Bro Code Page 7

  She nods, looking somberly at her teacup.

  “Go back up to bed and rest? I'll handle the tea,” I suggest.

  “You don't have to do that,” she says softly.

  “I know, but I want to.” I hold Ava's gaze for a long moment, watching the tense line of her jaw, itching to brush my fingers down the side of her face. “It's not a macho thing. You came outside to make me feel better, so can't I do the same thing now?”

  She lets out a soft sigh, and nods. “That'd be great.”

  I take a step back so she can step away from the stove, which I turn off the moment she leaves. With the tea brewing, I start checking through the cabinets and fridge, looking for something else that might help, and strike the jackpot with some chicken soup. Thankfully it doesn't take very long to heat up, and I carry the bowl upstairs in one hand and the mug in the other.

  It's a little strange to barge right into her room, but she's already propped up in bed when I nudge the door open. She takes the tea between both her hands when I offer it, but surprise lights up her face when I set the soup on the bedside table.

  “Well, aren't you handy?” She clears a rasp from her throat, then takes a slow sip of the tea. “Thank you.”

  “My law degree had to be good for something, right?” I grin, not sure if she wants me to stay or get out of her space. “I push microwave buttons like a pro now.”

  She rolls her eyes. “I don't know about that, but you're sweet.”

  She takes a sip of her tea, and I want to kick my own ass for focusing on her lips as she drinks.

  “Hey, Barrett.” Her voice is so soft, I wonder if what I was thinking showed on my face. “Can you check in that drawer for some tissues? I think my mom stashed some in there last time I was sick.”

  “Yeah, of course,” I say, grateful for the distraction.

  The dresser is a bit of a jumble, but I manage to unearth a box of tissues from under a dozen old magazines.

  I'm about to push the top drawer shut when I spy three familiar faces peeking out from a photograph. I realize it's a picture of Ava, Nick, and me from an old football game. Nick and I look exhausted but happy, and Ava has both arms around our waists, her smile frozen in time. Her mom must have taken this years ago.

  “Barrett?” Her voice prompts me to turn around, and she spies the photo held between my fingers. “Oh, that's a blast from the past. Bring it over.”

  I do, sitting on the edge of the bed by her feet. She takes the tissues from me with a thank you, then leans over to get a better view of the photograph.

  “Oh, dear God. Look at me,” she groans.

  “What?”

  Her eyes widen in surprise. “That was the year I got braces and everyone started calling me bear-trap.”

  I look down at the photo and chuckle.

  Then Ava smiles at me fondly. “You wouldn't let them tease me. You said true beauty was found within.”

  “I still believe that, you know.”

  She grins at me. “Is that a nice way of saying I never quite grew into my buck teeth and knobby knees?”

  “Not at all. You grew into every part of your body. You're perfection.”

  The moment the words leave my mouth, I want to stuff them back in but they hang between us. Ava's still watching me, with a curious expression on her face.

  “Last night isn't happening again.” Getting the words out isn't as easy as I'd like, but I look her right in the eye when I say them. “We can only ever be friends.”

  I put the picture down between the two of us, and Ava reaches down to touch the edge of it. “Just friends.”

  “Friends who made a couple of mistakes together. But we're past it,” I insist, and reach to put the photograph away, not wanting it to get lost.

  Our fingers brush, and even after all these years—and especially after what happened last night—it's that touch that makes me question every single thing in my life. I can feel it bone deep when our eyes meet.

  She's perched on the bed beside me, and I lean in without thinking. If she had pulled away, I might have been able to stop, but her mouth meets mine without hesitation. The kiss deepens instantly, full of that hunger we shared last night in the cold.

  No one else is here.

  No one would know.

  Just one more time … then I'll walk away.

  These are the thoughts haunting me as I lean closer to Ava. One of her arms comes around my shoulder to pull me against her. My hands search across the softness of her robe to find the tie in the center, and I'm about to pull it loose when a heavy creak carries up the stairs. The sound is footsteps, and that realization sinks in just as Nick's voice calls out.

