Saved by the Crush's Brother - Maggie Dallen Page 0,5

midst of his entourage.

No, a prince. That was far more accurate. Our father was clearly the king of our world—dictating just about everything he could.

Which wasn’t much any more for me—just what I studied and where—but for Alex?

I grimaced as he and his buddies headed toward the parking lot where I was camped out. He was still living under the King’s tyranny.

Sometimes I almost felt bad for the kid.

Almost.

But then again, he was so far in my dad’s pockets I doubted he would even know where to begin to find some independence. Heaven forbid one day he discovered that he wanted a different life than the one my dad had planned for him…

“Hey loser,” Alex said with a grin when he caught sight of me. He turned to his friends. “Check it out, guys, my dad hired a new chauffeur for me.”

He laughed at his own joke and I swore his friends brayed like donkeys. Whatever sound they’d made, it couldn’t be described as laughter.

I gave them all an admittedly condescending smile. Have your jokes, children. We’ll see who’s laughing last when you leave your little self-made kingdom of Lakeview High.

Real life would hit some of these cocky bros harder than others. I’d learned that firsthand in college. And some—like my spoiled little brother—had no idea what was in store for them.

“Get in,” I said, my voice gruff as I pushed off the hood to get back in the driver’s seat. I didn’t look back to see if he’d follow my orders.

I didn’t have to.

A lifetime of being brothers had established that I wasn’t just older. I was bigger. And while I might not spend my every waking second working out to look like a hotshot on the court or flex my muscles for a gaggle of brain dead cheerleader types, I did stay in shape and we both knew I could take him down in a fight.

We knew because I’d done it. Many times. I was undefeated when it came to beating his butt and he wouldn’t dare risk being emasculated in front of all his basketball buddies.

Sure enough, I heard him reach the passenger side door and I’d just started to open mine when a girl’s voice shouted his name and had us both stopping short.

“Alex, wait up!”

I just barely held back a sigh when I saw a pretty blonde running toward us, her long hair waving in the breeze like she was the star of her own freakin’ shampoo commercial.

I couldn’t see Alex’s expression because he’d turned to face her so his back was to me. He’d better not be thinking about settling in for some long conversation with this chick with the megawatt smile.

“Hi,” she said to him again as she got closer, her voice breathless from running and her smile somehow even bigger, which I hadn't thought possible.

The girl was pretty, in a blue-eyed, blonde-haired Barbie doll kind of way. But she wasn’t beautiful. She was...cute. There was something about her features that kept her from being a knockout. As she grew closer, I noticed it—the way her eyes were just a little too big, her mouth a little too wide. She wasn’t deformed or anything, but her larger-than-life features made her look more like an adorable anime character than a supermodel.

Cute. That was definitely the word for her. Cute and freakishly smiley.

“Avery,” Alex said, sounding surprised. “What’s up?”

She tucked some hair behind her ear and I waited to be ignored.

I knew the score. Girls like this—the braindead cheerleader types who adored my little bro—they were scared by the likes of me. If Alex was their white knight, I was the big bad villain they’d been raised to fear.

I had tattoos, the only color I wore was black, and instead of my father’s pretty boy golden locks and easy smile, I’d gotten my mother’s darker coloring and a resting face that said get off my lawn.

At least, that was my mom’s joke. She said I’d gotten her dad’s crotchety old man behavior. He’d passed away the year I was born and she was superstitious like that.

Anyway, all this was to say, I knew the routine. She’d pretend I didn’t exist, which meant I was free to watch this awkward interaction and laugh—inwardly, of course. Despite the impression I might give of being a miserable old coot, my mother raised me to have manners, which meant I didn’t outright laugh at ditzy, besotted airheads no matter how much I might be inwardly mocking them.

“I was hoping