My Brother’s Best Friend
RILEY
My Brother's Best Friend
Ichange three times.
Easton stands in the bedroom doorway with his arms folded and watches me do it, and by the third round, he has stopped pretending he isn’t enjoying himself.
“That one,” he says.
“You said that about the last one.”
“I meant it about the last one too.”
I pull the emerald dress over my head anyway, the one from Valentina’s, because tonight feels like a night for such a beautiful evening dress.
My brother is going to meet him.
Mason.
The moment we got home from my parents’ place, I called Mason to set up a dinner with him. Easton was happy to meet him too, and I was excited.
The two men in my life who have supported me so much finally get to meet each other. And we can do it publicly. No more hiding.
Mason has wanted this for years—not this exactly, not a hockey player and a scandal, but this, me sitting across a table from him with someone who makes me sound like myself.
He offered to book the restaurant himself the second I mentioned the dinner. He texted me the reservation screenshot with four exclamation points the night before, which, for Mason, is basically a parade.
“I’ll go with this,” I announce and walk past Easton to the full-length mirror.
I love the dress and how it fits my body. I styled my hair in a messy bun with curls, and wore the gold jewelry Easton handed to me last night.
“For tomorrow,” he'd said. “First impressions. Gotta make him think I'm the perfect man for the job.”
He'd winked, and my stomach had coiled into tight knots. My heart, though, had done something entirely different.
It had skipped.
If only he knew… that he was doing more than a perfect job.
God, if only this could be real…
Easton appears behind me, and I see his reflection in the mirror.
He’s dressed in a white shirt, black pants, and dress shoes. He looks clean and so good, I could eat him.
His hands land on my waist, and his lips go to my neck. A giggle bursts out of me.
“Forgive me, sweetheart. I can’t help myself.” He nuzzles my neck and drags in a deep breath. “Mmm… fuck, you smell so good. You’re beautiful, Riley.”
My cheeks heat up. “You look good too. So good…” I confess.
“Yeah?” Our eyes meet in the mirror, and before I can nod, his lips are trailing a wet path down my neck, then licking their way up towards the sensitive flesh of my ear. I throw my head back and bite back a moan.
“I’d bend you over, and fuck you so good. Hear you moan my name with that sweet voice while I claim what’s mine…”
His hand slides across my stomach, and he palms it softly. A shiver wracks my body, and my knees weaken, but he’s holding me in place.
“But your brother comes first. Tell me you want that baby. Tell me I can eat your pussy when we get back…”
“Yes… Oh god, yes, you can…” I moan, and he spins me around until our lips collide in a heated kiss.
“Good girl.”
He pecks my temple and grabs my hand. “Come on, let’s not keep your brother waiting.”
He leads me out of the house.
The drive to the restaurant is faster than I expected.
I’m an excited, nervous wreck, but Easton seems cool. He drives and maneuvers through the traffic with ease, and I keep stealing glances, wondering if he’s nervous to meet Mason.
I wonder if Mason would approve of him.
It’s my biggest fear at the moment.
I’ve fallen for Easton Blake. It’s no longer a secret to hide, but I want Mason to like him. To look me in the eyes and tell me Easton is good for me.
He never liked Preston. Saw him for who he was from the onset. I’m convinced he’s a people reader and will judge this situation better than I ever will.
I was never meant to fall for Easton. Mason will tell me if I’m overreacting to the proximity of living with him. He’ll tell me the truth.
“What’s his name?” Easton asks, pulling me out of my thoughts, as he pulls into the parking lot.
I laugh.
“Eager much?” I flash my brows, and he laughs. “You’re about to meet him, love. You’ll find out in a minute or two.”
I place my hand on his thigh, smiling flirtatiously.
He growls.
“Don’t do that, baby…”
He takes my hand, raises it to his lips for a kiss. “If I walk into that place with a tent in my pants, your brother will have my head, and there’s no saving face after that. I need to convince him I’m the man for you, don’t I?”
My heart flutters, and warmth floods my stomach.
“Mmhmm…” It’s the only sound I can make, and it comes out as a whimper.
“Fucking hell…”
He leans over and seals his lips to mine right there.
“Fuck baby. You’ll be the end of me,” he whispers against my lips.
A few minutes later, we climb out and cross the parking lot, hand-in-hand, to the door.
The restaurant is a small, dark Italian place, tucked behind a bakery on a street I’m not familiar with, which is very Mason. He finds places. He always has.
He booked the corner table without me having to ask him to, because he knows what my life looks like right now, even though he doesn’t know a single detail of it.
He’s not a media person. But he’s aware of the mess Preston made with the first press release.
Easton’s hand tightens around mine as we walk in.
I see Mason before he sees us. He’s standing at the table with his phone in his hand, and his sleeves pushed up, and my heart swells with excitement. I’m across the room before Easton can register it.
“Mase.”
“Ri—”
He catches me. He lifts me an inch off the floor the way he’s done since I was a kid, and I laugh into his shoulder, and for about four seconds, everything fades away except the excitement.
Then he sets me down and looks over my head.
And stops.
I feel it happen. The way he goes still, all at once, the way a room goes quiet when the music cuts out.
“Easton?”
I turn around.
