Side Swiped By My Step Brother (16 page)

              “Well . . . yeah!” I snap. “If our parents weren’t going to get married, then there wouldn’t be a problem. But I thought we’d already established that.”

              He shakes his head, as though in complete disbelief. “Christ, I’m a fucking idiot. I can’t believe it. I cannot fucking believe it. Well, maybe it was my time.”

              “Your time? What are you talking about? You’re not making any sense. Look, it doesn’t have to be like this, okay? I told you that night in the pool that we could keep doing this until the wedding. And now that day is almost here, and all of a sudden, you don’t want to hear it.”

              “Oh, I hear you.”

              “So then what is all this talk about it being ‘your time?’ What does that even mean?” I can’t help the note of exasperation that has crept into my voice. Doesn’t he realize this is hard enough? Why does he feel the need to make it that much harder?

              “I’ve broken plenty of girls’ hearts over the years because I wasn’t interested in being with them for anything other than sex. Never had it happen to myself, though. Until now, anyway.”

              The realization of what he’s said, without technically saying anything, sinks in slowly. But I’m not sure if I heard him correctly, or if I just misunderstood. Is he saying that I am breaking his heart? No. That can’t be what he means at all.

              I don’t have time to ask for him to elaborate, or to tell him that part of me is doing this because I don’t want my feelings for him to progress any more than they already have. It’s too late for that, because he’s turned and is stalking out of the room, anger radiating off of him in waves that are almost tangible. He slams the door, so hard that instead of closing it just bounces back off the doorframe, the walls of the house reverberating with the shock.

              “What was that?” my mother yells from downstairs.

              Jai says nothing. I don’t know which way he’s gone, if he’s going into his room or downstairs, leaving the house completely.

              “It was nothing!” I call back to her, my voice shaky. I feel like I can’t draw in a breath. His furious expression is the only thing I can see, the words he just said the only thing echoing through my mind. I want to run after him but I can’t. I can’t.

              So I let him go.

Chapter Nineteen

Jai

The only thing that’s going to give me any peace of mind is a one-way ticket out of this fucking place and back to London, pronto. But seeing as there’s no plausible—or even semi-plausible—excuse I can come up to leave before the actual wedding, I’m here for at least another thirty-six hours. My blood is fucking boiling. No, I’m about to have an aneurysm. Or maybe a stroke. Or how about none of the above, because all that happens is this current of raging disbelief continues to course through my veins, like I’m hooked up to an endless I.V. drip of the stuff. I’ve got no choice but to grin and bear it, and that’s exactly what I try to do after I slam the door and am stalking outside. I see Dad approaching from down the hallway, and since I can’t pretend I didn’t actually see him I plaster a grin on my face and prepare to begin bearing whatever it is he’s about to tell me.

              “There you are,” he says. He claps me on the shoulder. “Everything all right?”

              I suspect my grin is closer to a grimace, so I attempt to rearrange my face into an expression of benign joviality.

              “Couldn’t be better,” I say through gritted teeth.

              “Well, get ready to test that theory.” He says this with all the vim of a game show host, and I want to slap him. For a moment I am overwhelmed with the urge to slap the ridiculous look off his face, to tell him that just because he’s getting married tomorrow and everything is all hunky dory in his world doesn’t mean that he has any fucking clue what is going to make things in my life better. It takes serious will power to keep my mouth shut. His hand remains on my shoulder as he guides me toward the front door. “Your surprise is here.”

              I refrain from telling him the only thing that could make me feel even more irritated at this point is whatever fucking surprise it is Dad’s got up his sleeve, but even through my anger, I can see that he’s genuinely excited. That does make me a bit curious, and this curiosity begins to chip away at the anger just a little. I take a deep breath. Then another. At this point, I’m hoping the surprise is a very expensive, very potent bottle of scotch, or something that will numb me enough so I can make it through the next thirty-six hours without putting my hand through the wall.

              “It’s this way,” Dad says. I follow him outside. I see nothing out of the ordinary. “Just a second. The surprise should be here any moment.”

