Slammed: Stepbrother MMA Fighter (2 page)

Chapter Three

“I’ve never been hounded by the paparazzi before,” Jamie said as they took their seats on the plane.

“That wasn’t hounded,” Chelsea said with a scoff. “I’m not famous enough to be hounded. They must have been waiting on someone else and were just killing time with me.” Chelsea had seen pop stars who were truly hounded by the paparazzi. People like Rihanna, Britney, Miley, and Taylor couldn’t take two steps out of their house without a dozen men with huge cameras and hoards of screaming fans shouting their names.

Everybody wanted a piece of them all the time and it made Chelsea nervous. She needed to figure out who her real friends were now before it was too late. She needed to surround herself with people she could trust and be herself around, but it was proving to be hard. She had plenty of hook-ups in Hollywood, but nothing serious. It seemed that everyone she met was just searching for fame and they didn’t want to be with Chelsea; they just wanted to use her as a stepping stone.

It was true that Chelsea wasn’t famous enough for that kind of attention, but her label was hoping she could be. Her next album was in the bag and she had finished the vocals last week. Now it was up to the editors and marketers to turn it into a finished product that would sell millions. If everything went as planned her entire life was going to be completely different in just a few months.

Once the album dropped she would forever be “Chelsea Riley: the girl next door.” Chelsea Riley the pop star would never go home and have hot sex with a total stranger; she would need to be too much of a good girl for that. Chelsea Riley the pop star would sit at home and drink tea and write mournful songs about the boy next door who was with someone else. She would need to be sweet as sugar and twice as nice all day every day or else her album sales would plummet. In a lot of ways this trip home was one last hurrah for the real Chelsea Riley, the one who like tequila shots and X-rated clubs.

The seatbelt light lit up above Chelsea and she and her sister dutifully buckled themselves in. The plane began to accelerate and then her stomach dropped as the wheels left the tarmac and they were airborne. They rose higher and higher as the city receded below them and then they were surrounded with big, white, puffy clouds.

***

“My girls!!!!” Colleen’s squeal was loud enough to make all the heads in the terminal turn to look at her, and boy did they get an eyeful. Colleen was wearing a pair of skintight leather pants and a pink, silk, lace, spaghetti strap top. Her hair was blown out and feathered and she was wearing more makeup than a Kardashian. In her own world, Colleen was still that nineteen-year-old party girl, even though over twenty years had passed and she was in her forties.

“Hi, Mom,” Jamie and Chelsea said in unison as they hugged their mother.

“You look great, Mom,” Chelsea said as she kissed her mother on the cheek.

“That’s right. I’ve been doing Pilates and CrossFit,” she said, her voice still a little bit louder than it needed to be. There was a gaggle of businessmen not too far from them waiting for their luggage and looking appreciatively at Colleen out of the corner of their eyes. Chelsea could see that her mother was putting on a bit of show. “I’ve got the ass of a twenty-five-year-old!” she said, giving herself a nice hard slap that sent the business men elbowing each other and raising their eyebrows. “I am going to look great when I’m your date for the Grammys,” she said to Chelsea.

“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves,” Chelsea said rolling her eyes at her sister who was trying to keep her laughter quiet.

“Did you bring the Camaro?” Jamie asked as she began to pull their luggage off the carousel.

“Oh no, honey,” Colleen said with a conspiratorial wink. “Terrance hired a limo.”

“A limo?” Chelsea asked.

“Who’s Terrance?” Jamie asked.

“Ta da!” Colleen crowed as she threw her hands around an older, heavyset balding man in a crisp suit. Chelsea hadn’t even noticed him; he had been standing by the carousel talking to a man who had his back to them. “This is my new beau, Terrance, Terrance DeMarco.”

Chelsea’s heart stopped. DeMarco...No, there was no way it could be
that
DeMarco. It couldn’t be, it would be too much of a coincidence.

“Like DeMarco’s Auto Repair shop, DeMarco?” Jamie asked.

“Like the many DeMarco’s Auto Repair shop,” the man corrected, holding out his hand. “I’ve done quite a bit of expanding these last few years. You must be Chelsea and Jamie. Colleen here has been telling me so much about you girls. I feel like I already know you.”

Numbly Chelsea shook the sweaty hand of Terrance DeMarco, his handshake oddly weak and limp and she pulled away from him quickly. Terrance DeMarco, of all of the men in Snowbird, her mother had to start dating Terrence DeMarco. There was something about Terrance that made the hair on the back of Chelsea’s neck stand up. There was something about the way he talked to people, something about the way he looked at them; it was like a spider looking at a fly. His eyes were dark and beady and he seemed to always be licking his lips. It didn’t help that Chelsea probably knew more about Terrance DeMarco than her mother did.

“Well, thanks for the limo, Mr. DeMarco,” Jamie said. She gave a sidelong glance at her sister who ignored it. Jamie knew all about Chelsea’s huge high school crush on Terrance’s son, Blue, and Chelsea was hoping that her sister could keep her mouth shut about it for the entire trip.

“Well, I wasn’t sure how else we could fit all five of us and all your luggage in a normal car anyway.”

“Five?” Chelsea asked. She felt sick and suddenly very lightheaded.

“Sure, did you not know that Blue was on the plane? He said he was going to call.”

“I must have forgotten,” a deep voice from behind them said.

Oh no,
Chelsea thought as her eyes went wide. She struggled to keep her face neutral, but all at once the night before came rushing back to her. She remembered exactly who she had been with; how could she have forgotten? Blue, she had run into Blue at the club. It had been Blue she had been drinking and dancing with; it was Blue she had brought home.

