Stepbrother's Gift (7 page)

“Whoa, stop the fucking cart. You’re getting way ahead of yourself. Keep it simple for now. Go and see him. Tell him, jump on him, whatever. Depending on what happens up there, we can sort out all that other stuff afterward.”

“Do you really think I can do it?”

“No. I don’t think you have the balls to do it, personally. Which is good because you don't need him. You can do better.”

“All right. Thanks for the advice. No, I mean it. But can we just talk about something else now?” I said. “I don’t want to drive myself crazy when I have an eight hour drive on my own to look forward to.”

Thankfully, Tessa let me drop it, and after a little banal girl talk and a really big hug, I drove her home. Later, I'd get back to my college dorm room, back to college in New York.

I
spent the next two weeks distracting myself until classes started again and I could lose myself in my studies. I cleaned the dorm room in places light hadn’t touched for months. I scrubbed pots and pans until they looked new. I emptied the refrigerator and cleaned out the freezer. I polished floors and wiped down the walls. When my roommate, Nicole, got back the day before classes, she was delighted with the room but seemed disturbed when I told her I had done the cleaning all on my own.

“But why?”

“To distract myself,” I admitted. She gave me a curious look, but didn’t probe any further.

Finally, the morning came when classes started again and it was time to get back on campus. I felt I had done as much as I could to wash my Christmas break from memory and was feeling upbeat about what the second half of my freshman year had to offer.

I had a nine-o’clock lecture in Tisch Hall. I was up at seven to shower, do my makeup and hair and pick out the right outfit—a dark pair of tough-weave denim jeans that fit my thighs and butt snugly and a camel sweater with a soft plunging neckline. I wore a pair of white boots with a matching white peacoat, knitted cap and scarf over it for my wintry walk to class. After I ran out of things to clean, I had allowed myself to give in and go shopping to kill the time.

I was still waiting for dad to see the statement...

Dressed, feeling fresh and looking forward to another semester in my new life, I left and started my brisk walk toward Tisch Hall. It was still dark outside, the sun low and hidden under a steel-gray sky of clouds. Half way there I decided it was too cold to make it in one shot, not with the wind cutting around the buildings, and turned into the yellow warmth of a coffee shop to get something warm.

I ordered my usual cinnamon latte, and while I waited in line to pay, I dug through my purse to find my punch card. I was pretty sure I was due a free one after this.

“That’ll be $4.21,” the cashier said.

“One second, I have a card to stamp,” I said, rushing now to find it in the mess of my purse. There was already a line and everyone was tired and grumpy with lack of sleep behind me. I found myself wishing I had spent some of my break organizing my purse instead of the room, but finally I spied the corner of the white card and pulled it out.

Only it wasn’t my coffee card.

––––––––

T
O ALLIE

FROM JAMES

Merry Christmas!

IOU one present

––––––––

I
stared at it just long enough to register what it was, then crammed it back into my purse along with the thoughts of James that it immediately summoned.

I handed the girl a credit card instead.

“Can’t find it?” the girl asked as she swiped my card.

“No, it’s lost in there somewhere, though.”

“Should I stamp a new one? Or you want to come back later. I’ll remember you.”

“Sure, no. A new one is okay,” I said, distracted. I took my receipt and my coffee and fled back into the cold, wanting to be in motion, as if I could keep ahead of my thoughts if I walked fast enough.

But by the time I found a seat and the the professor started his lecture I couldn’t think of anything else but my jumble of desires and fears. They clung around the place in my brain where James lived.

Once I let myself think about him again I realized that the entire break I had been hoping, somewhere in the back of my mind, that he was going to reach out to me. That he would show up on my doorstep, his face pinched pink with the cold, the snow flakes sticking on his messy hair and broad shoulders, a confession of desire on his lips. Or even better, a wordless embrace and a crushing kiss...

I took out the IOU from high school again, running my fingers over the card as the closest thing to a plan formed in my mind since I had fled Springfield for New York.

You do owe me, you bastard.