              While we stand there, facing the driveway, I try not to think about Emma, who is probably still in her room, caring way too much about what other people think. I hate losing control like I just did. It wasn’t cool; I wish it hadn’t happened like that, but there is only so much I can take. I have never been one who’s dealt well with the flip-flopping. Yes, I’m okay with this, wait, now I’m not, oh actually I think I am, no, never mind, I’m really not . . . The problem with Emma is that she hasn’t been around the block enough times. She hasn’t shagged enough people to know that when something comes along like the connection she and I have, you don’t just walk away from it.

              “Any second now,” Dad’s saying, and I glance at him. He’s standing there, hands in his pockets, looking toward the driveway. As it becomes more and more clear that the surprise is not a bottle of cognac or moonshine, I start having to resist the urge to tell Dad I don’t give a flying fuck about the surprise and I’m going back inside. Another thirty seconds pass and I’m about to tell him as much when his eyebrows shoot up and a grin spreads across his face.

              I follow his gaze to the end of the driveway, where some black sports car has appeared and is making its way toward us at a rather rapid pace. An alarmingly rapid pace, for that matter, far faster than anyone should ever actually drive a car down a driveway. I glance at Dad, but he seems completely unbothered by this car careening toward us. The car comes to a screeching halt, but the windows are tinted so dark that I can’t actually see who’s in the driver’s seat. The driver door opens.

              My jaw drops. It’s Kate. Aw, my good friend, Kate, looking gorgeous as ever—the sculpted cheekbones, those full, pouty lips. She flips her long brown braid over one shoulder and grins.

              “Surprise,” she says.

              She comes around the front of the car and I go over and we embrace, both of us laughing. It feels good, this distraction, the way the anger has suddenly dissipated, because here’s a person who understands me without me having to say a single thing, here’s a person that, despite her being undeniably gorgeous, is not someone that I’m going to even think about sleeping with. All pressure’s off. It’s kind of strange how things can shift when sex is off the table. She, more than anyone, really is like a sister, in that I have no sexual attraction to her whatsoever.

              “What the hell are you doing here?” I say. “I can’t believe it!”

              “Well, I wouldn’t miss this guy’s wedding for the world!” she says, going over and giving Dad a big hug. “I needed a little time away, anyway. I need a break.”

              “Let’s get your stuff inside and you can meet everyone and have something to drink,” Dad says.

              Kate grins. “That sounds splendid.”

              And I have to agree; a drink (or twelve) doesn’t sound all that bad.              I don’t see Emma for the rest of the evening. I’m not even sure where she is, but for now, I think it’s better that I don’t see her. Kate and I spend the better part of the evening sitting down by the lake, drinking beer, catching up on old times.

              “It’s been a rough year,” she says. “Work-wise things have been great, but not so much in my personal life.”

              “I’m sorry to hear that,” I say. “Well, I mean, not about work. What’s up? Some girl giving you a hard time?”

              She tips the bottle of beer back and take a long swig. “Oh, you know. You know what it’s like with girls. Why do we bother, right? They’re so fucking infuriating!”

              “Yes, but better than the alternative.”

              She grins. “Damn straight.”

              “Or not.”

              “So this girl, Tara, she’s a grad student and she works at a bookstore, and she’s adorable. For the first six months everything was so great between us. It was fucking awesome. And I’m starting to think, hey now, here’s a girl that I could see myself spending the rest of my life with, here’s someone who just really brings out the best in me, who I truly love to be around. And no sooner do I think that then she starts pulling back. Saying that things are getting too serious, moving too fast, that she’s got to focus on school and our relationship, while it’s been great, has also been a huge distraction.”

              “That really sucks. I’m sorry.”

              “That’s not the worst of it though. I mean, yeah, that part sucks, but I can accept it, I can understand. It’s that she keeps going back and forth, changing her mind, telling me that she’s never felt this way about someone before and that she actually does want to try, and then the next week she’s back to singing the other tune. It is an emotional fucking roller coaster and I finally had to get off. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

              I stare out at the lake, the surface of the water smooth as a mirror. It all sounds so familiar.

              “I don’t understand why people have to go back and forth like that,” I say. “It doesn’t really make sense. It’s kind of fucking infuriating, in fact.”

              “Oh, it is,” Kate says. “But it also makes complete sense.”

              “How so?”

