Stepbrother Bestie (A Stepbrother Romance Novel) (14 page)

Yet, as I climbed into bed, I thought of
how tired I was and decided that I couldn’t possibly be dreaming already; after
all, people can’t be tired in dreams and with the emotional train wreck that I
had gone through today, I was feeling every bit of the exhaustion that came
after the euphoria of the final moments of the day.

Within a few minutes, I really was asleep
and when I woke up the next day, I realized it was a little later than I
normally woke up.

Still, the house seemed strangely quiet.
It was possible that my mother and stepfather had gone out, which wouldn’t be
abnormal. After all, I was an adult now and therefore, they didn’t have to keep
tabs on me or tell me what they were doing.

Most of the time, I wouldn’t have cared
either, but today, I had woken up in a particularly good mood so I wanted to
enjoy the morning with my family.

But when I went downstairs, I realized the
house was eerily quiet. I found it strange, as though at any moment, something
monumental was going to happen, but I had no idea what.

Oh
God…
I thought suddenly,
what if our parents
found out about me and Shawn?
At the thought, my heart began to pound and I
felt a lump forming in my throat.

I thought about calling my mom to find out
what they were up to so that I could calm my nerves, but I soon realized there
was a good chance that would only make things stranger.

If
they had a hint as to what I was doing with Shawn last night, my checking up
with them would be weird and incriminating.
 
So I focused on getting up, getting dressed,
taking my shower and eating my breakfast, just like it was any other day.

Even though I was entirely positive that
this wasn’t any other day. My two-year relationship with Zachary was over, but
I had finally reached a point of no return with my relationship with Shawn.

Today was the day after the night I had
waited for the majority of my life and it felt great!

There was no guilt and there was no anger.
There wasn’t even a sliver of regret. All I wanted was Shawn. The only person
that I wanted to be with at the moment was Shawn.

I felt that instead of making us even more
estranged, for the first time, the two of us had done something that had
actually brought us closer together, and it felt amazing. I couldn’t wait to do
it again, but first, I knew that I had to figure out what I was going to do to
get rid of this paranoia.

I didn’t text anyone, even though I had
about twenty texts from Zachary; most of them were left unread as well as
completely unwanted while I got ready for my day.

All I wanted to do was check in with Shawn
and see what was going on, but I was a little afraid. The strange feeling that
something big was about to happen kept echoing in my mind and there was a part
of me that did not want this feeling to end any sooner than I feared it
inevitably would.

 
I
just tried to relax and soon enough, I heard a car pull up in the driveway.

Oh
good…
I thought, feeling a smile cross my face,
they’re home.
I sighed with relief,
proud of myself that I had made it that far without calling anyone or in any
way trying to relieve the pressure that I felt about what was going on today. I
didn’t quite understand it, but I knew that I didn’t need to. I was going to be
able to just relax as soon as they got inside and I was able to talk to them.

However, in one final act to prove there
was nothing that they should be suspicious of, I didn’t bother to go to the
door. I hadn’t met anyone at the door in a long time. If I started now, it
would be strange. So, I stayed at the kitchen table, eating my breakfast and
wondering if the strangeness that I felt was all in my head.

As
a matter of fact,
I thought, narrowing my eyes as I tried
my best to pinpoint why the strange sensation was happening,
both Mom and my step-dad were acting weird
all week.

I quickly concluded that must be why I was
thinking that their absence this morning, before I got up, was a little odd.

“Valerie!” I heard my mother call as she
walked in the house and I felt my stomach twist, even though there was nothing
wrong with and certainly nothing to fear from the way she spoke.

“I’m in here, Mom!” I called, scooting off
the stool that I was sitting on. I made my way toward her, finally feeling as
though it would be appropriate.

“Oh good!” she exclaimed when she saw me.
“You’re dressed.”

“Yeah, I got up a little while ago.”

My mother smiled brightly and I figured
that unless they were really happy with the fact that Shawn and I had gotten
together, they probably didn’t know.

