Marie Rochelle - More Than Friends - Brad

“I bet I already know what it will be,” Cherise said as her husband lowered his head for a kiss.

“What’s your guess?”

“Crab puffs,” Cherise moaned “I think you love those darn things more than me.”

Lee’s face lit up right before he pulled her closer to him. “They do come a very close second,” he admitted and then kissed her.

Why did it seem like her hours at work were getting longer instead of shorter, Alicia wondered as she dragged her weary body over to the small wine bar at the corner of the room and poured herself a glass of red wine.

Grabbing the glass, she moved over to the island in the kitchen and rested her back against the side. She had been sitting on her behind for the last sixteen hours and she wasn’t in the mood to sit down at the moment.

God, when was Tiffany going to learn that everyone didn’t have to jump through hoops when she called. No, she hadn’t heard from Brad yet about doing the piece on his family, but that didn’t mean he was going to turn her down.

If anything or anyone was holding him up, it had to be Lee.. He came across like it was his way or else. It was almost like he had never heard the word no in his whole entire life. No was something she heard a lot while she had been growing up as a kid. She wouldn’t be able to handle that kind of strong personality.

At first, she didn’t understand what woman in their right mind would want to be with Lee Drace until she met Cherise Roberts.

Cherise was the perfect match for Brad’s brother. It was like they were almost cut from the same cloth, but Cherise was a tad bit better at filtering her comments and nicer than Lee was when it came to her.

Now, Brad was totally on a different scale when it came to his older brothers. He was so laid back. His carefree attitude always made her smile when he was giving her tennis lessons. Not to mention how his kisses almost made her forget her own name and where she was.

Why did she have to like a man who would never be a part of her life? Brad lived everyday and every moment to the fullest. He never allowed grass to grow under his feet.

However, she, on the other hand, was a totally different story. She liked some kind of structure in her life. Not so much that if something went wrong that it would flip her out, but enough that she knew why she was waking up every morning.

Alicia knew going in that a career as a TV reporter/anchor would take some sacrifice, but she wasn’t aware of how much. A lot of her friends thought she had the most glamorous job in the world, but they didn’t know how wrong they were.

Her closest friends wouldn’t believe it if she told them the truth. However, it wasn’t like any other job in the world and she loved the excitement and thrill. She even loved the pressures the position brought every single day. How could someone not love doing something new every day and making a difference?

One of her biggest dreams while living in Treebanch, Alabama was to be able to leave the small television station there to something bigger and better. So, when her boss told her about the position opening up in the Houston area, she had jumped at the chance and was lucky enough to beat out seven other people for the position.

Her old job back home had been a wonderful experience for her. Working at a smaller news station she had done everything from shoot video on a scene, edit her own words, to report and produce an element in the same day.

The only thing she wasn’t told to do was to use the teleprompter and she would have done that too because this was her dream.

Sure, only a little more than a ten percent of news anchors hit it big to hold a nightly news show, but who said that she couldn’t be in that low percentage? Shit, if she’d stayed with her news job back home she would be making less than $18,000 a year there.

Her Ivy League parents still weren’t pleased that she didn’t go to Harvard or Yale like they had. No, just the other day her father called to lecture her again about how everyone and their mama wanted to be television, but how there weren’t that many available slots for them.

Alicia took another sip of her wine as she pulled the hair clip off. She quickly ran her fingers through her hair causing it to brush the back of her neck.

She wouldn’t forget how her mother almost died when she cut off all of her long hair when she first moved to Texas. She had tried to make her mother understand how much quicker her hair was to do now since it was shorter.

Sometimes she wondered why her parents even had her because they’d spent more time doing their own thing instead of listening to what she’d wanted to with her life growing up.

Both her older brother Shelton and her sister Chloe moved away from home right after graduating from high school to pursue their dream jobs. She knew that they kept in contact with their parents.

But she didn’t see any good reason to do anything more than a call or card for the holidays. She always got the feeling she had been the surprise baby her parents hadn’t been prepared for but kept because they didn’t believe in abortion or giving away a child.

Alicia made her way out of the kitchen and fell down on the couch. Picking up the remote, she turned on one of her favorite celebrity gossip shows. At least, there were some people out there in the world with more horrible lives that she had.

She couldn’t believe how many celebrity break ups there were lately. Maybe her mother was right when she told her that money couldn’t buy anyone happiness or was it that money was the root of all evil.

Hell, it didn’t matter. Dolores Hart was constantly throwing quotes at her when she was living at home before she decided to take the leap and move for her career. So, it was hard for her to remember all of them. Finishing off the last of her wine, Alicia placed the glass on the table next to her and then pulled off her dark purple suit jacket. She was too tired to even think about making her way upstairs to her bedroom.

She had fallen asleep on the couch before, so it wasn’t like this would be the first time. Alicia slid down on the cushions and closed her eyes hoping that sleep came to her quicker than it usually did.

“Thanks for coming over at such short notice,” Brad said, staring at the two couples standing on his front porch.

“We know that you wouldn’t have called us unless it’s really important,” Zack replied, walking past him with Traci carrying a sleeping Carter in her arms.

“Yeah, little brother, you sounded very upset on the phone,” Richard chimed in as he followed the first couple inside with a car seat in his hand.

Brad smiled at Dawn before closing the door behind everyone. He hated to bring out his nephews this late, but he had to talk to them about Alicia, Lee and his thoughts about leaving the marketing business to start his own business.

“Let me apologize again. I didn’t mean for any of you to bring out the boys this late. I just needed to see everyone.” He waited for everyone to take a seat before he sat down in his favorite recliner. It was the one piece of furniture in the living room that he wouldn’t be able to live without.

“Where’s Lee and Cherise?” Traci asked as she handed a still sleeping Carter over to Zack. “I’m surprised that they aren’t already here.”

“I’ve already talked to Lee about this, so I’m sure he has filled in Cherise about everything. That’s why I only invited all of you here.”

What if Richard and Zack reacted the same way as Lee? Was he assuming too much? He knew how much Richard and Zack adored their families and they might not want them in the public eye either. If they told him no then he would respect their wishes.