Stepbrother Bestie (A Stepbrother Romance Novel) (11 page)

“Sure. You can take me to that new hibachi
grill.”

“What? Isn’t that place expensive?” I
demanded, slightly shocked. “I don’t have…”

She interrupted me immediately. “You never
tell a girl that you don’t have the ability to fulfill her desires, in any
capacity. That is strictly for her to decide.” She smiled in more of a devilish
way. “I’ll be ready in five minutes.”

Chapter
17

Valerie

About halfway through the school day, I
saw Dalilah coming up to me. I was surprised to see her in school. Most days,
she cut class and urged Shawn to do the same; yet another reason why I simply
couldn’t stand her.

However, after the last time we had
talked, the fact that she was heading straight toward me made me wish that she
wasn’t in school anymore. After all, I would not want to be the source of her
anger, at least to the capacity that she would try anything. She had been in
plenty of fights before and I had seen her be pretty rough on Shawn as well. And
while I wasn’t afraid of her, I also didn’t want to get suspended over the
likes of Dalilah.

The really sad thing was though, part of
me was afraid of what I might find out about Shawn if she ever did start
anything with me. Would Shawn come to my aid, or would he side with his
girlfriend? I really didn’t want to find out.

Therefore, seeing her barreling toward me
like a bull, practically mowing down students as she walked, I wanted to run.
In fact, I almost did turn around and bolt down another hallway, knowing that
no interaction with this woman was ever going to be a pleasant one.

But before I could do that, I heard her
call my name, loud enough that if I did turn around and run, it would be far
too obvious. I sighed, trying not to let her see me roll my eyes. “Hi Dalilah.”

“Hey…” She answered, almost as though we
were old friends. I knew that couldn’t be good. When she got a little closer to
me, she lowered her voice. “I just wanted to let you know that we’re cool.”

“Oh…okay. Great,” I answered, even though
in the back of my mind all I could think of was,
No, we most certainly are not. Until you stop brainwashing my friend
into being with you, we are certainly not cool…
Although, I figured that a
ceasefire between me and Dalilah could only help the odd relationship that I
was trying to have with Shawn, so I just smiled.

“I…um…I heard about your mother,” Dalilah
answered, as though she was truly concerned.

I was thoroughly confused. “Well, I
didn’t…” I said before I could stop myself, “What about her?”

Dalilah looked confused right back for a
moment before she answered, “It’s okay. Shawn told me what happened. He told me
that your mother is sick and that you were talking to him about it the other
night.” She smiled. “You’re a good friend; keeping him in the loop, even though
you aren’t talking to him.”

At this, I wasn’t sure if I was more
outraged at her for bringing it up, or furious with Shawn for telling her that.
“My mom is fine,” I answered, far ruder than even I intended. After all, if
there was any truth to it, at least she was trying to be nice.

I had no doubt there was an ulterior
motive, but still, until I knew what it was, I couldn’t fault her for asking
about something like that; if there actually was something like that going on,
which there wasn’t.

“It’s okay,” she answered carefully, “I
completely understand. It’s really hard to have something like this happen. I
totally get it and Shawn told me that you wanted it to be kept a secret…I will
respect that. I promise.”

I narrowed my eyes and sputtered through
my growing sense of rage. “Shawn told you that?”

“Yes.” She nodded carefully, as though she
wasn’t quite sure whether she was able to get an accurate reading on my
reaction. “But in all fairness, I kind of forced it out of him. We’re not going
to focus on the details, but long story short, I saw you two meeting secretly
in the park the other day and so, obviously, I had some questions.”

I shook my head in an effort to clear it
before I glowered at her angrily. “Dalilah, I swear to you, there is nothing
wrong with my mother.”

Still, she didn’t seem to understand. She
narrowed her eyes at me and peered intently into my gaze. I decided to spell it
out. “He lied to you.”

At this, she reared her head back and
instantly grew nasty. “I was just trying to be nice. You don’t have to go on
the offensive.”

“I’m telling you the truth,” I insisted,
now too frustrated to stand here and argue with her when my blood was boiling
over Shawn’s horrendous indiscretion.

She rolled her eyes at me and hissed,
“Okay…Whatever…” before she turned quickly and stomped away from me.

However, now I didn’t care that she was
gone. In fact, I was glad. After all, the only person I wanted to talk to at
the moment was Shawn.

I quickly pulled out my phone, not wanting
to completely freak out on him in public and sent him a text message.
We need to talk. ASAP.

Before my next class, I received a text
back.
Okay. What’s wrong?

You
are a deplorable human being,
I answered.
And you have a lot of explaining to do.

After class, I received his next message.
What did Dalilah tell you?

 
Can you meet me after school?

Sure…

The rest of the day I was in a red-sighted
haze. I couldn’t believe how angry I actually was at him. There was no reason
for him to be acting like this.
She’s
your girlfriend for God’s sake. The very least you could do was make up a
better lie.

Now, I understood why he would feel the
need to lie to her. I really did understand. I saw firsthand how manipulative
and crazy she could be, so I could see telling her almost anything to get her
off of his case; but the opportune word there was
almost.

After school, I stomped to the park, where
we had met last time and thankfully, we were alone. The last thing I wanted to
do was have some neighbor overhear me and get the wrong idea about my family.
After all, the she-devil herself already had the same idea stuck in her head
and apparently refused to yank it out and therefore, I didn’t want the same
thing to start circulating between the neighbors.

The last thing I needed was for Shawn’s
stupid lie to get back to my mother. It might not bother her, what was being
said, but I knew who was saying it would probably bother her quite a bit.

