Breaking Bro Code (The Line Up #4) - Misti Murphy Page 0,36
number of text messages to a girl I don’t want to want.
I’m knocking back a girl who I could like if I wanted to. I wouldn’t even have to try. But all I can think is she’s a lot like Lily. Which is why I like her. And she’s not Lily. And that’s enough for me to know I’m in deep trouble.
Jessa’s marrying my brother and that’s the least of my problems. I never thought there would be a day where I said that, but there it is. It’s all Lily. All the time. It’s gotta stop.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Hud asks.
Not on my life. Which he’d want to take if we did talk about it. And while he’s a giant pussy cat who would do anything for the people he loves, he’s also partial to crazy, half-cocked plans. I have no doubt that could easily include burying my live body somewhere in the dessert. And Jane is as incorrigible. She’d be the one who covers my head with a bucket to make sure the ants got to me before the buzzards picked out my eyes.
It sounds like I’m scared of my best friend, and I am, a smidge, in this particular matter. Really, though, other than the possibility of a harsh death under the dessert sun, I can handle Hud. What I can’t handle is the idea of fucking him over. It’s the fact that he welcomed me into his life and his family when my own was such a fucking Shakespearean tragedy and all he asked was I don’t touch Lily. And I’m repaying him by wanting to stick my dick in his sister. I’m not saying that’s how I look at her. Although I can’t pretend that I don’t want to do that too. I’m saying that’s all Hud would hear if I dared to broach the subject with him. Me dirty caveman. Want to steal sister and bang with big meat club. Yeah, no thank you. I’m not having a conversation about it. “Nothing to talk about.”
“Well someone wants to talk to you,” he says when my phone whistles again.
It really is the most annoying sound, but I haven’t worked out what I want to replace it with yet. I click into the message.
Violet Queen: You’re hung up on someone, right?
So that’s what she meant. She doesn’t want to date me. She wants a reprieve from the gnawing ache of wanting someone else. And I can’t blame her for seeking out a distraction. I’ve been doing it as long as I can remember. Only our situations are very different.
Cap’N Crunch: No. I mean yes. Maybe. It’s more complicated than that.
Violet Queen: Isn’t it always?
Cap’N Crunch: I suppose it probably is. But in this case I would say it’s more like an episode of Maury.
Violet Queen: You’re in love with your sister?? Or is it your brother? And your mom is worried that your babies will have ten toes on each foot?
A laugh bursts out of me that is so unexpected I choke on it. My eyes water. She has no idea.
“You sure you’re all right?” Hud glances at me from under a heavy and lopsided brow.
I thump my chest. Cough. Tears fill my eyes, so I take my glasses off and wipe them. “I’m good.”
Cap’N Crunch: Ha! Funny, absolutely not.
Violet Queen: But you do have siblings?
“So this chick? Is she your girlfriend now?” Hud asks.
“Girlfriend?” I balk as I type out another message. “When have you ever seen me with a girlfriend?”
“Uh, never. But I also haven’t seen you act like a pre-teen girl either.” He turns to me, both hands under his chin, and batts his inordinately thick lashes at me. “I don’t know anyone more routine about avoiding commitment than you, and now you’re all flirty and giggly and heart eyes and shit. What’s going on, mother ducker? Who is this woman?”
“Jealous?” I clap back at him.
“Nah, man. But she’s making you laugh. And I haven’t managed to get a real laugh out of you in months.”
“That’s because your jokes are lame,” I say under my breath as I hit send.
“Ouch.” He grabs his chest right over his heart with a hiss. “You wound a guy, you know that?”
“You’re an idiot,” I tell him, already typing out my next text.
Cap’N Crunch: I do. But that’s not the point. The point is I’m not in the right place to be dating.