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Kember is determined to keep looking at you like his little sister. Nothing more, nothing less, thank you very much. No, he isn’t interested at all, period. Slowest slow-burn. Jarrell is your oldest friend. The kind who has known you since diapers, the kind who would run around with your older brother Stetson teasing you when a new haircut made you look like a mushroom. The kind who was always around because both sets of parents loved each other, and Kember and your brother were the same age, just two years older than you. He has been annoying, but he has also been kind, mostly. University you didn’t see him much anymore. He was charismatic, so much of it that it was annoying; every single person got sucked toward his vortex and everyone wanted to be his friend. Then he devoted his life to football and he was basically gone. You being the opposite of sporty, you didn’t get the same sorts of invites. Even during summer vacations he didn’t hang with your brother anymore, too busy with football camp. Then he was gone, drafted into some college football team, meeting college girls of course. Then you graduated, and he couldn’t make it of course. It was that very summer though that everything changed. You are out of university now, and he has been out longer, and he still calls you squirt.
Your parents, super excited you got into Bellhaven University and already celebrating the empty nest, decided the best course of action was to buy a beach house and sell your first home. You wanted to be mad, but the new house they found by the inlet was so nice you couldn’t even blame them. The beach and pool alone made the extra travel time worth it. Since university was over, you were tasked to bring the first load of boxes over to the new house, while your parents stayed behind to finish the cleaning and make the sale. Your stupid parents didn’t mention their surprise, though. Your brother Stetson was already there waiting on the porch, and next to him stood a very smug looking Kember. “Loser! You’re here!” The bastard had only gotten hotter, of course. The extra training had chiseled out that body and given him a stupidly good-looking tan. “Hello to you too, brother. Missed you too!” eye rolls for days, dripping with extra sarcasm “And Kember the super star gracing us with his presence! With no paparazzi in sight! It’s a June miracle!” “Well someone needed to come make sure you don’t break a nail on all these boxes.” “Kember is benched for the summer by his doctor and I’m a loser and just lost my job, so guess what? We get an old fashioned summer break and we get the house to ourselves! This is perfect, squirt, you get to hang with your two favorite people!” “pretending to look around are they here?” “Let’s get these boxes inside, the pool looks awesome. Congrats on your graduation by the way, and for getting into Bellhaven.”