Love Story (Love Unexpectedly 3)

And yes, it applies to both girls—I’d kill anyone who ever tried to hurt Lucy or Brandi, but really Lucy was always the one on my radar.

At first it was an age thing—Brandi’s five years younger than me, and of course I looked out for her when I could, but our paths never crossed much outside the Hawkinses’ home.

Lucy, though, being only a year younger, has always been in my peripheral vision. Well not always. For a while there, she wasn’t peripheral, so much as all I could see.

But anyway, eventually I started looking out for Lucy, not just because of proximity, but because of well…necessity. Not that she needed a guardian so much as she always sort of felt

like mine, and I protect what’s mine, you know?

Shit, where was I going with this?

Craig. Right.

Though Craig always made the requisite comments about telling the pigs in high school to stay away from his little sister, he’d never said a word to me. Because he trusted me? Probably.

But here’s the thing.

He should have said something. I don’t blame him for what happened, obviously, but I’ll confess that sometimes I wish that, just once, he’d done the whole I love you like a brother but touch my sister and I’ll kill you thing.

I’d have listened. Maybe. Maybe.

He never did that—never said a damn word.

So I did touch his sister, despite my better judgment, and the whole thing blew up in my face like dynamite stuffed in a shit cake.

Fifty percent her fault, fifty percent mine.

One hundred percent devastating.

“You okay, man?”

“Yup.” I’m grateful for my shades so Craig can’t see the lie in my eyes.

“We appreciate you doing this,” he says, lowering his voice so Lucy can’t hear us. Not that there’s much risk of that. It’s hard to hear much of anything over Mrs. Hawkins’s wailing.

“It’s no problem.”

Another lie. It’s a huge problem. It’s bad enough that I have to spend two weeks with her. Worse that it’s in such close quarters. Worst of all, we have to stop and see fucking Oscar on what’s supposed to be a trip to my new life.

“Spock’d kill me for saying this, but I’m a little relieved her piece of shit car broke down before the trip. None of us thought that car had a chance in hell of making it out of Virginia, much less to California.”

“And you think Horny does?” I say, nodding with my chin at the brown—yes, brown—station wagon.

“Fifty-fifty shot,” Craig says, thumping the roof of the car. “Weird to think this will probably be the last time I see the car where I got my first score. Remember Amy Pearson?”

I do. Small tits, great ass, redhead. Red other areas too.

(And don’t look at me that way. She and Craig were never serious, and I didn’t hit that until a year after he hooked up with her.)

“Yeah, I remember,” I say.

I also remember that Lucy and I hooked up in the backseat of this car as well. It was the first time I went under her shirt, and I swear to God it felt like the first time I touched a breast instead of the hundredth. That’s how it was with Lucy. Every damned thing had felt like a first.

And then it had felt like the last.

Shit.

I look at my watch, and Craig notices. “Yeah. This has gone on long enough. Mom,” he calls gently to his mother who’s telling Lucy in a watery voice to text every hour. “They’ve gotta hit the road.”