My Brother’s Best friend

Chapter Six — The First Lesson

(Harper’s POV)

Jace shows up at the kitchen table the next afternoon with two iced coffees and a notebook under his arm.

“Lesson one,” he says, sliding a cup toward me, “authenticity. If you’re going to write people, you have to really see them.”

“That’s not very scientific,” I tease.

He grins. “Emotions never are.”

We end up outside on the porch, where sunlight pools across the worn boards. I open my laptop and scroll through my draft. He leans over my shoulder, close enough that I can feel the warmth of him.

“Okay,” he says, reading a line aloud. “‘Her pulse quickened as she realized she wasn’t just imagining the spark between them.’”

He taps the screen. “What’s she actually feeling there? Don’t tell me—show me.”

I frown. “That’s the hardest part.”

“Then think about something real,” he says softly. “Something that actually makes your pulse jump.”

The words hang in the air between us. I swallow hard, forcing myself to look at the screen instead of him. “Maybe… when someone you thought you knew suddenly surprises you.”

He hums a quiet note of approval. “That’s better. Write that.”

So I do. Fingers moving, words spilling out faster than I expect. Jace doesn’t interrupt; he just watches, the corners of his mouth curving upward whenever I get stuck and mutter under my breath.

After a while, he asks, “Can I read it?”

I nod, nervous.

He takes the laptop, scanning quickly. “It’s good,” he says finally. “Honest.”

I look up. “You really think so?”

“Yeah. You wrote what tension feels like without saying the word. That’s the trick.”

He sets the laptop down and stretches, sunlight catching in his hair. “That’s enough for one day. You’ll fry your brain.”

I smile. “So that was the first lesson?”

“Observation,” he corrects. “And patience.” He pauses, eyes glinting. “Writers and people both need that.”

Before I can answer, Noah’s voice calls from inside. “Jace! You coming to the store with me?”

“Be right there,” Jace shouts back, then turns to me. “Keep writing. You’re onto something.”

He heads inside, leaving the porch quiet except for the cicadas and the faint slam of the screen door.

I stare at the page he’d read, the one that started with her pulse quickened…

I can still feel my own heartbeat echoing the words.