My Brother’s Best Friend (Rebel Hearts)

1. Jordan

JORDAN

“Watch where you put that thing, Jordy! You can’t just jam it in there, my hole’s not that big!”

I arched an eyebrow at my older brother. “Your hole?”

Levi rolled his eyes and gestured to the to-go coffee cup in his hands, which he’d just topped with one of those clear, domed lids. “My hole, this hole. What’s the difference?”

“The difference is that one of them makes it sound like you’re talking about coffee, and the other makes it sound like you’re talking about your asshole.”

“You knew what I meant.” Levi sighed. “Anyway, we don’t want to keep customers waiting. Just stick it in there and squirt, will you?”

“Are you trying to make it sound like you have a breeding kink?”

“Breeding?” He frowned. “What does that even—”

“Nevermind. It’s a gay thing.”

“A gay…breeding...thing? You do understand how pregnancy works, right? And that it generally doesn’t involve assholes?”

“Believe it or not, I’m not seven anymore. I do know where babies come from.”

I took the canister of whipped cream and angled the nozzle down into the lid, then pushed it to the side.

And okay, fine, maybe I was a little annoyed, and maybe I should have been more careful, but I really think that canister was powered by jet fuel, because the next thing I knew, I’d filled up the entire dome and cream was erupting out of the top.

“Careful, careful! You’re trying to fill me with cream, not shellac me with the stuff.” Levi jumped back before the excess could land on his shoes. “Fill it with cream,” he amended before I could say anything.

“Sorry.” I grimaced. “I didn’t realize it was gonna do that.”

He laughed lightly. “It’s okay. I’m sure it’s weird to adjust to new equipment. And I should have warned you that the tip on that one is sensitive.”

With a smile, he turned back to hand the double-shot iced mocha to the customer who’d ordered it.

“Do you even hear yourself?” I asked under my breath, looking under the counter for a sponge to clean up the floor.

I knew my brother wasn’t gay, but seriously—had no one told him he was a walking, talking double-entendre? Maybe I should have come home sooner. Someone needed to keep the guy in line.

Or maybe I just wanted to feel like I had a purpose here. Like there was some reason for me to be back that didn’t involve my ex-boyfriend, Harvey, cheating on me, dumping me, and kicking me out of our apartment, leaving me with no other option but to come home and crash with my brother.

When I left the tiny island of Summersea, Georgia, at age eighteen, I swore I was never coming back.

I was sick of living somewhere everybody knew not just my name, but my whole family, and all of our trauma.

You name it, we’d dealt with it—addiction, abuse, suicide—and the island loved to gossip.

I wanted nothing more than to disappear.

Art was a refuge for me—painting, in particular—and I’d gone to New York City with all those clichéd dreams of making it that I hadn’t realized were clichés at the time. Now, at age twenty-four, I was much more aware of how hard it was to find success in the art world.

Hell, forget success. It was hard to just scrape by.

With massive debt—and even more massive self-doubt, since it was nearly impossible to find galleries that wanted my work—I’d turned to any job that would help me make ends meet.

Of course, a Bachelor of Fine Arts doesn’t qualify you for much, so I’d spent the past few years hopping between catering, serving, and slinging cappuccinos at coffee shops around the city.

I tried to keep painting, but would you believe that being stressed about money and depressed about your life choices isn’t actually a very conducive mental space for creating art? Every time I picked up a paintbrush, I felt like stabbing it through the canvas instead of making something beautiful.

Harvey had been the one bright spot in my life, and then—well, no need to dwell on that.

No need to ruminate over how, two days ago, he’d told me he wanted to break up, then insisted on wrapping that conversation up in fifteen minutes because he had a date with his new boyfriend.

No need to wallow over the fact that he’d brought that guy to our apartment that night, as if I didn’t still live there.

No need to cringe, remembering how confused they’d looked when they’d stumbled in, groping each other, only to find me on the couch.

Oh, you’re still here? Like I was the one being weird.

God, what I wouldn’t give for someone to fill me with cream right now. Just stick it in there and squirt. I didn’t want romance, didn’t even need to know the guy’s name. I just wanted to feel desirable again.

Like it was my ex who was missing out, and not me.

It had taken one suitcase and two canvas grocery bags to pack up my life and come back to Summersea.

I was trying to count my blessings. But with my nieces, Holly and Sam, asking me about my super cool and exciting life in New York, Levi rumbling about wanting to bash my ex’s head in, and customer after customer exclaiming that they knew I’d end up back on Summersea eventually, it was hard not to feel like I’d fucked up.

