the boys at the table groaned. The other looked confident that he'd soon
have his money back.
"I'm
sorry to barge in on you like this," I said so only Shane could hear.
"Don't
be," he said, turning back to me. "You're my knight in shining
armor."
My
bottom lip started to shake.
His
eyes dropped to my mouth. "You're bleeding," he said, tilting my chin
up gently so he could take a closer look.
I
let my gaze fall to the side. Perhaps I shouldn't have come to him. What if he
just said I told you so and made me feel more foolish than I already did?
"What
happened?" he asked, leading me up the stairs.
"Mike
and I-"
His
face dropped.
"-got
in a fight."
The
muscles in Shane's jaw clenched like a zipper.
"It
was just a misunderstanding. It was my fault."
He
pushed his bedroom door open.
I
stepped inside and took a deep breath. When I turned around, he wrapped his big
arms around me, and I buried my head in his chest.
"Are
you hurt?" he asked.
I
could smell the scent of Zest soap off him as I shook my head. “No. I just got
scared."
He
leaned back and lowered his head to meet my gaze. "You know that isn't
okay, right?"
I
nodded.
"And
that you have to tell me what happened because seeing that look on your face
when you walked in-" He grabbed the back of his head and exhaled.
For
a moment I felt like he was judging me, like he was remembering the
disappointment he'd expressed when I first told him Mike and I were dating.
He
told me I deserved better and that Mike was a worthless piece of shit who
wasn't good enough to carry my books, much less hold my hand.
But
I let him do a lot more than hold my books anyway. And now I was in deep shit,
scared to death of the only person I'd spent any time with in the last six
months, with a sore jaw, a busted lip, and a broken heart.
And
despite everything, what hurt the most was that I'd disappointed and
inconvenienced my best and oldest friend in the whole world.
The
black futon in the corner looked broken in at least two places so I leaned
against the edge of the bed.
Shane
sat beside me. "What exactly happened, Andi?"
"It
was a misunderstanding, like I said. Mike saw a picture of me and-"
"Why
do you feel compelled to defend this guy when he's clearly scared the shit out
of you? I swear to god if you don't tell me why you keep rubbing your jaw, I'm
going to take my best guess and leave you out of finding a solution to this
problem.”
I
swallowed.
I
could tell he was serious because I recognized his tone of voice. It was one I'd
heard him use with Izzy dozens of times, but never with me.
"He
saw a picture of me kissing another guy on the cheek at a birthday party and
flipped."
"When
you say flipped…?"
The
scene flashed back in my mind, and while I wasn't reliving the pain of the
event, each emotion passed through me again…
The
shock of him pushing me against the stairwell’s concrete wall.
The
fear in my bones as I tried to get away so he'd stop shouting in my face.
The
anger that surged through me when I tripped and busted my lip on the handrail.
And
the vulnerability I felt when he squeezed my jaw in his hands so hard I thought
he was going to break my face.
