STEPBROTHERS (3 Book Stepbrother Romance Collection) (30 page)

T
ravis wouldn’t meet
my eyes as we sat on the bed waiting for the nurse to come back, and I couldn’t blame him. The moment he’d let the words out of his mouth and disappointed me for the second time in a matter of minutes, I lost my temper.

Everything from that morning, the man who was no doubt having a mid-life crisis and the girl who let him beat her, to the accumulation of shit from my past hit me like a raging, angry wave, and I blew my top.

As I was throwing Travis to the floor, trying desperately to stop what was about to happen, trying to reel the anger back inside, I knew there was no hope—this monster had a mind of its own, too powerful. It had been inside me all these years, taking up residence in my head, and it would take more than a good talking to to make it vacate and leave me in peace.

So I did what I always did, I let go and let it take over me, waiting for the moment when it would get tired and I could regain control.

It was like I was seeing a movie of myself, up on the big screen, watching like an entranced audience member, powerless to stop the events from unfolding in front of my eyes.

Travis yelled for me to stop; he writhed on the floor. I was vaguely aware of a few of the gym members encircling us, first enjoying the show and the beat-down that I was doling out, but then becoming worried and anxious as my fist continued to drive forward, no hope of stopping.

They wouldn’t interfere. They’d stand there and wait, just like I was doing, until the rage subsided, until the monster inside decided Travis had had enough.

Sweat dripped down my forehead and into my eyes. I knew I had to stop, wanted to be stopped, but the fire kept on burning.

Only when a crack sounded around the echoey enclosure of the gym did I stop. Travis screamed again, and a couple of men winced, probably remembering the sickening crunch they’d themselves experienced when they’d broken a bone or two in a brawl.

My arms hung limp at my sides. Exhausted and without another look at the pitiful mess down by my feet, I turned and walked back into the office.

“Someone get him to the hospital,” I demanded and closed the door.

Fuck. What had I done that for? For all my talk of family, I wasn’t exactly showing much love for Travis. Yes, he’d made a mistake but shit, did he deserve me whaling on him like that?

Travis finally plucked up the courage to look at me pitifully from the hospital bed, as if it were my fault he'd forgotten to collect the money that was owed to me. One simple fucking request, and what does he do? Messes it up, of course. What was the point in being a loan-shark and not collecting the interest?

But out of all the guys I knew, he was the only one I could really trust. He was family... There was nothing stopping me from rehiring more thugs, but they never would be blood, and I tried to remember that soon I wouldn’t even be in this business, anyway.

The young nurse returned, her squeaky white shoes full of self-importance, making her presence known.

"So, you'll have to keep the cast on for at least six weeks.” Travis nodded his understanding.

"Can he go now?" I interrupted, impatiently looking at my watch. We’d been here all afternoon, hours spent wasted, waiting for know-it-all doctors to actually do their jobs.

Guilt seeped into my pores as Travis limped along beside me. After he’d gotten the all-clear from the nurse, I offered to drive him back. It was the least I could do, and we walked silently to my car.

I hadn’t apologised, didn’t even know how to say the words. I wanted to, but the moment seemed to have passed, and I’d probably choke on them if I attempted to get them out. So instead I said nothing, hoping he’d understand how sorry I was. I’d make it up to him someday. How? I had no idea, but I would. My temper was getting the better of me, and it had to stop, yet that was a problem I honestly didn’t see an easy solution to. It felt like my rage was innate, and no amount of pansy-ass counselling or talking about it would make it go away. It was all my father’s doing, I thought bitterly, and nothing could change the past.

“You need a place to stay?” I asked once we were on the road.

Travis cleared his throat, and I heard the pain he was suffering as he struggled to speak. “Yeah.” He stared out the window, and we didn’t say another word till I pulled up to my house on the outskirts of town.

My place, well, truly it was my mother’s, but she had no need for it—she had walked away from it and me. But I stayed. I told myself I could leave at any time, make a home someplace new, but the memories that were ingrained within the soul of the house wouldn’t let go.

