My Brother’s Best Friends

***Reagan***

LisaJames,originallyFuller, was a Southern belle from an even tinier town in Georgia. She’d been dragged to Lunar with her family as a twenty-one-year-old, recently graduated and ready to find her place in the world. Her family came looking for the rumored alien sightings and the world’s largest potato chip, and Lisa had just been looking for a way back to normal life. Her parents had found the potato chip, but no aliens. Lisa found my brother and never left.

She was five feet of Southern sass and would put anyone in their place, including my brother. She was always fun, and the times she’d come with Russ to see me in LA, she’d never failed to lead me right into a good time. And trouble. With her bright blonde hair always curled to the heavens and her face always painted to perfection, she was stunning and just sweet enough looking to fool everyone into thinking she’d never know how to find trouble. Maybe not even how to spell it. It was only once you got to know her that you realized she was the devil in an angel’s body.

Unfortunately, she had a reputation around Lunar and she attracted attention everywhere she went. People watched her to see what she’d do next, and I didn’t blame them. I just wished they’d look anywhere else when I was the person walking with her. I’d snuck into town under the cover of night and I wasn’t exactly ready to make my big entrance back into Lunar life.

Lisa sat across from me at the two-seater metal table we were sharing outside of Landings, one of the two dueling local diners. Her hair was especially big that morning, but it still wasn’t enough to hide me from prying eyes. Landings was winning the competition that day, it seems, because the tables, inside and out, were full.

Reading my mind, Lisa smiled, flashing perfect white teeth that she’d hopefully pass down to her kids. Russ and I had both gone through years of braces. “Landings posted on their Facebook that drinks are free with the purchase of a meal today. Kevin’s uncle knows a guy who knows a guy who happened to find a Coca-Cola truck turned over, if you know what I mean. So, Kevin can afford to offer free drinks for months, from what I hear.”

Even full of anxiety, I grinned at that. More than once, I’d reaped the rewards of a turned-over truck when I was growing up. My favorite had been the time a blackberry pie filling truck had met its untimely demise. Mom had made us blackberry cobbler all summer long. It’d been heaven.

“How was the bed last night?” Lisa winked at the passing waitress, gaining her attention. “Hey, will you go ahead and bring us a platter of pancakes with that new strawberry syrup Kevin got? With bacon. Sausage?”

I bit back a laugh and shook my head. “Bacon’s fine with me.”

“Oh, and can we get the Lunar omelet to share? With biscuits, of course. And that muscadine jelly. I’ll take a water to drink. And a Coke.” Lisa turned sweet eyes on me and smiled. “Anything else?”

The waitress didn’t seem shocked by the amount of food Lisa had just ordered and I had a moment of culture shock. I definitely wasn’t in LA anymore. As a chef, I couldn’t say I was sad to be in a place where people loved to eat. “Coffee, please. Just like a large pitcher of it.”

After the teen girl was off with our order, Lisa looked back at me and raised her eyebrows, waiting for an answer to a question I didn’t even remember. When I didn’t jump in fast enough, she went on for me. “The bed?”

“Oh! It was fine. Honestly, Lisa, you don’t need to stress about it. I know that I’m crashing and that I was unexpected. Even still, you put together a great setup for me.”

“Oh, please. Great? It’s a mattress in the basement of the house you grew up in. You deserve your own space. I’m going to make sure Russ gets all of his crap out of the den and we’ll set you up in there.”

“No way. The basement is fine. Plus, it has the private entrance, so I can come and go without bothering you guys. When I start my new job, I’ll be leaving the house at ungodly hours.”

She subtly looked around and, ignoring all the people glancing at us, leaned closer. “Russ didn’t tell me what happened in LA. Even when I threatened to stop having sex with him. Probably because he knows that I’d never be able to hold out.”

I faked a gag, focusing on the part of her words that didn’t send heat creeping up my neck. “No sex talk about my brother. That’s the rule.”

“So, you’re not going to tell me, either?”

I met her gaze and cursed her plainly expressive eyes. She was hurt that she wasn’t in the loop. I sank my teeth into my bottom lip and pushed out a loud exhale through my nose. “I found out that Ben was married. His wife confronted me in front of everyone at work. It was humiliating and it hurt. Then, I got fired. The other partners didn’t think it would be wise to keep me around because I was the source of a lot of stress for another of the partners. I lost my cushy personal chef gig and my boyfriend in a matter of hours. And let me tell you… If you think Lunar is a small world with fast gossips, it’s got nothing on the food scene in LA.”

Lisa opened her mouth to respond but our waitress cut her off. She put our drinks in front of us and dropped off a basket of hot, buttered biscuits. My mouth instantly watered, despite the fact that I hadn’t been hungry in a week.

As soon as we were alone, Lisa exploded. “That asshole! Does Russ know? We can get some people together and pay that schmuck a visit! And to think I baked that butt-munch a pie! I’ll kill him.”

Her fury soothed a part of me that nothing else had been able to since I’d found out about Ben. Seeing someone feel that angry for me allowed me to let go of some of my own anger. I found myself smiling as I watched her hair bounce around as she struggled to stay still in her seat.

“Why are you smiling? Let’s figure out who we’re going to take to handle this jerk.”

“This might be the first time I’ve felt a true moment of peace in the two weeks since I found out. It feels good to not be the only person so mad. It almost felt like no one else thought it was a big deal. Men cheat, so what? I should’ve known I could depend on you to show up for me.”

Tears filled her eyes and she didn’t hesitate to leave her seat and hurry around to me. Wrapping me in her arms, she pressed my head into her boobs and sighed. “I’m here for you, Reagan. Anything you need.”

I hugged her back and tried not to notice everyone staring after she sat back down. “Get me out of going tonight?”

She dabbed at her eyes and grabbed a biscuit, tearing it open viciously. “Not a chance. You need to drink and forget yourself for a night. You also need to show up in a sexy dress and remind yourself that you’ve got it going on. No hiding in the basement while everyone else has a good time.”

I groaned. “When you put it like that…”

She loaded her biscuit with jelly and waved it at me. “Exactly. I called Marjorie over at MJ’s and she’s got just the dress for you. You’re going to be the hottest thing to walk through the doors of Lunar High tonight.”

“MJ’s? Doesn’t she just sell—”

“Old ladies' burial dresses? No.” She sent me a wicked grin. “MJ went to Italy, met a man who rocked her world, and now she only sells dresses that would make my mother scream in Southern Baptist horror.”

Somehow, I got more nervous. Still, I found myself stuffing a biscuit into my face. It seemed that Lunar was giving me my appetite back, if not threatening to steal my sanity.

“We’re also getting waxes after this. Eat up. You’re going to need your energy!”