  “Hey, Ava!” He's still walking up the stairs, getting closer by the second. “Where are you? I have a question.”

  “Barrett, get...” Ava pushes against my chest. “Get in the closet. Just hide!”

  I'm not even sure I can fit in the closet, but her panicked whisper is enough to send me scrambling off the bed and toward the sliding closet door. It rattles a little when I push it open, but I squeeze underneath the rack overhead and yank the door shut a second before I hear Nick walk into the room.

  Fuck me. I shouldn't have kissed her, I shouldn't have...

  “Nick. What's up?” Her voice has a subtle tremor in it, but not a noticeable one. I hope.

  “I was going to bring some coffee back and realized I left my wallet.” His knuckles tap against his pocket. “But I saw everything in the kitchen and didn't know where you were. You sick or something?”

  “Kind of. I woke up with a cough,” Ava says.

  “Looks like a fever, too. Your face is all red.” Biting back a curse at Nick's words, I pray he doesn't press the issue. “Want me to pick up some meds?”

  “That'd be great.” Ava sneezes afterwards; at least she doesn't have to fake it. “But for now, I just want to rest.”

  “Okay, I'll leave you to it.” I hear the door creak as Nick steps back out, but then he hesitates. “Have you seen Barrett? Doesn't seem like he's in the house.”

  “No, but I've been up here for a while, just went down to make myself some tea earlier.” Bless her for being able to lie through her teeth. “Maybe he went running or something?”

  Nick laughs. “You know, if anyone was going to jog in this terrible weather, it would definitely be Barrett. I'll bring him back some coffee too.”

  The bedroom door clicks shut, and I finally let out the tense breath I'd been holding. Counting to thirty inside my head, I wait until the last sound from the stairs fade before I chance to step out of the closet. Relief is written all over her face, and my first instinct is to comfort her, but I know better. I have to do better.

  “We can't be alone together.” The words snap out of me, sharp and decisive. “Not in the same room. And it has to be that way until I leave.”

  My stomach sinks when I see her defeated expression, but I don't give her the chance to answer, walking out of the bedroom before temptation overwhelms me again.

  “Feel better,” I whisper as I head down the stairs.

  Chapter Ten

  Ava

  “Ah-choo!”

  Mom squeezes yet another bottle of lemon juice into whatever concoction she has boiling on the stove and grabs her wooden spoon to stir it. She swears whatever family remedy she’s cooking up will have both me and Barrett feeling better by the morning, but I have half a mind to think she’s just making hot toddies. Not that I would turn that down, mind you.

  “I can’t believe both of my best helpers got sick at the same time,” she says, throwing a dash of ginger into the pot. “You guys are ruining all the fun.”

  When she returns to the fridge to dig out her next round of ingredients, I sneak a peek at Barrett. He’s slumped over the kitchen table, the tip of his nose cherry red. I shoot him a knowing smile and he lets out a quiet huff before mouthing “your fault,” with one eyebrow cocked.

  I can’t deny that, he’s right. Then again, I n
ever would have been out in the cold if he hadn’t been all moody and brooding out in his car. And he was the one who kissed me earlier, fully knowing I wasn’t feeling well. I guess neither one of us was thinking too much about germs at the time.

  I tap the side of my pointer finger against my lips and give him a silent “shush.” I try to mouth “keep your tongue to yourself” back at him, but it comes out as more of a whisper.

  “What’s with the whispering? Do you guys have a secret?” Nick walks into the kitchen and right into the middle of my almost silent conversation with Barrett. I can feel my pulse quickening. Does Nick know? Is he really going to bring this up in front of Mom?

  “Did you team up to get me a new car for my birthday?” Nick asks. My heart rate returns to normal. As long as we’re dealing with normal, joking Nick, we’re in the clear, but the second he’s actually suspicious of us, we’re done for.

  “Yup, you caught us,” I admit, hiding my sigh of relief by playing along with the joke. “Any car you want, as long as it’s in the twenty-five-dollar range, we’ll buy it for you.” I punctuate my punch line with another sneeze, which Barrett echoes.