Plus I didn’t need to splash my cash around and buy a fancy apartment in the city. Everything I needed was right within these four rickety walls. I’d kept everything the same, hadn’t changed a single thing from my childhood home. I even still used the threadbare towels for showering. I convinced myself that the things, the knickknacks, inside the house grounded me, when they did anything but. All they did was remind me of how life could be cruel, and that for the most part we were helpless to its whims.

“You can have…” I stopped myself short. I almost said it, almost said her name even after all these years.
Alice.
I shook the memories away, no time to dwell on them; I spent enough time in my head as it was, I thought. “You can take the spare room. You know where it is,” I said as we entered the battered house, nodding towards the upstairs.

Travis looked around for a moment as if he were in a bread and breakfast, waiting for me to wait on him hand and foot, and for a second I thought he was going to ask me when breakfast would be served or for a glass of refreshing lemonade. I almost chuckled at the thought.

“It ain’t changed a bit,” he said, almost in awe as he continued to stare at the faded wallpaper, dotted with sad dusty photo frames that desperately called out to be straightened. His eyes went to all the little knickknacks my mother had collected and displayed; each one still stood in its rightful place. A gathering of small porcelain dogs lined up obediently upon a shelf above a console table, greeting you as soon as you walked in through the door. “God, I remember these. Didn’t you break one and try to hide it by gluing it back together?”

I grunted, not wanting to discuss it or remember the happier times before it all went to shit. But as Travis continued to look around, I started to see the house through his eyes. What hadn’t bothered me before started itching way under my skin. The house definitely needed a coat or two of paint and a good tidy-up outside; I’d let the front lawn go to seed, and it was almost up to our knees even though winter threatened, just around the corner. We were forced to wade through it, but I had better things to do than to occupy my time renovating a lost cause. And anyway, I’d mowed that lawn enough times in my youth to last me a fucking lifetime. There was no mistaking a huge long list of chores that needed to be tackled before the house crumbled under the weight of the dust that covered every surface, but now wasn’t the time.

Travis was at my heels, like a shadow, as I walked to the kitchen to get myself a glass of water, using the first unwashed tumbler I came to, running it under the spray of the tap only momentarily before filling it and then quickly draining it.

“You don’t have any more of that shit on you, do you?” I asked, a dangerous edge to my voice.

Travis shook his head. “Nah, that was the last of my stash, anyway.”

“Ok. Good, I don’t want any of that crap in my house, not to mention the gym, do you hear me?”

“I know, I know.” He put his hands up as if my words were akin to pointing a gun at him. Lucky for him, my gun was locked up tight in the safe at the gym.

“I mean it, Travis. I can’t be doing with the hassle. The gym is clean, and it’s gonna stay that way.”

“I hear you, for fuck’s sake!” he replied with impatience. He shook his head and looked away. I hoped he got it, understood what was at stake here; he’d already cost me half a day of business—the first time in the gym’s history I’d had to close it—he wasn’t going to risk my effort to finally give up a life hidden in shadows. I’d had enough of the dodgy dealings, the threats I had to make to get what was I owed from the people who’d originally come begging for my help, my money. I needed peace.

Travis moved anxiously towards a chair, sat down, and bit his bottom lip. “I meant to tell you…” His leg trembled, juddering up and down with nerves.

“Tell me what?” I said with a sigh.

“Your dad came by the gym yesterday.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

He shook his head.
Jesus-fuck.
Edward Hudson was the last man I ever wanted to see. Though after twelve long absent years, I wondered why he was back now.

“What did he want?”

Travis thought about this for a moment, possibly debating whether or not to tell me the truth, scared of my reaction? “To see you… and money.”

“No fucking surprise there then. Hope you told him where he could sling his hook?”

His eyes darted away followed by a quick nod.

“Good,” I replied, hoping that would be the end of it, though the prickle at the back of my neck told me otherwise.

I heaved out a breath and shoved myself off the kitchen countertop. “Right. Some food’s in the fridge; help yourself. I’ll be back later.”

“Where you going?”

“To do your job,” I called back at him as I walked out the door.

He better not make me regret giving him a second chance, trusting him… but deep down inside I knew there was some kind of trouble around the corner. There always was in my life.

