BEST FRIEND’S BROTHER #5
Chapter One
Alexa
Ian and I finished dinner which was really good. I was impressed with him.
“So you taught yourself how to cook, really?”
“Really. I read a cook-book or two…”
I laughed, “You read a cook book?”
“Yeah. What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, it’s just the way you said that. It was like you actually sat down and read the cookbook.”
“I did.”
“The whole thing? I mean…you know that most people just take the recipes out…”
“Go ahead and make fun of me. But, if you just take all the recipes out, you don’t learn how to glaze and douse and fricassee.”
I had tears in my eyes by the time I stopped laughing. He was so different than I ever would have imagined he would be when I first met him…in a good way.
I helped him clean up the kitchen and once I got past the cookbook thing I asked him, “Do you read a lot?”
He nodded. “I missed out on a lot by not finishing school, or going to college. I read every chance I get. Come here, I want to show you something.”
I followed him through the living room and down the short hall that led to his bedroom. He opened the doors there to what I assume was supposed to be a linen closet. The entire thing was filled with books. I stood there looking at them with awe. “Have you read all of these?”
“Yep.” I looked at the bindings. There were cookbooks and auto books and home DIY books. There were books about nutrition and exercise and human anatomy. There were books about animals and motorcycles…it went on and on. This guy had to be a freaking genius. I was a little bit intimidated.
“Wow, this is…you’re…”
“Weird?” he said with a grin.
I hugged him. “No, not at all. You’re amazing.” I think he may have blushed just a little bit. He closed the doors and led me back into the living room. He put on a movie and we cuddled up on the couch. As we watched the previews and waited for the movie to start, my mind drifted again back to Dad. I just couldn’t believe he’d told Ian to stay away from me. I’m a grown woman. What makes him think that’s okay?
“Hey babe, are you okay?” Ian asked me.
“What?”
“I asked if you were okay. You’re about a million miles away. What’s on your mind? You do think I’m weird, don’t you? It’s like high school all over again,” he said, half-jokingly.
“I still think you’re amazing,” I told him. “If those high school girls thought you were weird, it was definitely their loss. I was just thinking about Dad again.” Ian was lying back on the couch with his legs across my lap. He sat up and put his arm around me.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault. I’m sorry. I feel so embarrassed that my father sat you down like you were a thirteen year old kid and told you to leave his daughter alone. I’m surprised he didn’t take his gun out and clean it while he was talking to you.”
“He has a gun?”
I laughed, Ian really looked worried. “I don’t know,” I told him. “It was a joke, sort of. It’s not really funny. It pisses me off.”
“Well then, that’s what I’m sorry for. I shouldn’t have told you. I don’t want to cause problems between you and your dad.”
“You didn’t, Ian. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Ian made a face and I said, “What?”
“I kind of promised him I would stay away from you so he didn’t expect you to find out.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have done that,” I told him. “I mean, I’m glad you told me…thank you, but I wish you would have stood up to him and then maybe he’d stop this nonsense.” Ian smiled and I said, “What?”
“You’ve obviously never been a guy and been put in the position of having a face to face with Dad. It makes the toughest guys balls shrivel up. Think about it…if this was just some other guy, you could tell him to mind his own business and then if he chose not to, you could kick his ass, right?” I nodded and he said, “But this is your dad. No matter how much you disagree with his methods when push comes to shove in the long run, you’re gonna stick by him, right?” I nodded again and he said, “It’s kind of a lose/lose position I’m put it. Besides, I don’t have that much experience with dads.”
“Because you didn’t date much in high school?”
“Because I’m not really a guy who “dates,” at all. I “hang out” with girls or I…”
“Have sex with them?” He had the decency to look abashed as he said, “Yeah, that. But I don’t usually meet Dad. So, it’s nerve-wracking and I didn’t want to do anything to make you hate me.”
