She Was NEVER JUST MY BROTHER’S BEST FRIEND

I spotted Serena before she spotted me.

I will be honest, some things never changed in her.

She was leaning against a black SUV outside the arrivals terminal of the airport, one tattooed arm folded across her chest while the other held a paper cup of coffee.

Maybe not admiring, but loving.

At age eleven, I thought Serena Walsh hung the moon, and honestly, at twenty-two, I still did.

“Maya?” Her voice cut through the crowd, warm and familiar. Serena’s eyes landed on me across the crowd, then she froze as the coffee cup stopped halfway through her mouth. “Oh, my God.”

I smiled despite how I felt. “Hi, Serena.”

“No way,” she said ironically.

I laughed nervously. “Last time I checked, it’s still me.”

“That is impossible!”

“I am pretty sure it is not.”

She pushed herself off the SUV and walked towards me. The closer she got, the more confused she looked. “When did this happen?”

“When did what happen?” I asked back.

Serena then gestured vaguely in front of me. “All of…” Her eyes went back from my face to my breast, to my hips, to my boots, before snapping back upward. “…this.”

“Jesus, Maya.”

If anything, distance made it worse. While other girls were kissing strangers at school parties, I kept comparing the girls to Serena.

At twenty-nine, Serena owned the most popular nightclub in town and had six tattoos that I knew of, also wondering if there were more hidden beneath her clothes. She had her dark hair tied into a messy bun, in black jeans, and a leather jacket.

“You’ve been away for four years,” I said lightly to Serena. “So, you should know people tend to change.”

“No, people get haircuts. They don’t…” She suddenly shook her head.

There was a strange look in her eyes that I’d never seen before, and for a second, I wondered. “Your brother forgot to mention I’d be picking up an entirely different person.”

Serena had known me since I was eight. For years, she called me “kid,” but standing in that airport, she wasn’t looking at me that way anymore.

“Come here.” Before I could ask what she meant, she pulled me into a deep hug.

That was a mistake. Serena had always smelled like cedarwood and something faintly sweet and seductive.

For just one moment, I forgot how breathing worked.

She gripped my suitcase before I could protest it, and soon loaded my load into her vehicle. “Your brother would kill me if I didn’t,” she said, defending why she took my stuff from me.

The drive home was worse than I remembered. I spent most of it trying not to stare at her hands on the steering wheel, which seemed ridiculous to me because who develops a thing for hands?

“So,” she said, staring over at me. “Tell me everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yes. Everything.”

I smiled at her. “I graduated.”

“Yeah sure. I heard,” she smiled back.

“I got a job offer.”

“Your mom mentioned that to me also.”

I frowned immediately. “Do my parents now tell you everything?”

“They’ve basically adopted me at this point.”

Considering that I spent most family dinners imagining kissing her.

“I missed you, you know,” those words slipped out before I could stop them.

Her expression softened. “I missed you too, my love.”

Oh, that was dangerous. “You did?”

“Of course, I did.”

“No offense, but I felt like you were too busy running your empire.” She laughed after I said that.

“I can miss people and run a business at the same time.”

I looked out the window before she could see me smiling. “The house felt different without you around,” she added.

“I kept expecting you to come home for holidays,” she added.

“I was busy.”

“You were avoiding this town.”

I shrugged. Maybe.”

“And maybe you were avoiding me?”

My breath caught. There was no way she knew that.

She glanced at me briefly before returning her attention to the road. “Relax, my love. I am kidding.”

My phone soon buzzed.

ETHAN: Tell Serena to drive carefully before they get you all arrested.

I rolled my eyes as I sent two laughing emojis to him.

We pulled into my parents’ driveway, and the front door flew open before the engine was off.

“MAYA!”

My mother puts out herself across the lawn.

The next ten minutes disappeared into hugs and tears. Even my father looked emotional.

Through it all, Serena stood near her vehicle with her hands placed softly in her pockets while watching us.

Later that evening after the excitement settled, I found myself alone in the kitchen searching for coffee, and then Serena soon joined me as she walked closer.

She was close enough for me to notice the tiny scar above her eyebrow that she’d gotten in a motorcycle accident when I was fifteen.

“It’s good to have you back.” Serena’s voice was quieter now.

“You changed a lot while you were away.”

Heat rushed to my face as that was not a situation I had prepared for. “I...” She was eloquent. “Thank you.”

“Your brother’s going to lose his mind.”

“You know,” she said while grabbing a bottle of water from the refrigerator, “I always thought you’d come back and break some poor guy’s heart.”

It came to me as more of a shock. “Maybe I have different plans.”

Something unreadable passed across her face. “Well,” she said after a moment, “whoever she is…”

She? Not he? I couldn’t contain the shock in me as my chest tightened.

“…she’s going to be very lucky.”

I couldn’t stop staring at her. Serena was not looking away either.

Somewhere in the living room, my parents were laughing, but the kitchen felt strangely quiet.

“Serena?”

“Yeah?” She said as I swallowed.

“What made you think it’d be a she?”

Something shifted in her expression as she stared straight at me. “Call it a guess.”

A guess. Except that her expression didn’t sound like a guess and her stare towards me didn’t feel like a guess either.

Before I could figure out what any of it meant, Ethan’s voice echoed from the hallway towards the kitchen. “SERENA!”

For the briefest moment, I could have sworn that she was about to say something important.

“Mom wants to know if you’re staying for dinner,” Ethan said as he appeared in the doorway.

And just like that, the moment shattered instantly as Serena blinked. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute."

Ethan soon left the kitchen, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the look that had crossed Serena’s face before my brother walked in.

As she turned towards the door to leave, she paused for a second, and then glanced back at me over her shoulder.

She looked like she wanted to say something important. Instead, she shook her head. “Get some rest, Maya.”

Then she walked away.

My heart couldn’t function, and before I could respond, Serena walked out of the kitchen, and for the first time since coming home, I couldn’t stop wondering whether the thing I felt for Serena Walsh was still one-sided.