              “Because no one really knows what they want. No one has any fucking clue. Other than we want what makes us feel good, right? And so for Tara, that’s me, at least when we’re together, but we can’t be together all the time, and it’s the time that we’re not together that she starts thinking that things are either moving too fast or getting too serious or that she’s got all this other shit she needs to be doing.”

              “You know, I think you’re right.” I finish the last of my beer and then set the bottle down in the grass next to the chair. I don’t want to start talking about Emma right now, even to Kate, because I’m afraid that if I do, I won’t stop, but she’s exactly right. When Emma and I are together, everything is perfectly wonderful. It’s when we’re not together that she starts questioning everything. “What is the solution, though? It’s not like you can be with someone twenty-four hours a day. And you shouldn’t have to be.”

              “Oh god no.” Kate laughs. “If we were together for that long, it would probably be pretty awful! But it’s still frustrating. So . . . I’d just like to have a good time tonight and tomorrow maybe get a little tipsy, and celebrate some people who are really in love!” She holds her beer bottle up and I pick up my empty, and we click them together.

“To people who are really in love,” I say.

Chapter Twenty

Emma

I wake up the morning of the wedding feeling hungover, even though I didn’t drink anything the night before. I have the beginnings of a headache, this cloud that seems to be hovering somewhere behind my eyes, and my body aches and everything just feels blurred and unappealing. I lie there in bed, listening to the birds outside the window, the chatter and bustle of people downstairs. I lie there knowing that Jai is in the next room over, and that he very could be in there thinking about me, probably still pissed off, probably still not understanding why I feel the way I do.

              But then again, even I don’t totally understand and it’s the most frustrating thing in the world. Because I want to explain it to him, I want him to know where I’m coming from, except even I’m not sure.

              I roll over onto my side. I should be getting up. I should be getting up and seeing what sort of help my mother needs, what she wants me to do, even if it’s just to calm her nerves, but I can’t move just yet. I keep thinking about Jai, about the way he stormed out of here last night, how enraged he looked. I knew he wasn’t going to be happy to hear what I had to say, but I hadn’t expected that turbulent of a reaction. There is a part of me that just wants to stay in this bed until the whole wedding is over and everyone goes back to their regular lives. I want to see Jai but I don’t; I don’t want things to be terrible between us, I don’t want to feel like he hates me.

              Finally, I force myself up. The door to the bathroom is shut, but instead of knocking to see if anyone’s in there, I just go to the one next to my sister’s room down the hallway. She’s standing there in front of the sink, the door halfway open, brushing her teeth.

              “Hey, Em,” she says through a mouthful of toothpaste. She leans over the sink and spits. “You ready to have a wedding?”

              I stifle a yawn and push the door shut behind me. “You know, I think I am. Is Mom freaking out?”

              “Not too bad yet. Give her another hour or so. Hey.” She puts her toothbrush into the ceramic holder and leans toward me. “What do you think of that girl? Kate?”

              “Who?”

              I turn the cold water on and splash it over my face.

              “Kate. Jai’s date. She got here last night. Mom was saying that she’s like a stunt double in movies.”

              Something clenches in my chest when she says this, but I try to play it off like it’s the shock of the cold water. “I didn’t realize he had a date.”

              Jess laughs. “Of course a guy like that is going to have a date—he’s probably going to have several dates. But this girl—she’s gorgeous. She does look kind of familiar, actually. They’d have really gorgeous babies.”

              “We should really be focusing on Mom,” I say, trying to keep the tightness out of my voice, trying to keep my expression neutral. But there’s this awful current running through me, something like a cross between anxiety and jealousy. It’s a truly horrendous feeling. My thoughts seem like they’re careening at a mile a minute through my brain: He’s got a date? Is he sleeping with her? Who is she? How long has he known her? Does he like her more than me? When did this even happen?

              But I can’t ask him any of these things, nor can I really press my sister for any details other than what she’s told me, without her getting suspicious. And there’s no point in telling her, now that things are over between Jai and me anyway.

              So really, I tell myself, there’s no point in getting upset over this date, either, if things are over between you and Jai.

