Pulse: A Stepbrother Romance (19 page)

“Hello, you’ve reached Kevin. I’m busy at the moment, so please leave a message and I’ll get back to you when I can.”

I hung up and threw the phone onto the couch.

“Fuck!”

Radio silence. Not just from Leah, but everyone. All of my new friends, even the closest ones I’d spent so much time with learning about music. No matter how much time we had spent together, they were still better friends with Leah and had known her longer than me. All it took was two days for word to get out that Leah wanted nothing to do with me, and it was over.

No job, no friends. No Leah.

Things had never been so bad. At least when life had been a dark hole with no hope, I’d still had an income and a group of friends, even if I despised them and the things we did together.

There was still the music. But without Leah and her friends, I was right back at square one. I’d had one successful show, but no connections to set another up. For the first time I regretted leaving so quickly with Leah that night—there had been so many people waiting to talk and I had blown them all off to get home a couple minutes sooner with the woman who wanted nothing more to do with me.

Even the business cards handed to me that night had disappeared. No matter where I looked, they didn’t turn up.

I picked up the stack of bills on the coffee table as if the business cards might lay underneath.

Bills…

The small savings I had were on the verge of drying up. If I didn’t find work, I’d soon be homeless.

I retrieved the phone from where I’d thrown it and dialed one more number. I hadn’t talked to her since before I quit because I didn’t want her to worry, but the time for secrets was up.

“Hello?”

Her voice was always calming. It was the one that had been reasonable every time Dad had said something that you shouldn’t say to your own sons.

“Mom.” I couldn’t help it. My voice cracked.

“Christian? What’s wrong, dear?”

“I messed up.”

“What happened? What did you mess up?”

“Everything.” I took a trembling breath and then told her. About how I quit my job. About how I’d ditched the crew. About the DJ gig Leah got me, and how well it went. I even told her about how Leah and I got together. I also told her about the events of Thursday night, Leah’s play and the attack later on that night.

“Oh, Christian. You’ve been so strong for so long, it’s hard to remember that you’re still young. You’ve never faced true heartbreak before or had to deal with the consequences of picking the wrong friends. I’m just glad you and Leah are safe for now. We can figure everything else out later.”

“Figure what out?” Frustration laced my voice. “My chances in music are worse off now than since before Leah and I met, and there’s no getting my job back at the warehouse. Especially not when those assholes are still there, running free after what they did. I swear to God, Mom, I’ll kill Derek. He’ll pay for what he’s done.”

“Christian! Promise me you won’t go after those punks! You’ll get yourself hurt. Didn’t you tell the police everything you know?

I scoffed. “Yeah, and it will just be our word against theirs with no evidence. They won’t get anywhere near what they deserve.”

“Christian! Promise me!”

“Fine. I won’t go after them. Happy?” It was hard to hide the insincerity in my voice.

“I suppose,” she said. “They’ve shown that they don’t care about the law, I don’t want you to get hurt even worse than you already have.”

“Trust me, I’m not a big fan of that myself,” I said. “A fractured forearm is enough damage for one week.”

She tsked. “I really wish you would move out of the city. It worries me, having you down there.”

It was a perfect opening. “Actually, that’s part of the reason I called,” I said. “You remember the job that Jerry offered to me a few months ago? Do you think he’d still be able to get it for me?”

“Dad!” I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him. “This is a big surprise.”

He stepped into the apartment and looked around. It was the first time he’d seen it.

“Nice place. Bit small.”

I smiled. Of course that was the first thing he said. “It’s perfect, Dad. I wouldn’t want anything bigger. Then I’d have to fill it with more useless crap. Why are you here? Not that I don’t love it, but you hate the city. You said you’d never come in.”

There was only one thing that would have made him break his word, but I held my breath, hoping it wasn’t the case.

He frowned. I knew that face. It was his concerned mother face. Growing up, that face always told me when he’d decided that he needed to step in for my deceased mother.

“I heard about what happened the other night. I wanted to come and see for myself that you’re okay.”

“Chris told you.” My voice was flat.

“He told your stepmother. She filled me in.”

I could tell it hurt him he’d had to get the story secondhand.

“I didn’t want to worry you. It was scary, but it ended up okay. Chris and I weren’t the only ones to go to the hospital—one attacker went, too. Last I heard, he still hasn’t woken up.”

He put his arms around me. It was protective, and safe. The fatherly hug that promised everything would turn out okay.

The tension eased from my body. I hadn’t realized how bad it had gotten over the past few days.

“I’m sorry,” he said from over my head. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, honey. I wish there was a way I could go back in time and prevent it from happening. These things are terrible, horrendous, and there’s no explaining how deviant men can get.”

I hugged him tight. “Thanks, Dad.”

