~Matthew~

I was damn near to the point of ripping my hair out. 

She was insufferable, she really was. 

My ball fell through the hoop just as Eli was there to snatch it up and back and forth across the court we ran until I was a ragged, sloppy, sweaty mess and my bones creaked with every single step I took. 

"Alright man, I'm tapping out."

Eli's face lit up, like I'd just told him a hilarious joke, when in reality, I just couldn't get my mind off his damn sister. 

The girl I'd kissed the night before.  And the night before that, apparently. 

God, I was so fucked. 

There was no way I would be able to face her again, not after the idiotic, dickhead shit I'd spouted to her, but how else could I get her to stop what she was doing?  There couldn't be a thing between us, there just couldn't be, there was no way getting around that. 

I would just stay away from her, that's it. 

"We just started two hours ago, you getting old already?"

"Shut up dude, I'm just tired."

"Yeah, I get that.  So," he started, bending down to the chair on the sideline and grabbing up a towel and water bottle, pausing to take a long swig and dab at the sweat beading on his brow. 

The harsh lighting of the courts reminded me of the shitty lighting in the car the night before, then that brought forth a whole shit ton of memories that I didn't need to be thinking about in front of Elodie's brother.  My best friend.  He was my best friend, not Elodie's brother. 

If I started thinking about her as the main person in my life, then that was who she'd become, and I couldn't afford for her to be that person in my life, not now and not ever. 

Not only would Eli castrate me if he knew that we'd already kissed twice, but there was a possibility that I could lose my best friend, and I couldn't lose someone else, not after the shit that went down in my family. 

But could I handle losing Elodie too once she realized just how much I was icing her out?

"Hello?  Are you even here right now bro?  Your head is totally somewhere else."

"Oh shit, sorry.  I'm just distracted.  Uh-family stuff."

"Oh, I figured it was something like that.  I was just asking how things went with Elodie yesterday, I know she didn't stop to talk to us on her way to her room and I haven't had a chance to ask you about it yet.  She ran off early this morning, too, something about college orientation and all that.  Man, I do not miss those days."

Fear seized up my gut at the mention of last night, but I liked to believe that I schooled my features into nothingness. 

"It was fine, she fell and scraped her head before I got there but when I did I got her out of there.  Her car is still at the track though so someone will need to go and get it before she asks her friend to take her back there and she gets into even more shit."

Eli sighed, a bedraggled sound that pointed to years of worry and nights of staying up concerned about his little sister.  I thought back to the monologue she'd given me when I confronted her about how everything she'd been doing was dangerous, how she said she hadn't cared because that was the one time she could really breathe or felt alive. 

Was there a piece of the puzzle I was missing, something about her past that Eli hadn't told me?  Or maybe something had happened that she hadn't told Eli about, something that kept driving her back to these dangerous stunts and death defying shit that she liked to call a 'hobby'.  

"I just don't know what to do with her.  She's not with Ben anymore so I can't have her boyfriend help me out with convincing her against this shit and Phoebe is against it but not enough to make her stop.  Who knows what she'll get up to in college.  God, if Evie gives me this much hell at Elodie's age, I'm not gonna have anymore hair left to pull out."

"Maybe just...I don't know man, give her some space?  You tried being on top of her all the time and that backfired with the fights, but honestly, I think that girl can take care of herself."

I knew all too well, remembering the seductive sway of her hips in the club, the fact that she'd disappeared from the bar that night and made it back home unscathed not lost on me.  She clearly had experience with protecting herself if her martial arts training was any indication.  The biggest mistake her brother could make was underestimating his little sister. 

Little sister.  God, why had I said that was how I viewed her, when it was the farthest thing from the truth?  Because I'd wanted to push her away.  Because in the dim lights of the car and the stuffy atmosphere pushing us together, all I'd wanted to do was close the distance between us and kiss the hell out of her, but she'd just made the first move. 

And then the revelation that she was the girl from the club, the girl that I'd been obsessing over ever since that night had happened...it was too much to handle.  I could barely control my racing mind, much less the head in between my legs for the rest of the drive back to the city in silence, the only sounds between us my labored breathing and her tapping away on her phone like nothing important had even happened between the two of us, like she could just turn it all off, like she didn't feel just as turned upside down as I had in that moment. 

