Fairytale Love - Becca & Brian Read online

  Usually, Brian was a ‘what you see is what you get’ type of guy. He’d never tried to be something he wasn’t. In grade school, when kids would tease him about his best friend being a girl, Brian hadn’t cared. His best friend was a girl. In middle school, when the guys from his baseball team had given him crap about being in the school play, Brian had shrugged it off. In high school, when he’d had to break the news to his parents that he, their eldest son, didn’t want to stay in his hometown of Harper’s Crossing and take over the family business or accept his full-ride scholarship to play baseball at Ball State, but instead was headed to New York because he had been accepted into NYU’s film and television program, it had been hard but he’d done it because he knew he had to be true to himself.

  Brian had known that he would have been miserable staying home and running Scott Automotive Repair Shop. Unfortunately, his younger brother Brenden had had no interest in it either and had accepted his baseball scholarship. The kid had been doing well too, up until he’d torn his Achilles’ tendon. Brian didn’t know what his brother’s plans were now.

  His cousin Josh, however, had always been a grease monkey, and he wanted to step in when Brian’s dad finally announced his impending retirement. Since Brian had been back home, taking an undetermined hiatus from NYU to help his parents after his dad’s heart attack, he’d spent quite a lot of time in the garages of Scott Auto and Josh had been indispensable.

  Growing up, Josh had always been the one to do things like trick out their ten speeds or switch out the wheels on their skateboards to make them go faster. In high school, he’d spent two summers rebuilding the engine on a ’67 Chevy Camaro the boys had inherited from their grandfather. Gears, engines, cars—that was his cousin’s passion. In Brian’s mind, even though he had unexpectedly ended up back in Harper’s Crossing, everything had worked out exactly how it was supposed to.

  As a kid, he’d always loved movies and been fascinated by everything it took to make them. In his teens, he’d studied films by Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, and Clint Eastwood. Brian had read everything he could about film production, from lighting and cinematography, to wardrobe and location scouting. Film, movies, production—that had always been his passion.

  The alarm on his phone buzzed loudly, interrupting Brian’s short mental reprieve from obsessing about Becca. He reached down to turn off the alert. He’d set it to go off when Becca’s plane landed.

  She was here. Back in Illinois. He was going to be seeing her face to face for the first time since her sister’s wedding back in December.

  The thumping of his heart was pounding loudly between Brian’s ears. As he took a deep breath, his head fell back against the headrest. His palms were beginning to grow damp. He opened his fingers, stretching them out before closing them again, gripping the steering wheel.

  Looking up, he saw that his exit was in one and a half miles. At the rate traffic was moving, it’d probably take him ten minutes to reach it. He tried to calculate parking and then how long it would take him to make it to baggage claim. He probably had a good forty-five minutes before he saw her. Before his acting skills would really be tested.

  Brian started gauging roughly how much time they would be spending together this summer. How much time he would have to pretend that nothing had changed between them. Pretend that his feelings hadn’t decided to take on a life of their own. Pretend that he didn’t know how her soft lips felt. Pretend that he didn’t think about—on a nearly constant basis—what her tongue brushing against his had done to him. Pretend his thoughts weren’t consumed with the visceral reaction his body had had when her soft curves had been pressed up against him.

  Basically, he needed to know how much time he would have to disguise, suppress, and hide his true feelings about the most important person in his life.

  He guessed it all really depended on the outcome of the open call today. If it went well, then Brian would be gone for half the summer shooting and then promoting the reality show. If he didn’t book it, then he was going to have to find some other way to keep his distance from her—without drawing any attention to the fact that that was what he was doing.

  Frustration flooded through him. Never in his life would Brian have guessed that he would be trying to come up with reasons, situations, and excuses to avoid Becca. She was his favorite person in the entire world. The yin to his yang. The Scrappy Doo to his Scooby Doo. The Robin to his Batman. His partner in crime. Becca was his heart.

