My Brother’s Best Friend

  By J.T. Marie

  Published by Queerteen Press

  Visit queerteen-press.com for more information.

  Copyright 2012 J.T. Marie

  ISBN 9781611524512

  Cover Photo Credit: Jacko312 | Dreamstime.com

  Used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  All Rights Reserved

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America. Queerteen Press is an imprint of JMS Books LLC.

  * * * *

  My Brother’s Best Friend

  By J.M. Snyder

  My mom swears I can’t date until I turn sixteen, but I already have my first boyfriend picked out. Nate Bartlett is three years older than me and so cute. He’s my brother Bryan’s best friend—they’ve been buddies since kindergarten, and in all my memories growing up, Nate’s right there alongside Bryan. The two are inseparable. “Here comes trouble,” my dad says whenever the boys race into the house. If Nate isn’t spending the night over our place, then Bryan’s over his. Seriously, they’re always together.

  I almost didn’t notice Nate at first. I mean, he’s practically family, you know? Like a cousin or something, always underfoot, eating at our place or watching TV in the den, or hanging out in our backyard with Bryan, up in the treehouse my dad built or on the skate ramp the boys set up when they got into boarding. Then I claimed the treehouse as mine, and I’d play dolls up there while listening to the constant hum of wheels on the ramp below. Once or twice I’d peek over the edge of the floor and look down at them, but really, what’s so fun about skateboarding? Most of the time, they fall off the things and laugh about it. I don’t get it.

  But once, when I was nine years old, I was coming down out of the treehouse and one of the wooden slats my dad had hammered into the trunk like rungs on a ladder broke. It was near the bottom, so I didn’t fall far, but I landed on my butt with a hard thump! and knocked the wind out of me. For a moment I sat there, heart racing, unsure what had happened or what I should do next. Then I tried to breathe in and couldn’t.

  I couldn’t.

  Fear filled me and I looked around, terrified. My brother and Nate were nearby, but Bryan hadn’t noticed me—he was too busy popping wheels on his ramp. Nate glanced over and must’ve seen something in my face because he dropped his skateboard and hurried to my side. “Hey, Amber, you okay?”

  I tried to hitch in a breath and couldn’t. Would I ever breathe again? Would I die like this, out here, gasping for air like a fish out of water? “Nate.”

  He came closer, calling over his shoulder to my brother. “Bry, I think something’s wrong…”

  Then his hand touched my arm and, for whatever reason, I felt my lungs expand. I gulped in sweet, cool autumn air. Even though I didn’t want to cry in front of Bryan—he’d laugh, I knew he would, he was twelve and way too big for crying, so he thought I should be, too—I couldn’t help it. The next breath I took came out in a loud wail. Nate’s hand tightened on my arm as he helped me stand, and in that instant, I loved him.

  From a distance, I heard the screen door open and my mother call out, “What are you boys doing to her? Why’s she crying?”

  Bryan told her I fell—thanks for helping me out, I thought bitterly, but it didn’t matter. Nate was there, his arm around my shoulders, and when I looked up at him through my tears, I swore to myself he’d be the first guy I dated when my mother said I could.

  * * * *

  Now I’m practically sixteen—okay, fifteen in a week, but still. It’s close enough. All the girls at school think my brother’s the hot one. I just don’t get it. “It’s his hair,” my best friend Shelley says, sighing whenever she sees Bryan in the hall between classes. “You just want to run your hands through it and pull.”

  Funny—to me, it looks unwashed, but then again, I’ve seen Bryan roll out of bed in the mornings, so I know how little time he actually spends on his appearance. Besides, he’s my brother. Now Nate, on the other hand…

  “Oh, he’s cute, too,” Shelley agrees. Now she’s talking sense. “You’re so lucky, Amber. You have two of the hottest seniors in school hanging around your house all the time. It’s like Hunk Central. You should, like, introduce me to Bryan, and we could double-date, you know?”

