Crude: A Stepbrother Romance (13 page)

“You fuckin’ kidding me, kid?”

“Huh?” I turn, the unlit cigarette in my lips and the lighter in my hand. Great, what now, a “hey ya know those are bad for you” speech?

Gee,  I had no idea.

Mike, the oilfield foreman I’m trailing with today, is not a small man. He’s actually larger than what you might even identify as “human-sized”; more like a yeti, or Bigfoot or something. He scowls at me, as if defying me to flick that lighter in my hand before he jerks his thumb back at the “absolutely no smoking” sign behind him. And then the one behind me, and then the one on the side of the truck, and then the one posted on the door to the office, and then...well, you get the idea.

I quietly take the cigarette out from my lips.

“Smart move,” Mike says dryly, before handing me a hard-hat.

This
sucks
. It’s hot out here in the fucking apocalyptic
wasteland
that is the oil fields outside Dallas, and I can’t smoke
anywhere
apparently. Which, when I think about it,
does
sort of make sense considering we’re standing around about a billion gallons of crude oil.

The machines part I can dig; it’s like working on my bike, in a way. Except it pisses me off that I’m here instead of in the driveway doing that. I don’t mind getting dirty, or the heat, or whatever, but the fact that I’m here because Paige’s father
put
me here gets under my skin.

Well, this is what you get for not sending anything back to those schools.
 

Schools with crests and shields; schools with names people who never went to college even know about. Schools that sent me letters a month ago asking why they’d never heard back from me.

But again, fuck that. The whole college thing is a broken, stupid path anyways. Like I need to go spend a fortune I don’t have on acting out on my teen impulses away from home while I major in something I’ll never use.

Pass.

I climb up into the big truck with Mike that’ll drive us out to the far fields. It’s less hot in the truck with the AC going full blast, and Mike rolls the windows up; “You can smoke in here if you want, kid. Just keep the windows up.” He glances at me wryly; “I don’t have to be the one that breaks the news to you that those are actually bad for you, do I?”

“Nah, I think I read that somewhere once or twice before.”

“Suit yourself, kid. Die young, and crippled, and in pain. See if I care.” Mike shifts the truck into gear and I frown down at the pack in my hands before tossing it back on the dash.

Mike grins.

“So, this what you and my Dad used to do? Drive around the desert shooting the shit?”

He laughs; a deep, resonating sound the bellows out in the small confines of the cab; “Sort of, I guess.” He looks at me; “You and your pop close?”

“Oh, yeah; best buds.” I nod, turning to look out the passenger window as the silence descends on the truck.

“Yeah, me and my dad weren’t very close either.”

Mike’s face is neutral when I turn back; “Well, I mean, he traveled a lot, I guess.” I crack a grin; “You know, traveling, making it all happen, seeing the country. My dad was the
man
, huh?”

Mike just sort of nods and looks out his own window as the truck rolls down the road.

I frown;
well that’s a strange response
.

We drive in silence until we hit the first derrick, and we skid to dusty stop before we melt back out into the desert heat. Mike’s checking the systems panel inside the control box, when I decide to bring it up again; “Yeah he was a real cool guy, my dad, huh? Played by his own rules, marched to his own beat; all that shit, right?”

Mike just nods again, and I frown; “OK, what’s the deal?”

Mike frowns; “With?”

“With my dad.”

“It’s nothing, kid. Let’s just get this done and I can show you around the control booth back at base,” He says, looking away.

“Dude, c’mon. I heard the stories; you and my dad just tearing it up, going wild, not staying tied down, making your own-”
 

Mike whirls on me suddenly, his face red and his eyes frowning at me; “Yeah? How’d that work out for you and your mom, huh?”

I scowl; “Hey, my dad was a fuckin’ rocksta-”

“Your dad was a prick, kid.”

Anyone else in the world - anyone else in the world who wasn’t seven fucking feet tall and 300 pounds of muscle that is - and I’d deck them. As it is, I just glare at him, feeling the anger rage inside; “What the fuck do you know about-”

“I know he was a prick to your mother and his only son, that’s what I know. And this is a man I was
friends
with, kid.”