I knew it was all a bluff, a deflection to keep me from thinking that she cared, but the flutter of her pulse underneath my hand was a telltale sign that she wasn't as unbothered as she pretended to be.

"If I give her space, who's to say she won't go skydiving or swimming with sharks or something even stupider, putting herself in danger when she's barely legal?  Sometimes I wish I could just wrap her in bubble wrap and lock her in the apartment."

"You do that, put her under lock and key and you'll just push her even farther away.  You told me you didn't want to end up controlling your kids like V's father, and like it or not, Elodie is basically your kid now, too, so don't fuck it up by pulling that too-controlling bullshit.  It'll just make everything worse.  Have you tried just, like, talking it out?"

Eli's bark of laughter bounced off the walls of the practice court, the harshness of it surprising me. 

"Have you tried having an honest, heartfelt conversation with that girl?  It's like pulling teeth trying to get her to say something without sarcasm or pretending like everything is fine, it's like she's in denial about how bad this has gotten."

"I don't know, but it's worth a shot to keep trying, just show her you're not going anywhere and you'll always be there.  Maybe it just takes some time."

Heaven knows if only my parents had shown they cared, even one ounce, then maybe our circumstances would've been different.  It wasn't too late for Eli and his sister. 

"Thanks man.  I know you speak from experience, so I'll try and take your advice."

I flinched internally at his words.  It was one thing for me to acknowledge my past trauma, but sometimes I forgot that it was common knowledge between me and my best friend, like it was something for me to be ashamed about, that I'd had a great childhood but my parents had grown into parents that no child would ever want. 

"Good, you should."

We cleaned up and made small talk until it was time to figure out our practice schedules for the rest of the month and once the season started, officially. 

"I won't have time to help Elodie move into school because I have a meeting with our head coach that day.  Is there any way you'd want to go with V and move her in?  I'd reschedule, but you know how hard it is to get an audience with Coach."

I knew all too well how hard it was to get the head coach to pay you any attention when you weren't on the courts, his voice screaming at you to get in line or to fix every tiny little mistake he noticed with his hawk eyes, but did I want to risk being in Elodie's orbit longer than was necessary?  Did I want to encourage her, even when her actions were already so emboldened?

"Please?  There might even be a few hot coeds you could have your eye on..."

I cringed outwardly at his words, and it wasn't lost on him. 

"What?  You can't tell me you're still on a woman strike."

"Mhm.  No women for me.  It's been about six months."

"Jesus.  You need to get laid.  When V couldn't have sex after having Evie I swear I had a private meeting with my hand in the shower about twice a day."

"Please.  That was you every single day, even before you met her.  You took two hour showers and wasted all the hot water."

He laughed as we reminisced on the funnier parts of our childhoods, omitting the much darker spots in them. 

"So what do you say?  I'd really appreciate your help, and it would be nice to have a guy helping Ellie out with all her shit because V will probably be chasing Evie all over the place to be able to help much."

Why was it so hard for me to say no and to stop being a people pleaser? 

"Sure, man.  When is it?"

"Next Saturday."

"Alright, I'll be there.  She's at Hendricks?"

"Yeah, and their basketball team isn't half bad, either.  Maybe you could stop by and make a celebrity appearance."

"Please, that's your shit, not mine."

"Yeah, yeah.  Thank you, by the way.  It'll really help me out knowing she won't be without a good body guard her first day at that place.  Maybe you can scare all the guys off, too, now that she's single."

"Heh.  Yeah, maybe."

I couldn't help but point out in my head that the only guy he needed to scare off was the man he was trusting with his sister in the first place, because I couldn't be held accountable for the way her presence made my heart bound in my chest when she was near, how my blood sizzled in my veins with her proximity. 

And I definitely couldn't help myself when she made the first move.  A few more seconds alone with her before coming to my senses and I didn't think I'd be able to stop myself, not unless she pulled back first. 

And that was the scariest part of it all, because in the heat of that moment I knew in startling clarity that there was no way she would be the one to pull back, and for a few seconds, I didn't want her to.

***

A/N:

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Until next time my lovely readers, 

Kristen :)