Save Me: a Stepbrother Romance (15 page)

“Stop.  Someone will see us.”

“Ooh, scandalous.”  He slipped an arm around me.  “Incest is a good way to spice up the bedroom, yeah, Pink?”

“What are you doing, Cal?” I said dryly.

He pouted at my serious voice.  God, he was cute.

“I wanted to ask you something, Pink,” he said, rummaging around in his coat pocket.  I eyed it suspiciously.

“If you’re pulling out the condom, the answer is no.”

“What’s wrong, Sis, I thought you liked big cock.”

I swatted him away while I blushed.  “Not in public.”

“That wasn’t a no.”

“I will murder you in your sleep.”

He grinned and kissed my forehead.  “Got it.  Now pay attention, cause I’ve never done this before, and it’s important.”

“What is—oh no.  No, no, no.”

Cal dropped to one knee.

This is not happening.

“What are you doing?” I hissed at him.

“Proposing, dumbass.”

“Cal, we are high school students!”

He rolled his eyes at me.  “Yes, obviously, or there would be no point in me doing this.  Jesus, Pink.  For the smartest person I know, you can be pretty dumb.”

“Nice backhanded compliment.”

“No, it was a backhanded insult.  I insulted you, but it was really a compliment.  Pay attention.”

I glared at him.  He grinned up at me and leaned forward to kiss my stomach. 
Stop being cute, goddamnit.

“Alright.  Fine.  I’ll play along.”  I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a deep breath.  “Why wouldn’t this work if we weren’t high school students, Cal?”

“Because I’m asking you to prom.”

“I—what?”

Now that was out of left field.  For some reason, that struck me as even stranger than proposing marriage.  Maybe because I had never associated something as innocent as prom proposals with someone as tattooed and foul mouthed as Cal.  I eyed him even more suspiciously now as he pulled the mystery item out of his coat pocket, still not convinced it wasn’t a condom.

No, I realized with surprise.  It wasn’t.

It was a small black jewelry box. 

I really would have thought it was a wedding ring if he hadn’t already nixed the idea.  I tilted my head. 

“Cal, I don’t think this is how asking girls to prom normally works.  You don’t have to give me anything.”

“Of course I don’t have to.  But I want to.”

He flipped the box open.

I gasped as the glint of a diamond sparkled at my eye.  It was the diamond stud that Cal normally wore in his ear.  I hadn’t even noticed it was missing.  I looked into his eyes, even more confused now.  I hadn’t seen him take the earring off the entire time I had known him, now that I thought about it.

“Not ring,” said Cal, holding it up for me.  “I know you’d get pissed at that.  But this is better.  Like it, Pink?”

“Your … earring?  You’re giving me your earring?”

“Nope.”  He stood up, towering over me again.  Delicately, he took my chin in his hand and tilted it up.  His movements were so soft and careful, like he thought I was a china doll.  He pulled the diamond stud out of the box and slipped into my left ear.  He fastened it and pulled back again, tilting my chin to admire the way it sparkled next to my face. 

“So….”

“It’s not mine.  It’s my mother’s earring.”

“Oh.”

I was frozen again.  I didn’t know how to handle emotional stuff like this, to be honest.  I could ace the SAT, I could coordinate school club meetings, I could expertly avoid my abusive ex-boyfriend while maintaining perfect attendance in class.  But I had the emotional intelligence of a potato.

“It’s the only thing I have left of her,” he said, looking into my eyes.  “Dad took everything else.  But these—”  He reached forward to caress my jaw, dropping his fingertips over the diamond where it was secured in my earlobe.  “I got these before he even knew they were missing.  And kept them.”

“ ‘These?’  Is there another one?”

He nodded.  His hand slipped into his pocket and pulled out the perfect twin to the earring in my earlobe.  He placed the matching earring into his own ear.  I loved the way it shined next to his eyes, bringing out their color and light. 

Is that what Cal saw when he looked at me?

“There,” he said in a soft voice.  “Together again.”

I stared into his eyes, mesmerized by how beautiful he was.  And then caught myself, embarrassed, and looked down.

“You’re so pretty when you blush, Pink,” he said, cupping my chin again.  He brought my face to his and kissed me long and deep.  His tongue ran over my bottom lip.  Not lecherously or lustily, but sweetly.  I opened my mouth to him. 

I loved him.

I loved him so fucking much.

“Why do you look so worried, sweetheart?” he whispered against my mouth.  I tried to kiss him again, but he knew me, which meant he knew the whole ‘emotional intelligence of a potato’ thing.  He avoided the kiss, waiting for me to answer instead of kissing away the question.  I huffed.

“I’m worried about Mom.”

“I told you I’d take care of you.  That includes her.”