  “Whoa, didn’t realize I’d wandered into the nurse’s office. Keep those sneezes away from me.” He backs away swatting away at invisible germs.

  “More importantly,” Mom interrupts, waving the wooden spoon at Barrett and me, “keep them away from your father. We can’t run the risk of him catching anything. I think we’re going to have to do some resituating here in terms of sleeping arrangements to keep you two away from the rest of us.”

  “I can get a hotel,” Barrett volunteers, his voice muted with the congestion.

  “No, no. Here’s what I’m thinking,” Mom says, giving the pot another stir. “I think we just keep anyone feeling even the slightest bit feverish on the lower level tonight, everyone else upstairs.” She nods to herself, satisfied. “Sick people on one floor, healthy on the other. It’s about containment.”

  “But Moooooooom,” I groan, my former whiny teenage-self making a return for a brief stint of complaining. “There’s only one pull-out couch down here. Why can’t I just sleep in my own bed?”

  “And get your father sick right before his big party? I don’t think so. I’m sure Nick will be happy to go down to the basement for us and grab the air mattress so you can both sleep in the den.” Mom shoots Nick a look through the steam of her bubbling cauldron. “Won’t you, Nick?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Nick says, already shuffling toward the basement door.

  “No, Nick, wait!” He jolts to a stop and pivots back to me, startled by the urgency in my voice. I know I sound a little bit too desperate not to spend the night downstairs, but it’s almost ten, way past my mother’s usual bedtime. I need to come up with a better excuse, and fast.

  “Mom, I don’t even think I’m sick!” I announce, trying to speak clearly enough to mask my congestion. “It might just be allergies, really. I don’t think it’s anything worth switching up sleeping arrangements ov-” Just as I’ve almost finished my monologue, my throat contracts and I break into a coughing fit. Looks like I don’t have much of a future in acting.

  “Alright, that’s enough of that!” Mom instantly grabs the disinfectant spray and waves it through the air, releasing a giant cloud of chemical-laden mist. “Nick, grab the air mattress. Anyone who has blown their nose more than once today, get your germs out of my kitchen. I’ll bring you mugs of my remedy when it’s done.” Frantically waving her hands, she shoos us into the family room. Barrett sinks into one end of the couch and I strategically position myself at the opposite end.

  “So much for not being alone together,” I mutter under my breath, just loud enough for Barrett to hear. When he turns his head toward me, I can tell that his cheeks are missing a bit of their usual color, and his eyes are drawn with dark circles around them. But God, I didn’t think anyone could have flu symptoms and still be that gorgeous.

  He’s wearing that same pair of sweatpants that I so gracelessly pulled off him in the parking lot just a couple days ago, and there’s not much I wouldn’t give to reach over and slide them down again. I sink farther into my end of the couch, literally holding myself back.

  “Hey, we’re both adults,” he whispers. “I think we can act like it.” The control in his voice insists that he has every intention of behaving, but the flicker in his eyes says just the opposite, and that semi-bulge in his pants, yeah, there’s that.

  The question is, can I control my emotions and my libido spending a night alone with him? I gently bite my lower lip, thinking it over, and Barrett lets out a quiet groan, making no secret of the fact that he’s letting his eyes trace my figure, lingering in all his favorite places.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” I hiss.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re gonna strip me naked and take me right here.”

  The flicker in Barrett’s eyes grows to a full-blown flame. Tonight is going to be nothing but bad news.

  “Got the mattress!” Nick bursts into the room, with the deflated air mattress.

  I leap off my spot on the couch to help get things set up, relieved to escape the sexual tension, at least for now.

  Nick and Barrett work on pumping up the mattress while I pull the cushions off the couch, trying to dismiss the innuendo of the term “pull-out bed” from my head.

  “I’ll grab us some pillows and sheets,” I volunteer. No one has to ask me twice to get out of this room for a second.

  “No,” Nick stops me. “No going upstairs unless you want Mom to unleash another cloud of disinfectant on you. I’ve got it.”

  He bounds out of the room and up the stairs, leaving me and Barrett alone again. I don’t dare turn around to look at him, trying to focus on lining the couch cushions up in a perfect stack in the corner of the room.