  Which was exactly the reason that she absolutely could not know that anything had changed between them.

  As he turned the wheel to pull off the freeway, he tried to think about what the fallout would be if Becca found out, somehow, that his feelings had changed. Just the thought made his entire body tense. She was the sweetest, most understanding girl in the world. There was no doubt in Brian’s mind that, if she knew what was going on, she would be kind and gracious, but there was also no doubt in his mind that things would change between them. Forever.

  Brian hated pretending or acting with the most important person in the world to him, but he would never forgive himself if he did something that damaged their relationship. Also, he never wanted to put Becca in the position of having to let him down easy or ever feeling like she couldn’t go to him because things were weird. As much as she meant to him, he also knew what he meant to her. She depended on Brian. She told Brian everything. She trusted Brian completely. When good or bad things happened in either of their lives, the first call they made was to each other.

  Their relationship was like those old MasterCard commercials a few years ago—priceless. It was irreplaceable. It was everything.

  Brian’s thoughts continued to turn over scenario after scenario of what if or worst case until he rolled down the window to his Jeep and pressed the square button on the ticket dispenser at the entry of the parking structure. As he pulled the ticket from the silver box, the bar rose and Brian pressed on the gas pedal. He drove up and down the rows of parked cars looking for an open space and thinking about the one question that had been eating him up for the past year.

  Was it better to just be best friends with your soul mate—knowing the agony you felt from the fact that “friends” was all you would ever be—but still have them in your life? Every time he battled with that question, he came up with the same answer. Yes. Yes, it was. The risk reward was just not worth it. Because the risk meant losing what he and Becca had.

  So, after he pulled into a spot, he turned the ignition off and looked into the rearview mirror with determination burning brightly in his brown eyes. It was showtime.

  Chapter Two

  “Is that yours, dear?” Stella asked, pointing her wrinkled finger topped with a long, fire-engine-red press-on nail towards a huge, neon-green-and-bright-pink, leopard-print suitcase.

  Really?

  Becca realized that she’d only known Stella a whopping, grand total of the four hours it had taken to fly from San Francisco to Chicago, but she really would have thought that it was glaringly clear that Becca was not a flashy-colored leopard-print girl. She wished she were a flashy-colored leopard-print girl, but she knew she was a taupe-luggage girl. Sure, she’d tied a purple band around the handle so that her plain-Jane baggage would stand out from the rest, but the luggage itself was still boring, safe, run-of-the-mill taupe.

  But maybe this woman, who Becca barely knew, saw something in her that she herself didn’t see. After taking several psych classes over the years, Becca knew that most people’s perceptions of themselves were drastically different than the reality of what others saw them as. Still, it was hard for her to believe that anyone would see her as flashy or risk-taking, which, in Becca’s opinion, was exactly what neon-green-and-bright-pink luggage screamed of its owner.

  “Nope, that’s not mine,” Becca answered, feeling a twinge of disappointment that it wasn’t, her eyes following
the loud suitcase as it passed by.

  Taking a deep breath, Becca tried to calm her jittery nerves and racing heart as she stood in the baggage claim area watching the conveyor belt go round and round. Her mind was so scattered that she wasn’t sure if she’d missed her plain-Jane suitcases or if they just hadn’t made an appearance yet. She’d been standing here for, at least, fifteen minutes with the sole task of grabbing her luggage. Simple, right? Yeah, not so much.

  Her mind kept getting sidetracked by the fact that, any second now, her ride would be here. Any second now, she would come face to face with her Brian. Her best friend in the whole world. Star of her extremely inappropriate (naughty!) dreams.

  They really had gotten worse over the past six months since the wedding. The wedding she only remembered bits and pieces of thanks to her good friend Jose Cuervo. What had begun as one shot to loosen up after finals had turned out to be a slippery slope of alcoholic consumption. After taking one too many turns on the slip-n-slide of shots, a lot of the evening was a total blank or at least really fuzzy.

