Signed, Sealed, Delivered: A brother’s best friend / anonymous penpal romance (Wells Family)

Age 17:

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Shiny,

Do me a HUGE favor and watch How To Lose A Guy in Ten Days RIGHT NOW!

I’m in the middle of bingeing ’90s and 2000s rom-coms, and I’m 99% sure this one is my fav. My mom and I watched it like 100 times (jk. It was twice) this week, and we’ve been quoting it all day. Anyway, Matthew McConaughey could totally get it. That smirk, ugh.

My point here is that if you ever have a crush on a girl and you want her to find you hot, pull up that movie, wear your hat backward, and at least act like it’s the best movie you’ve ever seen. Thank me later. From now on, you can consider me your love expert, because let me tell you, I would KILL it as the man of the relationship, SO YOU’RE FREAKING WELCOME.

Anyway, what are your plans for next week? My oldest brother and I are going downtown together. He’s on leave from the air force, and I can only see him for a couple days, so if I don’t answer much, that’s why. He’s never home, so when he is, I soak it in as much as possible. I miss him like crazy the second he leaves, which probably sounds ridiculous to you, an only child. It really is strange, I guess, because he used to drive me crazy, and now he’s all I think about when he leaves. Well, him and Matthew McConaughey.

Sorry for ranting. Ate a LOT of chocolate-covered popcorn, and it’s rushing to my head.

Hugs and sneezes,

Lily

***

For the first time since I moved in, Nathan was home before me. When I saw his car in the designated parking spot for our apartment, I felt almost giddy. I rushed up to the apartment quicker than usual. Maybe because I had such a good day, or maybe because there was an incredible frozen meat lovers pizza in the freezer just calling my name, but either way, I picked up the pace.

I caught sight of my reflection in the stainless-steel door of the elevator, and yikes. My hair was in a knotted bun on my head, with stray hairs—which I liked to call my angel wings—flying about. What little makeup I’d put on this morning was smeared from sweat, and I was almost positive I smelled of craft beer and new construction sheetrock. I licked my pointer finger and attempted to fix my hair, but it was no use. The defiant little wings sprung back up, one by one.

And why did it matter anyway? I had no one to impress at home. For goodness’ sake, I spent far too much time in an oversized Winnie the Pooh zipper onesie before I moved home. And when I ran into my hot neighbor, I’d offer to let him borrow my Piglet one, and when he said no, I’d move on with my day. With a long breath out, I forced my shoulders to relax and focused on my feet. Because the mirror was not for me today.

Opening the door wide, I went with the first thing that came to mind. “Honey, I’m home!”

There was no response. Hmm. Maybe he was in his room. Or maybe he was playing music. I didn’t hear the sound of his piano or guitar, though. Oh my gosh, what if he had a girl over? We never did discuss the sock on the doorknob thing. If I interrupted Nathan’s boinking session by shouting “Honey, I’m home!” I’d surely go down in history as the world’s worst roommate.

I tiptoed my way deeper into the apartment, as if it would make up for my shouting upon entry. And there, in the living room, was Nathan, remote pointed at his mouth, scrolling through a list of movies queued up on the TV.

“Hey, how was your day?” he asked, casually propped up against the couch cushions. He wore a red hat turned backward. It had a white Phillies logo I could only make out because he was still facing the TV. His black shirt was tight around his arms, showcasing the veins cascading down to where he held the remote, his gray shorts were a little shorter than anything I had seen him in so far, and I couldn’t help but appreciate the man’s incredible legs. I knew a good shin when I saw one.

I cleared my throat and set my camera bag on the accent chair in front of me. “Pretty good.” I bit my lip, suddenly nervous. “I spent some time setting up a social media page and creating logos for you. Do you want to see?”

Rationally, I knew he wouldn’t say no. He was a nice guy, and I was pretty good at getting people to say yes to me. My track record of sneaking my way to the front of sporting events and concerts spoke for itself. And by no means would I ever consider myself shy. But Nathan Huxley’s opinion had somehow become the one I valued above all else, and I was apprehensive about his reaction.

So, naturally, he did exactly what I thought he would, even if my heart was prepared for rejection. He sat up straighter, tucking his legs closer to the couch and lifting his chin. “Definitely. Show me what you got.”

Smiling to myself, I pulled out my laptop and opened the browser. Clicking the tabs, one after another, I showed him three logo examples, along with a branding kit filled with navy, natural wood, and white accents. I’d even done a mockup of a graphic that said Guitar and Piano Lessons Near You! in a neutral and inviting font.