Yet, there was still a creepy sense about
the whole situation that I refused to ignore. So, finally, I broke down and
asked, “Is everything okay?”

“Perfect,” she answered. “Wait until Paul
comes inside.”

I squinted my eyes at her. “Okay…” and
felt another bubble of fear, anticipation and perhaps, excitement churn in the
pit of my stomach. I felt strange. If they were upset, then they were sure
being pretty disarming about it. However, I just resolved to stare at my mother
and keep my guard up slightly, while my mother waited, somewhat impatiently for
her husband to come inside.

When Paul finally did arrive, he was
smiling brightly too.

My mother began when he came over to her
and put his arm around her. “So, we know that it’s not your birthday quite yet,
but we wanted it to be a surprise.”

Confused, I looked from Paul to my mother,
who were both excited and reeking of the strange sensation that I had felt
since I woke up.

I smiled. “Thank you,” but realized then
that they did not appear to be holding anything, until my mother brought out a
very small box from her purse. I wondered if it was jewelry, since that was
what it resembled.

The white box had a red bow on it and
after fluffing it up, my mother gave it to me.

“Happy birthday!”

Carefully, I took the box. My birthday
wasn’t until the middle of the week and with everything that had gone on over
the course of the past twenty-four hours, I hadn’t even thought about it. And I
normally love my birthday.

I smiled down at it and realized that my
hand was shaking slightly. Ignoring the feeling, I pulled the top off of the
box and stared, confused at first, down at a pair of car keys.

When it clicked, however, I screamed. “Oh
my God!” I took the keys out and dropped the box on the ground as I jumped up
and down. “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

My mother and Paul laughed.

“Those are just the keys…” Paul chuckled.
“I wonder what she’s going to do when she sees the whole car.”

Realizing that he was right, I raced
outside into the driveway and saw a red convertible sitting in the driveway
that had never been there before. I couldn’t believe it.

“Oh my God!” I screamed, just before a
shriek expelled from me and I ran toward the car. When I finally made it over
to the door, I fumbled with the opener until I heard the locks click. I pulled
open the door and hopped inside.

Throughout my entire life, both my mother
and my stepfather had insisted that we were going to have to buy our first
cars. They had proved it with Shawn and so I had never even thought to
entertain the possibility; but now, here it was.

Unless this was all some big joke, I
couldn’t believe what was happening. The inside was leather and from the looks
of it, flawless. My heart was beating a million miles a second.

“Do you like it?” my mother asked.

“Oh my God!” I screamed, “I love it!”

I then got out of the car and made my way
toward each of them, giving them a hug and telling them, “Thank you! Thank you!
Thank you!”

This was, without a doubt, the best
birthday gift that I had ever received. It was beautiful and perfect…and it was
all mine!

“Where are you going to go first?” my
mother asked. “There’s a full tank of gas, you can go almost anywhere.” She
smiled.

I was so excited that I couldn’t even curb
my words and so, I just blurted out, “I’m going over to see Shawn. He is going
to love this!” I made my way back into the car.

I started it up and squealed with
excitement as I felt the engine roar to life under me.

“Have fun!” I heard my mother yell as I
backed out of the driveway. I yelled, “Thank you!” again and waved before I put
my foot solidly on the gas for the very first time and I was off.
 

Chapter
22

Shawn

Early the next morning, I heard someone
banging on my door. It was Saturday morning, but seriously, can’t a guy get
some sleep around here?

At first, I had hoped that my mother would
answer the door, but then I remembered that my mother had spent almost a week
straight at her new boyfriend’s house, leaving me alone to fend for myself.

I hated it, but what other choice did I
have? I certainly couldn’t go home to my dad’s house, especially not after what
had happened the night before.

While I finished waking up, I smiled at
the thought of Valerie and what we had done.

It was a long time coming and it was
magnificent. I couldn’t believe the excitement that I had found in that moment.
Everything was perfect. All I wanted now was to be with her.

Hey…Maybe
it is her!
“Hang on a minute!” As I staggered around the house,
I couldn’t help but think that the only saving grace of this situation was the
fact that Dalilah had not caught on that my mother was literally never home, or
she would have moved in by now.

