Free The Game Changer: A Novel by J. Sterling

Somewhere fun?” she begged, her bottom lip jutting out.
    I smirked at her suggestion before glancing at Dean. “Sure.” I shrugged, taking a swig from my lukewarm bottle of beer. There were only two bars in this small Alabama town, and after that hellish night when I met Chrystle, I’d sworn I’d never step foot in that particular bar again. So that only left the other one, and I had no idea what it was like.
    “Yes!” Melissa practically shouted before disappearing upstairs to the guest bathroom. “I get to shower first!”
    I eyed my brother. “What’s the latest with you two?”
    “She likes to kiss me.” Dean smiled like a lovesick idiot. “A lot.”
    “Are you in junior high? What the fuck does that even mean?”
    Dean’s face dropped, and I genuinely ached for him. My brother was pretty much the polar opposite of me. He got attached to girls willingly. Whereas I cut every cord possible that tied me down to anyone—until Cassie that is—he fastened triple knots to the people he cared about. When Dean fell for a girl, he fell hard. I half wondered if he did it just to spite me. Just to prove how unlike me he really was.
    “It just means that anytime that girl will let me kiss her, I’m going to take it. I like her, alright. I just don’t think she really likes me.”
    I punched him in the arm. “Kiss her better then, jackass.”
    “I kiss her just fine, fuck you very much.”
    “Obviously not,” I teased. Sensing his defenses on the rise, I backed off. I loved to torment my little brother, but I didn’t enjoy actually hurting him.
    “You want me to talk to her for you?” I offered, wondering what Melissa’s deal was.
    Dean’s back straightened as his shoulders tensed. “Definitely not. The last thing I want is for you to talk to her.”
    “Just tryin’ to help, little brother.” I took another sip before pouring the rest of the bottle down the sink. Warm beer tasted like piss. The shower turned off and Dean glanced up the stairs. “Go up there, already. What you should have done was hopped in the shower with her,” I suggested with a laugh.
    “You’re such a dick,” he shot back as he headed toward the bathroom.
    “But I’m right,” I shouted as he flipped me off over his shoulder.

    We sat around the small circular oak table, drinking and laughing. Melissa pounded her tiny fist against the tabletop before shouting over the music, “Jack, I forgot to tell you that I sent Cassie the jar of quarters the other day!”
    My mind drifted back to the night she left, standing alone in her old room while I stared at the jar she’d left behind. “Why?”
    “She asked for it. And she made me promise to wrap it in like a thousand layers of bubble wrap so it wouldn’t break.”
    I raised my eyebrows and offered a cocky grin, happy to hear this revelation when my eye caught sight of the last possible person in the world I’d ever want to see, with her maid of honor trailing behind her. My jaw tensed as I cracked my neck.
    “Oh, look who it is, Vanessa. My husband.” Chrystle’s grating voice rang in my ears, and I suddenly wished I were deaf. “And if it isn’t his delicious brother too. Vanessa, you remember Dean, don’t you? From the weddin’?” She looked toward Vanessa, who shifted uncomfortably but didn’t respond. “Hi, Dean. How you doing, sweetie?” Chrystle cooed in her syrupy accent as she continued to invade our space.
    I glanced at Melissa, who was making fists with her hands, her eyes narrowed into tiny slits, and her mouth snarling. “Jesus, Jack, I guess it’s true what they say about beer goggles,” Melissa sniped, giving Chrystle the once-over with pure disgust in her eyes.
    Chrystle’s jaw dropped slightly and her eyes got huge. “What did you say?”
    “I said you’re as ugly on the outside as you are on the inside,” Melissa spat out. For a tiny thing, she sure was ballsy. I fucking loved it. Melissa said everything to Chrystle that I couldn’t say