Nathan scrolled through each one, his expression the definition of neutral. The graphic on the last slide was a guitar pick. His name was printed above it, and inside it, the words Music Lessons were scrawled in a retro style. It was my personal favorite because the text looked similar to a classic baseball font, and there was a tiny cap above the a in Nathan.

“You just…made these?” He was staring at the screen in rapt fascination, and his voice was low and filled with awe, like that of a child seeing the Welcome To Walt Disney World sign for the first time. It was adorable.

I smiled to myself. “Yeah. Took me about an hour to throw it together. We can change the colors or patterns. It’s just a rough idea.”

“I—” He puffed out a breath, shaking his head with a small laugh. “This is incredible, Calla.” He clicked through each tab again, his focus firmly locked on the images before him.

I snorted in the most unladylike manner. “It’s not a big deal. Just some simple mockups. But I’m happy to do it. I thought maybe I could go with you to a lesson this week so I can get a few pictures for your socials. Then we can go from there. Also, email me your pricing lists and what not so I can include it all.”

The whole time I rambled, Nathan smiled and nodded like a baseball player bobblehead. “This is so cool. You did all these in half an hour, and it took me an entire day to make one really awful flyer.”

I took the laptop from his lap, bumping my elbow against his. When my fingers grazed his shorts, my cheeks flamed, and I swore the couch shrank. All of a sudden, it was far smaller than when I was on it by myself last night.

Clearing my throat, I closed my laptop and averted my gaze to the TV.

“So, uh, what were you about to watch?” I waved a hand at the remote sitting on the end table beside him.

He hesitated for a second, blinking like he was coming back from somewhere far away. “Oh, um. How To Lose A Guy in Ten Days…” He trailed off.

“Shut up!” I cried, pulling my knees to my chest. My sandals dropped to the floor in front of the coffee table. “I love that movie.”

Nathan opened his mouth, closed it again, then gave me a side smirk.

“You don’t say?” The way he said it sounded so confident, so suave. So not the Nathan I’d known for the last couple of years.

“Yes! It’s one of my favorite movies of all time. I’ll get the popcorn.”

I practically jumped off the couch and ran into the kitchen. The man kept an absurd amount of movie theater popcorn on hand. It was ridiculous, really, because the microwave stuff had nothing on the tiny balls of heaven popped fresh at our local Amstar. But I would take what I could get.

With two bags popped, I held them each by a corner so I wouldn’t get burned and skipped back into the living room, where Nathan had the movie pulled up. He looked up at me and smiled, his right cheek sporting a small dimple and the scruff on his face looking a little more kempt than when I first moved in.

His eyes—like a desktop screen saver of a forest filled with sage greens and wood accents—trailed to my hands full of popcorn, and back up to my face. How had I never noticed how beautiful his eyes were?

He reached for a bag when I stopped in front of the couch. “Thanks. Luke left a bottle of seasoning he kept on hand for Layla. You’re welcome to it if you want. It’s in the drawer by the microwave.”

I let out an amused puff of air through my nose. “Yeah, she’s obsessed with that stuff.”

He laughed. “You should have seen Luke when he found out she liked it. He ordered it in bulk from Costco. Pretty sure he has enough for a lifetime.”

“I’m not surprised. He’d probably buy her an entire factory and manufacture it just for her if he could.”

Nathan let out a deep, throaty laugh. A laugh I wanted to swim into. It was so comforting and inviting. Like a pool on the first day of summer.

“I could definitely see that.”

Ten minutes into this movie I adored, one that I watched on the regular with my mom and could quote nearly every line of, I was distracted. My brain was too busy ruminating on questions like How in the world is Nathan Huxley still single?

Though that was an assumption. The man had never explicitly said he wasn’t seeing anyone. He could be seeing multiple women, a whole flock of them, an Uber pool full of Nathan groupies. But then again, I lived with him, and I didn’t know many women who would be okay with their boyfriend living with another girl. Especially one as great as me. That was another topic that should have been covered during a roommate 101 course. Relationship statuses of roommates should probably be common knowledge. So no, it was unlikely he was involved. Plus, between his day job and music lessons, the guy worked nonstop, so I couldn’t see how he’d even have the time.

It was rude to ask, and my mom got on to me all the time about manners, but I. Couldn’t. Stop. Staring. He was a puzzle I wanted to put together, have framed, and then hang on the wall so that every time a guest came over, I could brag about it obnoxiously.

I was memorizing Nathan’s jawline, which I felt the strong urge to do a diamond on, when he turned and frowned at me. “What?”

My head was turned almost ninety degrees, and my lips were pursed as though I was solving a Rubik’s cube in my head.