  Except one moment. The kiss. Becca clearly remembered being lip to lip with her lifelong best friend, Brian. At least she thought that’s what she remembered. She wasn’t sure what had led up to the smooch or what had transpired after, but that moment seemed as real as it could be, and for the life of her, she could not erase it from her memory. It was permanently tattooed on her consciousness.

  Every few seconds, Becca glanced over her shoulder, furiously scanning the sea of people who stood around her. Brian was hard to miss. At almost six foot four, he towered over most people. His height had always been a source of frustration for Brian, probably because he’d reached his current stature before they’d even graduated from middle school. Becca remembered him literally having growing pains all of eighth grade.

  Growing up, she’d always found his height comforting and endearing. And for the last year—she was embarrassed to admit—she’d found it sexy. Maybe it was because, as an adult, he’d filled out so nicely. Where he used to be tall and gangly, he was now tall and oh-my-lord, fan-yourself, swoon-worthy hot.

  Stop it! Becca chided herself. She seriously had to lock that kind of thinking down before coming face to face with the unknowing, unwitting, unsuspecting recipient of her newfound appreciation of said panty-melting physique.

  Focus on the plan. She needed to get her luggage. Find Brian. Greet him normally. Then, casually, in an oh-so-platonic fashion, catch up and visit on the ride back to Harper’s Crossing. That’s all. No biggie. Easy breezy.

  Spotting a bright, polka-dotted, rectangular, hard-covered suitcase, she decided that it would be her starting point. If it came around again and she still hadn’t spotted her own bags, then she would know she hadn’t missed them.

  “Oh look, dear. Isn’t that your boyfriend?” Stella’s hand rested on Becca’s forearm as she nodded her head in the direction of the ticket counters.

  Becca’s heart was pounding so hard that she feared that there was a very distinct possibility it was going to pump right up her neck and out her mouth. Luckily, as a pre-med student, she knew that it was physically impossible. She turned her head in what felt like slow motion towards the area Stella had indicated. Sure enough, Brian was headed her way, easily navigating through the crowded airport in sure and confident strides.

  As he made his way closer, everything stopped. Her world stopped turning. She stopped breathing. Where mere seconds ago her heart had felt like it was beating furiously, it now felt as if it had stopped all together.

  After a few moments, she began detecting movement in her body. Her hands tingled as if coming back to life after having fallen asleep. Her stomach flipped like it was Jack and Jill tumbling down the hill. The area below her stomach was pulsing as fast as her heart had been moments before. Hey, maybe that’s where her heartbeat had migrated to.

  Be normal. Act normal, she reminded herself.

  Becca watched Brian brush his light-brown hair off his forehead as his head turned from side to side, searching the crowd. Where he was easy to spot, Becca was not. At five foot three—on a good day—and average dark hair covering her head, Becca didn’t exactly stand out in a crowd.

  Somehow, Brian always managed to find her though. He used to joke that locating Becca in a crowd of people was like playing “Where’s Waldo”. To which she’d say that it was probably easy for him to play since he was a giraffe. The ongoing joke had even inspired Halloween costumes their senior year of high school.

  Becca still remembered how shocked she had been to open the door, dressed head to toe as Waldo on her way to the dance, to find Brian standing on her porch in a giraffe costume. They hadn’t planned it. In fact, their costumes had been top secret so that the other wouldn’t know. They’d both doubled over in hysterics, laughing so hard that they couldn’t speak.

  That’s how it had always been between them. In sync. Easy. Fun.

  Which was why she’d felt so off-balance this past year since her feelings had evolved into something more. Not being on the same page with Brian had been a struggle. During every interaction they’d had, whether it was a phone call, FaceTime, Skype, e-mail, or text, she’d constantly second-guessed herself, wondering if she was behaving the way she always had pre-when-did-Brian-become-so-ridiculously-hot days.

