Chapter 1

I have always looked up to my older brother, for as long as I can remember.

He's only four years older than I am, but for as long as I've been alive he's taken care of me, watched over me, and loved me as much or more than anyone else in my life.

My earliest memories of him are from when I was two, and he was six. I was his princess, and he slew imaginary dragons right and left to save me. Maybe it was because I thought they were real, and he really was saving my life, I ended up with a hero-worship that never went away.

When he learned to read, he'd read to me, when he learned to write he'd write me notes that 'someday you'll be able to read.' When he went to school I cried, and when he made it back at day's end I rejoiced.

With his help I was reading and writing long before school age, and because of the reading we did together I was generally way ahead of my classmates. I never really fit in in school, but I didn't care, since my brother and I were fast friends.

My name is Alexa, and his name is Jake, but somewhere in there we ended up with nicknames: I was 'Twinkie, ' or 'Twink, ' and he was 'Brud.' I know, stupid names, but 'Brud' was all I could manage of 'brother' about the time he started calling me 'Twink.'

We were always very affectionate, hugging back and forth, cuddling on the couch while we read to each other, making eye contact with 'special looks' that Mom and Dad didn't see and wouldn't have been able to understand if they did. We'd lie down next to each other on the sofa and he'd read to me or I'd read to him. Eventually we became too big to fit that way, although we laughingly carried that on as long as we could.

We made it through grade school, but when he began high school at a different location, I had a rough time for a while. I was old enough to know he was still around even though I couldn't see him, but emotionally it was hard for me.

It didn't help when he began dating around the age of sixteen, and I was a very jealous twelve year old. I got mad and pouted a lot, and turned my back on him more than once.

Fortunately, he took it all with good grace, and would even come home and tell me what 'she' was like, now and again. He'd tell me, and I'd believe him, that 'she' wasn't as funny or as smart or as good-looking as I was, that he'd rather have me as a girlfriend, and I'd go contentedly to sleep with him sitting by my side, whispering in my ear.

By the time I was thirteen or fourteen, though, and becoming interested in boys, he didn't need to talk me to sleep anymore. I was finally over my 'jealousies' as he laughingly called them, and while we still gave and got big hugs when we'd been apart for a while, we were living our separate lives.

Then the shadow of college hung over us, and things got horrible.

I couldn't believe 'Brud' was going to go away to college! He would be more than 500 miles away, way too far to visit, and being on the telephone or emailing was just NOT the same thing.

I felt so abandoned and betrayed. I know (now) he was as agonized over the distance as I was, but he'd had to make the decision that fit what he wanted to do (and could afford, there was a scholarship involved), and I was still the self-centered twit that teenaged girls can be.

I cried for days over his decision, and took it personally for the longest time. Still, when it came time for him to fly out west, I hugged him and cried on his shoulder and told him good luck. It was the closest I'd come to feeling like a grown up, and I hated it. It was a good thing he left a week before I had to start high school, or I'd have bitten someone's head off if they'd crossed eyes at me, I swear I would've.

I started freshman year at high school the same time he started college. I was fifteen years old, pissed off because my brother had left, and a mass of touchy nerve endings besides. My body had started changing several months ago, and I felt strange. I didn't fit in and I didn't care (I told myself). I went on semi-dates with a couple of guys, but really didn't feel like trying to make them happy, and they were typical high school boys, only thinking about one thing.

All of this added up to make me pretty sore about life in general.

The only good thing was that Jake was scheduled to be home for Thanksgiving, and between crying and moping I was living for that week. The last week before the break about killed me.

Jake got in the Sunday night before Thanksgiving (apparently the cheapest train on the schedule). Dad went to pick him up while Mom and I worked on dinner. When we heard Dad's car come into the garage, I felt my knees go all shaky.

'What if he's different?' I thought. 'What if he's got a girlfriend and wants to be back with her, instead of here with me, er, I mean, us? What if he's forgotten all about Twink and Brud?' I was so scared.

Jake came into the kitchen, and gave Mom a quick hug and a kiss, and then looked over her shoulder for me.

'Hey, Twink, how are you?' he said to me with one of those 'special looks' we shared. I couldn't help it, I squeaked and jumped at him and gave him a full body slam. If he hadn't braced himself at the last second, I'd have knocked us both to the kitchen floor right there.

I was squeezing him for dear life around the neck, and he was holding me just as tightly around the waist, with my feet off the floor. I didn't know I was crying until we finally let go of each other, after two full minutes of about three months worth of pent up hugs.

I really can't say we let go of each other right away. I wouldn't let go of his hand, and he either held my hand or had an arm around my shoulder or waist for most of the rest of the evening. It got a little clumsy while we were eating, but we laughed a lot and got it done.

'Jake, I can't tell you how pleased we are you're home for a few days, ' Dad said. 'And the change you've brought about in Alex is damned impressive. She's been crying and moping since you've left.'

I blushed, and Jake laughed. "I've missed all of you, especially you, Twink, and let me tell you, they don't think much of it when I cry in the classroom, either.'

My jaw dropped, and all three of them laughed at me when Jake reached over and closed my mouth. 'You're catching flies, Twink, ' he chided me, and I realized he'd caught me like he used to. I hid my face on his shoulder while they laughed, all the while thinking how wonderful it was to have Brud home again.

During Thanksgiving week, it was almost like it had always been. Mom and Dad got time with Jake, of course, but he and I got to spend a lot of 'alone' time, getting caught up and talking to each other about 'important' things, life in college and things like that.

