Falling For My Best Friend’s Brother

1. Nina

Chapter one

Nina

“Just look at it. Beautiful, isn’t it?” Lindsay, my best friend, said. “I can’t believe we get to live here. It’s a fucking dream come true.”

“I know, right?” I glanced sideways at her, a stupid grin on my face. “It’s fucking magnificent.”

In truth, our new apartment wasn’t all that. Sure, it was pretty enough, with a spacious living room, an open-plan kitchen, and three bedrooms. But it wasn’t anything grandiose enough to be called a luxury apartment.

But it was ours. Me and Lindsay’s.

We were ready to start our lives together, and see where they took us.

After graduating college three months ago, all our friends going off on their own, Lindsay and I thought hard about what we wanted to do. Thankfully, we had similar interests, and we planned to start a side business as soon as we settled in here. But all that was for later.

For now, all that mattered was our amazing new apartment in NYC and the memories we were going to make living here together.

Lindsay grabbed her luggage and walked further into the empty space. The moving company, who should arrive soon, will bring the rest of our stuff. I had plans to decorate with some cute DIY designs that I’d already made, though I needed to make some more for some of the rooms.

Grunting heavily, I pushed in my three loaded suitcases and some boxes inside.

Lindsay snorted; her hazel eyes filled with amusement. “I have no idea why you have so much stuff. You never wear most of it.”

I rolled my eyes at her, pushing my bangs away from my face. “I’ll have you know that there’s no such thing as too many clothes when a woman is concerned.”

“So what am I then? A cat?”

I shrugged, moving toward one of the bedrooms. “Might as well be. Besides, we both know these clothes are for both of us. Just because they’re not in your suitcase doesn’t mean they’re not yours.” I gasped as I walked into the room. “Lindsay, did you know the bedrooms have en suites?”

“What? I don’t think so.” Her footsteps rang behind me. “I mean, I didn’t check all the rooms, but I didn’t notice a bathroom in any of them.”

She came to a stop beside me, peering into the very nice bathroom that was connected to the room. “Wow, I had no idea.”

As if on cue, our eyes locked. I opened my mouth on instinct, but Lindsay was faster. “I call dibs!”

“No!” I groaned. “No fair. I found it first.”

Lindsay grinned, backing away. “That’s what you get for being a slowpoke.”

“You fucking bitch.”

She laughed, hopping out of the room. “I’m going to go see if the other bedrooms have en suites as well.”

Pouting, I followed after her. What a shame. It would’ve been nice to have a room with a bathroom. I liked to sleep naked, and Lindsay’s complained many times that waking up to my bare tits every day sucked the joy out of living, though I didn’t see how that made any sense. My body was banging.

Still, I would’ve liked to know that my bathroom is just across the room whenever I need it. Either way, it was just going to be the two of us, so it didn’t really matter. Lindsay would just have to get used to seeing my body for the rest of her life.

She popped out of one room, shaking her head. “No bathrooms, babe. I’m sorry.”

“If you're sorry, then give me this room.”

Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “No can do. I won it fair and square.”

“Liar,” I muttered, just as her phone rang.

Lindsay fished it out of her back pocket. Her face lit up when she glanced at the screen. “It’s my brother.”

I bit my lower lip, nodding as I stalked over to my boxes to take them to one of the other rooms to give her privacy. Lindsay’s brother was nine years older than us, and I’d only met him a few times. But those few times were all I needed to know that he was, quite frankly, the hottest man to ever live. I swear, I’d never seen a finer man in my twenty-three years of living.

The room I chose was down the hall, the closest to the bathroom. The other room was in between my room and Lindsay’s room. Since it was going to be empty, we’d most likely turn it into a storage room or maybe an office space for our new side business when we finally got down to it.

I began to arrange my clothes into the large wardrobe, my mind trailing back to Lindsay's brother, Knox Coleman. It was such a shame that he was so… boring. Obviously, I didn't know him well enough to jump to conclusions about his idiosyncrasies, but from the little I’d heard from Lindsay plus the few times we’d crossed paths, he always seemed to be brooding with a constant blank expression on his face.

Lindsay and I had been friends since we were sixteen, and I could confidently say that I'd never seen the man smile.

Maybe it was because he was almost a decade older than us, and we had nothing in common. Knox had never spoken to me, and while I knew he doted on his little sister as best as he could, they didn’t talk as much as siblings should.

I paused, shrugging at the thought, before returning to folding my jeans and placing them on a shelf. How would I know how much siblings were supposed to talk? I was an only child, after all. My parents had one kid and decided it was too much work to try for another. The only person in my life I considered a sibling was Lindsay.