  The moment his search landed on her and their eyes met, the tiny hairs on the back of Becca’s arms and neck stood tall at attention. When his lips parted, revealing perfect, white teeth and the dimple on his left cheek, Becca’s knees weakened. When his deep voice greeted her, she grew lightheaded with desire.

  “Hey, Beckles,” Brian said, calling her by the nickname he’d adopted for her in first grade as he pulled her into a warm embrace.

  When Becca was young, she’d had her fair share of freckles sprinkled over her nose. She’d never liked them, but Brian had done his best to convince her that they were cool. Part of his campaign had led to the nickname, and as Becca had grown up, she’d realized that, for a six-year-old boy, giving her a nickname was the coolest thing ever.

  “Hey, Bri.” Becca tried to steady her shaky voice as she wrapped her arms around his waist.

  His large hand threaded through her hair, holding her head tightly against his chest. “I missed you,” he said as he kissed the crown of her head.

  “Same here.” Becca hoped that he couldn’t feel her heart pounding like it was trying out for a drum line against his firm abs.

  Arousal spread through Becca’s body like cream poured into coffee. Soon, her entire being was filled with it. Obviously, her hormones were not heeding the pep talk she had given them on the plane ride. Logically, she knew that Brian’s outpouring of affection did not have any sexual undertones whatsoever. He’d always been very demonstrative and affectionate with the people close to him, the people he cared about. And Brian did care about her—love her, even—as a friend.

  That’s what they were—friends.

  * * *

  Brian was desperately trying to think about anything other than how good the soft curves of Becca’s body felt against him. His hand rubbed up and down the smooth slope of her spine as she melted into him. The pillowy fullness of her breasts pressed against his stomach, causing a fiery need to ignite inside of him like a wildfire.

  He closed his eyes as his fingers grazed her scalp, running through the silky strands of her long, shiny, dark hair, and inhaled the sweet citrus-and-vanilla smell that was unique to Becca Sloan. The scent that had always made him feel happier, lighter, and calm.

  Now, her enticing aroma rocketed his body into sensory overload. It flamed the fires already burning inside of him. His jeans were starting to get more than a little snug beneath his fly, but he didn’t want to pull away from her before he normally would. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was draw attention to the fact that anything was off or different about their dynamic.

  This was Becca. He reminded himself of the pep talk he’d given to himself on the drive o
ver. This was his Becca. The person who always had his back. His confidant. She was more than just his best friend—she was a part of him. Without her, the world didn’t make sense to Brian.

  Which was why he had to ignore the fact that, ever since she’d surprised the hell out of him by kissing him senseless, after he’d made sure that she’d made it safely back to her room at her sister Haley’s wedding, he hadn’t been able to think of her the same way. Or stop thinking about her at all.

  No matter what he did to put her back in the friend zone, she kept slipping out of it when his thoughts would turn to the way her lips had felt against his, to the way her talented tongue had explored his mouth, teasing and seducing him in sensual torment. The soft moans that had triggered the most primal reaction in his body, filling him with raging testosterone-fueled hormones.

  Only when she’d tried to unbutton his pants had he been able to put a stop to their unbelievably passionate kiss. Pulling away from Becca, telling her that “this can’t happen” had been one of the most difficult things he’d ever had to do. For a brief moment, he’d been scared that she was going to start crying. He’d seen the tears pooling in her eyes. Thankfully, she’d mumbled something incoherent about a lobster and flopped on the bed, passing out cold.

  Now, as he stood in a crowded airport, people bumping into him as he held his friend, he knew he needed to pull away from her again. The problem was that, any time they’d gone a long period without seeing each other, he’d always given her long hugs. So he had a decision to make—act a little out of character (which, if push came to shove and she called him on it, he could attribute to being in a rush or stress) or keep holding her, and risk the evidence of his body’s response to her starting to poke her in the hip (something there really was no other viable explanation for, other than the fact that he wanted her…badly).