  “He already knows you,” I remind her. Hello? She’s my BFF, of course he knows who she is. “Besides, my mom says I can’t date yet.”

  “She also says you can’t wear makeup and you do,” Shelley points out.

  True, but somehow I think hiding a living, breathing boyfriend would be a bit harder than hiding a tube of lipstick from the dollar store in my purse.

  “We should totally hang out with them,” Shelley says. As if Bryan will go for that. “Neither of them has a girlfriend, right? So what’s the problem?”

  The problem is Bryan isn’t about to pal around with his little sister. I know—it’s like pulling teeth to get him to take me anywhere if Nate’s around. And I’m not even talking about for fun, either. One day over the summer I ran out of maxi pads and I couldn’t wait until my mom came home to get more—I needed them now. I’m too young to drive, but Bryan’s eighteen and has a battered old pickup truck he bought with money he earned working for our dad. He likes to take it to the mall parking lot, where he and Nate take turns skateboarding off the bed of the truck. So I knew if they were going to go out later, I could bum a ride.

  When I knocked on the door to my brother’s bedroom, it was Nate who said, “Yo.”

  I took that to mean come in and pushed open the door. Nate was stretched out on Bryan’s bed, thumbing through a skating magazine, and though the room looked like a disaster area, it didn’t take me long to realize my brother wasn’t around.

  “Where is he?” I asked. Nate makes me more than a little nervous because he’s so darn cute, but I was in a crisis here.

  Nate didn’t glance up from the magazine, but then again, why should he? He knew it was me. “Shower.”

  As if on cue, the bathroom door opened down the hall and my brother came out, dripping wet, with only my beach towel wrapped around his waist for cover. His hair stood up in damp spikes all over his head, and he reeked of aftershave. When he pushed past me into his room, I poked his hip. “Hey, this is mine.”

  “It was in the bathroom,” he said, trying to shut the door on me. I stopped it with one foot. “Fair game, Am. You leave it in there, I can use it. Get out.”

  Forgetting about the towel for a moment, I said, “I need to go to the store.”

  “So? Go.”

  He tried closing the door again, but again I held it open. “I can’t just go,” I reminded him. “I don’t have a car. Even if I did, I don’t know how to drive.”

  With a shrug, Bryan began picking through the clothing strewn about the floor as if looking for something clean enough to wear. “Then wait for Mom. She’ll be home by four.”

  “I need to go now.” I saw Nate look over the top of his magazine at me and felt my face begin to heat up. “Bryan, please. I know you two are going to the mall in a little bit. Let me come, too.”

  “No.” Bryan picked out a pair of long Bermuda shorts and a tank top and tossed them onto the bed. Well, onto Nate, who pushed them off his stomach and onto the mattress beside him. “Get out, will you? I need to get dressed.”

  I planted my feet wide in his doorway and crossed my arms for good measure. “And I need to go to the store.”

  With a heavy sigh, Bryan turned to glare at me. “What do you need? We’ll pick it up for you, how’s that? What is it?”

  Nate was right there and I didn’t want to say anything in front of him, but my only consolation was that Bryan would be more embarrassed about buying feminine products than I was about needing them. I mean, seriously—both these guys knew girls got periods, right? I felt my jaw clench as I told my brother, “I need pads, okay? You want to buy them for me? I get the Always in the green pack—“

  “All right, fine,” he said, interrupting me. His face flushed bright red, and behind him, Nate was buried in the magazine, snickering. “God. You can come, okay? Just get out already, will you? I have to get dressed.”

  When I didn’t move immediately, he tugged at the front of the beach towel, threatening to drop it in front of me. I closed my eyes and turned, grinning in triumph. As he shut the door behind me, I heard him mutter to Nate, “Can you see me buying those things? Christ.”

  “One day you’ll have to,” I hollered. “When your wife asks!”

  From behind the shut door, I heard the boys break into gales of laughter. One day!

