My Brother's Best Friend (The Lakeland Boys Book 3) Read online

  Marla shuddered then turned on me. “I mean it Tank, who I am interested in is none of your business. A boy was talking to me ...”

  “He wasn’t talking,” I said as an anger began to build up inside of me. After the morning I had, it didn’t take much. “He was pawing you like you were his property.”

  “What if he was?” she yelled back at me. “Again, it is none of your business. Just stay out of my life. All of you.”

  I stepped back, shocked, it was as if Marla had slapped me. She was really pissed. At me. I don’t think she’d ever yelled at me. In our entire life, she had never said a cross word to me. All I was doing was trying to help. Really, I knew her, she was not enjoying what that crap head was doing.

  “Hey,” I said as I held up my hands in defeat. “Whatever you want. I was just trying to help. But if you want to let something like that into your life. Well, don’t worry, I’ll leave you alone.”

  Marla stared up at me for a long moment, then screamed to herself and pushed pass me. For just a second I thought I saw a tear at the corner of her eye. But that was impossible, Marla Turner didn’t cry. That was one of the many cool things about her.

  As she worked her way down the hall, my eyes were drawn to the tight curve of her jeans.

  Crap, when did that happen? I wondered. The girl was looking good. She’d always been cuter than a Christmas kitten. Long blond hair, six freckles on her nose, a sweet, caring smile. Marla was special. Everyone knew that. But now, suddenly, there was more. A lot more. No wonder that idiot was hitting on her.

  I made a mental note to tell Jason, hell it was his problem, not mine.

  I had more than enough of my own crap to worry about. The last thing I needed to do was get into worrying about Marla Turner.

  Chapter Three

  Marla

  I could kill him.

  My heart wouldn’t stop racing. I didn’t need him sticking his nose in where it didn’t belong.

  I waited until I got around the corner before I wiped at my eyes. Damn him.

  The worst of it was. That feeling that had flowed through me when he stepped next to me. My world had fallen away. Justin, the kids in the hall, everything disappeared. There was just Tank.

  But he hadn’t seen me. He’d been too focused on scaring Justin away. Didn’t the big idiot know I could take care of myself? Didn’t he trust me?

  Sure, Justine was pushing the boundaries. I’d been within a hair’s breadth of shutting him down cold when Tank showed up and ruined everything.

  When were they going to learn? I wasn’t some little girl that needed babysitting.

  Probably never, I realized. I might have to wait until the four Lakeland boys graduated before I could have any type of life. A sudden, sick feeling grew in my stomach as I thought about Tank graduating and leaving. He’d be gone before I ever got a chance to make him see me. Me, not Jason’s little sister.

  I spent the rest of the day trying to calm down. It would have been easier if I didn’t run into Tank every other minute. The big idiot just seemed to keep popping up wherever I went.

  It was like when you hear a new word for the first time. You hear it a dozen times over the next few days and wonder if it had always been there and you were just too much of an idiot to notice.

  First in the hall that morning. Then, when I came out of Algebra, there he was, dominating the hallway, walking to his next class. It was impossible not to see him.

  Those wide shoulders. A head taller than everyone else. That confident, smooth walk. He just dominated.

  I quickly ducked back into the room. Mary Jacobs squealed as I stepped on her foot.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled as I kept my focus on Tank. The last thing I wanted was another confrontation.

  Then, during lunch, there he was again, center seat of their table. The same table the four Lakeland boys had commandeered four years earlier, their first day of high school.

  It had been the out of the way, unpopular table then, I had been told. Now, of course, it was the center of the social scene. And there, in the middle, Tank, looking off into the distance. His strong, handsome face lost in thought.

  I wondered what he was thinking about and secretly wished it was me. Of course, it wasn’t. Nope, never going to happen, I reminded myself as my insides turned over with a sense of loss.

  Sighing, I grabbed my stuff and got out of there. No way was I spending my lunch hour pining over Tank Gunderson and what wasn’t going to happen.