Before I could even make it to the door, I
heard another knock and I was fairly certain, unless something was wrong, that
this was not Valerie. She was far more considerate than that, especially this
early.

Oh
God…
I thought with a sudden sense of panic;
What
if something is wrong?
I quickened my pace and made it to the door. When I
opened it, to my displeasure, I saw Dalilah standing there.

“Good morning!” she answered pleasantly
and walked past me into the house. “It took you long enough.”

“Are you okay?” I asked, rubbing my eyes
and staring around, trying to get my bounds. I was certainly not a morning
person and this, I wouldn’t even call morning. “It’s like…five in the morning. Is
something wrong?”

She shook her head. “No, I just missed
you.”

I nodded. “Okay…Well, do you want to come
back to bed with me?”

She thought for a moment and shrugged.
“Sure, I guess. If you want to waste a perfectly good morning.”

I knew that I should feel something.
Perhaps I should be guilty for what I did last night, but I didn’t feel
anything like that. In fact, I was happy. For the first time in a really long
time, all I felt when I thought about what had transpired between Valerie and I
the night before was excitement, the promise of future happiness and the
strong, unyielding desire to do it again as soon as possible.

“Yes,” I answered. “I really do. Come on.”

I don’t even remember making it back to
the bedroom before I had fallen asleep again.

Yet, I definitely remember being woken up
a few hours later.

“What the hell is this?” I heard Dalilah
scream.

“What the hell is what?” I asked, still
incredibly groggy. I shook my head and looked at her, as my eyes started to
focus. When my eyes could finally see right, I was struck with horror as I saw
that Dalilah was holding Valerie’s underwear.
Oh God,
I thought as my heart immediately began to pound in my
chest. “What? I don’t know…Women’s underwear?” I stammered, trying my best in
my sleep-induced stupor to sound as innocent as possible.

She barked a laugh. “These are not just
any woman’s underwear. They belong to a specific person…and that person is not
me!” she screamed.

“Are they my mom’s? She isn’t the
most…conservative type.”

“Not unless she is undressing in your
room,” Dalilah exclaimed as I watched her face grow red with anger.

“What?” I demanded, “Maybe they fell out
of the laundry? I don’t know…”

“That’s an awful lot of excuses for someone
without a guilty conscious,” she answered, before I saw her eyes glow with a
horrifying red as her face grew an even angrier shade. She pounced on me and
pushed the underwear in my face.

I could have easily pushed her off, but I
didn’t want to take a chance of hurting her, so I just backed up carefully. “Dalilah,
what the hell?”

“Whose are they?” she yelled.

“I don’t know!” I screamed back, tearing
the underwear away from my face. “Get off me!”
 

“No! Tell me who it is, or I will find out
myself and when I do, I will break her face so badly that you won’t even want
to fuck her anymore.”

Now, I was angry. I certainly cared more
for Valerie than I did for Dalilah and the thought of her having to deal with Dalilah’s
wrath, especially because of me was more than I could bear. I felt a surge of
rage plow through me as I knocked Dalilah aside and stood up. “Don’t you dare,
you bitch.”

She stopped short and stared at me for a
long time. Her full lips cracked into a demented smile as she answered, “Oh. I
see,” in a scary, calm and complacent tone. “You’re with her.” She inhaled
deeply before she breathed back out a low and menacing growl. “These are
hers…It all makes sense now.”

I felt my nostrils flair with anger as I
hissed, “It doesn’t need to make sense to you, just get out!”

Once again, she barked a conniving,
humorous laugh. “So, let me get this straight. You not only cheated on me, but
you cheated on me with your stepsister?”

“Leave it alone, Dalilah,” I answered,
breathing heavily as I felt a sensation of worry cascade through my body. I
shuddered as I added a careful and honest, “Please…just leave. You can say
whatever you want about me and why we broke up. Just don’t bring her into
this.”

“I’ll tell people you beat me,” she
threatened.

