Neighbor Dearest

“I’ve never betrayed my brother’s trust, but I’m about to for his own good.”

“What are you—”

“My brother is in love with you.”

My heart started to beat faster as I processed his words.

Did he really just say what I think he said?

I shook my head. “No, he’s not.”

“He is.”

“Why would you say that? He doesn’t even want to date me.”

He leaned his arms into his legs as he looked up at me. “He’s crazy about you. I’ve known about it for a while, but I really saw it with my own eyes tonight.”

My heart continued to pound, wanting so badly for him to be right. “If you really believe that, then why were you, you know…”

He lifted his brow. “Flirting like hell with you all night?”

“Yes.”

“It was an act. I was trying to prove a point. Don’t get me wrong. You’re a beautiful girl. But I would never go after someone my brother has true feelings for. Never. Deep down, he knows that, too.”

“Why did he seem so threatened by you, then?”

“He knew what I was up to. What upset him was that he was afraid you might actually like me and that he’d have to witness it.”

Wracking my brain to make sense of this conversation, I needed him to back up. “You said you were trying to prove a point. I’m sorry, but I don’t get it. Can you please explain?”

“I was trying to show him that he’s not actually able to handle letting you go. He’s been trying to push you away. That’s not what he really wants.”

“Why?” I cried out. “Why is he trying to push me away?”

“Damien thinks you’d be better off without him.”

“I don’t understand.”

Tyler paused and looked up at the ceiling for a while in an attempt to gather his thoughts. “There’s something you don’t know, Chelsea. But I can’t be the one to tell you. It’s not my place. He needs to explain it to you. All I can say is that it’s nothing to be afraid of, and it’s nothing that would make you see him in a negative light. You would not be putting yourself in any kind of danger in being with him. It’s nothing like that. He just truly feels that he can’t get involved with you, even though that pains him.”

The wheels were turning in my head. What could it possibly be?

“I’m confused.”

“I know. There is still a lot that is unknown, even to us. But please be patient with him. He’ll tell you when he’s ready. I know he will. Don’t give up on him. Wait for him if you can. That is…if you really want to be with him.”

“I have wanted to be with him from almost the very beginning—from the night of the toaster oven fire. I felt a connection stronger than anything I’d ever felt before.”

Ty’s mouth curved into a smile. “That was the night he set you up on that dating site, right?”

“Yes. He told you about that?”

“I’m so gonna go to hell for this.”

“What?”

He took his phone out. “I’m gonna show you a text he sent me that night. Give me a minute because I have to go through my messages. At the time, I remember thinking it was funny as hell and so unlike him to be saying the shit he was. Let me find it.”

As Ty scrolled through his phone, my heart was palpitating. This felt like an invasion of Damien’s privacy, but Lord knows I wasn’t a newbie in that arena. I was dying to know what he’d said about me.

“Okay.” He faced the screen toward me. “Here. Look.”

I took the phone from him and read their exchange.Damien: I’m so fucked.Ty: What’s up?Damien: I’m SO fucked.Ty: What the hell is going on?Damien: The blonde I told you about next door.Ty: You sleep with her?Damien: No.Ty: What happened?Damien: SO fucked.Ty: Bad? Or good?Damien: SO fucked.Ty: Yeah, I got that.Damien: She almost burned down the building.Ty: WTF?Damien: Toaster fire. I put it out. Everything’s fine. She came over after.Ty: And now there’s a fire in your pants? LMAO.Damien: Basically. Yeah. She’s gorgeous. But it’s not just that. She’s amazing. Sweet as hell. Honest. No bullshit. What you see is what you get.Ty: So this is good!Damien: No. I can’t mess around with her.Ty: Why not?Damien: She’s a good girl, already had her heart broken once by some asswipe.Ty: Why can’t you date her?Damien: How many times have we talked about this?Ty: It’s bullshit.Damien: I set her up on a dating site.Ty: That’s fucked up. You’re crazy about her and you set her up to date other men?Damien: I had to do something. She scares the shit out of me.Ty: I’ve never heard you say that before.Damien: You probably never will again.Ty: Well, damn.That was the end of the exchange.

My hand was shaking as I held his phone. While I felt a little guilty for prying into his personal messages, my heart felt like it was going to burst. It overwhelmed me to know that Damien had experienced all the same things I’d felt that night. Our chemistry had been off the charts. That confirmed it wasn’t my imagination. Even though he’d left me feeling so rejected at the time, there was apparently more to it than simple disinterest.