I
’d jinxed myself
. You start thinking about how things that can go wrong, and trouble will start courting you. I knew the moment I saw her that I was fucked. Her middle name could very well be Trouble with a capital T. But I wanted her, had to have her and would do anything to get her.

The hotel bar was packed when I entered. It was after all a Friday night, and all the yuppie businessmen, still dressed in their crisp three-piece suits, held tumblers filled with top-shelf whisky. They attempted to flirt with all the young female counterparts in their own fancy attire, who sipped cocktails and leaned forward, enticing the grey-haired men to stare. The age gap of the clientele inside the lounge was telling, but hey, it was none of my business. I was just there for my money.

The crowd parted as I made my way through and headed towards the back. Dressed in scruffy jeans, an old but clean—no blood on this one yet—t-shirt I managed to find in the back of my truck, and my worn leather jacket, it was no wonder they moved to let me pass. I stuck out like a swollen digit that’d been rammed into a place it shouldn’t fit.

I received a fair few bold winks from a couple of ladies. I thought about taking a bit of a tempting timeout to let one of them wrap themselves around me while I crooned in her ear and made her cum all over my cock… Maybe later, I thought. I could reward myself after I got what was owed to me.

“Where’s Rene?” I asked a barman I hadn’t seen before, once I caught his eye.

“Haven’t seen him tonight. You a friend?” he asked cautiously. The guy had a preppy look, slicked-back hair and the air of money, but since he was working here, it was obvious he didn’t have a trust fund to rely on. But either way, I could tell by the way he was standing, arms crossed, his eyes pinned to mine, that we weren’t going to get along nicely.

“You could say that.” Rene was the manager of the Regal Hotel bar, and it was very unusual for him to miss a night that brought in the crowds. Unless of course he was avoiding me, or he’d found a poker game somewhere and was gambling away all hope of paying me back. Which, granted, after Travis hadn’t shown up, could very well be a possibility. I pulled out my phone and shot him a text message, asking him nicely—I could be nice when I wanted to—to hit me back as soon as he could. There was no point in jumping to conclusions at this stage; he was probably just sick. Then a thought occurred to me.

I got the barman’s attention again. “Did Rene happen to leave anything for me?”

He raised an eyebrow then frowned. “Like what?”

“Like none of your fucking business. Did he or didn’t he?”

The guy almost took a step back but caught himself in time; instead he attempted to stand erect and tall, pretending my words hadn’t slapped him. But this little shit was wet behind the ears. I let out a chuckle.

“Don’t act the tough guy with me. Just answer the question.”

“Naw, man. He didn’t leave nothing. What’s your name? Want me to give him a message when he gets back?”

“Don’t bother. I’ll be back to sort it out with him myself.”

Just then, as I was about to leave and head home, eager to lay my head on my pillow after what seemed like an exhausting, never-ending day, I saw her.

Sitting upon one of the bar stools, halfway across the bar, with waves upon waves of red hair tumbling down her bare back, there she was. A final soft curl of hair, coming to a sharp point at the end, lay nestled above the hint of ass cleavage that was beginning to peak out from the cut of her dress, helped along by the hard cushion of the stool below her cheeks.

I didn’t need to see her face to know that I had to have her. I knew right there and then, from her daring confidence to wear such an outfit, that she had the spunk to match mine.

I flagged the barman down again without taking my eyes off of her, and I could’ve sworn I heard him groan as he approached, but he didn’t speak his mind and kept his words polite. “What can I get you, Sir?”

Dutch courage.
“Shot of…” My mind had gone blank as I continued to stare at her. I’d almost got a glimpse of her side profile as she brushed a hand over her shoulder, pushing back a few wayward strands of hair.

“Sir?”

“Anything. Shot of anything. Now,” I demanded, my eyes glued to her pale spine. Oh, to wrap my hand around her hair and to sink myself deep within her. My heart hammered and my body shuddered with slight, uneasy tremors.

Fuck. What was she doing to me?

I didn’t get nervous. My heart didn’t go into overdrive, beating a frantic song, whenever I saw a pretty woman. Yes my cock would twitch and demand I plant a flag now and then, but shit, never anything like this!