More specifically, tome.
There I was —BAM!— smack dab in the fine print of their bro bible:
RULE #1:
No dating ex-girlfriends, current girlfriends, or potential future girlfriends.
RULE #2:
Absolutely no touching, fucking, or corrupting little sisters.
RULE #3:
Pizza without meat on it doesn’t count as a meal.
I probably should’ve been flattered that I ranked above pizza when it came to male priorities, but all I could feel was heartbreak that I, Phoebe West, would never be able to call Nathaniel “Nate” Knox my own.
Never feel the weight of his eyes moving over my face with heart-stopping heat.
Never know the touch of his hands, big and rough, gliding across my skin, as I’d envisioned since I was barely old enough to understand my desire for such things.
The closest I’d ever get was a brotherly pat on the back and that same cool, narrow-eyed stare he used on everyone. The cocky, condescending, infuriatingly attractive one that made a tiny crease appear in the space between his eyes and clearly said,Yes, I’m measuring your worthandNo, you don’t live up.
Even his blatant indifference wasn’t enough to deter me. Because, well, here’s the thing.
I love him.
I always have.
Falling for Nate wasn’t something I was ever really conscious of doing. It was just something Iknew,in the pit of my stomach, in the marrow of my bones, in every dark, secret corner at the back of my mind. Ingrained so deep I wouldn’t know how to begin to overcome it — like my hatred of chocolate in breakfast foods and my love of Old-Fashioneds with top-shelf bourbon.
It’s set in stone.
Unchangeable, no matter how hard I wish I could let him go.
I can’t help it. From that very first day I met him, it was like my body had been programmed to fall head over heels… and my mind had absolutely no say in the matter.
So, you can imagine how frustrating it was when, after years of patiently waiting — for my boobs to come in, for my wardrobe to sort itself out after that weird retro-Punk phase I went through, and, most especially, for Nate to come home from his first semester of college and notice that I’d grown up — he didn’t even blink an eye at my high school freshman field hockey skirt and newly minted set of knockers.
In fact, if anything, he pulled away more, until I’d been demoted fromhonorary little sistertoinvisible girl who lives with Parker. That first winter break, he barely spoke to me at all unless it was to say something banal like “excuse me” as his body brushed past mine with new carefulness on the way to the fridge, or “is Parker home” when I’d hear the doorbell chime and race downstairs as fast as my legs could carry me, determined to be the one to greet him.
At first, I hated how much those tiny, bland niceties meant to me — how one thoughtless word from him could make or break my entire day. Each “hey Phoebe” and “tell Parker I called” was a bone thrown to a desperate dog, who’d live on any scrap of attention that came her way so long as it came fromhishand. It made me feel weak. Pathetic. Invisible.
But afterwards, when Nate dropped out of Harvard — and, for all intents and purposes, out of my life — I missed his strained small talk, his tossed scraps. Oh, how I wished he’d come back from wherever he’d gone and look through me while saying “pass the pepper” at dinner. Because, as sad as it was to admit, having Asshole Nate around was better than no Nate at all.
His father, an influential Boston defense attorney with big plans for his only son, was pissed beyond belief when his sole heir joined the special forces and disappeared without so much as a discussion.
Parker, his best friend since elementary school, wasn’t thrilled to lose his partner in crime, but he vowed to be supportive if it meant making Nate happy.
And me? Well, there’ve been several stages of my post-Knox life…. starting with pure, undiluted misery.
The slightly melodramaticwherefore-hast-thou-forsaken-me-o-beloved-onephase was essentially an eighteen-month period during which I consumed a lot of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and listened to Damien Rice songs on repeat until my eye sockets physically refused to produce any more tears.
Then, when I turned sixteen and was finally done feeling sorry for myself, the numbing sorrow of missing him wore off and I realized how freaking pissed I was at him for abandoning me.
This may’ve been because my pride was a bit wounded that Nate hadn’t even bothered to come back andnoticemy months of moping, which was pretty inconsiderate, since it was all over him. Even later, when I learned he was halfway around the world training for a tactical team so lethal they didn’t even have a name, the firestorm of rage-fueled, unrequited love continued to scorch my insides.
My angry phase lasted longer.