Tricks of Love (Second Book of "Fire and Ice" series)

CH. 26 Brownies plus cream

“Boy, thanks..uhm, to think at first I was so scared of you.” He then blushed and waved his hands in front of me. “Oh boy, I mean just at the beginning, before getting to know you better..I mean now it’s different and..”

I laughed and ruffled his hair, easing down his nervous.

“Relax, I got what you mean and well, at first you pissed me off big time for always being so close to Travis.” He widened his eyes in clear shock and that made me chuckle.

“Uhm, like you were, uhm well, jealous of me? And now?”

“Jasper, you are my boyfriend’s best friend and he loves you, and you two look like brothers, so of course I am not jealous. Well, it was just at the very beginning, when I still had to understand I was crazy about Travis; sh!t, it really annoyed me back then, but hey, after a while I got you guys were just friends.”

“Oh, I see. Boy…now I understand why you looked at us with those threatening glares. “ He giggled and quickly looked at Dima.

“You know, Dima was the same with Kevin. I think he had wished to kick his ass every single time your classmate was around you.” It was really funny to see that, what a joke. “Never though my buddy was a jealous guy, but sh!t, he sure is. And Jas, I’m happy you guys are together, honestly happy for you two.”

He stared at me a moment clearly blushing and then cracked a shy smile.

“Boy, thanks Alex. It really means a lot to me and you know, I can totally understand why Travis loves you so much and why they all consider you a great friend.” I went to say something, because I wasn’t very comfortable at these nice-talking things, but he suddenly changed expression and bit his lip as if thinking about something. “Uhm, can I ask you one thing?”

“Sure, what’s that?”

“Dima said you and Anatoly were very close, also with River, right?” I nodded and waited for him to go on. “Uhm well, what happened exactly? I asked Dima once, but I don’t want to press the issue too much with him.”

That was a good question. What happened with Anatoly?

“I don’t exactly know what happened with him; he suddenly changed from one day to another. No wait, that’ not correct.” I sighed. He was a bastard that betrayed all of us and out of the blue began to behave like crap with Dima and his family, then insult River. But I asked myself many times why he changed that much, since I never saw any reason. “He changed completely something like five years ago, right when we began high school, but he wasn’t the way he is now, although that was the start. However River and I noticed something off with him months before and we asked Dima, but you know him. If you think he is dense and clueless now, oh well, you should have known him years ago. Almost worse than Hayden.”

Jasper chuckled and shook his head.

“So uhm, he had some weird behavior?”

“More than weird he just kept alone and avoided our company, especially his brother’s company and treated him rather badly. I confronted him once, but nothing came out of it. Then to be fair, I had my own crap going on, as my own brother had some issues. I don’t think you know about my biological mother and don’t think Travis told you anything.”

“No, I know nothing and never asked him and uhm well, you know him. He would never say anything.” I smiled at that, because it was true.

“Not going to tell you the whole story, but well, she left us out of the blue and my brother didn’t exactly take it well and after a while he sort of began to act like a stupid jock at school, getting into troubles etc. He then met Nichole and that saved his neck.” Jasper looked at me completely surprised and I just gave him time to absorb the news. He then peeked at me shyly and nodded. “Well, as I said, I had my own issues, so I probably hadn’t been the best understanding friend in that moment, but when we tried to talk to him nothing came out, and he actually turned into an aggressive and twisted jerk. He insulted River and Derek, then insulted my family and provoked me in many ways, and not even going to tell you the way he was around his own twin brother and family. It was as if we were looking at another person.”