              It seems, though, that this Kate person is everywhere. She’s there when I go downstairs to get coffee. Jai is not—it’s just her and Zack in the kitchen, laughing about something, talking like they’ve known each other their whole lives. Maybe they have. Zack introduces me, introduces her as a “family friend” and she really is gorgeous. Jess wasn’t lying. Kate smiles at me, and shakes my hand.

              “Can you believe that he’s getting married?”

              “Yeah, it’s very exciting,” I manage to say.

              She grins. “And your mother is the sweetest woman ever. They make such a great couple. They’re very lucky to have each other. And Jai!” She looks over my shoulder and I know that he’s standing behind me. My throat constricts again as I force myself to turn. “Jai is so lucky to be getting such lovely stepsisters.”

              Oh, he looks thrilled.

              “Hey,” I say, trying to keep my voice neutral.

              The expression on his face is hard to read, but he doesn’t look happy. “Yeah, they’re lovely,” he mumbles. “This whole thing is just lovely.” We all stand there for a moment, the awkwardness growing thicker by the second.

              I make my exit as quickly as possible. The caterers have just arrived and are starting to set things up. I go upstairs to my mother’s room. She’s sitting in front of the vanity in a silk bathrobe, Jess brushing her hair.

              “Hi, Mom,” I say. “Do you need me to do anything?”

              She smiles. “No, sweetie, but thanks for asking. I think we’re doing pretty well, actually—no major catastrophes yet. I don’t even feel that nervous yet, if you can believe it.”

              “Well, that probably means you’re doing the right thing. Zack really must be the guy you’re supposed to marry.”

              “He is,” she says, sighing, the smile on her face turning dreamy. “If I didn’t believe that with all my heart, I wouldn’t be doing this, especially not at my age. But sometimes when these things happen, you just know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, regardless of how old you are. It is still hard to believe sometimes, but both of us couldn’t be happier, and we’re so happy that we’re all going to be together today as a family.”

              “We like seeing you happy,” Jessica says, running the brush through our mother’s hair.

              I look at the reflection in the mirror, my mother sitting there, Jess behind her, me to the side. We look similar but different, with Jess looking more like Mom than I do, I think. And especially now, both of them with matching contented expressions on their faces; Jess’s brow furrowed a bit in concentration as she runs the brush through our mother’s hair.

              My own face looks tense. Tense, and like I need some sleep. I take a deep breath and try to relax my shoulders. I smile. The girl in the reflection smiles back, and, if I didn’t know the thoughts that were running through my mind, I would think that she appeared to be perfectly happy, too.

              “Emma, if there’s anything you need to do for yourself to go get ready, by all means,” Mom says, reaching over and touching my arm. “Your sister’s just going to help me with my hair and then she’s going to get ready, too. I can’t wait to see you girls in your dresses.”

              The dresses that Jess and I will be wearing aren’t matching, but they’re similar shades of pink—not an obnoxious bubble gum shade but a deep pink, almost with a bit of a sheen to it. When I go into my room, I take the dress from the closet and look at it, then hang it back up. I’ll take a shower first.

              I go into the bathroom, hurrying to close the door that leads into Jai’s room. It doesn’t have a lock of course, but I realize that if I open the linen closet just far enough, that will prevent Jai’s door from opening. Good enough.

              I turn the water on and strip down, try not to think about being in this very shower with Jai when he was fucking me in the ass. Just thinking about it turns me on. I’m not going to use that fucking beautiful vibrator he bought me right now, but as I soap myself up, I let my fingers linger over my breasts, down my waist, my lower belly, between my legs . . .

              I imagine Jai coming in. He’s gone around through my bedroom, since he tried to get in through his door but couldn’t push the door open wide enough to fit through. Ah, here he is. He’s stepping into the shower behind me, and his hands are warm as they touch the small of my back, moving down to my ass, squeezing, slapping a little. He has me turn to face him, the water running in rivulets around the delineations of his muscles. His cock is hard as he takes a step closer, pulling me into him. He lifts one of my legs, slinging my knee over the crook in his arm, supporting me so I’m not balancing all my weight on my other leg. I wrap my arms around his neck and lean back a bit so he can slide himself in. He touches my breasts, rolling the nipples back and forth between his fingers, first one, then the other. He kisses my neck as he begins to move, slowly at first, but then with increasing speed, pushing himself further and further . . .

