Falling For My Brother’s Best Friend

Isabella’s POV 

The video was only eleven seconds long.

I watched it three times anyway. My thumb kept pressing the screen, as if the ending might change. The bed was the same bed, the jersey on the girl's back was number nine.

His number nine.

I didn't remember leaving my dorm. I only remember the cold breeze hitting my face and my shoes slapping against the pavement. My phone was shoved into my pocket, and it felt like it was burning a hole through my jeans. The hockey arena came up at the end of the road, bright and loud, and I didn't slow down.

He promised me that jersey. He said it on the bed that night, with his hand in my hair. ‘Only you, Bella. Nobody else will ever wear it.’

I pushed through the doors. The cold of the ice hit me, and so did the sound of skates cutting across it. I found him right away, because I always did. Jace was laughing at the center of the rink with three of his teammates around him, his helmet tucked under his arm.

I walked straight to the glass and slammed my phone against it.

"Tell me that's not you."

The rink went quiet. Jace turned and I looked at his face. I wanted to see confusion, I wanted him to squint at the screen and say, What is that? That's not me. I would have believed him. God, I would have believed anything.

His face didn't change at all. He just looked tired, like I was a problem he had hoped to avoid.

"So you saw it," he said.

My chest cracked open. "Jace.” 

One of his friends whistled low. Another one laughed. Jace skated closer and leaned on the glass, and his eyes moved slowly down my body, from my shoulders to my hips to my shoes. His lip curled.

"Look at yourself, Isabella," he said. "Really look. You're skinny in all the wrong places and soft in the rest. Did you think I enjoyed touching that?"

Someone behind him said, "Damn."

"She actually came here crying," another voice said. "Over this?"

I couldn't breathe. My hands were shaking against the glass. "You said I was beautiful. You said you were mine."

"I said a lot of things." He shrugged. "She's got curves. A real body. You're like holding a bag of bones, and you smell like a family nobody wants near them."

The words hit harder than any slap would have. He knew which parts of me were already broken, and he pressed on every one of them.

"I'm going to be Beta," he said, louder now, so everyone could hear. "My name means something. Your family is a curse, and your brother is the only reason anyone lets you stand in this building. I can't walk next to a weak little omega with a stain on her blood. I reject you, Isabella Peterson. I reject you as my mate."

My chest cracked, I have no good word for it. It felt like someone ripped a rope out of my chest while it was still tied around my heart. My knees hit the floor. Somebody laughed again, and I heard it from very far away.

I got up and I ran.

I don't know how long I walked. The streets blurred. My face was wet, and every time I blinked I saw his eyes moving down my body. Bag of bones. Soft in the rest. Nobody wants you. 

The bar was the first place with a door open. It was dark inside and loud, and it smelled like sweat and whiskey and heat. Wolves everywhere, pressed against each other, hungry and reckless. I didn't care about that either.

"Whatever's strongest," I told the bartender.

I drank the first one without tasting it. Then another. The third one finally made the edges of everything soft. The ache in my chest was still there, but it moved a little further away. That was all I wanted. I just wanted it to be quiet for one hour.

I was reaching for the fourth glass when a hand closed around my wrist.

"Isabella."

I knew that voice before I turned. Deep and angry and it was familiar in a way that made my stomach drop.

Killian?!

My brother's best friend stood behind me with his jaw tight and his eyes burning. 

"Go away," I said, and I turned back to the bar.

He didn't and the next thing I knew, the floor was gone and the world was upside down. He had picked me up and thrown me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing. The bar blurred past, and someone whistled. I screamed and hit his back with both fists.

"Put me down! Killian, put me down!"

The car door opened and the leather seat hit my back and the door slammed shut. He walked around, got in, and locked it. The click sounded very loud.

"Are you insane?" His voice was low and furious. "Do you know what place that is? Half the wolves in there are in heat, Isabella and you walked in alone, smelling like that, looking like a snack, and ordering shots like a girl who wants to be eaten."

"I didn't ask you to come."

"You're a fragile little omega with no pack at your back and no sense in your head. One of them could've dragged you out of there in two minutes, and you couldn't have stopped him. Look at you." His eyes dropped to my arms, my wrists, and the narrow frame of my shoulders. "You're tiny. You couldn't fight off a puppy."

Skinny in all the wrong places. The voice echoed again

"Stop," I whispered.

"Stupid. That's what this is. Completely stupid….”

"Stop it!"

My voice broke on the last word and the tears came, and I couldn't make them stop. They came hard and hot, from somewhere deep in my chest. I pressed my hands over my face and my whole body shook with it. I cried the way I hadn't let myself cry in the street, the arena, or the bar.

I reject you.

Bag of bones.

A stain on your blood.

"He said I was disgusting," I sobbed. "He said it in front of everyone. He said nobody would ever want me, and they laughed. They all laughed."

The car went silent. I heard Killian's breath catch, and then I heard him curse softly. When he spoke again the anger was gone from his voice.

"Who said that?"

I didn't answer. I couldn't. I only cried harder.

A long moment passed. Then his hand came up slowly and hovered near my shoulder, like he was afraid to touch me. "Isabella," he said, rough and quiet. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I didn't know."

I lowered my hands and looked at him. His eyes were wet and dark in the dashboard light, and there was something in his face I had never let myself read before. He was looking at me like I was something precious. For the first time that night, somebody was looking at my body and wasn't disgusted by it.

The ache was still there, loud and endless. And he was right there, warm and solid, and he smelled like safety.

"Take me home," I whispered.

His hands tightened on the steering wheel. "I'll drive you to the dorm. Tell me which…..”

"Not mine." My voice shook, but I made myself say it. "Yours, Killian. Take me to your home.”