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“Fine, you could have moved in with me and I could have footed the bill with my trust fund.”
“I know, but we’re in college now.”
“And that matters why?”
“In high school, everyone knew we were just best friends.”
“Point being?”
“I don’t want people getting the wrong idea.”
He threw his shirt in my face. “Like you’re not going to sleep in my bed anyway.”
“No, sir.” I adamantly shook my head. “You have a girlfriend now. We don’t have slumber parties when you have a girlfriend.”
“Never stopped you before.”
“But I like this one. She’s sweet and smart.”
With an infatuated expression, he stated, “Hayley’s great. She’s sexy as fuck too.”
I nodded, placing his shirt he just threw at me on a hanger. “She does have a great rack.”
“And her ass,” he added with a huge smile. “It’s a ten out of ten.”
“Why, Cade.” I beamed back at him. “You sound awfully smitten. Is she the one?”
During the summer, he met Hayley at Clearwater Beach, and they have basically been inseparable ever since. They’d been together for the past month. From the moment I met her, I knew she was different from most of the girls he usually dated over the years. I liked her. A lot. She genuinely seemed like she was falling in love with him and that’s all I wanted for my best friend.
One of the best parts of their relationship was that Hayley wasn’t intimidated by the friendship Cade and I had. She knew we learned early on we were just meant to be best friends. At thirteen, we were one another’s first kiss. We thought maybe there was something there, but we couldn’t have been more wrong on that notion. It felt like I was kissing my brother and he said it seemed like he was kissing his sister.
No emotions at all.
Not one.
We both quickly realized we were meant to be best friends and nothing more.
In the past, our close relationship was an issue for all his girlfriends. They constantly complained about our friendship and as soon as they did, Cade would cut them loose. He never entertained their demands of putting them before me.
It was always us before anyone else.
No matter what.
Hayley never made me feel like the third wheel I was. They included me in everything they did. It wasn’t anything new for Cade to have some sort of girl in his life. He was kind, respectful, funny, and extremely good-looking. Not to mention, he was Adrian Drake’s younger brother by three years. Girls were constantly trying to use Cade just to get to Adrian.
It was as sad as it was pathetic.
However, Cade used it to his advantage. He loved the attention he didn’t have to work for. It was always just there.
They may have been related, but the Drake brothers were like night and day. Complete opposites of one another. While Cade was reserved and more laidback, Adrian was the life of the party. He was the big man on our college campus. The same way he was in our high school before he graduated. Now he was officially the president of the best statewide fraternity at our university.
Everyone knew who he was. At times, I wondered if Cade felt like he was living in Adrian’s shadow. Although he never admitted it to me, it didn’t take the thought away.
One of the only things they had in common was they were both wicked smart. It was in the Drake genes. Their father was a coding engineer, working with the elite around the world. It didn’t surprise me they both graduated at the top of their classes. There wasn’t anything the Drake brothers couldn’t do, and they proved that time and time again.
Yet, where they really differed was their love lives—or lack thereof for Adrian. Cade was a relationship kind of guy and Adrian… Let’s just say he was a bedhopping kind of man. We’d never seen him with the same girl twice. His reputation as a man whore preceded him wherever he went, but chicks didn’t seem to care as long as they got one night with him. It was pitiful to watch.
Truly pitiful.