When we backed away, my shoulders felt lighter, as if the emotional catharsis had lifted an actual weight from my back.

“Can I get you a beer?” I asked him.

“Do you have any wine?”

Of course. I should have known. “Just give me a sec.”

Once we settled in the living room, I couldn’t take my eyes off him sitting on my couch. “I can’t believe you’re actually here.”

“Well, my baby is having a tough week. Some things are more important than a distaste for the city. Why don’t you tell me about the play?”

Dad was my first fan, my first director, and my primary cheerleader. It was only his willingness to sacrifice everything for his daughters that had given me such a step forward in my acting. He’d seen it all, and I knew how much he wished he’d been at the play the other night.

“It should have been great,” I said. “The script was fantastic. But there was some history with the writer and the director that I guess scared off most of the seasoned and best-qualified actors. I had no clue until it was too late and we already started rehearsals. I guess the only thing to be happy about is that it tanked so completely that they canceled the rest of the run. All that time and effort put into rehearsing, and it got canned after one show.”

“There’s nothing wrong with having a failure, Leah. It happens, and you learn from it and move on.”

“Everyone keeps saying that!” I exploded.
“ 
‘It’s just a learning experience. No one will remember it. You did well and that’s all that matters.’ Can someone please just agree with me that life sucks right now? This should have been a big break, and then I found out I got the part only because everyone else knew how big of a train wreck it would be before auditions even started. I feel like an idiot.”

“Did you read the reviews, Leah?” Dad asked.

I nodded. “One of them.” The way he looked at me like he knew I wasn’t telling the whole truth forced the rest of it out of me. “Okay, I read the first couple paragraphs and couldn’t read any more. It was brutal, Dad.”

I could feel the tears start to come back the way they had when I first read the things the reviewer said about the play. After being there, being in it, I knew it would be bad; I should have been prepared for it.

“Well, as your father, I tracked down every single review written about the play. There were four, in different papers and websites. You know the things they all had in common?”

I shook my head and used a finger to wipe away the moisture that had collected in my eyes. “I bet they all said it sucked.”

He laughed. “Oh, yeah. That was a common theme. But they all also said that it could have been much worse. That if it weren’t for the female lead, Leah Allen playing the part of Annie, then it would have been an absolute travesty.”

I sniffed. “They said that?”

“It’s right there in every one.” He smiled. “Every time someone digs up and reads a review of the play, they’ll get an account of how brilliant you were even with everything going to shit around you.”

“Dad! You aren’t supposed to say ‘shit.
’ 
” Getting Steph and I to tell on each other when we said bad words was his way of keeping our language as clean as possible when we were little, and I never broke the habit around him.

“Sorry, pumpkin. Point is, I don’t think this will set you back as badly as you think it will.”

I took a sip of my wine, mulling it over. The situation was definitely better than I’d thought.

“That’s not the only reason I came, Leah.”

We’d already covered the assault and the play. What else was there?

“It’s about Chris.”

My heart skipped a beat.
He can’t know about me and Chris, can he?

I didn’t know how he would react to that. Besides, Chris and I were done. Beyond done. I never wanted to see him again. At least that’s what my brain said. My body screamed a different story, and so did my dreams over the past couple nights.

“What about Chris?” I tried to keep my voice neutral and not say anything I would regret without knowing how much he knew.

“He’s in a tough spot,” Dad said. “He’s asked me if I could get him a job at my company. He’ll be moving out of the city to come and stay with us if things don’t turn around in the next couple months, since he won’t be able to make rent.”

“He’s leaving?” I couldn’t believe it. “But he hates it out in the country!”

Dad shrugged. “He doesn’t have a choice, sweetness. He doesn’t have a job, and I guess he’s been dabbling with some music stuff but it’s not working out for him. I didn’t talk to him but it sounded like he could use a friend right about now.”

He knows.
I could tell from the way Dad looked at me. Chris had told his mom everything, and she’d shared with Dad.

I set my jaw. “Chris is dangerous, Dad. It’s not just the people he knows—it’s him, too. He actually wants to kill those men. He won’t back down. The look in his eyes scared me.”

“Do you blame him?” Dad sipped his wine, and I looked at him. My father’s face had hardened. He was one of the most laid back men I’d ever known, but his intensity was frightening. “Real men react when someone threatens the ones they love. It’s a visceral response that makes them do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do."

I stayed silent. It was the first time I’d seen this side of Dad. If even he could side with Chris, was I truly in the wrong?

“Just remember, Leah: sometimes we don’t have as much time with those we love as we thought we would.” His face scrunched up as if he had a pain deep inside. “You don’t want to be caught up in regrets because you hadn’t lived life as fully and completely with them as you wanted.”