Page 10 of Summer with a Brother's Best Friend
“Not going back,” I whisper. “I don’t know if I ever will.” Isaac’s eyes are glassy as they meet mine.
It’s stupid but I know my brother better than I know myself, and we’d never survive this.
“So that’s it?” Maddox practically yells over the silent communication I’m having with his best friend.
“It’s what I want.”
“But Love Beach is our home.”
“I don’t want to be a nurse, Mads. I don’t want to be like Mom, and I don’t want to go back home! I need more than Love Beach. I need more than justbeingin our hometown when no one actually seesme.”
“You’re going to throw everything away to be ateacher?You could be anything, Reece. And what about Isaac?”
“It’s not throwing everything away! It’s what I want; you’re just not listening.”
“And my best friend?” he says again as Isaac watches us.
“We will talk about it in private,” I say as my boyfriend’s eyelids flutter closed.
“How could you break us? This is bullshit!” Maddox yells, and it’s the only thing that pulls Isaac back to the present as he stands and gets between us.
“Don’t talk to your sister like that,” he snaps, my brother’s cheeks reddening as they stare each other down.
“If this is over,” Maddox says, waving his hand between us, “then that’s it. You’re done. There’s no sides, and you don’t do this again. I was cool with it, but I won’t stand by and watch you tear each other apart. Tear us apart. Not again.”
“What? That’s not—” Isaac starts but Mads cuts him off.
“You promised me.” He looks around his best friend to me. “Both of you.”
“Maddox.”
“I’m serious, Reece. You guys want to ruin your relationship, that’s on you, but this is it. There’s no second chance after this. You promised me.”
He’s angry—angrier than I’ve ever seen him—but he’s still my brother, and even though he’s being a jackass, I still love him.
“Okay.”
Isaac says the same and then it’s just us left in my dorm room, the sound of the door slamming behind Mads deafening as we both stare at the inevitable end. It isn’t until Isaac turns toward me, absolutely wrecked, that I lose it. Falling into his arms, I cry—we both do—as we mourn the end of us and the finality of promising never again.
8
REECE
8 WEEKS TILL THE END OF SUMMER
“Hey, Boss Man,” I call as I give the bar top a final wipe down. Isaac pokes his head out of the back room and gives me an appraising look before glancing at the empty bar.
“Are you all set? Give me a second to finish this and I’ll walk you out.”
Swallowing down my nerves, I lean a hip against the cooler, his eyes tracking the sliver of skin between the top of my shorts and the hem of my tank, a sexy smile on my lips. “Wanna go for a walk on the beach?”
“Yeah.” He licks his lips, his answer quiet but sure as he stares at me. My heart flutters in my chest before taking off at a gallop at the fact that I hadn’t had to convince him at all.
“Really?”
“Always, Reece.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he nods toward the back. “Give me a few minutes and we can go.”
We breeze through the closing routine, and before I can blink, Isaac has locked the door and tucked the keys in the pocket of his shorts. Lights all over Love Beach illuminate the night sky, and laughter carries on the breeze, and for once I don’t hate it.
