The Devil You Know: A Brother's Best Friend Romance, page 1





THE DEVIL YOU KNOW
A BROTHER’S BEST FRIEND ROMANCE
VERONICA EDEN
THE DEVIL YOU KNOW
Copyright © 2022 Veronica Eden
All rights reserved.
No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author at this website:
www.veronicaedenauthor.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses, companies, organizations, locales, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Cover Photography: Lindee Robinson Photography | @lindeerobinson
CONTENTS
About the Book
Playlist
1. Tatum
2. Cooper
3. Tatum
4. Cooper
5. Tatum
6. Cooper
7. Tatum
8. Cooper
9. Tatum
10. Cooper
11. Tatum
12. Cooper
13. Tatum
14. Cooper
15. Cooper
16. Cooper
17. Tatum
18. Tatum
19. Tatum
20. Cooper
21. Tatum
22. Cooper
23. Tatum
24. Cooper
25. Tatum
26. Cooper
27. Tatum
28. Tatum
29. Cooper
30. Tatum
31. Cooper
32. Tatum
33. Cooper
34. Tatum
35. Tatum
36. Cooper
37. Tatum
38. Cooper
39. Tatum
40. Cooper
41. Tatum
42. Cooper
43. Cooper
44. Tatum
45. Tatum
Epilogue
Epilogue
Thank You + What’s Next?
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Veronica Eden
ABOUT THE BOOK
from usa today and international bestselling author, veronica eden, comes a standalone new adult brother's best friend romance with a spunky heroine, the local thirst trap, and an unorthodox tutoring agreement.
Tatum Danvers has plans and goals for everything in her life. Whatever she sets out to do, she achieves.
There's only one thing she's determined to check off...
I’m all set for my first semester at college.
Dream field of study. Five year plan. Brand new notebooks.
But one thing can’t come to campus—my V-card.
Being a virgin isn’t the biggest part of my problem.
What I need to prepare for the full college experience is someone to teach me what to do in bed. Though I hate to admit defeat, this is one accolade I can’t earn on my own.
I have the perfect tutor in mind: my brother’s best friend.
Cooper Vale. Hometown heartthrob, sultry bad boy, and my neighbor since we were kids.
PLAYLIST
Heat Waves — Glass Animals
Forbidden — Maxchalant, Maiah Manser
Dick — StarBoi3, Doja Cat
Watermelon Sugar — Harry Styles
Better — ruelle
Promiscuous Motive — Josiane Lessard
feel something — Bea Miller
Overwhelmed — Ryan Mack
Champagne & Sunshine — PLVTINUM, Tarro
Ocean Avenue — Yellowcard
MONTERO — Lil Nas X
Off Limits — BAYNK, Glades
Hands — Oceans Ahead, Shelley Harland
Skin Talk — Stuck On Planet Earth
Fire — Part-Time Friends
Fuck Up the Friendship — Leah Kate
Heartbeats — Jose Gonzalez
Better — Pink Panda
Stay — The Kid LAROI, Justin Bieber
OUTRUN MYSELF — Jack Kays, Travis Barker
Ghost — Justin Bieber
Moonlight — Chase Atlantic
Infinity — Jaymes Young
When I Don’t Have You — Idarose
Alright — Alpines
Sunroof — Nicky Youre, dazy
ONE
TATUM
There’s nothing quite like the high of a new notebook haul. Brand spanking new notebooks come out on top to get my heart racing like nothing else, herbal or not.
The plastic crinkles as I rip it off the additions to my collection, then a wide smile overtakes my face. Okay, maybe a slightly manic one, but notebooks—blank, fresh, awaiting all my thoughts, dreams, lists, and plans. My heartbeat spikes, dancing around like a puppy about to get its favorite tasty treat. Oh, yup. That’s the high kicking in.
Instant serotonin boost.
I lay my bounty on my white quilted bedspread, lovingly tracing the colorful spirals coordinated to the bright citrus fruit patterns on the covers of the 3-pack. A content sigh leaves me.
“Perfection.”
Possibility.
My favorite feeling in the world.
Opening the cover to the one with orange slices, a giddy thrill runs through me at the sight of the blank page. I keep notebooks, art journals, and planners for everything in my life. The structured organization has helped me visualize and achieve every goal I’ve set for myself. It’s how I maintained a 4.0 GPA through high school while participating in three different clubs and graduated with honors last month. With college on the horizon at the end of the summer, I have no intention of quitting a good thing when it’s working for me.
