Anti-Stepbrother (23 page)

She swatted his hand. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Are you going to tell me where you’re living?”

He froze. “What do you mean?”

“I know you’re not in the frat house. I called there one morning for you.”

“Oh.”

Shit.

He didn’t say it, but I heard it.

Sheila wasn’t amused. She crossed her arms over her chest. “So where have you been?”

“Uh…”

“That’s what I thought.” She rested an arm around my shoulders and pulled me in for a side-hug. “At least with this one, I always know she’s safe and not living with some boyfriend she’s not talked to me about.”

Kevin fought a smile.

I coughed and stepped forward, disengaging myself from Sheila. “Traffic can be a bitch. We don’t want to be late for that reservation, do we?”

The reservation was at a trendy restaurant. All the waiters wore pink, as did the hostess who seated us. She also wore a hard-on for Kevin, flirting and smiling coyly at him. When she had to return to her stand, her hand trailed over his shoulder. He glanced back, giving her a secretive smile, which wasn’t that secretive at all. I saw it. She returned it, and when he looked back to the table, his eyes went straight to mine.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“What?” He picked up his menu.

Sheila glanced between the two of us. “What’s going on?”

I ignored her. “Is it the five-month mark?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know.” I shrugged. “Aren’t you a little early? You still have two more months, don’t you? Maybe my counting is off. When did you move in with Maggie again?”

Sheila sighed. “That’s what I was worried about.”

Kevin glared at me. He spoke around gritted teeth. “Can you shut up, please? This isn’t the time.”

“When is?”

He leaned forward and hissed, “What’s gotten into you?” His eyes narrowed. “Or maybe I should ask
who’s
gotten into you?”

I picked up my menu. “Oh, right. I forgot how you always go to the sexual innuendos because I happen to be friends with another guy. Friends, Kevin. F-R-I-E-N-D-S. I’m spelling it out because I know it’s unfamiliar. It’s a type of relationship where you don’t screw the other person. Those do exist, you know.”

“Stop it.”

“Or maybe you really don’t. Do you ever hang out with a girl and not plan to get in her pants at some point?”

“I did with you.”

I sucked in my breath.

“We both know how that turned out.”

The fuckhead. I could feel the silence around the table like a two-ton weight. My dad was here. Kevin’s mom was here—the woman who had taken me in and loved me.

That asshole
. I jerked forward, ready to deliver a retort when my dad interrupted.

“I think that’s enough from you two.”

“Yes.” Sheila nodded. “What has gotten into you? You never talked to each like this at the house.”

“Because we never talked.”

I kept my mouth shut, but Sheila seemed taken aback by Kevin’s statement.

“What do you mean?”

“Summer and me. We didn’t talk.”

“Because of you,” I added. Yeah, the intention to shut up had been a good one…

He regarded me, sitting back in his chair. I felt like we were squaring off. I was going with it. My blood grew more heated by the second.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?” I asked.

His jaw clenched. “You always look like you’re half joking or half going crazy, so yeah. You kinda do.”

“Kevin Jamison Matthews!” Sheila’s fist came down on the table. “You apologize now to your stepsister.”

He didn’t. He narrowed his eyes and turned to address his mother head-on. “That’s the thing, you never gave me a choice as to whether I wanted a stepsister. I’m assuming she never got a choice about a stepbrother either—or even a stepmother.” He turned to my dad, who’d been sitting stoically. “And no offense, sir, but I never wanted a new dad. I have enough issues with my current one.”

“Get up from this table and walk away.” It was a softly spoken command from Sheila, and it sent shivers down my back.

I didn’t say a word. My dad still hadn’t. We waited to see what Kevin would do, because this had become an exchange between mother and son.

Kevin waited five more seconds, holding his mother’s gaze, before pulling his cloth napkin from his lap. He laid it on his plate. Shoving back his chair, Kevin didn’t say another word or look at us as he stood and left.

I’d been holding my breath since Sheila’s command. I slowly released it now, blinking back a few surprising tears.

She let out a shaky laugh. “That’s been brewing for a while, and I apologize wholehearted—”

“Stop, Sheila.” My father cleared his throat, folding his hands on the table. “He’s right.”

“Excuse me? Did you just say—”

He interrupted again. “They’re both right, and what were we thinking? We just got married, Sheila. We didn’t give them warning, or time to get accustomed to the new setup. They met a week before we moved in, and he’s right about that first year. They barely talked. Everyone barely talked. The only two who did were you and me.”

He turned to me. “I should’ve known. You were quiet that year, but you’ve always been quiet. I thought you were just missing your mother. I didn’t think— No, I didn’t want to think. I just decided you got along, so I didn’t think about unresolved issues. I’m sorry, honey.”

I blinked back more tears. That hole was ripping open inside me. My mom… A wave of longing crashed over me. I could hear her voice. I was right there, holding her hand in the hospital. I felt her fingers brush back my hair as she said softly,
“You won’t just have a great life, Summer. You’ll soar. I know you’ll be better than your father or I ever were.”

My heart started going, too fast.

I couldn’t—it was pressing into my throat. I felt like I was being choked from the inside.

“Are you okay, honey?” Sheila’s hand came down on mine, warming me.

I nodded, brushing the tears away. “I’m fine. I, uh—” I looked at my dad. “I miss Mom, that’s all.”

Sheila grew quiet.

Tears welled in my dad’s eyes, and my throat closed up at the sight. I turned away.

I didn’t want to cry. I felt my mom every day, but I couldn’t let myself think about her. If I did? Niagara Falls. Clearing my throat, I dried my eyes and shook my head. That hole—it needed to close.

“Before we hold a candlelight vigil right here and now, can we deal with the Kevin thing?”

“That’s what I am? A thing to deal with?”