“Fine,” I answered solidly, even though I
knew that she was just as capable of going through with her word as she was
capable of trying to hurt Valerie.

“I’ll tell people you raped me,” Dalilah
hissed, glowering at me.

“What do you want, Dalilah?” I demanded,
tired of playing her games. It was right then and there that I realized just
how evil she was and how much I needed to get away from her.

I had only started dating her so that I
could have someone, since Valerie had Zachary. I felt it would be good for me
to have someone, completely unlike my best friend. I had tried to get over
Valerie by pouring all of the emotion that I had into my relationship with Dalilah,
but now, I realized that I was completely wrong in doing so. I would have to
deal with the consequences.

“Stay with me,” she answered simply. “Dump
that whore and promise never to leave me.” Dalilah’s wicked grin grew now as
she explained, “Between what I have on you, that really did happen and what I
am willing to say, I have enough to not only humiliate you both, but I could
probably even get you jailed. Please…Just…Run away with me and this could
easily become a bad dream, from which you will awake as soon as you say yes.”

She began to move toward me on her hands
and knees, with a seducing look in her eye. She ran her tongue over her plump,
pouting lips and when she stopped, mere inches from me, she raised herself up
and began to pull the strap of her tank top off of her shoulder.

For a few moments, I honestly thought
about it. I wasn’t the least bit turned on. In fact, I was horrified, but
seeing as how I would be protecting Valerie and getting away from people who
didn’t care about me at all to begin with, this didn’t exactly seem like such a
bad plan.

However, I thought of Valerie and how
badly I actually wanted to be with her. Perhaps that was selfish, but I just
couldn’t go through with it. I had to be with her, at least one more time, if
not for the rest of my life.

“No,” I answered unwaveringly and bent
down so that I was glaring hatefully into Dalilah’s eyes. “I have no interest
in being with you anymore. If you don’t want me to call the police and tell
them everything that you said you were going to do to me and to Valerie, in
addition to breaking into my house, you need to leave. Oh and don’t you even think
about laying a hand on Valerie. Don’t even look at her,” I hissed. “Or you will
see a side to me that I guarantee you aren’t going to like.”

With that, I saw her eyes narrow
hatefully. She doubled up her fist and slammed it against my jaw. It knocked me
back and might have even knocked a tooth loose.

“Get out!” I screamed when I recovered
from staggering backwards; however, when I looked up again, I realized that Dalilah
was already gone.

Chapter
23

Valerie

I had the music turned up loud and I was
rocking out freely to the radio when I pulled into the driveway that led to
Shawn’s mother’s house.

Of course, her car was nowhere to be seen.
Go figure…
I thought, but it was just
as well. I didn’t need anything to ruin my good mood.

I made my way up the stairs and knocked on
the door. I knew never to bother Shawn before ten, but it was almost eleven now
and considering the news that I had to share with him, I was pretty certain he
would be alright with me showing up.

I knocked on the door and bounced on my
heels as I waited for him to open it. However, when he did, nothing about his
appearance looked right to me. His hair was all messy and he looked beaten and
angry.

He was also covering his cheek with an
icepack and I wondered what had happened to him, but before I could say
anything, he screamed, “What the hell do you want?” Then, as though he had just
realized who it was, he stopped short. “Oh…it’s you.” He heaved a sigh from the
depths of his chest and moved away from the door for me to come in.

I felt my heart begin to beat fast as I
rushed to him and carefully placed my hands on his shoulders.

“What happened?” I asked, feeling fear
course through me. Shawn was not the kind of man who would ever get into a
fight. I had always thought that if backed into a corner, he would do all right,
but I had never truly given much thought to him fighting. He just wasn’t that
person and therefore, the sight of him having been hit, at least once very well
was all the more disturbing.

“Dalilah…” he hissed as he broke away from
me and shut the door. He moved over to the couch and flopped down.

“Oh God…” I said. “Let me see…” I moved
closer to him and sat down. I carefully took his hand and the icepack away from
his jaw and noticed that it was bruised and inflamed.