              The orgasm hits me hard, a rolling wave that sends aches of pleasure shooting through my legs, up my spine to the base of my brain. I open my eyes, part of me wanting, expecting to see Jai standing there, watching me. But the bathroom is empty, the mirror fogged with steam. I finish soaping myself up, rinse the shampoo from my hair, and get out. And even though that orgasm happened just a few short minutes ago, I feel an emptiness inside me that does not seem to want to go away.

              The ceremony takes place out in the backyard. White wooden folding chairs have been set up for the guests, and the justice of the peace is standing at the gazebo, where Mom and Zack will say their vows.

              We’re doing things a little differently; instead of a man giving Mom away (Grandpa, her dad, has been dead for over a decade now) Jess and I will walk down the makeshift aisle with her, instead of in front of her. Mom’s dress is pale ivory, simple and understated. Jess and I walk arm-in-arm with her toward Zack, where he’s standing with the justice of the peace, and his best man, Jai.

              It is difficult to keep my eyes off of Jai, try as I might. When Mom and Zack are standing there in front of the justice of the peace, saying their vows—how they’re going to love each other for the rest of their lives, how they both feel so blessed that they finally met each other and will do anything and everything to honor that love, always and forever—I feel a pang, a twisting in my stomach. Tears prick the corners of my eyes. I can’t remember seeing my mother look so happy. She looks so young and beautiful in her dress, and just the way Zack is looking at her speaks volumes about how much he cares for other. I can’t help but look over at Jai; I half expect that he’ll be looking at me, but he’s not. He’s standing there, slightly behind his father, watching them, a faint smile on his face. I keep my eyes on him, expecting that any moment he’ll look at me, but he doesn’t. In fact, it seems like he’s deliberately not looking at me.

              When Mom and Zack have kissed and the ceremony is over, I look for Jai, but he’s standing with a crowd of people, seemingly completely absorbed in whatever they’re talking about. I have the distinct feeling were I to try to go over there and get his attention, he’d simply ignore me.

              So I sit with Jess and Chris and drink champagne and eat steak tips and scallops and saffron risotto. There are no oysters this time, but the caterers are sure to keep everyone’s champagne glasses overflowing at all times. And it seems, every time I look for Jai, he’s talking with someone else, or he’s on the dance floor trying to teach Mom how to do what looks like the sprinkler dance, or he’s with that date of his. Most of the guys here seem interested in talking to her, whoever she is, but I can tell she’s not one of those women who flaunts herself and lets the attention go to her head. Still, it’s hard to see him with her, and I can’t help but wonder if he wouldn’t be ignoring me the way he is if she wasn’t here.

              I actually bump into her on my way in to use the bathroom.

              “Oh, hey,” she says, smiling. Shit, she really is one of the most beautiful women I think I’ve ever seen. And with her, she’s not even wearing any makeup, I’m pretty sure, totally all natural. She’s wearing a pair of tight black pants and a gray sleeveless turtleneck top. Her arms are slender but well muscled, and you can just tell by the way her clothes hug her curves that she’s got a great body. “You’re one of the stepsisters, right?”

              Her words are slurred a little, and she’s got a half-finished flute of champagne in her hand, which she downs right as I’m about to answer.

              “This shit’s good,” she says. “Although the more I drink of it, the more and more it begins to taste like water. Have you noticed that?”

              “No, I haven’t.”

              “What was your name?”

              “Emma.”

              “Emma. That’s right. Well, Emma.” She comes over to me, our bodies less than an inch from touching. She’s a few inches taller than I am. This close and I can see just how thick her dark lashes are, the way they curl up, the flecks of green in her blue eyes. And now that she’s this close, I can tell for sure that she’s not in fact wearing any makeup and her skin is perfectly smooth, blemish free. She smiles, and a dimple appears on her left cheek.

              “You have freckles,” she says. She leans her face right into mine. “Freckles are adorable. I always wanted freckles.”

              “I never liked them.”

              “I even tried drawing them on my face once, in middle school. It didn’t work out as well as I hoped. But people are always saying that, aren’t they? Always wanting what they don’t have. It’s part of the human condition.”