I put the card away carefully, shouldered my bag, and excused myself as I moved towards the aisle and left. I would get notes from someone later.

But I had somewhere else to be just now.

***

I
didn’t call my best friend, Tessa. I didn’t tell my roommate, Nicole. I just went back to the dorm room, packed an overnight bag, and took a cab to Grand Central Station. There were trains running to Boston’s South Station every few hours, and I knew that James’s startup company's office was somewhere nearby there. I could search the internet on the way. If I hesitated, I wouldn’t go. I had to keep in motion.

While I waited for the next train I found an ATM and took out enough cash to pay for cabs, food and a hotel room if I needed it. Though I didn’t want to think too far ahead, I didn’t want to be scrambling for money at the last second either. I tucked the cash into my wallet with the IOU, and when the train arrived I got on it.

A little over three hours later, I was stepping into the blustery wind that blew off the frigid Atlantic. If New York was cold, Boston was frigid. There was ice and snow in the cracks of the sidewalks and dirty road salt scattered over everything. Dark snow clouds were chasing the slate grey overcast out over the sea. While I was waiting for the train I had overheard someone saying a big snowstorm was coming in. I assumed those clouds were the beginning of it.

I grabbed the first cab I saw and gave them the address.

I stared at the road over the shoulder of the driver, not allowing my mind to stray. I felt a smile crease my lips. I was doing what I felt, acting on how I felt, maybe for the first time in my life.

And I was terrified.

J
ames’s offices were in what would have looked like just another derelict building if it wasn’t for the reflective glass in the windows and the minimalist but neatly groomed gardens at the entrance. Once I went inside, however, there were only stylistic touches that betrayed the building's rougher history. It looked like a real office. The floors were restored and polished wood and ventilation shafts hung down from the high ceilings above the sea of cubicle walls. The rest was painfully modern and simple, like an Ikea store had a wet dream inside.

James had come a long way from his apartment living room. There must have been a hundred people working here. For the first time, my stepbrother’s success really hit me. He built all of this. This was
his
.

I was impressed, but I was also a little intimidated. But I had come prepared. Before I walked in the front door, I readjusted myself in my tight sweater, which really accentuated what a woman I had become in New York.

Now all I had to do was get the receptionist—a cute redhead who immediately made me jealous with her creamy skin and full, pouting mouth—to let me see him.

“Mr. Coleman doesn’t have any appointments this afternoon,” she said. For the millionth time.

“I know that. You’ve made it very clear. But if you could call him and tell him Tessa from Springfield is here, I’m sure he would make an exception.” I was using my best friend’s name. No reason to publicize that I was his stepsister when nobody knew who I was.

“Mr. Coleman is very particular about his schedule,” she said. “If you’d like, I could see if he would be willing to meet with you later in the week.”

Okay, this was taking too long. “Just one second,” I said.

I wanted to walk in on him, to surprise him, but I could tell that wasn’t going to work. I texted him instead.

Reception, please.

And waited.

The redhead rolled her eyes and went back to her computer while I stood staring over the cubicles. There were what looked like closed offices along the furthest wall, the one that would have a view of the harbor.

The redhead peaked over the rim of her glasses at me. I sent James another text.

Reception! Go to your reception, jerk!

“Look, miss. If you don’t want to schedule another appointment, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” the secretary said, turning her full attention back to me.

“That’s not necessary, Lauren.” I turned at the sound of his gravely voice. James and several other people—college kids with laptops, from the looks of them—were coming out of a pair of double doors just off the reception area. “I was in a presentation,” he explained, holding up his phone.

“It’s okay,” I said, my voice wobbling. He had grown out his facial hair to a thick stubble, too long to be just a five-o’clock shadow. It made him look older and his green eyes stood out even more. They looked bright in the white light pouring through the tall windows behind me. My eyes moved down to his lips as they curled in an expression of curious, but not unhappy, surprise.

I could tell he was waiting for me to say something, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. Seeing him, being near him again, seemed to have shut down certain parts of my brain.

