My Brother’s Best Friend

Cause and Effect

SKIP “BROTHER, you don’t seem happy about me being here, do you?” My brother, Clyve frowned after we settled at the backseat of the company car.

“Why’d you say that?” I wanted to ignore him, but I couldn’t get rid of him easily. He had to stay with me in my apartment, and the thing was, we had a different lifestyle.

He was a marathon type of guy while I was an indoor type, using a treadmill. I could live with sandwiches while Clyve ate veggies all his life. He listened to classical music, and I went for the rock. He played piano and violin while I drummed. He liked the colorful environment while I chose a boring black, white, and gray. And Clyve was an old fashion and dreamed of a white picket fence one day. But I loved my annoying brother to kick him out, and I missed him being a nosy bastard than letting him stay at the hotel room of this city.

“Well, let me start with this; you barely said a word since we boarded the Airbus, then after long hours of flight, you immediately wanted to go to your work instead of spending time with your brother. Skip, can’t we at least go to a pub and have a great night?”

“A pub on this very morning? Seriously? How about you stay away from booze?” I asked in a serious tone.

Clyve suddenly averted his gaze.

Then I remembered why he came with me. I rubbed my temple, feeling guilty for being an insensitive brother to him, but I got a lot on my plate right now to deal with his annoying bullshit.

“And I had loads of work left when I traveled to check up on you, which I thought you were in bad shape. I’m glad you’re alright though,” I added. I hoped I was not going to mess up my relationship with Clyve. He’d been through hell without me, and I could not let him go on the same path again.

Meeting Arella again bothered me a lot. The truth was, I wasn’t ready to face her today, but my heart was powerful than my brain. This might be worse than the first time I saw her in seven years. After our amazing night and the best breakfast I had in forever, shit happened. The thing I invested for so long just shattered into a billion particles in a second because I didn’t give her a chance to explain.

People lied for a reason, I was sure she had her own. But why it was so hard for me to accept it? Dad broke my heart when he lied to me. He promised to watch my football game, but he didn’t appear. He apologized, then did it again. I thought he just sent me and Mum to visit her family, then I waited. When he came back, he took my brother away from me. That was why I loathed people when they lied right into my face.

“I’m sorry if I’m a pain in the arse, Skip.” His voice cracked.

I gripped his shoulder. “Don’t be. You may be a little pain in the arse, but I’m glad we get a chance to meet more often. I missed the old times, brother. Let me make it up to you once I can catch up with work. I just have to check first the samples in the lab.” More or like I wanted to see Arella today.

“Can I come with you?” Clyve asked a thousand times what happened back here while we were watching a football game at Wembley stadium. He was able to convince me or rather forced me to take a selfie.

“As long as you’ll behave.”

“I think I can do that,” he grinned. “You need to tour me around the city, brother. I’d love to see the big apple.”

“Seriously?” I asked, amused.

“Yeah. Why not?”

“Fine.”

“And one more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Please return some calls and reply to texts or just keep it in airplane mode all the time because your phone is starting to annoy me.”

I sighed deeply because Clyve was damn right. My phone never stopped buzzing since we landed. Mum gave me a look before she left with her driver. I had missed calls from Brett and Eli. And Arella called and sent me messages as well.

“I’ll do it as soon as I get some sleep. I need a clear mind to do it.”

“Good.”

My assistant was already with Dr. Mackenzie when we arrived. I did a short introduction for Clyve with the laboratory team, but I didn’t find Arella around.

I was a little confused.

Then everything stopped. She arrived at her table with some tubes with pink-colored formula. She was back to work like nothing happened between us last week. Just bloody great! And it pissed me off, especially when she looked gorgeous than ever with her blue dress, her lab coat, and blood-red high heels. And there was nothing hotter than a sexy chemist wearing lab goggles.

I couldn’t take my eyes off of her, and the way Dr. Mackenzie treated her almost lost my goddamn mind. It took everything in me not to explode in front of all these people from anger and arousal. I grabbed a strip and dipped it in her sample in annoyance-not even giving her a chance to talk.

I regretted right away for being a condescending arse. Her sample was sweet and spicy. She was right, it wasn’t near ready, but the sweet and spiciness reminded me of the mind-blowing and gobsmacking sex we shared. I could still feel how we fit perfectly together. I could still taste her on my tongue and remembered her moan and her whisper in my ear. Jesus Christ!

I literally threw the strip and walked out like a fucking coward because the longer I smelled that scent, and I was afraid once our eyes met, it would blow my fucking senses. And the cause and effect traveled straight right to my dick. No man in his right mind in my position could have handled this.