“Why are you single?”

I hadn’t meant for it to sound so brash, but the question was an honest one. The man was an anomaly.

He looked a little taken aback at first. He cocked a brow, then dropped his head back so the brim of his backward hat hit the cushion behind him. When he sat up straight again, he stared at something over my shoulder and hummed like he was searching for the answer.

“You play multiple instruments. You have a good job. You love kids. You voluntarily watch How To Lose A Guy in Ten Days. And you have that”—I gestured to his stupidly handsome face—“whole thing going on. It doesn’t make sense.”

Nathan’s neck turned red under my watch, and pink splotches rose to his cheeks. “Um, thanks?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want thanks. I want answers.”

He let out what sounded like a nervous laugh and squinted down at me. “You remember the first time we met?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “I vividly remember the occurrence.”

The pink on his tan skin deepened. “That’s why.”

Not understanding, I repositioned myself, pulling my yellow throw blanket across my lap and adjusting my legs so they were crossed a few inches away from his thighs. “What do you mean?”

“I—” He sighed. “I can have all this confidence before I talk to a girl, right? In my head, I’m so smooth and confident. It’s all good up there, no problems. And then the second a beautiful girl approaches me, it all crumbles. I stutter and say things that I’d never normally say. My hands look for something to do—”

“Like shake her boob?”

He groaned and dropped his head back against the cushion. “Agh, no. Not that. That was an accident. But all my brain cells say peace out, and I’m left to clean up the mess. Me and beautiful girls don’t mix. I can give all the advice to Luke about Layla or make up good pickup lines in my head, but when the time comes, it just—”

“Falls flat?” I finished his sentence.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

I squinted, giving him a once-over, from his shorts all the way to his cap. “Okay, I gotcha. So you just need practice.”

He scoffed. “Kind of hard to practice when it takes me less than two minutes to scare them all away.”

The day we met, my first impression was that he was good-looking. I believe my exact thought was this guy should be on a firefighter calendar. But yeah, I suppose the attraction fizzled a little after the awkward boob thing. And he did think I was a model looking for the guy down the hall, so…

“You think I’m attractive, right?”

It was a bold question, but I was a bold person, and this would be a good test.

His eyes widened. “Oh, I mean generally speaking—”

“No, not generally speaking. Yes or no. When you first saw me, what were your thoughts?”

He turned away from me and picked up the Yogi Bear mug that had become a centerpiece for his coffee table.

Studying it, he mumbled, “Um, yes.”

“Alrighty, then. You can practice on me.”

He jerked back again. “Practice what, exactly?”

“Pickup lines. Your moves. Whatever you want to call it. Like sexy talk classes 101. You definitely don’t need help in the looks department. You just need to take all that”—I waved my hand in a circle around his face—“and transfer it here.” I pointed at his full lips, trying not to focus on them too hard.

He nodded along. “All right, so I should try to hit on you?” His focus dipped to my chest, where my tank top wasn’t concealing much, and his breath hitched. That reaction may have given me a little too much confidence.

“Don’t make it so complicated.” I angled forward and snagged the remote from the end table behind him, my chest grazing the arm he had propped on the side cushion. I turned down the volume on the TV and said, “Pretend you just met me at a bar, and you want to talk to me.”

He shook his shoulders and bounced a little, like a boxer getting ready for his match. “Yeah, all right.”

“You got this, big guy.” I patted him on the forearm and grinned. Turning away from him, I prepared myself, then turned back, batting my eyelashes. “Oh. Why, hello, kind stranger.”

Nathan’s eyes went wide, and he shook his head. “Maybe you should practice instead.”

My smile fell flat. “All right, fine. I’ll be normal.”

He stuck his tongue against his lower lip and gave me a once-over that felt like tiny caresses against my skin. Like he flipped a switch, fun-loving Nathan was gone, and in his place was this masculine, overwhelming presence of a guy who knew exactly what he was packing. The look alone made me a little flustered. My chest heaved, and suddenly, the room felt too small. I was hit by a wave of lightheadedness, along with the undeniable urge to climb into his lap like he was Santa Claus and I had a long list of wants this year.

“Hey.” His deep voice was super, super hot, and it sent shudders through me.

“Hi,” I squeaked.

“You know,” he said, lifting his chin, “I won the school-wide cup stacking Olympics in sixth grade.”

And with that statement, the was ambiance gone. The hot calendar firefighter had left the building. He’d been called to put out the dumpster fire that had just spewed out of this man’s mouth.

