The Ideal - L.P. Maxa

Chapter One

Jeremy

I leaned back in my mesh lounge chair, closed my eyes and listened to the sound of Savy’s laughter. I could picture her clear as day in my mind. Her head thrown back, and her beautiful slender neck washed in sunlight. I smiled when I heard my brother chuckle at whatever she was saying.

Savy was pretty much the only person who could make my brother happy. Make him let loose and have fun. Nathan was two years younger than me, and he and I were as different as night and day. We were raised in a cheerful home with loving, attentive parents. Where I aimed to please, treasured life, and went with the flow, Nathan bucked every request, directive, or order given to him. Since he was a baby, he was stubborn and dark. We were the perfect example of nature versus nurture. A psychologist’s wet dream.

Our dad had always been able to keep Nathan in line. Keep him from throwing epic fits and hurting innocent people in the process. But Dad had been gone for eight years now. A simple mistake had taken him from us too soon. His sudden death had us all reeling.

Nathan without my father was a loaded gun begging to be picked up and played with. The responsibility of being Nathan’s keeper should’ve fallen to my mom, or even to me. But it’d gone to the girl next door, Savannah Nightingale. She was light to Nathan’s dark. She brought him back into the land of the living time and time again. She kept him human.

When Nathan was thirteen one of the neighborhood kids had accused him of cheating at some game they were playing. Nathan had tackled him and put him in a head lock.

Nathan was stronger than me when he was angry, like the Hulk, and I hadn’t been able to pull him off. I panicked, worried Nathan would kill the poor kid and then he’d spend the rest of his life in prison. I should’ve gone to find a grown up, a cop, anyone other than our tiny wisp of a neighbor, but I’d run to her, out of breath and red-faced, begging her to help bring Nathan back from the edge of homicide.

She raced across the street with me, screamed Nathan’s name and he’d paused mid-punch. She put her hand on his shoulder and he let the kid fall to the pavement. She grabbed his hand and he’d followed her back to our house. I didn’t know how she did it. I didn’t know if she held magic or if Nathan simply loved her that much. Either way, Savy was his salvation.

Which meant I needed to stop picturing her beautiful neck, and I needed to stop getting hard at the sound of her laughter.

When we were younger, she was nothing more than a neighbor kid who came to play with my brother—the only neighbor kid that came to play with my brother. Her role suited me fine. I was busy after our dad died. I threw myself into every after-school activity possible. I wanted the Deacon brothers to be remembered for something good, something other than a dead father, and an emotionally unstable son.

Then, the older Savy got, the more I noticed her in ways that were more than friendly. I’d kept my budding crush at bay for years. I’d told myself over and over she was a kid, and that she was my brother’s best friend.

Hell, more than that, she was his whole world in every way, except they weren’t together. Not like I wanted to be with her. Nathan needed her to navigate life.

Which meant she wasn’t for me.

“Hey, college boy. You going to come swim with us or what?”

I opened one eye to see Savy grinning at me from our pool. The sun was bright and warm, no doubt the water would feel amazing. I wanted nothing more to join them. I’d only been home for a few days, but I couldn’t help but notice Savannah had grown up since I’d been away at school.

She’d grown into her long legs, and she filled out her stark white swimsuit top spectacularly. She was eighteen now, and I swear she got sexier every time I saw her. I’d finished my sophomore year at a college two states away. Nathan and Savy graduated high school mere days ago.

“Shouldn’t you two be out at a graduation party or something?”

Savy threw her head back and laughed. Yep, it was even more tempting than the