  I was able to make it through fourth and fifth period without running into him. But the anger deep inside of me wouldn’t go away.

  I might have made it through sixth, but I ran into Jason outside his locker. All of the emotion I had been bottling up all day seemed to explode out of me. A sort of scary moment when I knew I was losing it and didn’t really care.

  “You tell your friend to stay out of my life,” I yelled as I pushed my brother in the chest.

  Jason, being the calm, cool, God that he was, simply quirked a corner of his lip and shook his head slowly.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked with the innocence of a newborn baby goat.

  “Tank! You tell him to stay out of my life. Do you hear me?”

  Amber, who had approached from behind asked, “What happened?”

  At least she got it.

  “I was talking to Justin Weber and Tank steps in and scared him away. Just like you guys do all the time. It has to stop.”

  Jason scoffed and started to turn away.

  That obviously pushed me over the edge, “I mean it,” I said as I grabbed his arm. I could tell we were gathering an audience. There would be nothing better than to see the Turner kids have a shouting match in the middle of the hall. We’d be the story for the rest of the day.

  Jason turned back to me as his eyes narrowed.

  “Listen, Marla, cut him some slack. Okay?”

  I couldn’t believe it. My brother was sticking up for him.

  “Him? Him? Why?”

  Jason sighed heavily, then glanced over at Amber. Suddenly, things inside of me shifted a little. This was no longer a silly argument. The look on Jason’s face was too serious.

  “Marla,” he said, “just go easy on him. Okay, his mom ... well, things aren’t going too good. I bet he spent the morning cleaning up after her. Plus, I think his father is getting out soon. Which means he’s got to deal with those issues all over again. And to top it off, his best friend’s little sister is yelling about him in front of half the school.

  “From what you said,” he continued with that big brother look of his that always pissed me off, “all he did was try and help you out with Justin Weber, who is a jerk anyway. So, quit freaking out. Grow up a little and realize the universe does not revolve around you.”

  His words stung as he looked down at me with judgmental eyes. It wasn’t the part about the universe revolving around me. Heck, I was a middle child. I learned real early that wasn’t the case.

  No, it was the part about what was going on in Tank’s life. I hadn’t thought. I hadn’t even taken the time to wonder about him. What kind of person did that make me?

  Jason was right, all Tank had done was come to my aid. Just like he always did. Only this time, instead of saying thank you, I cut him down and walked away. He must hate me. I mean really despise everything about me.

  My raging anger was instantly replaced by a heavy guilt. It was a fact that I could no longer deny. I couldn’t do anything right.

  Amber patted me on the shoulder as she rushed to catch up with Jason. The look in her eyes let me know she felt my pain but there really wasn’t much she could do about it.

  There wasn’t anything anyone could do about the real problem. To Tank, I was the little sister. I would always be the little sister, never seen and always forgotten. What is more, now, I was the shrew little sister. The Bat-crap crazy girl. Just the type of girls that guy’s like Tank never fell for.

  My world had just taken on a new
depth of despair. Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse. I opened my big mouth and made sure they did.

  .o0o.

  Tank

  I decided to walk home that afternoon. I needed time to get my mind around what was going on in my life. Besides. I wasn’t really in a rush to get home and deal with my mom.

  Jason just shrugged his shoulders when I told him.

  As I walked, my mind wandered over a dozen different issues. Jumping from one to the next like a bead of water on a hot skillet.

  First, I started trying to figure out what I had done to piss off Marla. Not one of my smarter moments. I just couldn’t get the sight of her talking to Justin Weber out of my mind. Something had clicked inside of me, and I’d stepped in before I really thought it through.

  This was Marla Turner we are talking about. Beautiful, sweet, smarter than anyone I know, and she was wasting her time with a jerk like Justin.

  She could do so much better.