“I know.  But you’re not always around.  And I don’t want to depend on you, Cal.  I’m grateful, but I feel so useless.  I want to be able to stand on my own two feet.  I need to.”

He touched my cheek.  “We’ll figure something out.”

I closed my eyes.  “You promise?”

“Always.”  He kissed me again.  “Now come on, Prom Date.” 

“What—no!”

Before I could slap him away, he had grabbed me and slung me over his shoulder like a Viking claiming his war booty.  Back to cocky Cal.  Better than sad Cal, but still not great for me or my need to not be accosted constantly by an obsessed stepbrother.  I went cross-eyed as his heavy footsteps bounced me up and down on his shoulder like a ragdoll. 

“Put me down goddamnit!”

“Come on.  I’ll carry you in, princess.”

“Oh my God.  I’m really am going to murder you.  I’m going to murder you in your sleep, and they’ll put me in prison, and I’ll graduate in a damp cell with my prison wife.  You’re so dead.”

“Promise?” he asked, pulling me into his arms, cradling me like a baby.  Less humiliating than over the shoulder, still not something I wanted my classmates to see.  I glared at him.

“Yes.”

“Thanks, sweetheart,” he said with a kiss.

The next few weeks were a rollercoaster. 

One minute, I was glaring at Nate from across the lunch room—I had noticed he had started watching me again.  The next, I was worried sick about the Mom and James situation, especially when the end of the semester approaching meant I was too busy to focus on it.  And then there were all the  little sweet moments in between with Cal. 

Cal pulling me into a hidden part of the hallway for kisses at school.  Cal slipping love notes under my bedroom door when the others were asleep.  Cal giving me
the eyes
across the room when we were in public—a look that sent my heart racing and my cheeks blushing, which only encouraged him.

One night, Cal and I lay on his bed together, listening to Mom and James stomp around the lower floor.  No screaming or fighting, but the stomping meant that something was up. 

And, almost like he could read my mind, Cal had slipped into my bedroom and carried me out.  Saving me from being alone.  I fell asleep with his body curled over mine as we slept together in his bed, safe again.  It was stupid.  We could have gotten caught.  It was dangerous and irresponsible. 

So we did it every night for the next week.  And then the week after that.

“Do you think they noticed last night?” I asked him one day as we walked into the lunch room.  No more stares—people seemed to have gotten used to us being together.  Hopefully as brother and sister.  Though I suspected a few teachers were catching on, mainly because Cal had a habit of grabbing my butt when he thought no one was watching.

Cal snorted.  “They don’t notice anything  besides themselves.  Too self-absorbed.”

“Don’t talk about my mom that way.”

He touched the small of my back lightly.  A way of apologizing without saying anything too revealing out loud in front of the crowded lunch room.  I appreciated it.

“She doesn’t notice you, though,” he said as we sat down.

I shrugged.  “She’s busy.  She’s a single mother.  She doesn’t have time to notice me.  I’m fine with it.”

“If you have to say you’re fine so much, you’re probably not.  Quit trying to convince yourself.” 

I rolled my eyes.  When I glanced back at him, he had leaned back in his chair and was watching my ear again.  I felt the blush creep back into my cheeks.  I loved the way he looked at me.  Especially the soft look he got when he saw me wearing his earring, even if I had to hide it with my hair when we were at home.  I doubted James cared about his son enough to notice the diamond stud, but I didn’t want to risk anything.

“He’s looking at you again,” said Cal without removing his gaze from the sparkle in my ear.  “No, don’t look at him.  Don’t give him the satisfaction.  But I thought you should know.”

I grimaced and glared into my peanut butter and jelly.  Jess plopped down in the seat next to me, but I didn’t dare look up.  Not now that I could feel Nate’s hateful gaze on me again.

“Should I beat him?” Cal asked casually.

“Oh hush,” Jess said, slapping his hand.  Cal snorted, a smile perking up his face.  Cal was warming up to Jess and her bold, brash, standing-up-to-tattooed-men-for-the-good-of-her-friend ways.  “It’s not like he’s going to try anything.”

“Don’t tempt fate.”

Cal frowned.  “You should worry.  I told you—”

“That he’s dangerous but you’ll protect me, yeah, yeah, I got it,” I grumbled.  Jess peeked up at us, interested.  She knew something was up.  But honestly, I didn’t care anymore.  All I cared about lately were the wonderful dreams I kept having in which Nate was tossed off cliffs or hit by busses. 

“Do you want me to protect you now?” Cal asked. 

His voice had changed.  There was an edge to it, and he was sitting up in his seat.  I felt, through the rising hair on the back of my neck, Nate’s presence pass by me.  I locked my jaw as I watched him walk away, gliding out of the cafeteria.