My attention shifts to the inspiration wall above my bed, the mod peach-pink circle painted on the wall covered in my hopes and dreams. It has saved fortune cookies with encouraging and motivational messages, Polaroids of my accomplishments mixed with memories I love with friends and family, clippings I’ve kept from postcards that gave me a boost, and my favorite quotes from books I’ve read.
The corner of my mouth lifts when I survey how far I’ve come from a girl who used to panic at the amount of tasks on my to-do list, frozen into indecision by how much I wanted to do. A therapist I used to see every other week handed me a notebook to journal in one day as a way to dump my thoughts and it just clicked. I never looked back.
Deep laughter and the rhythmic beat of a basketball dribbling against the pavement drifts through my open window, followed by the swish of the net when the ball is dunked. My brother Jackson and his best friend Cooper are shooting hoops in the driveway between our two houses.
The breeze makes my curtains billow as I slip off the bed to peek out the window, inhaling the salty sea air. Everything smells like the ocean and sunshine during summertime in South Bay, California. The quaint coastal town is known for three things: surfing, summer tourism, and South Bay College where I’m starting my freshman year in a couple of months.
Is it possible to be nervous-excited-anxious-impatient all at once? Because that’s how I feel every day crossing off the days on my sea turtle-themed calendar.
Cooper Vale snags my focus once more. Jackson passes him the ball. With a crooked grin and a languidness to his limbs that oozes sex appeal, he sinks another shot. My brother whoops and gives Cooper a high-five.
I wet my lips as I drink in the impressive muscles Cooper has on display. Shirtless and rocking cut off cotton joggers, he’s god-like perfection with tan skin from hours spent surfing with Jackson. He takes off his baseball cap and ruffles his messy brown hair, laughing at whatever my brother says that I miss because I’m too busy trying to control my heart from swooning like a regency maiden at the dimple that pops out when he smiles.
The second his gaze darts up to my window, I smother a squeak and collapse to my knees. Either he has damn good intuition or I was thinking too loud. Okay, this is super mature. I’m eighteen and hiding from my brother’s best friend, the guy who has been my neighbor since I was four.
“Get it together, Danvers.” I mumble the words in the way Cooper always teases me when I get stuck in a ramble, imitating his cocky surfer boy drawl.
Crawling on my hands and knees—yes, I haven’t fully recovered from the urge to hide, even if he can’t see me spying on him anymore—I make it back to my bed, reaching for the basket of my most important journals I keep beneath the bed so Jackson won’t poke through them like a nosy jerk.
I grab the one that’s a simple black moleskin with silver bold lettering that proclaims FUCK YES YOU GLORIOUS BITCH on the cover and flip it open to a floral-patterned page I’ve looked at so many times, the spine is permanently creased to automatically get there without help.
This list is my most prized one—my ultimate life plan. Not my summer plans or my college packing list for my freshman year at South Bay, but my career path and my most private desires.
All of my meticulous preparations have come together. Check mark
Dream field of study? Check. Five year plan? Check, check. Brand new notebooks? Checkity-check.
But there is one thing I don’t want to bring to campus with my—my V-card.
The box left unticked glares at me in hot pink gel pen on floral-patterned notebook paper. Have sex. Seems simple enough, right?
Wrong.
Every other goal or dream I’ve ever put on my list was a cakewalk compared to this one. But I achieve everything I set my mind to, so I will check off that box one way or another. And damn it, I will do it before I enter South Bay College as a freshman.
My V-card isn’t on my college packing list. It’s not that I’m in some big rush or need to make it special with the right person. I don’t buy into either camp of the pressures presented by the social construct. What I hate is feeling unprepared and like something is just outside of my grasp. The FOMO is real and it irritates me.
Releasing a terse sigh, I get up and stride to my mirror. Freckles stand out across the bridge of my nose and my light brown braided pigtails are streaked with blonde from the California sunshine. I squint at my blue-eyed reflection. Short and dainty, with enough bank in my backside to fill out my bleach splattered shorts, I’m not exactly the picture of a pinup people lust after.
I don’t have any problem with how I look or want to change anything about myself. Well, besides that one pesky thing. I’ve never really thought about my looks. School and my aspirations have always come first. So much so that I feel like I’m allowing life to pass me by without embracing it.
Being a virgin isn’t the biggest part of my problem. In order to lose it, I’ll need someone to help me check that box off. After giving it a lot of thought, I’ve come up with a plan that’s…well, all right, it’s this side of crazy. But it’s the kind of crazy that will work, and I’m all about results.