Harvey had dumped me on Tuesday. It was Thursday now. I’d only been home for twenty-four hours, but that was more than enough to remind me of why I’d left.

“Look at you,” Levi said half an hour later, interrupting my gloomy thoughts. “Jordan Miller Brooks, barista superstar.”

He beamed with pride as I handed over a pumpkin spice latte to a customer.

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” I told him. “It’s not that hard to add a shot of pumpkin spice syrup to a drink. Though I do have to question the wisdom of offering pumpkin spice in July.”

“I’m but a humble cafe owner, here to give the people what they want,” Levi said with an expansive shrug. “And what they want is year-round pumpkin spice.”

“Yeah, but you actually sell good coffee here. Adding pumpkin spice is a desecration.”

“Not everyone can have your fancy New York palate, Jordy.”

“It’s not fancy, and it’s not New York either. I just don’t get the point of ordering coffee if you can’t even taste the coffee by the time you take a sip.” I frowned. “And no one’s called me Jordy since I was twelve.”

In a way, it made sense that Levi still called me that. After all, he still saw me as my sixth-grade self. Someone who needed to be protected, scolded, and kept out of trouble.

But that didn’t mean I liked it.

“Fuck, yes, you’re right.” He shook his head. “You’ve said that before, and I forgot, and I’m an asshole. I’m sorry. I am trying, I swear.”

He looked so regretful, so pained, that I regretted mentioning it.

Levi tried his best. He really did. He’d started raising our sister’s kids after Taylor had—well, a long time ago.

He was the reason they had a place to stay, and the reason I did too.

He’d had to be the responsible one from way too young an age, and I supposed that gave him the right to be a little overbearing.

Hell, he hadn’t even yelled at me for trying to talk a customer out of her peppermint caramel raspberry frappuccino earlier. That flavor combination was an affront to God, if you asked me, but making patrons feel bad about their choices probably wasn’t a good business strategy.

“It’s okay.” I smiled. “I know you’re stressed with the festival this weekend, and you’ve been working for twelve hours straight at this point. Not just working, but teaching me the ins and outs of The Roastery. My brain would be fried too.”

“Shit, is it five already?” Levi glanced up at the clock.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing. I just—well, it’s okay. I’ll tell him I can’t make it.”

“Tell who you can’t make what?”

“It’s fine.” Levi waved my question away. “Really.”

“I didn’t ask if it was fine, I asked what it was. You shouldn’t have to cancel something just because I descended into your life without warning.”

“Yeah, but…” He trailed off and gave me an assessing look. “Are you okay here on your own for a bit? Holly will be back in an hour to help close, but I can call Cam and tell him I’ll be late if you’d rather I stay.”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Seriously, go. I don’t want to mess up your—wait.” I cocked my head to the side. “Did you say Cam? As in Cam Starling?”

“Yeah. You remember him?”

How could I not? Cam Starling had been my first crush. The guy who’d helped me realize I was gay. He still featured in a recurring sex dream of mine, not that I’d ever admit it to anyone.

When I was a kid, I thought I just liked Cam in that way that younger kids do, idolizing older ones. He was quiet, and thoughtful, and much less obnoxious than the other guys Levi was friends with.

Our family life was such chaos, but Cam was this rock-solid mountain of calm and safety whenever he came over. Which wasn’t that much. For obvious reasons, Levi didn’t like having friends over often. But that didn’t stop me from hanging around him, whenever he was there.

Cam was nice to me when he didn’t have to be. He’d talk to me about books, and he didn’t mind when I’d babble nonstop about my day, just excited for a chance to be near him.

I liked how tall he was, how blue his eyes were, and how his glasses made him look like an owl when he was reading really intently. He let me try them on once, and the prescription was so strong, I smacked into a wall. He didn’t even get mad that I bent the frames when I fell.

Cam never showed the slightest bit of interest in me, obviously. With the age difference, why would he? I was just his friend’s kid brother. He was kind to me because he was a genuinely kind person, nothing more.

It took me years to realize that the expansive, fizzy feeling I got in my chest when I saw him meant something.

Years to understand the reason why I lost my train of thought whenever he smiled.

But one night, freshman year of high school, I woke up from a dream where I’d crawled into his bed and kissed him, and everything snapped into place. My sexuality, and my feelings for him.

But I’d never told anyone.