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Ripley~
I loved my brother dearly, but a four-hour drive anywhere with a chatterbox was enough to tax a saint’s nerves, never mind mine. Granted, a lot of his vocal torture was him singing off-key to his playlist since I’d let him take over the radio, but still. The dude couldn’t sing, and he knew it. I had no idea why he kept brutalizing good music when he knew this.
Luckily, we had the same taste in music, so it wasn’t anything worth tossing him out of the car for. However, it’d still be nice of him to let the artists that could sing actually sing.
Roark reached for the radio, lowering the music, back to wanting to talk to me, and I honestly wanted to just tell the kid to read a book or something. “So, do you think that it’ll be super weird to have them both at the cabin?” he asked, and I was close enough with my brother to know exactly what he was talking about.
“She said she was fine, didn’t she?” I reminded him.
“Okay, maybe it’s not her. Maybe it’s me,” he finally admitted. “I feel like I was cheated out of my best friend duties by not kicking his ass when I should have.”
While I didn’t know the details, I knew enough to know that Junie’s ex-boyfriend, Paul, had cheated on her last year, and that they’d broken up rather civilly, her moving out and never contacting him again. Now, while I understood Roark’s need to avenge his best friend, it wouldn’t do good for him to lose focus this weekend. If Junie said that she was okay with it, then he needed to respect that. I had no doubt that Roark was more than capable of kicking Paul Hopper’s ass, but I didn’t need any violence popping off when the whole point of me being there was to ensure that nothing bad happened.
“She’s chosen to take the highroad, Roark,” I replied. “You have to respect that or else you’re going to have a very pissed off female on your hands, and we both know that’s not what you want.”
“True,” he muttered as he leaned back in his seat.
Five years ago, right after I’d won my first serious championship, Roark had introduced me to his best friend, Junie Becker. They’d met their sophomore year at Clint University and had hit it off enough that they’d become inseparable. For over a year, I’d heard nothing but stories of his remarkable best friend and how it sucked that he wasn’t attracted to her because she’d be the perfect girlfriend.
Busy with getting my start in snowboarding, I hadn’t peppered him with too many questions about her because I really hadn’t been all that interested. Between me hustling and Roark busy with school, our conversations had been limited, and I had wanted to spend those conversations listening to what he’d been up to, not about a girl that I hadn’t even met.
So, when our schedules had finally met up, and we’d both been home for the weekend, I hadn’t been surprised to see that Roark had brought her along as a guest. However, I had been surprised at my reaction to finally meeting the only girl that was perfect in my brother’s eyes.
I’d known the basics about her life, but that’d been it. Her father and mother were in commercial real estate and owned their business together. She had no siblings, Roark was her best friend, and she was from McLaurin, Colorado and had been going to CU to get her business management degree.
However, knowing all that hadn’t prepared me for first meeting Junie Becker. On paper, she wouldn’t sound exceptional if you described her to someone, but the girl was anything but ordinary. When Roark had introduced us, and she had shaken my hand, chills had trickled down my spine in a way that they’d never had before.
Smiling up at me, telling me how happy she was to finally meet me, had been a girl so beautiful that I hadn’t even known what to say to her. All rational thought had fled and stringing along a simple greeting had escaped my capabilities. There I’d been, an up-and-coming snowboarding pro, and I’d been rendered tongue-tied by a petite brunette an entire foot shorter than me.
Junie Becker had turned me stupid with her shoulder-length brown hair that looked auburn in the light, her deep, big, Bambi brown eyes, arched brows that had one higher than the other, her rosy cheeks that stood out from her light complexion, her pert, feminine nose, and a pair of lips that I had jerked off to more times than I could possibly count. They were pink, plump, and looked like they could slurp the chrome off a bumper.
She also had a tight little body that was just perfect for fucking. While I had never resented it before, my parents had a pool in their backyard, and the weekend that I’d met Junie, she and Roark had made use of the pool a few times. Unfortunately, I’d gotten a good look at Junie Becker in a bathing suit, and it’d been the stuff of horny teenage boys everywhere.
