“He’s so antagonistic,” said Van with a humph, her fingers massaging the kinks in Erik’s lower back.
Erik, Pete, and Vanessa had met in preschool at Saint Paul’s Lutheran in Raleigh, attended the Branchbrook Academy for lower school, and completed middle and upper school together at the Asheville Christian School, a boarding school that had educated at least one of the parents of each. They’d essentially known one another from the cradle: Three Musketeers who’d historically had each other’s backs while bickering like siblings.
But over the past three years, since they’d headed off to college, their relationships with one another had changed a little, becoming more nuanced and complicated. First of all, for the first time in their lives, they lived apart. Erik attended undergrad at Duke, while Vanessa was at Wake Forest, and Pete was at UNC–Chapel Hill. They still saw each other during holiday breaks and spent time together on the Outer Banks every summer, but something indefinable had changed between them.
Vanessa, who’d always been a pretty, blue-eyed brunette, had blossomed into a beauty. She had phenomenal tits and a rounded ass, but was also slim and tall, willowy and elegant.
Pete, who was blond, blue-eyed, and as burly as a linebacker, still argued with Vanessa every chance he got, but the way he looked at her had changed, and even Erik had noticed. Pete had always had a soft spot for Van growing up, but that soft spot had changed into something bigger and more possessive in the past year or two.
Erik had noticed that Van had filled out, of course, but his feelings for her had never deepened from friendship. He still saw her as a pseudo-sister. A really pretty sister, yeah, but still . . . a sister. He had zero sexual attraction to her. She was just . . . Van, his lifelong friend.
“You need an Advil, honey?” asked Van, close to his ear. “I can go grab you one.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Not a bit,” she said, caressing his back a final time. “I’ll be back in a jiff.”
He sighed, wondering what time it was and assuming it was around twelve. Fuck, but today was crawling by when all he wanted was for eight o’clock to get here sooner so he could clap eyes on the little mermaid again and confirm that she was as cute in person as she’d been in his dreams last night.
The sound of rustling interrupted his pleasant thoughts, and suddenly Hillary’s voice was close to his ear. “You’re leadin’ her on, Erik.”
“Who?” The little mermaid?
“Van. That’s who.”
He leaned up on one elbow, squinting to look up at his little sister’s face. Hillary was sitting on the edge of Pete’s abandoned lounger, a black floppy hat shielding her pale skin from the sun as she stared down at him with pursed lips.
“Never in a million,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Van and me aren’t like that.”
“My butt. Even if you’re not, she is.” She put her sunglasses back on and swung her feet, up, leaning back with a sigh. “You’re in hot water, and you don’t even feel the burn.”
Erik shook his head, which made it ache all the more, souring his precarious mood. “We’ve been friends forever, Hills. You’re makin’ up a situation where none exists.” He decided to hit her a little below the belt in an effort to get her to shut up. “Like you did on New Year’s, actin’ like some li’l ole kiss with Pete meant somethin’ more than it did.”
She gasped lightly beside him, then hid it by clearing her throat. “Low blow.”
He loved his sister and heard the pain in her voice, which made him feel instant remorse. “Sorry, sis. I’m an asshole.”
“And a dumbass if you don’t see what’s right under your nose.”
He settled himself back into the chair with a grunt of satisfaction, letting his forehead drop back onto the warm vinyl. “Why can’t you just let us be friends? Why does it have to be more?”
“Because it is more. To her. And you know it.”
“Even if that’s so—and I’m not sayin’ it is—it’s not my fault that I don’t feel the same. We can’t always get what we want, no matter how hard we want it.” His voice was gentle when he added. “You know that better’n anyone.”
“I guess I do,” she said, all the sass gone from her tone now. “But I also know exactly how she’s thinkin’, Erik. I can see it all over her face. She’s thinkin’, If I just hang in there, one day, he’ll see me. And he’ll know what I’ve known all along: that we’re meant to be.”
The wistfulness in her voice made him cringe.
Hillary was talking about Pete when it was clear as day that Pete wasn’t interested in Hillary. Never had been. Pete wanted Van. And Erik respected that. Hell, in his mind, Van was Pete’s girl, whether she wanted to be or not.
Fuck, but this situation was all screwed up. How were they supposed to get through the whole summer together with Hills liking Pete, Pete liking Van, Van liking him, and him liking . . .