Stepbrother Bestie (A Stepbrother Romance Novel) (34 page)

Growing up, this caused me to get hurt a
lot, but I was never dissuaded. My mother and I were a lot alike in that
regard, which was probably why she stayed with my father for as long as she
did. It never really worked out for her either, but it was still an ideal that
I held close to my heart. It was something that I admired about my mother and
tried to emulate in my everyday life.

Yet, once my mother died and my life took
a spiraling turn for the worst, that part of me was finally beaten down until
it was just a shadow of my former self.

Much like many of my other more desirable
traits, they lessened significantly or failed completely when my mother passed
away and I was unable to get them back; that is, until I went to college.

Until then, I felt as though I was living
in a storming, tremulous cloud. I was insecure and afraid. My life as I knew it
was failing me and all I could do was sit back and watch as it was destroyed.

I no longer had my mother and my father
seemed to steadily coil toward insanity. He claimed that I was all he had, but
the feeling was not mutual. Soon after my mother died, my father became so
distant that I honestly began to believe I had lost him as well.

Guilt ate him alive and the more I stayed
in this house, the more I realized that it wasn’t so much that he was
spineless, in the traditional sense. I began to believe that he was just trying
to please his new family so much that he completely forgot about the family
that he had left from my mother.

I knew that deep down, my father loved me.
That wasn’t really the issue that I was having. Rather, it was the fact that
the manner of love was not the same. He didn’t care about me anymore. He was
too busy trying to relive his life and get it right, that he didn’t bother to
fix what was still broken.

However, that wasn’t my stepmother’s
fault, or even, as much as I would like to blame him for everything wrong in
the world, I couldn’t even in good conscious blame Tyler.

I noticed this not long after my mother
died and although his oddity and singularity had changed in form, it still
manifested in a way that made me feel the same.

I hadn’t just lost my mother that day. I
might not have known it, but I had also lost my father too, and that was what
changed me.

After trying to find not only the best in
my father, but also the man that I remembered when he was around, to absolutely
no avail, I began to grow bitter. Every time my father hurt me, I stopped
caring just a little more and now, seeing him with his new family, completely
disregarding me because I didn’t want to completely accept them as flesh and
blood like my father had, had snuffed out the light of forgiveness for good.

When I realized this, I became increasingly
angry. I couldn’t help but feel the sense of aggravation and hardship that
attached itself to me. I not only hated that Tyler was right, I also hated that
I had completely given up my otherwise unwavering compassion. It was just too
painful to always look for the good.

Even if I found it, the pain I had endured
to fight through all of the darkness inside the person had inevitably left a
stain on my heart and I knew that I just couldn’t take it anymore.

So, once he left, I got up, after a moment
to ensure that he was gone, locked the door, went back to my bed, lay down and
went to sleep, hoping that when I woke up, I would be back in my dorm room and
this would all be a bad dream.

Unfortunately, I awoke the next morning in
basically the same position which I had fallen asleep the day before.

As soon as I opened my eyes, I felt a pain
in my head and aching muscles from the way I was sleeping. I didn’t feel
hungover anymore, but I certainly didn’t feel that good.

I was unbelievably thirsty and could not
help but notice that a good portion of my pain was coming from the fact that I
was starving.

After all, I hadn’t eaten or drank
anything the day before. I was probably very dehydrated as well and in the
summer heat, that was basically the last thing that I wanted to be.

So I was forced to get up and go
downstairs, just as my stepmother was serving breakfast to everyone.

Oh
joy,
I thought as my eyelids drooped into an unhappy
expression.

“There you are, Ashley,” my father said,
smiling at me. It was strange, because this was literally the first thing he
had said to me in a week. Maybe he forgot to take his medication and
momentarily forgot that I was the cause of all his troubles. I thought to
myself sardonically, but what I said was, “Good morning, Dad.” I then looked
over at Theresa and said good morning to her as well, before turning my
attention to Tyler and nodding my head.

I still didn’t care to say very much to
him and with the mood that I was in, I dared anyone to ask me why.

However, my foul mood was curbed for the
moment by the smell of food. I made my way over to the table and sat down,
trying not to think about everything that this room and this table represented
to me.

I smiled at everyone before I grabbed the
coffee and a plate. Through my hunger, I was blinded. All I saw was bacon, eggs
and toast and I didn’t stop seeing it until I had almost finished my second
helping.

“Wow, Ashley,” my father commented, “If I
didn’t know better, I’d say you hadn’t eaten in a day…”

At his particular choice of words, I tried
not to laugh.
Joke’s on you, Dad,
I
thought,
you don’t know better. You don’t
care to know better…bacon!

Even though I tried, it was hard to be
angry or hateful when your body just continued to demand food.

“It’s delicious,” I told Theresa after my
third helping. “Thank you.”

Theresa smiled at me in a caring way, even
though I seriously doubted that she meant it, before she answered, “I aim to
please. Are you alright, though?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” I said, more as a
knee-jerk reaction than with any degree of honesty.

“That’s great!” my father exclaimed,
before he said, “Because today, we are going to go on a family outing!”

Instantly and probably graciously, I lost
my appetite and I could tell from the look that Tyler shot me from across the
table that he felt similarly about the idea.

At
least the two of us can agree on something…
I thought, even
though I really had wished it wasn’t that.