  I started going over guys in school. Trying to find someone who was good enough for her. Unfortunately, I came up blank. There wasn’t a single one qualified to be with her. Not one. They were either too dumb, too lame, or just too much of a jerk.

  Nope, I had been right, Marla just needed to come to the realization that there wasn’t anyone worthwhile. Maybe next year, I thought. After we had graduated and she had the school to herself. Maybe things would pick up for her then. Although, the thought disturbed me. I don’t know why, but it just didn’t seem right for Marla to be hanging around with guys.

  The thought didn’t help my mood as I immediately started thinking about my future. College, Mom, Dad, Maybe the army. Nothing sounded appealing.

  One thing I did know was that it couldn’t happen fast enough. Whatever the future held. It had to be better than this crap.

  When I stepped into the house, my world fell around my knees.

  Just when you think things can’t get worse. They do. That was my new motto in life.

  He sat there in the recliner. Like it was a throne or something. Looking at me like I was a useless dog bothering him.

  My Dad, home from prison.

  His face had a white pallor, his eyes were crinkled at the corners, and his forehead was a lot higher than it used to be. But it was his eyes that pinned me in place. A hard gray that looked like they despised the world.

  “Where you been?” he asked like he’d been away on a week-long business trip.

  My stomach squeezed, and my heart lurched. Three words. Three simple words and all the pain and misery was back.

  Ignoring him, I headed for the kitchen to get a coke.

  Mom looked up from where she was chopping celery to smile at me. She wore a pretty print dress. All and any trace of that morning’s embarrassment was gone, hidden behind that shaky smile.

  So that was how she was going to play it. As if nothing had happened. The shame, the cheating, the no money, having to take her brother’s charity. None of it had happened. He’d just been away for a while, and now he was back.

  My muscles tensed up at the hypocrisy as I opened the refrigerator to grab a bottle.

  “I said, where have you been?” he said in that gruff voice that brought back too many memories. He had followed me into the kitchen.

  I turned to face him and just stared for a minute. We looked at each other, and I wondered for the thousandth time how I ended up with such an asshole for a father.

  He looked back at me with a heavy scowl, neither of us moving. Then, I think at the same time, we realized the new truth. It was one of those earth-shaking moments. The kind that can shift a person’s reality.

  I had a good three inches and forty pounds on him.

  Barry Gunderson was looking up at me. No longer was he towering over me, threatening me with a simple glare. Things had changed.

  I saw him flinch as the realization sank in. Not a big flinch, but it was there.

  Slamming the door to the refrigerator, I twisted the top off the coke and took a long drink. Only when I had finished did I turn to mom and say, “I’m going over to Jason’s.”

  Nothing more, nothing really could be said.

  I saw her shoulders relax. I think she was just happy at the idea of no conflict. If I wasn’t there, then there wouldn’t be any yelling and shouting, and therefore no guilt.

  Shaking my head, I brushed past him. I will never forget the way he stepped back to make room. I don’t think he intended to do that, but his body reacted before he could stop himself.

  At the front door, I turned and looked back at him, I could feel my lips curl up in a sneer as I said, “Welcome home dad, Nice to see you too.”

  He stood there with a blank expression. But behind his eyes. I could tell this wasn’t over. Nope, it wasn’t and it probably never would be.

  Chapter Four

  Marla

  I’d barely gotten inside the house when the front doorbell rang.

  Tank, standing there like some small mountain. Looking as if someone had just killed his favorite dog.

  He grimaced when he saw me. Like I was the last thing he wanted to see at the moment. Not a great boost for a girl’s ego.

  Nodding his head, he brushed past me without saying a word and headed upstairs to Jason’s room. That was the thing with the guys. They didn’t have to be invited in. they knew they were welcome.

  Letting out a heavy sigh at the misery that was my life, I stepped into the kitchen.

  “Who was that,” My mom said as she started to pull ingredients from the refrigerator.

  “Tank,” I said, “He’s headed up to Jason’s room.”