  * * * *

  A few days before my fifteenth birthday, I decide to put some feelers out, see if I can maybe somehow jumpstart the whole boyfriend thing by getting Nate to ask me out. Since I’d never actually dare to talk to Nate directly, I focus on Bryan instead. One night after dinner, a rare evening when Nate isn’t around because his family’s Baptist and make him go to church service on Wednesday night, I find my brother at the kitchen table taking a practice SAT. Pulling out the chair across from him, I sit down in it and watch him bubble in the circles with his pencil. An eternity seems to pass before he decides I’m not going away and mutters, “What?”

  As nonchalantly as I can, I start, “Shelley wants to know why you don’t have a girlfriend.”

  Bryan glances up from the test, his brows furrowed into one long unibrow across his forehead. “Who the hell’s Shelley?”

  “OMG, she’s only my BFF!” Is he for real? Shelley’s been hanging out with me since the fourth grade. “You’ve seen her, I know you have.”

  Bryan sticks out his lower lip and blows his bangs out of his eyes. “Why’s she care if I’m dating someone or not?”

  I sort of shrug and roll my eyes, not wanting to come right out and say anything, but another long moment passes before I realize either my brother isn’t paying attention to me or he’s the thickest boy I’ve ever met. Probably some combination of the two. “She just asked…”

  Suddenly, it clicks. “I’m not going out with her, if that’s what you’re hoping for.”

  “Why not?” I ask. “She’s a great girl. She’s—“

  “Fifteen,” Bryan points out. “And your best friend. So no.”

  I hurry on. “But wouldn’t it be cool if you two got together? Then maybe Nate and I could—“

  “Nate!” The tip of Bryan’s pencil snaps off. “Oh, no. We’re not having this conversation. Mom! Amber’s trying to get me to get Nate to ask her out!”

  “Shut up, will you?” I lower my voice to try to get him to lower his, too. Fortunately Mom’s down in the laundry room and doesn’t hear him. “I’m not trying to get you to get Nate to do anything.”

  Bryan digs another pencil, already sharpened, out of his bookbag, which rests on the floor by his feet. “Damn straight,” he mutters. “Aren’t you too young to go out on dates, anyway?”

  “I’m fifteen,” I tell him. “In another year, Mom says—“

  “Well, cross Nate off your list,” Bryan says, bending back over his test again. “He’s my friend, he’s too old for you, and besides, he isn’t interested, anyway.”

  Suspicious, I ask, “How do you know? Maybe he likes me.”

  Bryan scoffs and doesn’t bother with a response.

  “Maybe he does,” I press. “If you don’t ask him about me, you won’t know what he thinks, will you? He doesn’t have a girlfriend, does he?”

  “No,” Bryan admits.

  “There, see? Maybe…“

  With an exasperated sigh, Bryan bunches the test paper into his fists as if he wants to tear it in half. Then he forces himself to take a deep breath and glares at me across the table. “Amber, stop. Nate is not interested in going out with you, or Shelley, or any other girl at our school, okay? Trust me.”

  “I never said Shelley,” I clarify. Hello? I said me.

  My brother shakes his head as he smoothes out his test. “Seriously, stop.”

  I open my mouth to try something different, but the sound of my mother’s footsteps on the basement stairs changes my mind. I still have time to break him down to the idea of me dating Nate. It will happen, I promise myself. Whether Bryan likes it or not.

  * * * *

  For my birthday, I stay the night at Shelley’s. We hardly get any sleep—we’re too busy flipping through Seventeen magazine and giggling over the guys from One Direction on an all-night MTV special promoting their upcoming tour. My mother gave me a box of cosmetics, which Shelley says is proof she’ll let me date before the next year is out. I still have my sights set on Nate, and if I want to wear his ring before I turn sixteen, I have my work cut out for me.

  Shelley’s mother drops me off at my house on her way to work at the mall. It’s an early Saturday afternoon—my parents went antiquing, which they like to do on the weekends, so the only person I expect to be home is Bryan, with Nate, of course. I feel pretty in the glittery eyeshadow and glistening lipgloss Shelley helped me apply before I left her place. If I’m ever going to wow Nate, it’ll be today.

