Complicate Me (The Good Ol' Boys #1) (6 page)

“Whatcha’ doin’?” Alex prodded, walking into my bedroom as I’m playing with my phone on my bed. It was an early birthday gift. She scooted next to me, moving my arm so that she could lay in the crevice of my chest.

“Nothin’ much. What are you doing here? I thought you were going to town with your mom today?”

“We are,” she snickered. “But she had to talk to your mom about something important and told me to come wait up here with you.”

“Don’t want to go shopping, huh?”

She pouted, glancing up at me. “Do I ever?”

“It might not be so bad, Half-Pint. It’s not normal that you don’t like to go shopping.”

She sat up, facing me with her legs tucked under her tiny frame. “Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Like to go shopping?”

“Hell no.” I sat up against my wall.

“Well then. Why would I?”

“Because you’re a girl.”

She punched me in the chest.

“Ouch!” I rubbed where she hit me. “What was that for?”

“You know why,” she giggled, seeing that her weak ass punch had an effect on me, dwindling sideways on my bed.

I shook my head. “You’re so violent.”

“I learned from you,” she justified, pointing at me, sitting upright.

I laughed because it was true.

“You meeting up with the boys?”

“Nah, I’m meeting up with Stacey in a few hours.”

“Stacey?” she asked, taken aback. “Who’s Stacey?”

“The girl from the beach.”

With widening eyes she sat up straighter, trying to appear much older than she actually was. “The big boobed girl?”

I grinned to keep from laughing. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you meeting up with her?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, we’re hanging out.”

“Oh.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

She lowered her head to my comforter and started picking at the seams. She only did that when she was nervous. “Is this a date?” she muffled.

“I guess.”

“Oh.”

“Why you keep sayin’ that?”

“No reason,” she lied.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’.”

“You know you can’t lie to me, so why don’t you just tell me what the sad voice and sappy face is for?”

She scowled at me. “I’m not lying.”

I stood, folding my arms over my chest and cocking my head to the side. She knew I wouldn’t let her leave my room if she didn’t tell me the truth. I would get it out of her, one way or another.

“I thought you didn’t like her. You said you didn’t,” she finally answered.

“I never said that,” I stated, taking in her solemn demeanor.

“Oh.”

“Will you stop speaking in code?”

“I’m not,” she scoffed, moving her legs to hang over the edge of my bed.

“I told you she’s just a girl and she is. That’s all.”

“Then why are you going on a date with her, if she’s just a girl?”

“Because that’s what boys do.”

Her lips parted, displaying her bright red tongue. She must have been sucking on a cherry lollipop, our favorite.

I almost smiled. “It’s not a big deal, Half-Pint,” I confessed, rubbing the back of my neck.

She nodded, her eyes shifting to the door behind me.

“Well…” She leaped from my bed to stand in front of me, barely meeting my chest, and I was reminded how small she really was, how young she really was.

“Have fun on your date.”

My eyebrows lowered. “Why you actin’ like this?”

“I’m not acting like anything,” she replied, shrugging, the attitude evident in her tone. “I’ll see ya later.” She stepped aside and walked toward my door.

“Alex,” I called out, forcing in the breath I hadn’t realized I held. “You’ll always be my brown eyed girl.”

I stopped dead in my tracks.

“You’ll always be my brown eyed girl,” he confessed in a tone I’d never heard before.

My heart beat rapidly with each passing second, and the longer I stood there not saying anything the more I felt it.

“I know,” I softly spoke, with my mouth dry and my heart heavy.

I didn’t know whether to smile with delight over the fact that he would always be my best friend or to cry with devastation knowing that maybe he’d never be anything more.

Would there ever be an Alex and Lucas or were we doomed to be Bo and Half-Pint for the rest of our lives?

“Alex! You ready?” Mom yelled from the bottom of the stairs, breaking the simple words that held us together.

I didn’t dare turn around to look at him. I pretty much ran down the stairs and into my mama’s car. I spent the rest of the day in town with her.

“Honey, what about this one?” Mom prodded, placing the hanger in front of me.

I eyed it up and down. “It’s a dress.”

“Yes. It’s a very nice dress.”

Which actually wasn’t that far off from the truth. It was light yellow with spaghetti straps, shorter than I was used to but not entirely hideous. The material was soft at least.

“Okay.”

“Really? You’re not going to fight me on this?”

“No.”

“Are you sick?”

I smiled for the first time since I left Lucas’ bedroom. “No.”

“What do you want?” she quickly added, making me laugh.

“Nothin’, it’s a nice dress.”

She skeptically looked me over for a few seconds and then nodded to go pay.

“Everything alright?” she asked on our way home.

I shrugged.

“What’s going on with you?”

“Why do you think something’s wrong?”

“Alex, you let me buy you a dress and I didn’t have to bribe you.”

I sighed. “Lucas is going on a date,” I blurted, surprised by my own honesty.

“Ah.”

I met her eyes. “What?”

“So that’s what’s upsetting you,” she stated, looking back at the road.

“It’s not upsetting me.”

She narrowed her eyes at me.

“Not that much,” I added, facing in front of me.

“Those boys are growing up, Alex. They’re going to start dating. I mean Lucas will be fourteen soon.”

“Yeah so what? I’ll be twelve soon, too.”

“Right. But it’s different for boys than it is for girls.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that their interests may change.”

“That’s stupid,” I scoffed, disappointed.

“Yeah but your interests will change soon, too.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

“You’ll see.”

“Mom, we’ve been best friends since the day I was born. I’ve done everything with them. Are you saying that it won’t be like that anymore?”

She contemplated what I said. “Not exactly. I have no doubt y’all will always be close. You don’t have any siblings, Alex, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am that I’ve never felt guilty about not giving you someone to play with. We didn’t have to. You had them boys. All I’m sayin’ is that things may start to change on how much time y’all will have for each other.”

“Because of girls?”

“Yes, honey, and boys.”

I grimaced. “I don’t like boys.”

She laughed. “You love them boys,” she clarified.

“Yes but they’re different. I’m talkin’ about the boys at my school. I don’t like any of them.”

“Right. Do you like any of
your
boys? Lucas, maybe?”

I leaned into the headrest. “No.”

“No?”

“I don’t know. Lucas and I have always had a different relationship than I’ve had with the rest of them.”

I caught her nodding from the corner of my eye. “I know.”

“I don’t want to lose any of them though, especially Lucas.”

“You won’t ever lose them. That much I do know. But with that being said, Alex, you need to expand your horizons. I don’t want you to regret missing out on anything because you didn’t know any better. Familiarity can be confused with something that it isn’t. Do you understand?”

“Kind of.”

She sighed. “You’re young and Lucas is young. You’ve grown up together. It’s normal to feel possessive of him, over all of them.”

“I don’t want things to change.”

“I’m sorry, sweetie, but they will. That’s just life, but it doesn’t matter because as I said before I know that you will always have them in your life. That I can promise you.”

I nodded, shutting my eyes and silently praying she was right.

Especially…

When it came to Lucas.

“Hey, you listening?” Stacey asked.

“Mmm hmm,” I lied. I couldn’t stop thinking about Alex.

Why couldn’t I stop thinking about Alex?

“I had a really good time tonight. You think we could do it again?”

“Sure,” I simply stated.

We were sitting on the beach, watching the waves hit the shore.

She smiled, leaning into me. “Good. I really like you, Lucas.”