Saved by the Crush's Brother - Maggie Dallen Page 0,6

I’d catch up to you,” she said as she came to a stop a foot away from our car. Then she did something unexpected.

She looked right at me.

Eye contact and all, she aimed that beaming smile in my direction as she said. “Hi, Cristian.”

I blinked. She’d even addressed me by my name.

I had a feeling my answering stare was more like a glare because my shocked face was even more grim than my resting face, but that huge smile never faltered as she turned back to my brother, seemingly not aware that she’d just rocked my world with that simple hello.

Don’t get me wrong. Girls liked me. I wasn’t unattractive and I had an appeal of my own...but that appeal wasn’t appealing to girls like this one.

Avery, he’d called her.

I didn’t remember her. But then again, I’d tried to steer clear of Lakeview High girls when I went here and she would have been a sophomore when I was a senior so...not at all on my radar, no matter how pretty her smile.

She and Alex made some painful-to-listen-to small talk about her play rehearsal and his basketball practice and—yawn. Could we leave already? I thought about jingling the keys or just straight-up interrupting and telling her to ask him out already because we had places to be but her next words made me freeze.

“I was hoping we could talk about our baby,” she said.

My insides turned to ice because, holy freakin’ crap did she just say—

“Our baby?” Alex sounded just as confused as I felt and I swear, for a second there, I forgot how much I couldn’t stand the guy and for the first time in a long time I just saw him as my little brother.

My mind raced to come up with solutions. Dad had enough money. He could help support Alex’s kid. Mom and I would help out, obviously.

I shoved my hands into my pockets, the car keys biting into me in my awkward rush to try and disappear in plain sight.

This was not a conversation I should overhear. I stared down at the macadam beneath my feet and cringed at this sweet-looking girl’s upbeat tone in the face of adversity.

“Yeah, you know...our baby.” She sounded like she was laughing and I…

Ah crap, I wanted to go over there and hug the girl.

Maybe even hug my brother.

What a freakin’ mess. But if she could be so calm about this then I’d make sure Alex—

“Oh right.” Alex started to laugh. “Totally forgot.”

She laughed too.

What the… What was I missing here?

“I got Buttercup from Mr. McClusky,” she was saying. “The program will start tomorrow after school and it will last for a week. The software inside it tracks the different type of cries and their duration...”

“Uh huh.” Alex scratched the back of his head and even from here I could see him turning his head, his attention already on something one of his buddies was shouting on the far side of the parking lot.

Alex was barely listening, but I couldn’t stop. I was paying attention to every word. The more Avery talked the more it became clear there was no real baby. This was some assignment and I…

I was such an idiot.

“So that works?” Avery asked. “We can share duties this weekend?”

“Hmm?” Alex shifted. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

I watched the pretty blonde beam at my moronic little brother. All at once it was clear. So ridiculously clear—to me, at least.

She liked him.

I had no idea why this realization landed like a punch in my gut, but there you had it. I was officially winded and nauseated all at once as the knowledge struck like a blow.

I’d suspected she was one of his many admirers by the way she’d come running over here, and that smile—well, that was another clue. But it was the way she was gazing at him right now as if he was the center of her solar system. As if the sun rose and set with my little jerk of a brother.

“Okay, great!” Her voice was way too enthusiastic considering his response had included the word ‘whatever.’

She was bouncing on her toes as she backed away, her grin so big it made my cheeks ache on her behalf.

“I’ll see you this weekend then.”

Alex was already turning to shout something back at his dumb friend, but Avery didn’t seem to notice as she headed back to the school.

I watched her go. I saw the way her hands clenched, the way she ducked her head down like she could