  She nodded as she reached in to take an extra package of noodles from the pantry.

  “I need you to finish dinner,” she said. “I’ve got to run back to the Library, Jenna locked herself out of the computer again.”

  “Me?” I said with my best whiney voice. “Why doesn’t Jason have to cook dinner?”

  My Mom just turned and put both her hands on her hips and slowly shook her head. “Really? You want to feed this family something cooked by Jason?”

  I smiled and laughed. When she was right, she was right.

  “You know how to do it. You’ve helped me enough times. Little Johnny is down for a nap, but he’ll be up soon, and Michael is over at the Anderson’s, but he knows to be home for dinner. Your dad will be on time. It's spaghetti night, he knows if he isn’t here, there won’t be any left.”

  I laughed again. Mom made it all sound so easy. She juggled a job, us kids, and my dad, like a professional.

  “Mom?” I asked as I chopped the garlic, “When did you meet daddy?”

  I don’t know why I asked, it just sort of bubbled out of me before I could think it through. And if you think about it, it was sort of surprising that I didn’t know their story.

  She stopped sorting through her purse for a minute and looked at me. Then laughed.

  “It was in school. I wasn’t much older than you, now that I think about it.”

  The sudden frown on her face made me wince, I probably shouldn’t have brought the subject up.

  She looked off into the distance. “Your aunt Alice and I went to the movies. I didn’t know until we got there that she had arranged it for Charley Jones to be there with a friend.”

  She smiled at me, “Your grandfather would have blown a gasket if he had known.”

  “Papa was strict?” I asked with disbelief. It was hard to imagine. Papa was a teddy bear, and as his only granddaughter, I got extra privileges. He was the only man in my life who thought I was special.

  “Imagine my surprise,” my mother continued, “to find myself pushed off on this strange new boy, John Turner, so my older sister could be with Charley Jones.”

  “Were you mad?” I asked.

  “More embarrassed at first, but then, your father, he smiled at me.”

  She paused for a long moment as she looked off into the distance, I knew she was remembering that first meeting.
/>   “And then?” I said, desperate to hear the rest of the story.

  She laughed, “Like I said, he smiled at me. You know your father. How could I stay mad?”

  “And that is all it took,” I said with disbelief. “A smile and you two were in love?”

  Mom smiled and slowly shook her head, “On no, of course not, that took a little longer. But it wouldn’t have happened without that smile. It changed things somehow. Made us look at each other not as what we were, unexpected blind dates. No, that smile made me realize how special your father was. And what is more. I could see that he saw something special in me.”

  I frowned as I tried to work it out in my head. It just didn’t make sense. Two people who didn’t know each other could fall in love in a moment. But two people who had known each other their entire life couldn’t. Or at least, one couldn’t. It just wasn’t fair.

  “Don’t forget the salad,” Mom said as she pulled her keys from her purse, “I’ll be back as quick as possible.”

  I spent the next few minutes starting the sauce. It was mom’s recipe, and I knew it by heart.

  I’d just added the last of the spices when Jason stomped down the stairs and into the kitchen.

  “Hey, Tank’s eating with us,” he said as he grabbed a bag of Doritos off the top of the refrigerator.

  “I figured that out when I let him into the house. And dinner will be ready in an hour, put those away.”

  He looked at me like I was a crazy person just out of some asylum. According to Jason, it was a proven fact that Doritos did not ruin a person’s appetite. But then, I don’t think anything had ever ruined his appetite.

  “Hey, I’m going to call Amber and see if she wants to come over. Do we have enough?” he yelled over his shoulder as he started up the stairs.

  “Of course,” I yelled back, what a stupid question. One thing mom had taught me was how to stretch a meal. There always seemed to be an extra mouth at the table.

  At least we were talking to each other like normal, I thought. The angry outburst at school had been forgotten. Now if I could only forget about the reason for the silly explosion.