“Nathan,” I said, using a tone my mom had used on me often when I was caught flipping the bird to our neighborhood cats. They always gave me bad vibes.

Nathan dipped his chin. “I know, I know.”

“You were doing so well.”

He shrugged. “I tried to warn you.”

He did, but nowhere in that warning were the words cup stacking.

“That was really, really bad. Now that I know you better, it makes total sense, and it’s endearing, but you can’t open with that line.”

He nodded. “It was the first thing that came to mind.”

“Okay. New rule. Don’t say the first thing. Maybe go with the fourth or fifth thing?”

He laughed that same deep laugh as before. “All right, let’s try again.”

I adjusted myself into my previous position and nodded when I was ready.

“Hey, you have a beautiful smile. I would love to buy you a drink if it meant I could see it again.”

With a hand pressed to my chest, I nodded, impressed. “There you go, tiger. That’s perfect.”

“Yeah?” Eyes wide, he sat up straight, like he was surprised. Utterly adorable.

“Totally hot. Keep that one in your back pocket,” I encouraged him, but as the words left my mouth, a hint of irritation blossomed inside me. Not at Nathan, but at the idea of him using that line on another woman.

“All right.” He shook out his shoulders again. “Let’s keep going.”

Pushing away the vexation that threatened to take over when I pictured Nathan talking up some faceless woman, I nodded. Regardless, I looked forward to every sentence that would come out of this man’s mouth.

“Give it to me.”

He dipped his chin. “Has anyone told you that it’s physically impossible for pigs to see the sky?”

“I-I’m sorry. Was that the line, or are you spouting random facts at me? Also, please tell me that isn’t true.”

Nathan shrugged. “A little of this, a little of that. And yes, that absolutely is true.”

There was absolutely no way it was true.

“You’re telling me”—I took a deep breath; suddenly, my chest was tight, and so was my throat—“that no pig has ever seen a cloud shaped like a dragon? Or a pretty sunset on the farm? They don’t know what it’s like to see a rainbow?”

I was going to cry. I couldn’t hold it in.

Nathan stared at me, pulling his lips in to hide a smile. “Nope, totally kidding.”

I dropped my shoulders in relief. “Are you sur—”

“Let’s keep practicing!”

The movie credits had rolled, and our popcorn bags were empty. The sunset skies filled with orange and purples that had peeked through the curtains when we started were now full of navy blues and twinkling lights from the street.

I couldn’t stop laughing. Nathan was so incredibly awful at pickup lines that it was almost becoming attractive. Never in my life had I thought I’d be complimented on my “very proportionate eyebrows,” and yet there I was, wearing a grin so big my cheeks hurt.

“Seriously?” I wheezed. “Luke thought the lyrics were ‘I’ll never leave your pizza burning’?”

Nathan nodded and let out a deep, throaty laugh. “Layla and I told him a hundred times that the words were ‘beast of burden,’ but he would just keep on singing.”

I was sitting with my legs stretched across the couch, with his feet beside mine under my throw blanket. Occasionally, when we were laughing uncontrollably, I’d brush up against him, or he’d brush up against me, and we’d immediately yank our feet back to the middle. The couch wasn’t quite big enough for us to sit comfortably without somehow touching each other.

“Do you ever miss working with them?” I asked, laying my head on the couch cushion. It was getting late, and I was exhausted, but I wasn’t ready for the night to end.

Nathan sighed. “Yeah, I miss them a lot. Don’t get me wrong, I was really happy when they got together. I was rooting for them pretty hard, but I miss having Luke here. And I miss Layla, my office friend. Now that they’re gone, work kind of sucks.”

“I get that. I missed them a lot when I was at school.”

He nodded. “So what about you, then?”

I lifted my head and frowned. “What about me?”

Nathan shifted the blanket, accidentally pulling it off my feet, but he quickly covered them again.

“Why are you single?”

I snorted. “Who says I am?”

He drew his feet away from mine under the blanket and shifted. “I was—well, I assumed—I mean…aren’t you?” He sputtered each word in a barely coherent sentence.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I am. I’ve been busy with school until recently. Trying not to drown in bills and eating a strict diet of ramen noodles and Crew’s free leftovers. Now that graduation is over, I’m looking for an actual job, not just waiting on kids’ birthday parties, so dating right now probably wouldn’t be ideal.”

Nathan moved his feet back under the blanket, as if he approved of my answer. “Ah, I gotcha.” He glanced over at the time displayed on the TV’s lock screen. “I should probably get to bed. Early morning and all.”

Although disappointed that our night was coming to an end, I nodded. The movement caused a tendril of hair from my loose bun to fall in front of my eyes.