Besides the look we shared with one
another, no one else spoke again for a long time. No one asked where we were
going, or showed any interest at all. The reaction around the table was
strange. Even my father and stepmother kept eating. I glanced between one and
then the other, trying to figure out what was going on, but eventually, as the
reverberation of my father’s words fell away, I wondered if I had just imagined
he had spoken.

With this thought, the air grew strangely
eerie.

This
house is like living in the Twilight Zone,
I thought to
myself before I shrugged it off and continued to eat my meal, happy that I
wasn’t pressed to comment.

Chapter
18

Tyler

No one said anything for a long time. I
guess my mother and stepfather thought that we would just leap up and down with
glee at the idea of spending time together, but I was sure that wasn’t going to
fucking happen.

Even though they waited patiently and ate
their breakfast casually, still grinning broadly as though they had gotten the
exact level of excitement they expected from us, no one said another word for a
long time.

At first, the silence was weird, but
eventually the strain fizzled out and we continued our meal.

Then, after a little while of acting
completely normal, I heard Ashley’s father speak up, trying to revive the
suggestion that now seemed dead in the water.

“Doesn’t anyone want to know where we are
going?” he asked, looking around the table, between Ashley and I, who basically
ignored everything that was going on. That didn’t seem to matter though, since
he continued without missing a beat, “We’re going
to
the amusement park.”

Of course, my mother looked like he had
just announced that he won the fucking lottery, always the dutiful wife, but
Ashley and I seemed to have our own parallel thoughts on the subject.

I sighed and tried to get out of it by
saying. “That sounds like fun, but can we take a raincheck? I’ve got to be at
the gym in an hour. It’s a big day for me.”

“No,” my mother said suddenly, “you’re not
going anywhere…but with us.”

I rolled my eyes.
Did you guys stop screwing each other long enough to realize that you
had children or something?
I thought and groaned.

“A raincheck?” Ashley’s father picked up,
almost immediately after my mother had shot me down. “We have been here for a
month already and we haven’t done anything together as a family except a few
meals here and there.”

“Maybe you would have a better concept of
time if you came out of the damn bedroom every once and a while.”

At that, I felt my mother kick me hard
under the table, while I heard Ashley try to muffle a laugh.

To my surprise though, my stepfather
didn’t get angry. Instead, he amended, “You know what, Tyler, you’re right.
Your mother and I have spent a lot of alone time with one another. We are still
in the honeymoon phase, though, and it is completely normal, but I do
understand. It isn’t fair that we have been neglecting you two and it is time
for that to change. So, that is why today, we wanted to get everyone together
and spend the day as a family.”

I shrugged, realizing that I didn’t have
much choice in the matter as my eyes raised to Ashley.

It was then that I realized this might not
be such a bad thing. To be fair, it was a longshot, but then again, stranger
things have happened. This could be just the forced quality time that I needed
with Ashley to get back in her good graces, which would rocket me back on
track.

It was perfect. I had to spend time with
her and more importantly, she had to spend time with me. And since we were
going to be with our parents, I had to behave or risk everything going to hell.

With this all tumbling around inside my
mind, I smiled at the thought and she scowled at me, before returning her
attention to her father, “When are we leaving?”

“As soon as everyone is ready. Just get
dressed and meet us by the car!”

In response, Ashley nodded and made her
way up the stairs toward her room.

Since I was done with my breakfast and was
only hanging around because I had to, I followed at a close distance behind her
and disappeared into my own room before she could say anything about me being
behind her.

As I changed my shirt, I looked in the
mirror and checked out my biceps.
Your
body is truly a piece of fucking art…
I thought to myself as I contemplated
my moves for the day. I knew that I needed to do something that would win her
attention back to me, but I had no idea what that could be.

Even though I thought I had found that
sweet spot, I had learned with dismay that I was wrong. The other night had
really kicked me down a few pegs and I was seriously in need of a new play.

So, after ensuring that my body was still
the temple that I treated it as, I focused my attention on trying to look good,
both inside and out, for Ashley.

The other night, despite my drunken
thoughts, there was nothing that had
discouraged me. In fact,
it had only upped the reward to such a challenge.

I knew that I needed to figure out what I
was going to do and I needed to figure it out fast. After all, it wasn’t every
day I was handed such a gift and I had every intention of taking full advantage
of it.

I’m
not going to let this shit go to waste.
I pulled my shirt over
my head and searched around my messy room for my shoes.

I wasn’t lying when I had told Ashley’s
father that I had a date with the gym today, but once I realized what an
opportunity I was given, the gym, at least for the immediate moment, didn’t
matter. I could do my work-out any time; now was the time to go after what I
really wanted.

When I was finished getting dressed, I
made my way downstairs, just as I heard the car horn blast.

I quickened my step in order to get the
good seat in the car. I knew from the way up to the beach house that my
stepfather liked to pack heavy on one side and therefore, I wanted to get into
the car so that I could get the good side. I wasn’t quite sure how long the
ride was going to be, but I was sure that I didn’t want a seat that was forced
forward just enough to be annoying, so I made sure I staked my claim.

Then, when Ashley came out, I locked eyes
with her and I could see the disappointment of getting the raw end of her
father’s packing welling up in her eyes. She glared at me and her shoulders
fell. I carefully smiled at her, made a motion as though offering up my seat
and then nodded in a caring way before sliding over.