I nodded. He was right, I hadn’t thought about it like that. “He shouldn’t have put you in that position. I’m really sorry. He’s so messed up over my mom. It’s been so many years and he’s still just sitting there, letting her ruin his life. It drives me crazy. It drives me crazier because he honestly believes that he’s helping me by keeping men away from me. I can’t believe that he thinks I’d be better off alone forever than to have to experience a heart ache or two in my lifetime. I’d so much rather end up with a broken heart. That’s no way to live.”
“You’re right. Have you told him that?”
“More than once,” I said. “But, I was in high school at the time and technically he had the right to tell me who I could and couldn’t date at that point. Now, I’m a grown woman though and he doesn’t have that right. So, I think maybe it’s time for another talk.”
“I guess I shouldn’t expect to be invited to any family dinners any time soon, huh?”
I laughed again. “We might need to give it a cooling off period,” I told him. He grabbed me around the waist then and pulled me down next to him on the couch. “Oh my God!” I said, looking at the television.
“What?”
“Back to the Future, really?”
“You don’t like it?”
I laughed. “You really are a nerd aren’t you?”
“Fine,” he said, “I’ll change it. Or we could play a video game…or have sex…”
I giggled. “No more sex! You perv, you’re killing me!”
“Right, because I’m the one who got in the shower with you all naked and sexy.”
“Did I do that?” He tickled me and said, “Yeah, so just give up the innocent routine.”
“Okay, you’re not the perv, I am. But I do think I need a “cooling off” period. Which movie would we be watching?”
“I have a lot of porn…I hear you perverts like that sort of thing.”
I threw a pillow at him. “Try again.”
“Star Wars?”
I laughed. “Anything made in this century…that’s not porn?”
“Oh! I just bought the new Hunger games.”
“That’ll work. You have popcorn?”
“Check the cabinet under the microwave,” he said. He got the movie ready while I went in and did that. I found a few packages of microwave popcorn and stuck one in. While it popped, I walked over to the refrigerator and looked at the pictures stuck there underneath beer and UFC magnets. There was one of a much younger and thinner Ian in a suit. His arm was around a pretty blonde haired girl in a dress suited for a prom. In the bottom right corner it said, “Winter Wonderland 2007,” he would have been a sophomore. That was the year he got into trouble with the steroids. It made me wonder what was so special about the girl that he kept her picture on his refrigerator seven years later. “What ya looking at?” His voice startled me. I turned around and he was leaning in the doorway. He looked so damned hot in just his shorts. I was no wonder I was turning into a pervert.
“Just looking at your pictures,” I said. He came over and glanced at the fridge like he hadn’t seen them before himself. He pointed at one of him and Emma on the beach. He couldn’t have been more than seven and Emma was about four. They were super cute and since they were wearing beanies and you couldn’t see her hair, they almost looked like twins.
“That was our first trip to the beach. That was taken before Emma ran into the ocean and my mother screamed bloody murder while my dad fished her out.” He was smiling at the memory, but his eyes looked sad.
“When was this?” I asked, pointing at the picture of him and the girl.
“Winter formal, sophomore year,” he said.
“Is she someone special?” I asked him. The microwave dinged and he avoided my question by taking out the bag and dumping the popcorn into a bowl.
“Grab us some waters and let’s go back in the living room. I’ll tell you why I keep the picture.”
I got the water and followed him in. We sat back down on the couch and he handed me the bowl. I took a handful and popped a couple in my mouth and waited. Finally, he said, “The picture being on the fridge is not about her. I mean, she was a nice girl…my first real girlfriend….”
“What’s her name?”
He laughed. “Whitney, but it’s really not about her.”
“I believe you. I as just curious what her name was. She’s pretty.”
“Yeah, she is. I saw her about three months ago, I guess. I ran into her at the store. She has a baby and another one on the way. She married the guy she started dating after we broke up. She seems happy, so that’s good. But, the picture is about me…and that year…and all the things that changed after that.”
I took a drink of my water and said, “Tell me about it.”