We talked about things we'd learned, about ourselves and about other people, in our first months in high school and college. I told him how disappointed I was in high schoolers in general. 'They're just bigger kids, most of them, they haven't learned anything about real life. And I'm too serious for most of them, I want to think about my future and what I have to do to get where I want, and they're too jazzed about some singer or actress or who's in rehab, to even think about what they're going to do tomorrow.'

'I know, Twink, and I hate to say this but it's not much better in college. Some of the kids are dopers, some are jocks, some are drama queens - ' I smiled at him ' - and so very few are looking ahead. You know I want to turn my degree into experience into my own business, and most of the rest don't even know what they want to do. It's like they're waiting for someone to tell them what they're going to do with the rest of their life. And the girls are the same as the guys, too. Nine out of ten of them haven't got an original thought in their heads. You're still funnier, smarter and better looking than the vast majority out there.'

That gave me an intense, warm feeling right down to my bones. He hadn't forgotten our late night chats, and he still thought I was ahead of the pack.

We were sitting on one end of the sofa, Jake had his arm around me and I was snuggled in. We had hot chocolate within easy reach, Mom and Dad had gone to bed, and we were solving the world's problems. I didn't think it could get any better that this.

Thaksgiving week had to come to an end, and while I cried after he left on Saturday, I was brave for him when he gave me a hug and a quick kiss goodbye. I could see in his eyes that he was going to miss me, and I knew it was true that he hadn't yet found a girlfriend that measured up to the standard we'd created out of me.

How I felt about him eventually finding such a girlfriend I didn't want to think about.

He'd be home again for Christmas break, though, and I was determined to be as ready as possible to take care of him while he was home, and work out that we'd get as much time as possible to ourselves. Little did I know how important that time would become.

He was again due in on the Sunday night before Christmas. Mom and dad had been invited out of town for the weekend, a long pre-Christmas party, but they would be back well before his train was scheduled.

So I was on my own Friday night, and daydreaming (fantasizing?) about what Jake and I could do while he was home. At this point in time, I'm thinking late night chats, snowball fights, Christmas parties, you know, that sort of thing,

I was upstairs, kind of thinking about going to bed, when I heard the door open downstairs and my brother yell 'Hello! Anybody home?'

'Brud, brud!' I yelled, as I tore down the stairs in my sleepshirt and socks. By the time I (barely) made it safely down the stairs, he'd dropped his bags and had his arms open for me. I slammed into him again, but this time I was laughing instead of crying, and he twirled me around a couple of times before he set me down.

Immediately upon my feet hitting the floor, I wrapped my arms around his chest and buried my head against his shoulder, while he wrapped one arm around my shoulders and with the other affectionately ran his fingers through my hair. Heaven!

'What are you doing? Why are you here?' I mumbled against his chest.

'Why, am I too early?' he asked, pretending to push me away.

'No no no no no, ' I laughed, 'Don't even think that.'

'I got a ride with a friend most of the way, and hitchhiked the rest, to save train fare. Where's dad, so I can get the cash for the train ride from him?'

'They're both gone until Sunday, ' I told him.

He stopped. 'Then it's just the two of us until then?'

I smiled. 'Yeah, I don't have to share you with anybody for almost 48 hours.'

'Fantastic.' That gave me a warm glow. 'You look comfortable, give me a few minutes and I'll be back for some of your great hot chocolate and lots of catching up.'

While I made the chocolate, Jake changed into sweat pants and a t-shirt. When he came back to the kitchen, we both looked each other up and down admiringly.

'Wow, Twink, you're really turning into a pretty young lady, ' he said.

'And you've muscled up some, are you working out for the ladies, or what?' I jibed back at him.

'No ladies yet that I want to be working out for, ' he said resignedly. 'Are you having to run the boys off so you can get some rest?'

'No boys chasing me, ' I said grudgingly. 'I'm not selling what they're buying, if you know what I mean.'

Jake laughed heartily, 'Twink, I can always count on you. You are so smart and so funny, I really wish I could meet a girl that reminded me of you.'

Another warm glow inside, and the hot chocolate was ready. We took our mugs into the living room and got comfortable snuggled up next to each other.

It took us a little while to get caught up for the last month, but since it was only a month it didn't take us as long as it had at Thanksgiving.

Before too long we just sat quietly, enjoying each other's presence and not needing to say a word to be happy.

'Remember when we used to lay down along here and read to each other?' Jake asked. I grinned at him and nodded. 'Think we could still fit, if we tried real hard?' I grinned again, and stood up.

What do you want to read?' I asked. 'Oh, anything. What did we start out with?'

'I remember Mother Goose really early on.'

I picked up the beat up old copy of nursery rhymes we'd both learned to read with, and came back to the sofa. Jake was on his feet by then, and waited for me to lay down first. I handed the book to him, and laid down the length of the sofa, on my side facing out. Jake very carefully, with both of us giggling, lay down on his back tight up next to me.

'I'm hanging off the edge, ' he muttered, trying not to fall off. 'Can you squeeze back any more?' I edged backward as much as I could, pressing into the cushions until they wouldn't give any more, then draped my arm across his chest and pulled him into me as tightly as I could.

In order to fit, he put his arm around me, I put my head on his shoulder, and threw one leg over his. I was pressed tightly against him the length of my body, but until we stopped fidgeting into position I hadn't realized exactly how provocative this was feeling.