“Okay. Why don’t you come with me? We can talk in my office.”

He walked us through the cubicles to his office and closed the door behind him, then walked through the room to stand behind his desk. I made it a few feet past the door and froze.

“Well, this is unexpected,” he said, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Why are you in Boston, Allie? You should have let me know ahead of time, we could have had dinner or something.” Which implied of course that he already had plans. Did he have a girlfriend? How had it never occurred to me to ask?

His defensive body posture, the distance and the desk between us, the shock of seeing him again, it all threw me off. Suddenly, everything was feeling like a huge mistake. “It was sort of last second,” I admitted.

He checked his watch. “Well, I’ve got a half hour or so until my next meeting. Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“Okay,” he said, arching an eyebrow curiously. He sat down in his chair and leaned back into it, his hands behind his head as he studied me. “So what’s up? Why are you here?” He sat up straighter, his expression darkening. “Nothing bad happened, did it?”

“No, no. Nothing like that,” I quickly assured him. I tried to settle my racing heart, but his aloofness had shaken my confidence. But what had I expected? For him to grab me and confess his love for me on the spot?

His eyes stared at me, and for the first time they strayed from my face. As he looked over my figure, I saw a flicker of the darker desire I recognized from his car. It was something.

I knew just what to do. I pulled my purse around and opened it, digging for the card.

“Are you all right, Allie?” he asked.

“Just give me one second,” I said. I found it. I took out the card, rubbed it between my fingers for luck and courage, and set it on his desk. “Here.”

He picked it up. A grin spread across his handsome face as he recognized it. “You still have this?” He laughed. “I always figured you would have thrown it away as soon as you passed a trash can.”

“I still have it.”

He looked up at me, then checked both sides of the card. “No expiration date. That was foolish of me.” He looked every bit the professional businessman while looking over this contract, and it turned me on even more. “Okay, well I’m a man of my word. What do I owe you?”

I tried different ways of saying it in my mind, all of them sounding strange, artificial, wrong. But as the silence drew out I gave up, and just said what I felt. “You,” I squeaked.

“Me?” he said.

“I want you,” I said again. “That’s why I came here.”

It sounded silly, like some over-wrought scene from a badly directed movie. I waited for him to laugh, but he didn’t. He played with the card in his fingers and stared at me. Finally he stood up and walked around his desk. He handed me the card.

“You want to tell me what’s really going on here?”

“What happened in the car...”

“That was a stupid mistake,” he said, his voice darkening. “And I’m sorry for it. I crossed a line with you I had no right to cross.”

I shook my head. “That’s not what I meant.”

“There’s nothing else to say about it.”

“Of course there is. I know you’re my...”

“Your brother,” he finished for me, his mouth forming a cruel hard line.

“...
step
brother.”

“Does that really make any difference?”

“It does for me,” I said, standing up a little straighter. I was getting angry, and it was giving me a little courage to stand on. “It’s not like it's incest.”

James seemed to flinch at the word, then laughed. “Are you listening to yourself?”

“Stop it,” I snapped. I pushed his chest. It was hard under the oxford shirt he was wearing. He didn’t move. “Don’t try to make this a joke.”

“I’m not,” he said, seriously. “But you’ve gone off the deep end, Allie.”

“So what was it, then?”

“What was what?”

“The kiss, you jerk,” I said, swatting his chest.

“I already told you what it was. It was a mistake.”

“It didn’t mean anything? You don’t feel anything?”

“Jesus, Allie. Are you listening to yourself? And besides, aren’t I the guy who ruined your life?”

“Just tell me, then. If you tell me that it was really just some mistake and you don’t feel anything for me, I’ll leave right now.”

I swallowed, cursing myself for being so direct. I was practically forcing him to reject me.

Something inside of him broke. He crossed the distance between us in a heartbeat. Before I could say anything further he grabbed me, one hand turning my face up to his and the other seizing my hip. He pulled my trembling body tight against his.