JARED
I would not recommend reading this if you have not read BAD THINGS (TRISTAN & DANIKA #1)
THE GIRL
JARED
It was too late by the time I met her. By then, she was already falling for my brother, even though she'd only met him that day.
Still, a guy had to try.
Tristan established at the start that they were only friends. I believed it for about two hours.
As soon as I said a few friendly words to her, he was pulling me aside, chastising me.
He clapped my shoulder and led me away from the group.
"Don't," he said quietly, with a look to tell me he meant it.
I raised my brows. We had a solid brother code and if he said she was off limits, that was as good as law. But . . . "You said she was just your friend."
He shook his head, "I'm not going there. She's off limits. End of story."
It was a fact that I didn't like to fight with my brother. He was the fighter.
I loved him, more than anyone on earth. He'd always taken care of me. He'd done more for me than my own dad, my own mom, and he was only a few years older than I was. If I had a problem, I went to Tristan. Big brother could fix it, I had absolute faith.
That being said, he was a stubborn cuss. Just then I found that to be annoying as hell.
"So you're just staking your claim on random women now, just in case you might want to fuck them later?" I asked, cringing at what came out of my mouth.
I was just frustrated, and if I was honest, jealous.
He gave me a look that shut me the hell up. He hadn't liked that.
"Don't, just don't. Don't talk about her like that, and get it out of your head if you're thinking you want to hook up with her. She doesn't hook up."
"What if I want to date her?" I asked quietly, testing him more than I normally did. I liked that girl, Danika, and I would have liked at least to feel her out.
"No. Knock it off. I'm done talking about it."
From the very start, the very first day they met, Tristan was incapable of being logical when it came to Danika.
THE DATE
I'd finally gotten Danika to go out with me.
I was crazy about this girl. We hadn't been able to spend much time together, but I felt like I knew her, felt like I got her.
She was smart, funny, nice, and gorgeous. She was the kind of girl I wanted to marry someday. She wouldn't put up with any shit, but that was okay, I wouldn't be dealing any, if I had her around.
And then I kissed her. It was a good kiss. Fucking great.
And she shot me down. She was falling for Tristan. My brother. Had fallen.
I tried to shrug it off and enjoy the rest of the night. I enjoyed her company, even if she didn't like me that way.
What could I do? If the feelings weren't there for her, they weren't there.
"I won't make this awkward," I told her.
We smiled at each other. She was so beautiful. "Good," she said. "Thank you. I hate awkward."
She loved my brother, I realized it that night.
And he'd fallen for her too. That was another thing I learned that night, though I didn't think he realized how far gone he was. Stubborn bastard.
He'd caught us on our date, and pulled me aside to rip me a new one.
"What did I fucking tell you?" he gritted out, getting in my face, finger jabbing at my chest. "You stay away from her."
I studied him. He was a scary motherfucker, but never to me. His fists went flying often, but not at me. I was his baby brother. He was there to protect me, not hurt me, and he'd always made sure I knew it.
Since I was five, I'd known it, when he got in front of a careless backhand from my dad that was aimed at me. It hadn't been an accident.
He'd stepped into that hit.
"Don't you lay a hand on him, you bastard!" he'd snarled, taken another hit, and gotten right back up, right back into my dad's face. "You touch him again, I will end you."
Another hit, curses, followed by my mom kicking Tristan out of the house, telling him to take a breather, not to come back until he'd calmed down.
He was ten.
My dad never tried to hit me again, that I could remember. He always went after Tristan, the bigger, easier target.
He might have been furious, snarling at me now, but I knew his heart. He loved me more than he loved himself, would and had inflicted pain on himself to prevent mine.
"You can't put dibs on girls you aren't even dating," I told him quietly. I could be stubborn too.
He shook his head, eyes wild. "This is not 'girls,' this is Danika. And I don't need to explain myself. Back the fuck off."
It was so crazy, his reaction so over the top, that I knew then. "You're falling for her," I told him, voice pitched low. "At least admit it to yourself."
He shook his head, not admitting a thing. "Don't change the fucking subject. You going to stay away from her, or are we going to have a fucking problem?"
Stubborn cuss. "I'll stay away."
THE LAST DAY
I was strung out in the extreme, had been for days, and the only cure for that seemed to be to further partake. Speaking of which.
I answered my phone. "What's up, Dean?"
"I've got a present for you. Where you at?"
"My apartment."
"Have you even gone outside this week? You're just sitting at home getting high right now, aren't you?"
I grinned. "Just pot, dude. What are you, my mother?"
He laughed, and he sounded a bit like the old Dean, from years ago. "Your mom is the one that handed me my first joint, Jared. You can do better."
"Okay, what are you, my brother?"
We both laughed at that one. It was accurate. He acted more like my parent than my actual parents.
"You up for a party?" he asked me.
"Always."
"I'm bringing it to you."
The upcoming high had me feeling instantly revived. I actually got out of bed, gave Tristan a call.
He was in a rough place, I knew. He didn't pick up the phone.
"Love you, brother," I said after the beep. "Don't you give up on her. She'll come around."
Dean showed up at my place a few hours later. It wasn't much of a party, just him, a bag full of something fun, two girls, and a bottle of vodka.
The girls were groupies.
I invited them in, but I didn't try to flirt with them. Dean could have them. I didn't like the girls Dean found. They always seemed far gone to the point that sleeping with them would just be exploitive.
I might have been covered in ink and in a band, but I liked nice girls. Ones that smiled with their eyes and wanted to fall in love. Until I found that, I could wait.
Dean went straight to the living room sofa and started mixing on the coffee table. Speedballs, I saw. Good shit.
The girls followed him like he was feeding them catnip.
I snagged his bottle of vodka, went into the kitchen, and poured us all a shot.
"Cheers," I said, and drank mine. No one even noticed what I was doing. The girls were watching Dean's activities with rapt attention. Junkies then.
One of them held out her arm for him to shoot her up.
He shrugged her off. "Don't be a bitch. Host first. Get over here, Jared."
I moved to sit by him on the couch, holding out my arm, jonesing hard for that first sweet high. This shit was the best high there was, when the rush from the coke met the bliss of the dope.
He shot me up.
I sat back and sighed as I felt it hit my bloodstream like a Mack truck.
"Fuck, that's good," I said softly, a head to toe rush sweeping me, shivers and pins and needles moving through me, all at the same time.
Dean shot me a sharp smile as he emptied another needle into one of the girl's arms. "The best, right? And you're gonna love me, because I brought plenty to go around. You can thank me later."