“Blue, so good to see you again,” Chelsea heard Jamie said. She looked at her sister out of the corner of her eyes and could see the huge smile her sister was trying desperately to hide. Yup, Chelsea had been with Blue last night and her sister knew it, too.

“Hey, Blue,” Chelsea said, finally turning around. She kept her eyes focused on the floor and then the collar of his shirt. She was too embarrassed to look at him. She was struggling to keep her cheeks from burning red, her hands from shaking, and her voice from stuttering. She had slept with the son of her mother’s new boyfriend. Her mother’s boyfriend’s son just happened to be Chelsea’s high school crush. Life in a small town could be so terrible sometimes.

“Hey, Chelsea,” Blue said and Chelsea finally looked into his eyes. He was wearing a knowing, but gentle, smirk; he also looked very good. Any vestiges of his high school self, the smattering of zits, the JNCOs, and the baggy basketball jerseys were gone, replaced with a stronger, confident looking man. Blue had bulked up and he was wearing a pair of well fitting blue jeans over tan boots, a tight white t-shirt, and a light blue jacket with the sleeves halfway rolled up his arms. His dark brown hair was swept to the side and he was clean shaven. He looked good, far better than he had any right to.

“Why didn’t you wear your blue dress uniform?” Terrance chided his son. “People bend over backwards for guys in uniform, you probably could have been bumped to first class or got to meet the captain or something.”

“That is why I went into the Army,” Blue said. “For the free flight upgrades.”

“Watch your mouth,” Terrance said and his voice slipped into a dangerous low tone that made Chelsea nervous. “You might be a big military guy now, but that doesn’t mean you can disrespect me in front of Colleen and her daughters.”

Chelsea glanced at her sister and they shared a worried look as their eyes looked everywhere but Terrance or Blue. There was a very clear threat in Terrance’s words and Chelsea could only too easily remember Blue ranting about his father and lying to teachers about how he got his bruises and black eyes.

It was bad enough that Chelsea had slept with her almost stepbrother. But the fact that Terrance was a known violent jerk wasn’t helping anything. Had he done anything to Colleen? Did she know what his true colors were? One last trip home, wasn’t that what had Jamie said, that they would just need to come and make nice for a couple of days and then not come back for a long time? Of course it wasn’t going to be that simple; it was never that simple with Colleen.

Blue didn’t react to his father. He stared at the older man and then, without a word, he began to lift Jamie and Chelsea’s luggage onto a carousel.

“Oh, we can do that,” Jamie said, reaching for a bag.

“Nonsense!” Terrance said loudly. “I didn’t raise my boy to watch a lady lug around a bunch of heavy baggage. He’s a healthy strong boy and he needs to start earning his keep anyway.”

No one said anything. It was awful and uncomfortable and Chelsea didn’t know what to do. It was in her nature to help people and she wanted to defend Blue or at least strike out at Terrance. But the situation was too messy. Terrance was her mother’s new boyfriend and no matter who he was, Colleen always sided with her new beau and never her daughters. Besides, Chelsea didn’t want to draw any attention to her relationship with Blue; she didn’t want to give anyone a reason to suspect there might be something else going on between them.

She didn’t feel good about it. The tension was making her sick. But she swallowed all of her reservations down and gave Blue a weak smile as the last of her luggage was piled onto the trolley and he began to push it towards the doors. Terrance took Colleen’s hand and they led the way with Chelsea and Jamie bringing up the rear.

“Well,” Jamie said under her breath, “this looks like things will be terribly awkward for the entire trip.”

“You cannot tell anyone about me and Blue the other night,” Chelsea said in a desperate whisper.

“I can’t believe you forgot it was him.”

“I must have blocked it out or something.”

“He does look very good, though,” Jamie said, tilting her head to get a better view of Blue’s ass as he pushed their luggage through the terminal.

Chelsea felt an odd sensation well up in her chest and it took her a moment to recognize it as jealousy. She instinctively wanted to tell her sister to back off, but she wasn’t sure why. She and Blue weren’t really anything to each other anymore. They had been friends in high school; Chelsea had always hoped it would turn into something more, but it never had. Chelsea had always thought Terrance was the reason Blue had pushed her away but she had never been able to get any proof. She did remember the tough life Blue had led. His mother had died when he was very young and Terrance had raised him. Blue’s father was a strict and demanding man with a quick temper. Thinking back on it, Chelsea couldn’t remember Blue saying a single good thing about him.

“Oh my God,” Jamie whispered with a giggle, “you do realize that if mom and Terrance get married you will have hooked up with your stepbrother, right?”

“Shut up!” Chelsea said, shoving her sister away from her. It wasn’t fair. Chelsea had met Blue long before her mother had met Terrance. If anyone should have been dating a DeMarco, it should have been Chelsea.

“Push me all you want. I’m still right.”

She was right, and what was worse, Chelsea wanted more. Blue had been so amazing last night and now that she had a face to put the sensations it was harder for her to forget about them. Nothing could happen between them. She needed to think of her career; she was supposed to be single when the album dropped. Her manager had made it clear that they wanted to sell her as the girl next door just looking for a good man to come and sweep her off her feet. There was no way that her maybe stepbrother and the son of a violent auto mechanic was the guy they had in mind.

Still, though, it was Blue. Blue was the first guy Chelsea had ever fallen for. She had written dozens of songs for and about him. She had dreamt of him and fantasized about him and now here he was, fresh out of the Army and pushing her luggage through an airport. If only things had been completely different, maybe they could have made it work.