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An odd grip of unease clamped down on her stomach. Her mouth dried and her tongue clung to the roof of her mouth. She didn’t really know what she expected from him, but it certainly wasn’t that. And it most definitely wasn’t hearing that she was “just Jillian.”
She turned down her lips and drew her brows together. “What exactly does that mean?”
Dean lifted one shoulder again and she barely resisted the urge to smack him for his completely nonchalant attitude. Not to mention his total ignorance of her intentionally hard to miss warning tone. “You’re my best friend. We have fun when we’re doing literally nothing. You aren’t looking to be wined and dined and impressed. I can relax and just be with you.”
Her eyes shouldn’t have filled with tears at his words.
And she shouldn’t have a lump in her throat.
And she most definitely should not look at that statement as being one of the biggest compliments of her life.
But they did and she did and it was. No matter what stupid notions popped into her head where Dean was concerned, at the end of the day they’d be friends and it would be easy and they’d have each other.
She swallowed down the flame of jealousy that had flared when he’d first announced his date that fanned into a larger blaze with the knowledge that this was more than a one time thing. It was an unusual feeling and one she wasn’t really happy with. This was Dean and they were friends. She’d never wanted anything different…until she sort of did.
She took a large drink of water and focused her attention back on the TV screen. It was a ridiculous and potentially dangerous idea.
Teenage boys weren’t exactly known for their maturity and Dean more than fulfilled the childish role. The youngest in the family had been just slightly indulged more than the others and his attitude sometimes showed it. If she let on, even just a little, that she was starting to see him in a different light with each inch he grew taller and the progressive deepening of his voice that somehow began popping up in her dreams, he’d probably get hives at the very thought.
Her head was swimming in conflicting and confusing ideas and his bark of laughter from beside her jolted her back to reality. “What the hell are you laughing at?”
Dean laid a hand to his stomach with a light smack. “I-I-I can’t even…I have to rewind this.” He grabbed the remote and clicked the DVR backward a few scenes. “Check this out. Big bro man here gets completely trashed and winds up…you’ve just gotta see it.”
Jillian’s amusement at drunken stupidity transformed into horror as the young man’s drunken antics resulted in a complete loss of control of nearly every bodily function at the same time. And on national television.
She reached over and grabbed his arm. “Promise me you’ll never let me make that big of a fool of myself, drunk or otherwise.”
“Scout’s honor.” He held up three fingers on his right hand, his thumb and pinky touching near his palm.
She pressed her lips together in a thin line. “You were never a boy scout. Totally meaningless.”
He grinned. “You know I’ll never let anything happen to you, drunk or sober.”
Jillian settled deeper into the couch and laid her head on his shoulder, keeping a firm grip on his forearm. “I know, Sparky.”
Chapter Seventeen
Dean
Present Day
He glanced over at Jillian’s still slumbering form before adding the final scoop of grounds to the basket, closing the lid, and pressing the button to start the coffee he knew she’d be desperate for as soon as she woke. The single serve dispenser he normally used wasn’t going to be enough to tackle the drum line he was certain she’d have playing in her head.
Dean rested his backside against the counter and took a long drink from the glass of orange juice he’d abandoned long enough to start the coffee. Jillian’s drunken declaration from the night before played through his head once again.
My dad gambled away everything.
A twinge of pain had been his immediate reaction. Why did it take excessive amounts of alcohol to elicit the final piece of the puzzle?
Even as the question formed in his mind, he answered it on his own. For better or worse, no matter how much she bucked every tradition and proprietary behavior her mother tried to force down her throat, Jillian loved her family and was devoted to them. Addiction was a painful pill for loved ones to swallow no matter what form it came in.
And certainly Bradford—even in his head, he’d always added a little extra disgusted emphasis to the second half of her brother’s name because he found it to be the most pretentious name ever—couldn’t be bothered to help out in anyway. The tech company he ran from his seven bedroom villa in Phuket, Thailand was the only thing her brother cared about.
Dean gave a soft snort. As much as it annoyed him, he almost understood the eldest Monroe child’s continental move. Helena was an oppressive beast.
A small smile teased the corners of his mouth. In spite of her mother’s best efforts to mold Jillian into a cookie cutter version of herself, the feisty redhead had lived up to every personality trait attached to her ginger hair. She knew what she wanted for her life and lived it out exactly as she’d envisioned, no matter the backlash she received.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.” The string of curses accompanied the banging of limbs against wood as Jillian scrambled to rise from the couch, find her footing, and sprint to the bathroom.