Easton is standing three feet behind me. He’s not looking at me. He’s looking at my brother with an expression I have never seen on his face.
“Mason,” he says.
I look between them. I’m still smiling.
“You know each other?”
Neither of them answers me.
Mason’s eyes move. To Easton. To me. Then back to Easton. Something is assembling behind his face.
“Ri.” His voice has gone very quiet. “How do you know Easton Blake?”
“He’s—” And I stop. Because I don’t know the version to tell him. The truth, or the media one? “He’s the friend. The one I’ve been staying with.”
“Mason—”
“You’re the woman.”
Mason isn’t talking to me. He’s talking to Easton, and his voice has an edge to it I’ve never heard before. “She’s the woman. At the bar, the woman you couldn’t name.”
“You never told me about her, either,” Easton says. “You never mentioned it that day.”
“I didn’t talk about my sister and the scandal because she’s not a topic up for discussion.” It comes out hard enough that a woman at the next table glances over.
Mason drags a hand down his face. “Preston turned her into a topic. Every dinner, every party, everyone in that man’s orbit had an opinion about my sister. I wasn’t going to be one more person doing it.”
Easton’s head turns slowly. He looks at me like he’s never seen me before.
“Wait…” I glance between the two of them, taking a step back.
Mason looks at me, and his face breaks a little.
“He’s my best friend, Ri.” A breath. “Since high school.”
The floor goes out from under me.
Fourteen years. Mason was seventeen in high school when I was twelve and living in my father’s house with our mom. Mom had left a broken marriage. Mason was the result of that.
She remarried my dad, but had to share custody with Mason’s dad. And so, I only saw my half-brother on the weekends, and when he wasn’t with us, he was on the other side of the city, with his dad. I never met his friends. He never brought them because there wasn’t a need.
Fourteen years of Mason having a best friend I’ve never once been in a room with.
And then I got into that friend’s car at a red light.
“Oh my God,” I say.
“He didn’t come to the wedding,” Mason says, to nobody. “I didn't invite anybody from my life to that wedding. It was Preston’s show.”
I put my hand on the back of a chair because I need something to hold.
Easton hasn’t moved. He’s still looking at me, a pained expression etched on his face.
“Sit down,” Mason says. “Both of you. Sit down.”
We sit.
It’s the worst eight minutes of my life. Bread arrives. Nobody touches the bread. A waiter tries twice, reads the table on the third pass, and leaves us alone.
Mason’s hands are flat on the tablecloth. He looks at Easton.
“Have you told her?”
Easton’s jaw locks.
“Told me what?” I say.
“Not tonight,” Easton says quietly.
“Told me what?” I look between them.
“Not tonight, Mason.” And there’s something in Easton’s voice, low and final.
Mason looks at him for a long moment. Then he lets it go. But it dawns on me.
They know something that I don’t. Something that I should know. My chest constricts.
It hurts. Coming from the two people I love the most.
Mason turns to me. “Riley… are you okay?”
I nod. “I’m fine.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not asking about now. Have you been okay? Staying with him…”
Again, I nod.
“Mase, I’m fine. He’s been…” A small smile slips free before I can catch it, and it’s all he needs to see. He faces Easton with a burning gaze.
“You knew what she’d come out of. And you had her in your house, and you sat across from me at a bar and let me give you advice about her…”
“Mason…” Easton tries to say, but he’s not having it.
“About my sister, and you still didn’t make things right. You still…” I see his face contorting with each word, his palms on the table balled into fists, and I know I have to do something. “You fucking pulled her along, and…”
“It’s fake.”
It’s out of my mouth before I can rethink.
The table goes silent.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I hear myself saying, fast, too fast, my voice bright and reasonable like it’ll immediately clear things up.
“We’re not… It’s an arrangement, Mase. The dating.
It’s not real. We made it up. It’s so Preston would back off, that’s all it is, it was my idea, so don’t…
don’t be angry at him, he’s just been helping me. ”
I run out of air.
Mason looks at me, then at Easton. And Easton says nothing. He doesn’t correct me. He sits there with his hands around a water glass he hasn’t drunk from, and his face has gone completely, perfectly blank, and he doesn't look at me even once.
“Fake?” Mason says.
“Yes.”
My brother looks at his best friend for a long, long moment.
“Okay, Ri,” he says softly. “That’s… good,” he offers a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I just want what’s best for you. You’ve barely escaped Preston. You need to find your footing first, okay?”
I nod.
We don’t eat.
He hugs me on the curb. He shakes Easton’s hand. Neither of them says anything. Then his car comes, and he’s gone.
Easton opens my door for me.
“Ready?” he says.
Not sweetheart. Not baby.
My heart aches.
We’re four blocks in before it lands.
It comes all at once, and my eyes water.
I look out the window to hide it, and I force the tears down.
It’s fake.
I said that. Out loud. To my brother’s face. About a man who took me into his home. Who bought me a camera. He stood on his own driveway and made himself a target so I wouldn’t be one. The same man I sleep against every night with my hand over his heart.
I took the only real thing in my life and called it a lie because I was scared to fully admit the truth.
That I’m in love with this man.
I look at Easton.
He’s watching the road. His hands are firm on the wheel, and he hasn’t said one word since the curb.
I open my mouth.
Nothing comes.
How do I fix this?