Either way, her older brother was a snob. I might have had a crush on him when I was sixteen, but all that was childish silliness. In fact, once I got into college, I barely thought of him unless Lindsay mentioned him, which she rarely did.

Just as I finished with my first box, Lindsay strutted into the room, looking strangely excited. She plopped down onto the wooden tiles cross-legged, one elbow on her thigh, holding her head up.

I narrowed my eyes. “Why do you look so happy?”

She sighed dreamily. “Because I just got off the phone with my brother.”

“I figured that when your phone started ringing and you said, ‘It’s my brother.’”

Lindsay chuckled and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but that’s not why I’m happy. Apparently, he’s between hotels right now because he’s having some renovations done at his house, and I figured it’s a great opportunity for us to bond. So, I told him we have a spare room.”

My body froze as I gawked at her. “You did what?”

Blinking, Lindsay stilled. “Oh, shit. Shouldn’t I have said that?” Then she pressed her lips together in a guilty look, eyes shining with regret. “I shouldn’t have offered without asking you first. Shit. I’m sorry, Neens. It’s just… ever since my dad died, you know how Knox’s been. I didn’t think. When he mentioned how he’s staying at a hotel, I immediately thought of spending time with him and—”

“Lin. You’re doing that thing again where you ramble on whenever you feel bad.” I bit the inside of my cheek, sighing. Lindsay’s dad’s death was a touchy topic, and I knew more than anyone the rift it had caused in the Coleman family.

“You already told him to move in, right?” I asked.

She nodded, eyes glistening. “I could call him and tell him not to come.”

I gave her a wry smirk. “We both know you won’t do that.”

A shy smile appeared on her lips. “You don’t know that.”

We both did. Lindsay grasped onto every chance she got to spend time with her brother, and I wouldn't deny that it was always nice to look at him.

Still, I was apprehensive. I mean, we’d barely moved in. Having a third person in the house could be weird, especially one as irritable as Knox. But what choice did I have? I couldn’t say no. Lindsay would act like she was okay with my decision on the surface, but deep down, I know she would be sad. The last thing I wanted was to take away an opportunity to spend time with her brother. She was already going through an ugly breakup.

“It’s only going to be for a short period, Neens. Two months, tops,” Lindsay promised in a small voice.

Glaring at her softly, I sighed. Two months was not a short period, but I would have to put on my big girl pants and deal with it. It was a big place, anyway, and Knox was a busy man. The chances of us bumping into each other were slim. Even if we did, I knew he wouldn’t have anything to say to me. Besides, Lindsay was here to act as a buffer if anything happened.

“Fuck it,” I said. “Fine. He can stay.”

Lindsay squealed, jumping up from the floor to wrap her arms around me. “Yay! Thank you so much, Neens.” She placed a sloppy kiss on my cheek, and I gagged. “The three of us are going to have so much fun.”

Raising my brows, I snorted. “I sincerely doubt that.”

“You’ll see. Knox is pretty cool once you get to know him.”

“I’ve known you for seven years, Lin. If there was anything cool about your brother, I’d have seen it by now.”

She laughed. “Touché.”

“When is he coming?” I asked.

“Next weekend. He said he has some things to take care of first.”

I nodded, but didn’t say anything else. The rest of the day was spent arranging our stuff. The moving company arrived with the rest of our belongings and by nighttime, the house was coming together.

After a pizza dinner, we hung up the decor I made around the house, and I was very proud of myself. I genuinely loved arranging spaces, and being able to hang my art felt really good. It was the only thing I was good at after all, no matter how useless my parents said it was.

The thought of having another roommate did not escape my mind even as I slipped into bed later that night. I imagined what it would be like to live with Knox. Interestingly, when I was a teenager, it was one of the things I wanted most. Of course, I couldn’t have that, but Knox didn’t live with his family at the time and when he came home to visit, it was usually very brief.

Everyone knew that their father’s death changed him. I came into the picture barely a year later, so I didn’t exactly have an idea of who he was, but Lindsay occasionally mentioned that Knox was much livelier before their father died. Apparently, some things happened during that time that shook their family. They didn’t like to talk much about it.

Either way, it would have been nice to have met him before all that craziness. Maybe then he would’ve at least acknowledged my greetings, or said a word in response. Knox now, or at least the last time I met him, was a conservative, no-nonsense, brooding man who had probably forgotten how to smile and would no doubt make living with him difficult. I couldn’t stand people with a constant saturnine funk.

I groaned, throwing the covers over my head. I was going to regret this. I just knew it.

Why did I say yes?