Todos los capítulos de Saved by Brother's Best Friend: Capítulo 11 - Capítulo 20

Marianna.I've been living in Duane Richter's apartment for five days, and I've seen him exactly twice.Once at 2 AM on Wednesday, when I got up to pee and found him standing in the kitchen in the dark, drinking water straight from a bottle like some kind of nocturnal cryptid. We made eye contact. Neither of us said anything. I shuffled back to the guest room like the gremlin I am, and by morning he was gone.Once on Friday, when I was eating peanut butter straight from the jar—don't judge me, I'm in survival mode—and heard the elevator ding. I dove behind the kitchen island like I was dodging sniper fire, crouching there with my spoon clutched to my chest while his footsteps passed through the living room and disappeared down the hall. He never even knew I was there.I've become a cockroach. A peanut-butter-eating, hoodie-stealing, furniture-hiding cockroach who's too embarrassed to face her host and too broke to leave.I know he's still here—the evidence is everywhere, if you know h

Marianna.I don't remember leaving the interview.Miami's brutal May sun hitting me like a slap, my Target blazer sticking to my back, my feet moving without permission from my brain.He's fine. He has to be fine.F1 cars are designed for this. The halo. The survival cell. All those carbon fiber layers. Drivers walk away from crashes all the time. I've seen the compilations on YouTube—spectacular wrecks that look like death on wheels, and then the driver just... climbs out. Waves to the crowd. Posts an Instagram story about it later.He's fine.My phone is dead again—of course it is, because this piece of shit device has a battery life of approximately forty-seven minutes—so I can't check the news. Can't see if they've shown him getting out of the car. Can't confirm that he's alive and whole and not currently being airlifted to some trauma center while I'm power-walking through Brickell like a lunatic in uncomfortable shoes.The blisters have already started. I can feel them forming o

Marianna.I wake up to the specific kind of silence that only exists after you've done something catastrophically embarrassing.The grey ceiling stares down at me. I stare back. We have a moment.You hugged him, my brain supplies helpfully.I roll over and check the cracked iPhone. 7:23 AM. Monday.God.I need to talk to him. Apologize. Explain that I'm not usually a nightmare-having, chest-burying lunatic who throws herself at men in the middle of the night. That it was a momentary lapse in judgment brought on by stress and sleep deprivation and the general catastrophe that is my existence.I need to look him in the eye and prove that I'm fine.I can do this.Probably.I find him in the gym.He's facing away from the door, standing in front of the mirror wall, and for a second I just... watch. Like a creep. Like the pathetic creature I apparently am.He's shirtless again—because why would he ever wear a shirt, why would he make anything easier for me—and there's a bruise blooming acr

Marianna."I'm not interested."Three words. Delivered with the emotional temperature of liquid nitrogen."Excuse me?""In you."The words hit me like physical blows. Each one a separate, brutal impact, bruising something deep inside my chest that I didn't even know was exposed. The air in the home gym suddenly feels paper-thin. The heat radiating off his skin seems to evaporate, replaced by a suffocating vacuum."I wasn't—""I'm not blind," Duane cuts in, his voice low and devoid of any warmth. He steps into my space. He leans closer, and for one insane, heart-stopping second, my treacherous body thinks he's going to kiss me. Instead, he said. "But you need to understand something. You're not my type. You never have been."You're not my type.The room starts to spin. Or maybe I'm spinning. Everything is off-axis, tilted, fundamentally wrong.He steps back, putting distance between us, and the cold rushes in to fill the gap. He looks at me with those dark, unreadable eyes, standing t

Marianna.The digital cleanup begins with a vengeance.Back in the guest room, illuminated only by the sterile blue glow of Duane’s cracked spare iPhone, I sit cross-legged on the edge of the mattress and launch into an operation I should have executed years ago. I am purging. I am tearing down every digital shrine, every secret altar, every pathetic little thread of parasocial attachment I’ve maintained to a man who looks at me like I’m an annoying bug on his windshield.I tap open Instagram, navigating directly to the hidden burner account I made back in college—the one with a fake name and a profile picture of a golden retriever where I secretly followed every F1 fan page, meme account, and paddock insider blog just to catch blurred, geotagged glimpses of Duane walking into circuits. I go straight to his official handle. The blue checkmark mocks me. Without a second hesitation, I hit the three dots in the top right corner.Block.Block all new accounts they may create.Confirm.It