Nathan leaned forward, his abs pressing against my drawn-up knees, and tucked the hair behind my ear. He didn’t pull his hand away. At the gentle contact, chills raced across the back of my ear and down my neck. I shuddered at the sensation, looking from his eyes to his mouth and back. This didn’t feel like practice. The way he chewed on his bottom lip while holding my jaw, as if he needed to keep it in place. Or the way his cheeks were flushed with splotches of pink. It felt all too real, and I could have sworn that Nathan Huxley was going to kiss me.

Involuntarily, I leaned in, my body expecting something, anything. Or maybe I was reading too much into it. By the time we’d finished our lesson, his flirting was top-notch. Maybe my brain just couldn’t distinguish between the simulation and reality. Hormones and all.

Nathan’s warm eyes went wide, and he drew his hand away. Like it had dawned on him too. He was going to kiss me, and I was absolutely going to let him.

It was the movie’s fault. Matthew McConaughey had set the tone. It was a well-known fact that his voice made any moment sexy. And even after the credits, his influence remained. Between that and the fake flirting, it was no wonder we got swept away. Nathan was an attractive guy, and I wasn’t hard on the eyes either. Put all that together with popcorn and fuzzy blankets, and it was like an atomic bomb of sexual tension.

Nathan pulled away and stood so quickly he nearly fell over. He doubled over and dropped one hand on the coffee table to steady himself. The other hand went to his temple. “Whoa.”

“Are you okay?” I reached up, as if I could keep him from falling, but he was far bigger than I was, and chances are, if he was going down, I’d go down with him.

He stood up slowly, fingers still pressing into his temple, and backed out of the room. Though backed out wasn’t really accurate. It was more of a slide. His feet never left the floor. Like a really, really awful version of a moonwalk.

All the way down the hall to his room, he mumbled, “Yeah, yeah. I have low iron. Don’t eat enough red meat. Can’t donate blood. Pass out sometimes. Anyway, goodnight. See you later.”

He backed into his door, hitting the knob with a thud. “Ah.” He rubbed the sore spot on his back and slipped into his room. The click of his lock echoed through the silent apartment.

I chuckled. How could I not? The guy was as adorable as he was funny. Watching him was like witnessing a train wreck.

After cleaning up our mess—because who can eat popcorn without making some kind of a mess?—I trudged my way to my room.

It wasn’t until I was brushing my teeth that exhaustion hit me. I nearly fell asleep while washing my face. Eyes half shut, I flopped onto my bed, but I snagged my phone from where I’d dropped it on the nightstand so I could set my alarm.

There, on the lock screen, was an email notification from Shiny.

The sight made me smile. It had been a couple of days since I’d heard from him, and I missed him. We were both busy—I was with the move and starting my job at Romfuzzled, and his job was slowly driving him crazy.

We’d been emailing for years, and through every change, our friendship remained. We had an understanding. If one of us needed a few weeks to get our life together and couldn’t talk, that was okay. Or if we needed extra support and emailed like a text exchange every ten minutes, that was great too.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

LILY, MY MAIN SQUEEZE. HELP.

Hi, my dear. Hope your ingrown toenail went away. Anyway, I have an emergency. I met this girl, and she’s…everything. I don’t know what to even say. Okay. Okay. You know how I get all excited when it rains and the asphalt smells all good? I always say I want to take that and shove it in a candle and keep it burning all day long? That’s what I want to do to this girl. I want to burn her. She makes my heart beat fast, and she likes all my favorite things. She is so funny and has nice hair. My chest hurts when I’m around her. She has this smile, Lil, like nothing you’ve ever seen. I’m serious. It will absolutely blind you. I’m typing too fast to keep up with my brain. Help.

Your fave human,

Shiny

I couldn’t help but smile. At least one of us was going to get some soon. Shiny deserved a nice girl, one to burn and all. Truth be told, I was a little jealous. Not because I was interested in Shiny that way. But because one day, I wanted a guy to look at me and think the same kinds of things. I wanted a man who would tell his friends how gone he was for me.

Once, a long time ago, I had a crush on Shiny. Mostly because my fourteen-year-old self loved that a guy was interested in what I had to say. I loved to stay up late and picture him as some perfectly handsome guy who would come to my doorstep with flowers and reveal his identity in a big way.

But truth be told, as the years went on, I cherished his friendship more and more. He truly listened to all I had to say and was always ready with advice when I asked. And when I needed to vent, he’d gladly encourage it.

And he knew he could do the same with me. Tonight’s email was the perfect example of that.

I typed my response before passing out for the night.