Chapter
18

Shawn

I had a slight pain in my stomach all day,
wondering what could have happened. I knew that Dalilah was behind whatever it
was, because that woman would not go down without a fight and she loved to
concoct plans behind everyone else’s back, thinking that she was far smarter
than everyone.

However, I couldn’t imagine what had
gotten Valerie so upset.

Yet, when I saw her face, glowering at me from
across the park, I had a pretty good idea that my inclinations about what Dalilah
had shared with her were fairly spot on. For the entirety of the day, ever
since I had received that first text message from Valerie, I had tried to
convince myself that as rough as Dalilah was on me and as sneaky as she was,
there was no way she would betray my trust.

However, now, I knew the truth and it made
me extremely angry. I knew that I shouldn’t have trusted her, even with a lie,
but now that I had, it hurt me that she would go behind my back, stab it and
turn the knife so methodically.

As I walked up to Valerie, I figured that
my best shot at a saving grace was telling her, “I am so sorry…”

“Yeah, you should be,” she spat without
the slightest sense of empathy. She lay into me, heavily and angrily, but I
knew that she was hurt, which made the scolding even worse. “How dare you! Why
would you tell her anything about my personal life, whether it is true or not?
You had no right to incorporate me or my mother into your lie…and to say what
you said about her…That’s awful!”

“I had to say something,” I blurted,
realizing what a lame defense that was, but not really caring all that much.

“And that was the first thing that popped
into your mind?” she demanded. “That’s terrible! Next time you have to lie and
you feel that it needs to be so absurd, tell her that your own mother is sick
and leave my mother out of it…at least then, you wouldn’t actually be too far
from telling her the truth.”

I opened my mouth to retort, but then was
struck with a sense of anger and hurt. Now, it was I who could not believe what
Valerie was saying.
 
I felt my eyes
narrow as I glared at her. My breath became slightly heavier, before I answered
in a cold, hurt fashion, reflecting all of the terrible thoughts that were
rumbling around inside of my mind at the moment, “You know what really sucks?
The fact that if I tried to be so concerned for my own mother, she wouldn’t
have believed me. I care about you and I care about your mother. I used to think
that you both cared about me far more than either of my own parents did, but
the more this…whatever this is that keeps going on between us lasts, the more I
am starting to realize that this has nothing to do with you wanting me to come
home, or even…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it, but I was sure that the look
in my eyes gave it away. I peered at her intently, willing her to see me the
way that I saw her, but the look that I received back confirmed that I was not
that person to her and I probably never would be. “But lately, she is the only
one who is there for me. Like her or not, she is the only constant in my life.”

At this, Valerie stepped back, as though I
had slapped her, and scoffed at me before saying, “You’re the one who left…and
if you remember, you’re the one who called it off the first time, so don’t try
to turn this all around on me and make me out to be this terrible person. I was
right…” She hissed, looking me up and down with a sense of disdain in her eyes.
“You are despicable.”

With that, she turned around and began to
walk away. But after a moment and a sigh, through which I released all of my
aggravation and anger, I couldn’t bear to let her walk away from me like that
again. “Valerie, wait!” I ran after her. She turned around and stared at me, as
though she was trying to pierce me with laser vision and turn me to dust.
Still, I took solace in the fact that she had stopped.

I knew then that I had a chance.

“Wait…” I exclaimed again as I caught up
with her, sighing heavily. “I’m sorry.”

“For what, exactly? It’s a pretty long
list.” She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at me, as
though to increase her concentration so that I would inevitably fall into a
pile of ash on the ground.

Since I was still standing there, however,
I figured it hadn’t worked. “For everything. I know why you are upset about
what I said…and I am sorry that I hurt you. I was angry then. I didn’t realize
that I had hurt you…”

“You didn’t care, either,” Valerie replied
earnestly, now making her eyes wide as she spoke.

I nodded and after careful contemplation,
I replied, “You’re right. I didn’t care. That’s on me. When our parents
announced they were getting married, almost to the day, I was going to ask you
to go out with me. I knew that it was strange, being that our parents were
dating, but they had dated for years, so I figured that we had a shot of it not
actually being strange. By that point, I figured they were content in their
relationship and would never take the next step into making it official. I had
never thought that their status would change. They were always just…dating. So,
when they said that they were getting married and that we were going to be
living together as brother and sister, I was angry. Everything changed and
then, to make matters worse, even my relationship with my father changed and
that screwed up the whole dynamic.”

She nodded, showing that she was listening
to me intently.

“Therefore, I never told you how I felt
and when you came to me that day with your suggestion, I was scared. Everything
was happening so fast…and I didn’t want to have to worry about losing you too.
I thought if we could stay friends, without the complications of a
relationship, especially of our relationship, given our new parental status,
that I would have a better shot of things never coming undone between the two
of us.”

“But you hurt me,” she said again and as I
looked in her eyes, I saw that she was remembering the words that I had said to
her.

Reluctantly, my mind flashed back to that
as well and I heard my own, panicked voice ringing in my ears; “
Eww…We’re about to be step-siblings. We
can’t date now…Besides, I never felt that way about you anyway. We’re friends,
Val…That’s all we can ever be.”
I then remembered her heartbroken
expression, which was a lot like the one she was wearing right now. When my
mind came back to the present, I grasped her hand and pulled it toward me. The
familiar feel of her skin was comforting, even though in my mind, I was a
barrel of nerves. “Look…When I said what I said, I wasn’t telling you the
truth. I only said that so that you would stop making me hope for an
us
, but at the time, I did mean that I
thought all we could ever be was friends.”