How are you doing, sweetheart?
Maybe I should’ve asked him howhewas doing. Because I should’ve cared about that. It was the anniversary of Gabe’s death last week. And he’d called me to tell me about Joseph Fetterman’s death as soon as he’d heard.
And I’d said not one word to him about it.
I knew he loved my brother like I did—or he wouldn’t be here, dealing with this. Xander had been the only one of my brother’s friends who stuck around like this, kept coming around so much. Who’dstayedfor so long.
We’d all loved Gabe. But Xander had been closer to Gabe, and even to my brother, than I ever was.
I hated to admit that, but I knew it was true. They were all so much older than me, and they’d been in a band together. Toured together.
I was the little sister.
I knew my brother’s friends all cared about me in some way. My brother had good friends. At least, he used to.
Some of them still checked in on me sometimes, messaged to ask how I was doing.
Or how Cary was doing.
And maybe if they were here right now, I’d be asking them how they were doing.
I didn’t ask Xander, though. Even though he was the one who cared about my brother the most…
Who cared about me the most?
You know, in a big-brotherly way.
Icouldn’task him how he was doing. Because the truth was I didn’t want to know. I just couldn’t let myself go there. Get invested again, care about him like that. And listening to him talk about his feelings or something? His pain?
Bad idea.
Tonight, he’d given me a glimpse of the way I used to see him, and that was bad enough.
I used to think Xander Rush was some sort of prince. Rock ’n’ roll royalty, like he rode in on a white stallion or something. I literally doodled him in the margin of one of my school books once, riding on a unicorn and holding a pair of drumsticks like a sword.
Yeah. Stupid.
In reality, he was probably both a princeanda royal pig. I just had to remember that even when he was being a total prince—which was rare anyway—the pig was still in there, lurking… just waiting to rear his filthy head when the next pair of boobs jiggled by.
But I couldn’t help wondering…
What would happen if I hung out in my bikini in front of him? Alone?
If Imadehim notice me?
Thanks to Shayla suggesting it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Thinking about what might happen if I did what she told me to do—put my boobs in his face.
And wondering about it kinda made me want to do it, just to find out.
I knew it would be a bad move. That I wouldn’t get the reaction I wanted.
But…
He’d reacted to me once. That night in his car, when I’d challenged him.
Though that was just a bluff, right?
Neither of us really meant what we did or what we said that night.