Words sort of leave me, as I stand there in the swirling dust with my fists clenched and my teeth bared at him, hating that everything he’s saying hits closer to the mark than I want it to.

“Oh c’mon, kid; ‘traveling for work’? You’re smarter than that.” He shakes his head as he slams the control panel lid back shut and marches towards the truck; “What the fuck is an oil derrick foreman doing traveling? What, roughneck conferences?” He laughs dryly; “Fuckin’, piping meetings?” He scowls as he shakes his head and yanks open the truck door; “He was just stepping out on your mom, that’s all.”

I slam the door shut on my own side, feeling my fists clenching and the red-rage of my glare narrowing on the dash in front of me.

“Listen, kid. Your dad was a friend, you gotta know that.” Mike shakes his head and reaches for my pack of smokes on the dash, pulling one out, sticking it in his mouth, and lighting it before tossing them back in my lap. He inhales deeply and blows the smoke out through his nose as he cranks up the AC; “He was a good guy, your pops, at heart that is. But actions speak louder, kid; they always do. And if you’re asking if I think what he did was ‘cool’ or made him some sort of rockstar, then you’re shit outta luck.”

My bed is a hurricane wreck of nucleotide tables, biochemistry notes, a dorm roommate compatibility poll for Columbia, and, well, me. My eyes are blurred and fuzzy from reading, and as I open the book in front of me to yet another discussion on gene treatment, I groan and sink my head against the pages.

Yikes
.

It’s moments like this when I really do
get it
. I
get
that this isn’t exactly normal eighteen-year-old behavior for the last summer before college. I
get
that I’m nerding it up to the max spending a Friday night cooped up in my room reading about biochemistry and cramming for placement exams instead of - well, I don’t even know what else.
 

I mean I do
have
friends; it’s not like I was some sort of social outcast at school before I delved into my summer of sequestered studying. But most of them are like me, or already gone for school, or -

Ok, fine; so I don’t exactly have a
ton
of friends.

But still, I don’t even know what I’d be doing with my last summer anyways; whatever it is people my age are
supposed
to be doing right now I guess. Drinking? Smoking? Making bad decisions? And am I just describing Knox because it’s easier?

We aren’t talking much, speaking of Knox, which sucks I guess since  we were finally starting to understand each other, but it’s also totally necessary. It became necessary when “starting to understand each other” turned into kissing, or his fingers touching me where I’d never been touched before, and his come across my stomach.
 

Yeah, no that went a
bit
above and beyond “getting to know one another” I’d say.

It’s been a week of coldness, at least from me towards him. He’s done his usual shenanigans like trying to trip me up with thinly veiled sexual innuendos at the dinner table in front of our parents. And just tonight, when I came upstairs after practicing, I’d found my
panties
missing from their drawer and strewn across my neatly made bed in the shape of a penis.

Yeah
; see what I’m dealing with?

But a week later - a week after I made the huge mistake of letting my guard down and letting him smooth talk me like that or whatever voodoo magic he used to get to me like he did - things are getting easier.

I won’t say stopping things with Knox was like ripping a band aid off or anything either, because it’s not. But it’s a slow release; a slow release of pent-up tension in getting him out of my head out from under my skin. And like I said, after a week, it’s getting easier to forget about Knox entirely.

There’s a sudden and jarringly staccato beat on my bedroom door, tearing me back from my daydreaming; “Oh
priiiin-cesss!
”

Well, so much for that “it’s getting easier to forget him” idea.

I frown, and I’m debating whether or not to feign sleep when he knocks again. And then again, and again, and-

I huff loudly as I jump off the bed and stomp towards the door; what is
wrong
with him?

“
What
?” I say flatly, spitting it out of pursed lips at him as I yank the door open.

“Nice, Paige. Cute attitude.”

He’s dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and a leather jacket; his hair pushed back out of his face and slicked back and to the side, A hint of ink peaks out from the collar of his shirt, and he’s looking every inch the tempting bad news I know he is.

“Sorry,” I grumble, pinching the bridge of my nose and rubbing the spot there; “I’ve got a ton of work to do, Knox.”

“Not anymore you don’t”