My Brother's Best Friend

Chapter 9

  Picture of Alex above as Diego Tinoco

  I looked at Jax in disbelief as Hunter mentioned Rebecca. I walked out of my room and down to the kitchen ignoring Jax's footsteps behind me.

  He went straight to Hunter's room, closing the door behind him.

  How stupid could I be? He's just treating me like any other girl. I wasn't anything special certainly not to him.

  Here I was thinking maybe Alex was right about Jax liking me back but if he did he wouldn't be with Rebecca. I made a mistake giving into him once again. I always let my guard down around him but not again. I'm done with Jax. I have to focus my full attention on Alex and on more important things than Jax.

  At the end of the day Jax was nothing but my brother's friend. He didn't mean anything to me, he wasn't even my friend.

  "I'm going to drop Jax off at Rebecca's." Hunter walks into the kitchen, pulling me out of my bubble. He walks over to the tray of fruits, deciding which to eat.

  I looked up to see Jax already looking at me. I ignored his blank expression just like we were ignoring what just happened in my room.

  "So, you and Rebecca, huh?" I pick at my nails as I look at him.

  "Yeah, we made it official yesterday." He says.

  "You guys were still talking since she went over that day?" I ask.

  He nods. "She hasn't forgiven me completely but we are working through things."

  "I guess it wasn't the talk you wanted then." I joked, gulping.

  "Oh, we talked." He laughs. Hunter chuckles, high-fiving Jax as he chewed on an apple.

  "Come on, let's go." Hunter says, throwing the half finished apple in the garbage as he walks out of the kitchen.

  Jax stood in the same spot, eyeing me. We didn't look away from each other or say anything until he moved to be closer to me.

  "Just stop," I get up from the stool. "Whatever you're doing or trying to do, stop."

  "What ar-"

  I interrupt him. "I don't know what you think you know or what it is you are doing but if you forgot let me remind you, you have a girlfriend."

  "I don't know what you're talking about." He shrugs.

  "You know exactly what I'm talking about." I say.

  "You're crazy." He gets closer.

  "And you're delusional." I move away from him. "Your girlfriend is waiting for you. Which one is it again? Rebecca or her best friend?"

- - -

"What the fuck!?" Marissa yelled as I finished telling her what happened between Jax and I since the day at his house. "And he's at Rebecca's now?"

I nod. "We almost kissed twice."

"And you didn't!" She shook her head. She leaned her back against my bed as we ate grapes and had the TV playing in the background.

"I'm still trying to process it." I sigh.

"What about Alex?" She shoved a grape in her mouth.

"What about him?" I ask.

"Are you going to tell him about it?"

I shake my head. "Are you crazy? He can't know. He already thinks Jax likes me."

"So he does like you!" She squeals.

"He likes Rebecca." I state the obvious.

"He cheated on Rebecca." Marissa moves the grapes aside and folds her hands together. "He clearly likes you."

"Not even close. He hates me and I hate him." I cross my arms.

"Mhmm," She furrows her eyebrows. "Why don't you just tell him how you feel?"

"How are we friends again?" She shrugs. "We've been over this, he's Hunter's friend, I'm his annoying little sister. He's hated me since he first met me."

"Emma, he likes you. I know this kind of stuff." She assures me.

"Even if he did, which he doesn't, it'll never work out." I don't know why Marissa thought he had feelings for me, he was clearly playing with my head because he thinks I'm in love with him.

"I guess so." She sighs, giving up. She looks at her phone and groans before getting up from the floor. "Nick is here."

I sigh, getting up. "I'll see you Monday."

"Oh, God don't remind me." She frowns.

"We're gonna be juniors." We walk down the stairs and towards the front door.

"I don't know how I passed." She mumbled.

"I know, right." I joke.

She slaps my arm, letting out a laugh. I open the door just in time to see Hunter's car pull in. Marissa pulls me into a hug before running off to Nick's car.

I leave the door open for Hunter and walk into the living room, turning on the TV.

"There's leftovers on the stove, dad's coming back late." I say, as I see Hunter appear in the hall. I take a quick look at him, doing a double take as I couldn't believe my eyes. Hunter's shirt had been ripped into pieces just barely hanging onto his body and his lip had been busted open. He had blood gushing down from his eyebrow and his hair was up in every direction.

"Holy shit, what happened?!"