  I can feel his eyes on me, but I think I know if I turn around I might pull him onto that air mattress and ride him until we’ve deflated the thing. Luckily, Nick comes back downstairs, his arms piled high with bedding, before I can entertain the thought for too long. Mom steps in behind him, walking slowly and deliberately to not spill the two mugs of the mystery concoction that she’s holding.

  “It looks like you guys are gonna be all set down here,” she says, surveying our sleeping arrangements. She sets the mugs cautiously down on the end table before backing out of the room, away from our germs. “See? You’ll be just fine. And if you drink all that up while it’s still hot, you’ll be right as rain tomorrow.”

  I grab one of the mugs and let the steam warm me. Just smelling it seems to open up my sinuses. Maybe not all of Mom’s ideas are quite as bad as this Ava and Barrett slumber party. Three sips later and I’m already feeling like a new woman. “You oughta bottle this stuff, Mom,” I say between sips.

  “Well, make sure you finish it all before you go to sleep. Which should be soon! We need you all better for the party. C’mon, Nick, let’s get out of this petri dish.”

  Mom and Nick say their good nights from a distance before heading upstairs, but not before Mom makes us swear again to drink all of our tea. Once they’re gone and it’s just Barrett and me again, my stomach starts fluttering, and it has nothing to do with being sick.

  We're alone for an entire night. It’s silent for a good long minute. I pick at my cuticles, trying to resist my long-abandoned nail-biting habit. What do we do next? Just go to bed, I guess? How am I supposed to sleep when all I want is for Barrett to keep me up all night? Congestion be damned. Are we really going to sleep in separate beds or…?

  “So, I’ll take the air mattress?” he finally offers.

  Well, that answers that.

  “Yeah, if you want, that’s fine,” I say, dodging his gaze and scrambling to grab a few pillows and blankets from the stack Nick brought down. It looks like Barrett wants to behave after all, which I know is probably the best choice.

  I get to work setting up my bed, keeping the conversation to a mi
nimum. Talking has brought us down dangerous roads before, and I’m doing my best to pump the brakes, since I know it's what he wants.

  We busy ourselves with gulping down Mom’s magic tea and take our respective turns brushing our teeth in the downstairs bathroom, keeping the conversation to the occasional “excuse me” as we pass each other, both of us keeping our hands to ourselves.

  Once I see that he's settled onto the air mattress, I hit the lights, stumbling through the darkness till I find the pull-out bed, which squeaks and groans as I climb in.

  Alright. Time for sleep. Aaaaaand, do your thing, Sandman. A few minutes pass and still nothing. I’ve been feeling sick and sleepy all day, why do I have to be wide awake now?

  I toss from one side to the other, but it’s impossible to get comfortable when I know that temptation himself is lying just a few feet away. I’m not sure how much time passes when Barrett finally whispers into the dark, “Are you sleeping?”

  “Not even sort of.”

  His deep sigh fills the still, silent air. “Jesus, why is this so hard?”

  “I don’t know, Barrett.” His name feels warm on my lips, even warmer than Mom’s crazy tea.

  “Want to turn on the TV?” he suggests.

  I grab my phone from beside the bed and check the time. “No. I usually read before bed,” I say.

  “In the dark?” he asks, propping himself up on one elbow.

  “I read on my phone.”

  “What do you like to read?”

  I smile to myself. “You're going to think it's stupid.”

  “Try me,” he says, voice soft.

  I flash him the screen on my phone, it's the latest article I've been reading, and the map of Pangea that had captured my interest for the past two nights.

  It’s quiet for another second, but then I hear the rustling of him shifting out from underneath his blankets and the light padding of his feet on the carpet.

  “May I?” It’s almost too dark to see him, but I can feel the pressure of his legs pushed against the side of the bed, waiting for his invitation to climb in.

  “Sure,” I whisper back. It’s against my better judgment, but I slide over to make room for him. The bed bends a bit as he lowers himself onto the springy mattress and slides under the sheets. His body so close to mine but not touching.