“This wasn’t just a slap…was it?” I felt
slightly guilty now for slapping Zachary, but I was sure I had not done near as
much damage.

He shook his head. “No. Go ahead and
laugh. I got beat up by a girl.” He rolled his eyes.

“Why did she hit you? Did you have a
fight?” I asked, for some reason seriously oblivious to the obvious.

“I guess you could say that,” Shawn
answered and smiled. “But on the bright side, I’m single and taking
applications.”

I gave him a teasing glare before it
clicked. “Wait…did she find out?”

He winced, but I don’t think it had
anything to do with the pain in his jaw. “Yeah…She did, but it’s okay. I made
sure that she wouldn’t bother you.”

At this, I became extremely concerned.
“Shawn, what is that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged. “If it’s all the same to you,
I would rather not talk about it.”

“But…if she is going to do something to
you…”

“She’s not! Her bark is bigger than her
bite…” he grumbled.

I pointedly observed his jaw and answered,
“Well, that’s still a pretty damn big bite.”

“Yeah…” He grew slightly angry as he added
in a testy voice, “I said I don’t want to talk about it! Just drop it, okay?”

I thought for a moment, worried about him,
simply because I had no doubt of what Dalilah was capable of. She was crazy and
probably bipolar. She was manipulative and had a warped sense of reality. She
stopped at nothing to get what she wanted, which was never a good thing. All
she ever thought about or cared about was herself and now, poor Shawn was
caught up in the middle of it.

However, before I could respond, he said,
“So, what brings you here? I’m sure it had nothing to do with listening to me
complain about my ex-girlfriend and her amazingly accurate and painful right
hook.” He chuckled.

“No, but if I had known…” I answered, now
feeling guilty for having such a wonderful, unexpected morning, while he
suffered. I looked around and demanded, “So, where was your
mother
while all of this was going on?”

“Out,” he answered as his eyes lowered
halfway into a look of contempt and disdain. He shook his head. “But I told
you, Val, I don’t want to talk about me anymore. What’s up with you?”

“Well…” I answered, feeling my cheeks
redden slightly with embarrassment. “I got an early birthday present.”

“Oh yeah?” he answered, trying to sound
cheerful, even though I was sure that he was still in a lot of pain. Still, I
appreciated the effort.

“I came to show you.”

“Well, where is it?” he asked, after
making a point to look around.

“Umm…” I answered slowly, “It’s…”

He stopped me right there, with his eyes
growing wide. “No…Really? A car?”

I nodded, unable to ignore the way the
butterflies of excitement felt rustling around in my stomach. “Do you want to
see it?”

“Yeah! Of course I want to see it!” he
exclaimed as he got up and put the ice pack on the table in front of him. He
smiled, but for a moment, I could have sworn it was forced. “Let’s go!”

I wanted to feel differently. I wanted to
be humble, considering our parents completely ignored his countless birthday
and Christmas requests for not only a car, but also, just help with a car, and
the terrible morning he was having. I couldn’t imagine that hearing about and
seeing my new car would make any of that easier to handle.

However, as we made our way out, he either
feigned or was legitimately excited to see it; he hugged me tight. “This is
awesome! You have to take me out! Come on! Let’s go!”

I looked over at him and saw the familiar
sparkle of excitement that I remembered from growing up with him.

I had not seen this sparkle in his eye in
a very long time and I was sure, since he likely didn’t even realize that he
was doing it, that he couldn’t be faking this. For a moment, I saw the old
Shawn, the friend that I had grown up with for all of those years.

This gave me a jolt of even more
excitement.

“Yes!” I said. “I would love to! Where do
you want to go?”

“Let’s go to breakfast. I’m starving!” He
smiled at me and I just shook my head. For once, this really was the old Shawn.

I
should have worked harder to break him and Dalilah up before,
I thought as Shawn kissed me briefly, before running back into the house to get
changed.

I hadn’t expected this and it stopped me
in my tracks. The taste of him was still readily familiar on my lips from last
night, but the fresh sensation was absolutely delightful. I couldn’t believe
that I was feeling this way about him and us.