I faced Dr. Mackenzie when we were outside the lab. “I want samples.” My frustrations and anger made me want to punch him on his shitty face.

“That’s what we’re working on.”

“Work harder,” I snapped. “Did you forget you’re running out of time?”

“We’re doing our best, Mr. Linton. How about the other samples?”

“I will not remember them once I step outside of this building.” Then I walked away.

Rush footsteps followed me, but I didn’t bother slowing my pace. Once I got into the car, I dialed Brett. He’d been calling me since the day I left for London. I should apologize because he was just caught in the middle of this chaos. He was my best friend for fuck’s sake!

“Thank, God! It came to your senses, Linton.” There was humor in Brett’s voice. And I thought it was a good sign.

“I’m sorry. I had a family emergency, and I had to-”

“How’s Clyve? I called Eli and threatened him. So, he spilled out. Don’t fire him.” He sounded genuine.

“He’s fine. In fact, he’s with me, and I think he’d be here a while. He got into a bar fight, so I want him to stay away from trouble.”

“A bar fight? I thought… Anyway, glad he’s okay. I wanna talk to you, Linton. Can we meet?”Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

“Absolutely,” I answered without a second thought.

“Let him come with you. I wanna see that bloke.”

“Sure. How about Friday night? He’s dying to tour around the city, but we could meet at the Night Stalker. Sounds good-” I paused. “Look, Brett. I know I’m not your favorite person right now, but-”

“We’re good, Linton. Don’t beat yourself up. We’re all on the wrong foot, mate. Nobody had predicted this would happen, and Are was so sad about what happened between us. I’m sorry for what I’ve done, and I didn’t realize I was so overprotective of her.”

Fuck! I’m losing my shit. “I would have done the same thing if I happened to have a sister like Arella. I’ve done terrible things, but this is really the worse. I-I don’t know how I even going to face you, especially your family. I’m such a dick. I wish I could turn back time and-”

“Don’t, please, mate? You just have to figure out how to set aside whatever you two had for the sake of our friendship.”

“Yeah. that, I was kinda an arse with her earlier.”

“Wait a minute. You met her?” He sounded surprised.

I rubbed the back of my neck. “I’m here at the lab’s parking lot.”

“Uh-huh. So, how did it go?”

I grimaced. “Worse?”

“Don’t you fucking hurt her, Linton! I will kill you in a heartbeat!”

“Calm the bloody down,” I pleaded. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You just said not a moment ago that you were arse to her. Care to explain?”

“What I meant to say is I didn’t even say hi.”

“Just stay away from my sister if you can’t act politely in front of her. You have no idea how much I wanted to beat you to a pulp, but that won’t change a thing. We all made mistakes. So just…”

That hurt to hear. “Stay away from your sister. Yeah, I heard that, and I understood quite clearly, Rogue. Honestly, you’re like a broken record.” The unvarnished truth just broke my heart all over again. I held my head, looking outside the window to nothingness.

How am I going to do that?

Then there was a moment of silence.

“So, Friday?”

“Sure.” I clicked the end call button.

“Well, that wasn’t so hard.”

I was startled by my seat to see Clyve standing outside the car. I squinted my eyes at him. “You’ve been listening to my conversation, arsehole?”

“Hard not to.” He shrugged, then rounded to the other side of the car, opening the door with a huge grin on his face. “Now, I get it why you are so damn obsessed about a certain American blonde because she’s a bombshell!”

My nose flared. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Still grinning, he buckled his seatbelt and ignored me. He knew I hated being ignored when I bloody wanted an answer.

“Clyve!”

“To his flat, Owen.”

“You don’t fucking order my driver.”

“The company driver,” he corrected. “And the last time I checked, I owned a twenty percent share of Linton’s.” He beamed.

Now, I regretted taking him with me.

“She’s funny, and guess what?”

“Not interested, and stay the fuck away from her.”

“Wow! Possessive much, bruh?” He faked an American accent horribly.

“Do you want Brett to break your face? I would gladly tell him so.”

“I’ll take it if he will only do the way he did to your face last week.”

I growled, “I mean it, CC!”

His face reddened.

“Is this how I can stop you, huh, CC?” I mimicked a girl’s voice.

“It sounds girly when you’re the one saying it.”

“Stay away from Arella. And I mean it, Clyve.

She’s mine!”

“Good. It’s settled then because she was about to cry when you didn’t give her a second look, brother.”