If There's Something

Chapter 3

  If seeing Levi made me so nervous, I would probably hide under a rock when Rush came into my vicinity or maybe I'd melt into a nervous mess? But he wasn't in the house when we walked in. Wes had already disappeared upstairs to dump our stuff in the guest rooms, leaving me alone with Levi. I wasn't going to ask where Rush was though. I didn't have the guts. At least I had spoken to Levi at his mother's funeral but Rush hadn't been there and he had ignored all my calls and texts after. Maybe it was dread that I felt when I thought about him and not anything else.

"Hungry?" Levi asked, bursting my bubble of thought. "I missed lunch, too. I could whip us something up."

"You can cook?" I asked and he shrugged with a small smile.

"I had to do something to get my mind off..." he trailed off but I knew what he meant to say. I lifted myself onto one of the bar stools in the kitchen and leaned over the counter to watch him as he pulled out various vegetables out of the fridge and started chopping them in a professional manner.

"So what're you studying?" I asked since he was a year older than I was and had probably joined some college or university the year before.

"I took the year off. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do," he said softly but I knew he was lying. His voice told me that there was more to the story than not knowing what he wanted.

"So, now do you know?" I asked. I had to make conversation without bringing Rush into it.

"I'm thinking Culinary school," he looked up to give me a half-smile and I looked away quickly. "I used the year to earn myself some money to pay for college myself."

Levi had grown up so much. More than just in the way he looked. Yes, he had grown much taller and was now just a few inches shorter than Wes. He had always been on the leaner side but his muscles and flat chest and stomach were all pretty visible. His curly brown hair which had always been messy when we had been kids was now cut short, making his soft brown eyes unmistakably cuter. But it was more than that. He had always been mommy's boy but he seemed like he was doing well even after she was gone. He seemed independent and happy, relying on himself since their father was never home and from the looks of it, neither was Rush.

"Nice," I breathed out. "My major is undecided but I'm not skipping a year. I'll figure it out on the way."

"I thought you'd become an Olympic swimmer by now," he joked, looking up and I gaped as the sun caught his eyes, revealing gold specs just like Aunt Marya had.

"I stopped swimming," I admitted and he gaped at me in return. "I joined a different team, made friends-"

"This generation doesn't know what the word friend really means," Wes cut me off, appearing behind me. He put his arms around my shoulders from behind and leaned onto me.

"Get off, you're heavy," I groaned and tried to push him off but he didn't budge.

"A friend is a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations," Wes stated. "But this generation throws out the word and then bitches about them or sleeps with their boyfriends or girlfriends."

"Did you swallow a dictionary?" I asked him and Levi let out a short laugh. "Fine. I didn't make friends but I had people to hang out with through high school."

"You mean Tucker and Monique?" Wes finally got hid weight off me and took a seat on the bar stool next to me. "I have no idea why you even hung out with them. No offence but neither of them are even close to reaching your caliber."

"It doesn't matter, it's not like I'll be seeing any of them again," I brushed him off but he wasn't done. I guess he needed something to talk about.

"So you're breaking up with Tucker?" he asked and I felt Levi's eyes on me.

"He's going to a different state," I reminded him. "And it's not like we loved each other."

"At least I know I won't have to hold you when you cry over him," he retorted sarcastically. "Since there won't be any tears."

Levi set three plates on the counter, ending the conversation since we were all too hungry to stop eating even for a minute to talk in between bites.

Later, I unpacked the contents of my bags and neatly folded them, stacking them in the cupboard of the guest room which had been my room during all the summers I had spent in this house. It still looked the same – white washed walls with lace curtains, sky blue bedding with a white and blue canopy over the bed, a wooden cupboard and dressing table with an attached bathroom.

I didn't have a doubt that Wes had conked off in his room the second we had come up and I didn't want to disturb Levi either. If I was going to stay the summer, I was going to keep to myself and try not to bother any of them.

So I padded downstairs, wondering whether the horse stables were the same and whether they still had Pepper – my black stallion – or whether they had given her away. Aunt Marya had gotten her for me a long time ago. A time where I had been left out by Rush, Levi and my brother and had spent my summer days sitting indoors, sulking. She had taught me how to ride him even though I wasn't very good at riding.

I slipped out of the back door and into the grass on the other side. I kicked off my heels and picked them up as I walked through the grass, holding them until I reached the dirt path that led to the horse stables. I was bending down to put them back on when a shadow loomed past me. I looked up to find a girl with brown hair that was messed up with pieces of straw stuck in it. Her make-up was smudged, her jeans were unbuttoned and she was frantically trying to button her shirt. She glanced at me, her cheeks turning a bright red before she ducked her head and rushed off in the opposite direction.

Confused, I went back to putting my heels on. I was straightening out my dress when I looked up again to find Rush exit the horse stables next with his shirt buttoned but his jeans unbuttoned. I was pretty sure he had grown taller than Wes, with the same amount of muscles and abs that probably had me drooling already. His hair was the same as Levi's only a little longer and spiked up but his eyes were what got me every time. His beautiful grey eyes which darkened only when he was upset or angry.

Remember the nervous mess I had mentioned earlier? I couldn't melt into that because watching Rush follow that girl out after he probably fucked her was enough to send me running back toward the house.

He didn't call after me and I didn't expect him to. I mean, what was I to him? Nothing.

I was just some childhood friend that had fallen in love with him and followed him like a lost puppy. He had never felt anything for me and he hadn't kept in contact or even tried to talk to me in over four years so yeah, he had no reason to clear up anything between us. Not that I had misunderstood anything because it was obvious he had just had sex with that girl. She could even be his girlfriend. Maybe he loved her. Whoever she was.