Junie was only about five-foot-three, and her body had been carved in absolute proportioned perfection. She wasn’t built like a cartoon caricature. She didn’t have huge tits or a wide ass, though that look was sexy as hell for someone that could pull it off. However, Junie’s body boasted of tits that were a perfect handful, a tiny waist, and hips wide enough to give her the curves that she needed while still being able to take a good hard dicking. Her ass was nice and round, her legs short but slim and toned. I had even noticed the goddamn color of her toe polish that weekend, and that’s when I’d known that I was fucked.
Completely aware that I’d been borderline rude, I had done my best to stay away from them during that weekend, and it hadn’t been until Roark had called me a couple of days later to call me on my bullshit that I had confessed the issue behind my rudeness.
The second that I’d admitted my interest in Junie, Roark’s caveman had come out swinging his club like nobody’s business. He’d ranted that I could have any pussy on the planet that I wanted, so that I’d better stay away from Junie; she wasn’t just some piece of ass to stroke my ego. He’d ranted that she was a good person, and that he wasn’t going to lose his best friend because I couldn’t control my dick. Roark had been pissed, insulting, and just really...crazy. While I’d had no desire to turn Junie into a sexual conquest, Roark had been upset enough that I’d known there’d be no talking to him about it. Choosing not to fight with my brother over a girl that I didn’t even know, I had respected his wishes to stay away from Junie, and I’d been respecting them ever since.
Still, that was another reason why I hated going on this trip. For three years, I’d had to sit by and watch her be in love with someone else, and each year it had become more and more suffocating, because I’d been certain that their relationship was going to lead to marriage, ruining any chance with Junie that I might ever have. Granted, I would never make a move without talking to Roark first, but a chance was still a chance.
I had also felt like shit when Roark had told me about what’d had happened between her and Paul, and I had felt happy about it. It was a crappy thing to admit, but I had been. There was a reason for the saying that love was blind, but anyone with two eyes could see that Paul Hopper was all about his ego more than anything else. The guy really wanted to be someone, and the way Junie had doted on him had fed that need in him. From what I could see on those weekends at the cabin, Junie had adored Paul. For him to leave her for someone else still seemed insane to me.
I slid my brother a look because that got me to thinking. “You don’t think she’s lying about being over him, do you?” I asked. “I mean, you do know her best.”
Roark was looking out at the scenery that was flying by us. “No,” he answered thoughtfully. “I know Junie, and I’m sure she’s over him.” He shrugged as he looked over my way. “I mean, how hard is it to get over a jackass who cheated on you anyway?”
“That’s valid,” I agreed as I looked back at the road in front of us.
“I’m just...worried, I guess.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know.” He waited a few seconds before adding, “Paul’s a bit...egotistical. He always has been. He’s not obnoxious with it, but the trait is still very noticeable. I just don’t want him thinking that Junie’s still hung up on him and try to...I don’t know. I just don’t want him trying to apologize or have him bringing it up and making things more awkward than they’re already bound to be.”
“You’ve always told me what a tough cookie Junie is,” I reminded him. “I’m sure she’ll be able to handle him just fine if he tries to bring it up.”
Roark didn’t comment until a couple of miles had passed, and that should have warned me some, but I’d been in my own lost thoughts. “What about you?” he finally asked.
I glanced over at him really quickly. “What about me?”
“Are you still interested in her?”
My eyes back on the road, I asked, “What difference does it make? I’ve already given you my word to stay away from her, and I’ve kept it.”
“You’re right,” he sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I quickly replied. “My relationship with you is more important to me than anything else, Roark. Never forget that.”
Instead of continuing this depressing conversation, Roark turned up the music again, then started butchering one of my favorite songs. Roark didn’t want to admit that his interference had led her to dating Paul Hopper, and I didn’t want to admit that my cowardness had led her to dating Paul Hopper, either.
What a fucking pair we were.
