Holding On (Memories #1.5)(13)
Author: Emma Hart

I open a cupboard door, taking down a glass as the front door opens and shuts.

“Oh, Sam, Jen.” Emily smiles, unbuttoning her coat. “Sam, did you tell the girls?”

“Yes, Mum. For the thousandth time, I told them. Lexy is on the phone to Alec now. She said she’d text you.”

“Oh, well, maybe she did. I haven’t checked my phone since I text you.” She sets her coat on the back of a chair, and looks up at me. “Will you be there, Jen? Si would love to have you there.”

“Of course.” I smile sweetly. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

“I presume Bing has told you about the escort situation?”

Escort? Isn’t that like Billie Piper in Diary of a Call Girl?

“I told her,” Bing grinds out.

“I hope its okay,” Emily pushes on. “Lexy said Carl wouldn’t be able to get up, and since Samuel didn’t find himself a date, I found him one.”

“I highly doubt he couldn’t find a date,” I reply, turning. “He probably just pissed her off by not calling her back the next day.”

Emily’s mouth twitches in an effort to fight her smile, and I can feel Bing staring daggers in the side of my head.

“Yes, well,” she manages. “I’ve saved him the job. Your dresses will be ready to pick up tomorrow. I will get them at lunchtime. Also…” She turns to Bing. “…When your sister appears, let her know your father called me and said someone named Adrian called him today. He said he was a friend of Lexy’s and couldn’t find her number, and since your father had heard her mention him, he handed her number over.”

I click my tongue against the roof of my tongue. “Oopsie.”

“What?” Emily turns to me.

“I wouldn’t wanna be Si when she finds that out, that’s all I’m sayin’.” I shrug.

“Samuel? Explain,” Emily demands.

“Adrian doesn’t just know Lexy, Mum.” Bing leans back and crosses his arms across his chest, making those muscles flex. I blink and look away. “Adrian wants in her pants. Bad.”

“Oh!” Emily squeaks out. “Oh, dear. Well, it’s not going to happen. She and Alec are as strong as the next couple. It’ll be fine, dears. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go call the caterers. I’ll see you at dinner.”

She sweeps from the room with an elegance I’ll never achieve. Bing walks towards me, reaching around me for another glass. I raise mine to my lips, and raise an eyebrow at him.

“I saw you checking me out, Jennifer,” he whispers, smirking.

I snort. “Right. In which alternate reality was that, Samuel?”

“Sarcasm to your defence,” he quips. “Admit it, Jen, you think I’m hot.”

I look at him with disdain. “If Antarctica is hot, then yeah, smokin’.”

He fills his glass up, and stops as he’s about to pass me. “Its fine,” he says quietly, his face close to mine. “I check you out all the time, you’re just too busy being gobby to notice.” He looks at my chest and back up. “And I don’t mind that at all.”

My mouth drops open, and he saunters towards the kitchen door. “You chauvinistic, arrogant, perverted, fat-headed bastard!” I yell, grabbing a teaspoon and throwing it in his direction.

He laughs out loud, moving faster to avoid my makeshift weapon. I narrow my eyes and growl, putting my glass on the side. I continue my barrage of insults at him in my mind, the most prominent being “pillock,” “asshat,” “small-tooled prick,” and “man-boobed moron.”

The last one is, of course, totally irrelevant, considering his abundance of bodily muscle and lack of fat. I’ll still use it, though.

Thinking about his lack of fat annoys me even more. Thinking about him annoys me. I’ve long since accepted my attraction to my best friend’s brother, I’ve just chosen to ignore it. But that was before I came to London, and before I was forced into being his date for the evening this weekend.

Goddamn his annoying, tight ass.

BING

My sister’s best friend is f**king hot when she’s angry.

That sounds like the title of a really corny movie, but it’s true. Jennifer Mason is the only girl I’ve ever met – besides Lexy – that will give as good as she gets. She’s not fazed by my charm or my looks, and she couldn’t give a crap about annoying me.

And I have to admit that I like it. A lot.

I like it more than I should, since she’s actually not available – and in an odd kind of way, I’m not either. But that just makes me want her more, because wanting what you can’t have is both the best and worst thing in life. Jen definitely has the potential to be the best and worst thing in my life.

And I don’t know what to make of that.

Gram said it was time for me to “find a nice girl” before she died. Hell, maybe she’s right – but there’s no nice girls around here. At least, none that are capable of seeing past my dick. I’m pretty sure that’s the number one reason Heidi keeps coming back.

I knock on the door to Lexy’s bathroom.

“What?” she hollers.

“Is Alec comin’ over?” I yell through the door.

“Any minute. Why?”

“I need a work out,” I answer.

“Jen get you riled up?”

“Always.” I turn away, knowing if I stay there any longer my sister will get ideas in her head. Hell, after my performance the other night at dinner she probably already has ideas and the f**king plans to go with them.

I slam my door, change my clothes, and make my way downstairs as Alec walks through the front door.

I motion for him to follow me, and he does without question. We pass down into the basement Dad converted into a mini-gym when I hit puberty, and I head straight for the punching bag in the corner. Alec stand behind it, grabbing it and holding it still for me.

I work out my frustrations, one punch after another, letting out my frustrations. I let out all her sarcastic comments, her biting insults, her hard looks, and her disdainful attitude towards me.

And as much of a git as it makes me sound, I’m not used to wanting someone I can’t have.

Chapter Seven

JEN

Lexy purses her lips, and slams her phone on the side, screen down. I raise an eyebrow.

“He will not leave me alone,” she grinds out. “Jayna is coming to the party tomorrow night because her parents know mine, and Adrian is her date. Which he keeps reminding me about.”