Kevin had returned. He paused before pulling his chair out.

I waved to his face. “Oh good. Your scowl came back too.”

“Summer!”

This time the reprimand came from my dad. “What is with you?”

“Okay.” Sheila spread her hands in the air. “This is enough. It’s obvious our family has some concerns to air, and I think we should have our first official family meeting tonight. We have a suite. We can talk about this at the hotel, but can we enjoy the meal first?”

Kevin still hadn’t sat back down.

She pointed to his chair. “Can you sit? Can you be civil for the next hour?”

Picking up his cloth napkin, he tucked it back on his lap and looked at me, a frosty chill in his eyes.

That would’ve scared the crap out of me three months ago. But now, I just smiled at him and pulled my napkin from my lap. I held it in the air between our chairs before I dropped it, letting it fall to the floor, and I lifted my chin, my smile reinforced.

If he wanted to fight, game on. I had no problems sparring with him, though my stomach did all sorts of gymnastics.

He snorted. “Really?”

“What? It slipped.”

He shook his head, leaning back in his seat. “Is this what you’d imagined for family dinner, Mom?”

Sheila frowned at us. “Not exactly.” She picked up her menu and gave both of us a meaningful look. “How about we order? Okay?”

We did exactly that. After ordering, all of us made a point to be polite as we talked and ate for the next hour.

My dad’s job was going well. He was getting promoted to the level below the company’s CEO. Sheila’s last shift had been hard. They lost the patient. Kevin talked a little bit about Maggie, relaying that her father ran the hotel where Sheila and my dad were staying. Everyone was surprised by that, but no one asked any more about Maggie. Then all eyes turned my way. It was my turn to ’fess up to something.

I could’ve said my classes were going well. I’d gotten high scores on all my tests so far. Mid-terms were in two weeks. There was the flamingo flocking to mention, or the fact that I was becoming good friends with my resident advisor, the same Avery they’d met. But considering my audience, I decided to go another route. We’d finished eating, but perhaps we wouldn’t be getting dessert

“A guy I’m friends with punched Kevin,” I announced. “Twice.”

Sheila’s head shot forward. “What?!”

I heard my dad suck in a quiet breath.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Kevin growled.

“Honey, someone hit you?” Sheila asked Kevin.

“Summer.” I could hear my father summoning me from across the table.

“Yes, Mom. But I’m fine.”

“Summer.”

“Why were you hit?” Sheila paused for a moment. “Did you hit him back?”

“Summer. Look at me.”

“I’m fine, Mom. I really am. He didn’t hit me the second time.”

“Who is this guy?”

“A second time? There were two separate occasions?”

“Summer, you
will
answer me.”

“Mom, I am fine. I swear. Both times were my fault, anyway.”

“Are you dating this guy?”

“Your fault? What’d you do?”

“Look at me.”

“I didn’t do anything. Well, I might’ve said some things I shouldn’t have.”

My father fell silent, seeming to give up, but I felt his gaze on the top of my head. I twisted my hands together in my lap.

“You were being a jackass, you mean?” Sheila sat against the back of her chair with a thud. “Why am I not surprised to hear this?”

Kevin snorted.

I looked at my stepmom. “What do you mean?”

“What, honey?” She looked over at me.

“You’re not surprised Kevin was a jackass. Why do you say that? You say that like it’s a normal thing.” I looked at him. “Is that normal?”

His eyes closed to slits, and his hand formed a fist on the table. But then his shoulders lifted on a deep intake of air, and he forced his hands flat on the table.

“There were problems before you and your father moved in, yes.”

“Kevin!”

He ignored his mom. “When you moved in, those problems got pushed to the back burner.”

“No, they didn’t,” Sheila countered. “I had no idea how you felt.”

He looked to her now. “You did too. I screamed at you the night you told me they were moving in.”

She drew in a hissing breath. She’d twisted her cloth napkin into a knot, her knuckles white. “There was no screaming—”

“There was, Mom!” He pounded the table. “I was screaming at you. I yelled like a spoiled four year old throwing a fit. I’m admitting it. Why won’t you?”

She turned away. “Because it’s not true.”

Kevin shook his head. “This is ridiculous. You can’t even admit to reality.” He regarded my father and me. “I didn’t want you guys to move in. I didn’t want my mom to remarry. I didn’t want a new sister. I’m sorry. It’s nothing against you two, but she’d
just
divorced my dad six months earlier, and I knew that if two new people moved into the house, everything else would be shifted to the back. And that’s exactly what happened. Everything was all about her new husband, making everything great with her new marriage, and when she felt that was stable enough, she moved on to the new daughter.”

Those words punched me in the chest.

He softened his tone. “I’m sorry. I really am. I ignored both of you that year. I ignored everything that year. I didn’t want to deal with what she’d done to me, pushing me off like I was a burden to her.”

He focused on his mom again. “I wasn’t a burden to you. Your failed marriage was, and you took it out on me. When your marriage to him fails, don’t take it out on Summer. She already lost one mother; she shouldn’t lose a second one.”

“Kevin! I would never—” She started out harsh, but her voice trembled by the fourth word.

He cut her off with a brisk motion of his head. “You would.”

Placing his hands on the table, he looked right at my dad. “You seem like a great dad. Things have been distant between us, but don’t let her hurt your daughter the way she hurt her son.”

He stood. “And with that, I have to leave. I’m sorry, Mom. No family meeting for me tonight. What I have to say is between you and me—and your ex-husband who is
still
my father, just so you haven’t forgotten. He’s still my dad.”

Sheila blinked, trying to hold back tears as her son walked away behind her. She didn’t get up and go after him. She didn’t even watch him go. She sat straight ahead, tears rolling down her face, staring at something beyond us.

My stepmother had never looked as lost as she did then.