  On my way to the front step, I hear the ever-present sound of skateboards off the ramp in the back yard, so I switch direction and head for the side gate. The yard is hemmed in by a ten-foot tall, wooden privacy fence that really comes in handy when I’m trying to work on my tan, but it’s too high for me to try to look over so I stand outside the gate and listen. I hear the skateboards, of course, the sounds of their wheels punctuated by Bryan’s braying laugh and Nate cursing when he lands badly. My hand drifts to the gate’s latch. I try to imagine the scene on the other side—my brother with one foot on his skateboard, waiting for Nate to clear off the ramp so he can have a go. Nate’s hair windblown and careless, just the way I like it.

  While I’m at it, might as well envision him lifting up the hem of his shirt to wipe sweat away from his face and exposing the smooth, flat muscles of his belly. I mean, a girl can dream, right?

  When there’s a lull in the boarding sounds, I take a deep breath to calm my racing heart and ease open the latch. The door swings open ahead of me and I follow it into the back yard. My sneakers are silent on the concrete path, and I get the idea of surprising them with my new look. Bryan will be so amazed at how grown-up I look, he’ll beg me to go out with Nate. He’ll have to—Nate won’t take no for an answer.

  I shut the gate behind me, just as quietly, then straighten my tank top and mini-skirt and fluff my hair with one hand before I come around the side of the house.

  What I see stops me in mid-step.

  Nate leans back against the side of the skate ramp, his skateboard propped against his leg. Bryan’s in front of him, so close I can’t see any space between them from where I stand. He has one hand against the ramp by Nate’s head, and the other brushes over Nate’s cheek gently. Even at fifteen, I recognize that for what it is.

  A lover’s touch.

  Nate grins at something Bryan says so softly, I can’t overhear. Bryan sweeps back the hair from Nate’s brow—I wanted to do that, me—then leans down to cover Nate’s mouth with his.

  Oh. My. God.

  I take a step back and stumble over a collection of empty planting pots my mother left to one side of the path. The noise they make causes Nate and Bryan to fly apart, hands running through their hair or shoving deep into their pockets. If I hadn’t just seen what I know I saw, I’d be hard-pressed to say they’d even been standing close together a moment ago.

  “Amber,” Bryan says, a little breathless. “What are you doing here?”

  I steady myself amid the pots and try not to look at either of them. I didn’t see it, I tell myself. I didn’t…but I did. I know I did. This changes everything.

  Then I remember this is Bryan. Not some stranger on TV or in the newspaper, but my brother. I know him. At least, I think I do. My response is a snarky sister-answer if ever there was one. “I live here, remember?”

  For a moment, I want him to ask me what I saw. I want him to tell me it wasn’t anything, I misinterpreted it, and I’ll believe him. But when I glance over at Nate, I see the way he looks at Bryan and I know how it is between them. How it’s probably always been. Why didn’t I notice it before?

  I didn’t want to, simple as that.

  Then Bryan says the one thing that could still manage to shock me after this. “You look nice. Is that make-up you’re wearing?”

  My eyes fill with tears and I stumble up the porch steps to the screen door. “Amber!” he calls out, but I ignore him. I want to get inside, to the safety of my bedroom, where I can cry my eyes out.

  * * * *

  Tears blur my vision as I race upstairs and slam my bedroom door shut behind me. I collapse on the bed, blubbering. I wanted Nate. It isn’t fair! I wanted to go out with him, to kiss him, to hold him, me. Ever since I was nine…

  Bryan knew him first, a small voice inside my head whispers.

  So? He’s a boy. He isn’t supposed to be with another boy. Nate’s supposed to be interested in me.

  By the time I’m all cried out, my make-up’s run and my pillow looks like Tinkerbelle exploded on it. I take deep breaths, trying to calm myself, trying to think, but I keep seeing that kiss, an uncommon tenderness in my brother’s touch, a look of love shining clearly on Nate’s face.

 

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