RICH BOY BRIT (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)(10)

He nodded. “Then we should probably talk about things that we would usually talk about in a situation like this. What we do at university—though I guess you call it college—what we do in our spare time, things like that.”

His tone was soothing. He wasn’t the vindictive man I’d feared he might be, the tone told me. It was the tone of a doctor, a counselor, a very kind person simply trying to make somebody feel better. The golf-ball lump went away. I felt I could breathe more freely. And even though my hands kept fidgeting, it was nowhere near as bad as it had been before. The situation became less grim, less dark, less helpless. I felt the beginnings of a small smile lift my lips.

And then the clapping started.

It came from the far end of the restaurant, from the dance floor. Eli and I turned. A crowd was gathering around something. It reminded me of a crime scene on TV, when passersby crowd around an injured person. “Shall we go and check it out?” Eli said.

“Okay.”

We paced across the restaurant until we came to the crowd. It was about three people deep, but not so deep that I couldn’t look between the tall people’s elbows (much easier for a short girl than trying to peek over the top) and see Annabelle clasping her hand. At first I thought she was hurt, like the crime scene, but that didn’t explain the clapping. And then her hand shifted, and the humungous, glittering diamond ring came into view. Dad stood behind her, smiling widely at the crowd.

“Well done, mate,” some man said.

Dad smiled ear-to-ear at him. “She said yes!” he beamed, cheeks flushed with wine and happiness and love. “This woman is going to be my wife!”





Eli



Mom looked happier than I had ever seen her. Her face was ten years younger. She smiled widely at the crowd, and then looked down at the ring, holding it out before her. Mom wasn’t the diamond type, usually. I could tell she was ecstatic from that fact alone. She wasn’t the jewelry type, and yet she looked down at this ring like it was the most beautiful object she had ever laid eyes on. I walked through the crowd and stood before the happy couple.

“Eli!” Mom cried, waving tears away from her face. “Eli, you’re going to have a stepdad, and a stepsister!”

“I saw,” I said. I smiled and let her smooch my cheeks. In the corner of my eye I could see Andrew and Jessica having the same conversation. Jessica was smiling, but there was dread in her eyes, dread that her dad might’ve seen had he not been floating on a cloud of glee. “I’m happy for you, Mom.” I meant it. I was happy for her. But I was also confused. I had done something with this woman not twenty-four hours ago, something a stepbrother and stepsister should never do. I wore a smile, but behind the smile the urge to scream rose, the urge to laugh, the urge to cry.

“And guess what?” Mom went on, her voice high-pitched. “He’s buying a house here, in Bristol, and we’re moving in! Oh, please say you will, Eli. I’m selling our flat.”

The idea did not thrill me. Living in a house with Andrew and Mom and Jessica and all the mess that that would entail . . . No, it did not thrill me in the slightest. But Mom looked at me with such abject hope that I couldn’t think of refusing her. Her eyes were wet. Slowly, the crowd dissipated around us. “Of course I will,” I said, as the four of us made our way back to the table. I had fucked my stepsister. I had fucked my stepsister, and it had been the best sex I’d ever had. Of course, she wasn’t my stepsister yet.

But she would be soon. You could tell just by looking at Mom and Andrew that they would not have a long engagement. They were so deeply in love that it was a surprise they were able to function. An image came into my mind of Mom and Andrew walking hand in hand right over the edge of a cliff. With the image came the certainty that they would do it, if it meant being together. How I had missed this blossoming love I didn’t know. Perhaps it was university. I hadn’t been home much.

Mom and Andrew didn’t want to say goodbye. They stood outside of the restaurant for almost fifteen minutes, holding hands, always on the verge of tears. In the background of this scene, unheard, ignored, Jessica and I stood, waiting across the street by the car park. She didn’t say anything, just looked down at her feet. She fiddled with her dress, as she had done all throughout dinner. She reminded me of a frightened squirrel. I don’t mean that in a negative way. She was endearing, beautiful, intelligent, brilliant, but she looked around, or down, constantly with wide, alert eyes. She always looked startled, a little on-edge.

I found myself wanting to comfort her, to soothe her, to make things seem not so bad. I had been standing a few yards away. I crossed the distance in a couple of steps and stood close by her shoulder. She glanced up, and her top teeth bit her lower lip. Her right hand grasped the hem of her dress; her left hand opened and closed manically. Her feet vibrated up and down, as though she wanted to turn this Bristol street into a musical.

“I guess you dad told you,” I said.

She didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then she glanced up at me, her eyeballs rolling up in her face, which seemed unwilling to turn completely toward me, still half-locked on the ground. She really was the shyest woman I had ever met. I had never felt chivalrous with women before. But with Jessica, I did. I wanted to take my jacket off (it didn’t matter in my fantasy that I wasn’t wearing one) and throw it over her shoulders, I wanted to hold every door she would ever walk through open for her, I wanted to carry her over puddles so her feet didn’t get wet. But I could do none of those things, because this was not a movie and we had promised to keep things normal between us. That promise was more important now than ever, I sensed—now that we were going to be related.