All I want is to feel like I’m ready for the full college experience. In order to succeed in this goal, I need someone to teach me everything there is to know about being great in bed. I need a practice run. Someone to let me make mistakes until I figure things out. I just want to know what’s ahead of me and be able to enjoy it.
Maybe I’ve been lying to myself. I am in a bit of a rush. But it’s my choice—all I want is to know what I’m doing without having to wade into online dating or suffer through fumbling with guys who might want more than I’m willing to give. I don’t want a boyfriend while I’m prepping for the fall semester and working at the Tiki Taco Shack on the beach. This isn’t about them, it’s about me.
I’ve been too damn busy meeting every other one of my achievements that I haven’t had time to date a lot. Some—I’m not a total prude. But it’s been…a while. The last time I went on a date, there might have been chaperones involved. Okay, fine, I barely dated in high school. That’s why I’m one of the few people my age in South Bay with hardly any experience past first base.
That’s changing this summer, though. Not the boyfriend part, the experience part.
I have the perfect tutor in mind: my brother’s best friend.
Cooper Vale. Hometown heartthrob, sultry bad boy, and total player. He’s always got a girl with him in his photos on social media. When our group of friends hangs out at the beach, all he has to do is dish out that crooked smile and he has the attention of every girl within sight.
He’s everything I need to get through this ordeal and meet my goal before freshman orientation as painlessly as possible. It helps that when I see him he stirs a hot, achy feeling between my legs with his confident grins, sharp jawline, and warm brown eyes that make me want to melt inside.
Attraction won’t be a problem. It never has been.
But here’s the catch: Cooper has always been off-limits. Duh, he’s Jackson’s best friend. It’s not just because they’re almost two years older, but Jacks swore me off his friends a long time ago, same as I did to him. I never had a problem with it when I’ve been so focused on my studies. It’s not like Cooper’s ever looked at me the way he looks at the girls that hang off his arm.
He’s also the only guy I know who’s available after recently breaking up with the girl he’s been dating for the last year.
If I’m not allowed to fall for the guy I pick to help me, I won’t risk developing feelings. This is purely scientific and in a controlled environment, like the psych studies I’ll be conducting for my future doctorate degree.
As if it needs to be stated again—I mean, just look at the guy, with that beach bum tan, windswept hair, and the faded blue baseball cap he wears backwards—but for the record, Cooper is the perfect man for the job.
Better the devil you know, especially to proposition to become your tutor between the sheets.
Nothing could possibly go wrong, right? Cooper is totally the safe option. No way will either of us catch feels.
It’s a genius game plan. Smirking, I grab my notebook from the bed and visualize Cooper agreeing once I present the idea to him with a proposal I’ve been working on for a week. Kidding. Kind of.
Commence Operation: Lose My Virginity.
TWO
COOPER
A lazy half-smile pulls at my mouth with another satisfying swish when the ball slips through the net. I’m on fire today, sinking every shot. It feels damn good.
“Dude.” Jackson’s groan draws a chuckle from me.
I shrug. “What can I say, bro?” I pop one shoulder in a shrug. “Master at work.”
“You’re killing me today,” he complains.
“Nah, I’m just on my game.” I put minimal effort into jogging across the driveway between my house and my best friend’s to retrieve the ball, tossing it to him one-handed. “We still catching waves later?”
It’s hot as hell out, baking my skin, and I’m looking forward to the cool crush of the saltwater on my body.
“Always, man.” Jackson shoots me a grin at the prospect of our favorite pastime—surfing.
South Bay has the best surfing beaches within an hour radius. It’s one of the reasons people flock here every season. Plus the tourists like to take Instagram pictures in front of the sun-washed pastel bungalows from a bygone era and shit. Live like a local for the Gram. No joke, there’s a renovated Airbnb around the corner from here that goes for like a grand a night.
Outsiders see the quintessential California beach town, but all anyone who grew up here sees is the beach, surfing, and the college most of us end up at, South Bay College.
Life is good here. At least it has been for me until Kayla started a fight and dumped my ass at the end of the semester. Again.
I grit my teeth and shove her from my mind. We’ve broken up twice before, but even with our on and off cycle, she’s the longest relationship I’ve ever had. It was kind of nice to have someone who wanted me for more than my body. Someone who wanted to talk to me and lean on me. Or so I thought, but she was only after the same thing every girl I’ve hooked up wants—my dick and the bragging rights for taking a ride.
Being needed felt good. Made it seem like I was doing something right when everything else was up in the air. It made me realize how much I want that for real, and it’s thrown me off my usual game since the start of summer.