Crude: A Stepbrother Romance (18 page)

“Don’t you want to go to college?”

“Not really, no.”
Jesus, can we go back to the part where I was about to slide my fingers into your pussy and then make you come on my tongue?

“Aren’t you worried about your future?”

“My future is not dependent on paying a bunch of money to go to some place that’s going to rip me off on overpriced books and a shitty room for four years before sending me out with a useless piece of paper.”

Paige sighs; “Knox, you know what I mean, I don’t even mean
college
per-say, just-”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Look, let’s just fucking drop it ok?”

She huffs, standing from the piano bench and crossing her arms over her chest. I can practically see my possible chances of fooling around floating up through the ceiling; “Why are you being so difficult about this?”

“Jesus
fucking
Christ, princess,” I growl, standing myself and glaring at her across the piano bench between us; “
Enough
, ok?” And with that, I whirl around and storm out of the room.

Fuck this.

“Knox!”

I jolt out of my little storm cloud just in time to avoid slamming into my mom as she comes through the front door with hands full of shopping bags; “Sorry, mom,” I mumble out, trying to hide the shock on my face of her being home so early as I stoop to help her pick up the bags of new clothes.

OK, as weird as this whole sudden marriage to Joe is, I’m happy for her. I mean, when I think back over the last year since my dad - or even when he was still alive- with her working two or three jobs all the time, I can’t even picture a time when she got to go out and just
shop
for herself.

“What’s with the sour-puss, honey?”

“Nothing,” I say with a grumble;
Oh, you know, just having a disagreement with my new stepsister; you know, the one I’ve been fooling around with for the past week?

“Well, turn it upside down, mister grumps,” She says, using the pet name she’s called me whenever I was pouting since I was little; “And dress sharp tonight for dinner.”

“Huh? Why?” Great, the last thing I want to do is have some boring “fancy” dinner with Joe and Paige right now.

“Joe’s friends, the Rileys, are coming over for dinner, that’s why.” She looks at me and shakes her head; “You remember Joe talking about them, right? The one with that handsome boy for Paige?”

You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.

“So, see you for dinner, OK?”

Fucking, wonderful.

I’m doing my best to comb and twist my unruly hair into something
resembling
tamed as I sit at the vanity in my room, staring into the mirror.

Why is Knox so difficult
?

It’s not what I should be thinking about right now. What I
should
be thinking about is the fact that I’m sitting here in a slinky evening dress wearing freaking
eyeliner
which is so beyond the norm for me, and it’s all in preparation for this weird pseudo-date setup thing my dad’s lined up with Josh Riley.

It’s like something out of puritanical times, like I’m being bartered into some sort of “good stock” family in order to “further the family line” or something.

Or, you know, further my dad’s business by partnering McCauley Oil with Riley Shipping and Transport. And hey, all it takes is marrying your daughter off like some sort of tribal barter.

No problem;
thanks
, dad.

But yet here I am absently brushing my hair and not thinking about all that, but of the boy in the room next door. The boy I shouldn’t thinking about
at all
.

And he’s so
infuriatingly
difficult, especially when I brought up college and the future like that. And really,
so what
? What’s bugging me more than him being a little shit about it is that I
care
that he was a little shit about it. What is it we’re doing anyways that would lead to me feeling like that? We’re certainly not
dating
-
God
no.

This whole last last week while we’ve been fooling around and sneaking around into each other’s rooms late at night, I’ve been calling it “experimentation”. I’m rationalizing it in my own head that I can
hardly
show up for college with
nothing
under my belt experience-wise, right? So that’s all this is; practice. Knox is my training wheels for going out and finding someone or some
ones
more appropriate and less...I don’t know, less forbidden, that’s for sure.

So if that’s all this, why do I give a shit what he does with his life? In the fall, I’ll go to New York, and on to whatever I do with life after that. I’ll push the singing and songwriting to the back-burner, and that’ll suck, but I’ll get on with my life. Knox will...who the heck
knows
what he’ll do. Probably go sulk somewhere and drink and laze around. He’ll probably find some other girl to fool around with and that’ll be that.

I narrow my eyes at my own reflection in the mirror, letting the hand holding the brush drop to my lap as I scowl.

So, if this is just an experiment, why does the thought of Knox with some other girl get me furious? Why does thinking about him doing what
we’ve
been doing with someone else get my blood boiling like this?

I shake my head;
you get that out of your head right now
. Whatever Knox and I are doing, it’s
nothing
. It can’t be anything, that’s for sure. This is fun, and exciting, and new, but in the fall, I’ll just be one more girl for him and he’ll just be a fond memory of learning how to swim in the adult end of the pool.

And that’s that.

*****

“Paige, lovely to see you again!” Richard Riley beams at me through his round, red face as he makes a big show of shaking my hand; “She’s all grown up, Joe; you’re gonna have your hands full with this one!”

My dad smiles and sips his scotch, his eyes sparkling with pride as he looks at me.

“Well, good thing she’s got her big bro here to watch her and keep the boys away, huh?” Richard chuckles as he turns towards a scowling Knox and claps him on the arm

Keeping an eye on me? Check. Keeping the boys away? Yeah, that might be more a matter of perspective.

“And Paige, you remember my son Josh now don’t you?” Richard turns towards someone in a suit and talking to Amanda with their back to me.

Yeah, the spoiled, obnoxious little brat that tried to grab my boob? The foul-mouthed little boy who-

“You know, I
thought
I remembered Paige McCauley, but this stunning woman can’t possibly be her now can it.”

Uh, woah.

The spoiled, whiny-voiced little brat is now about six feet feet tall, with dark, smokey eyes, perfect hair, perfect dimples, and a
very
perfect cleft in his chiseled jaw. And the voice is now that of a man; strong, confident, deep, and warm, and I find myself blushing like some sort of stupid schoolgirl as he takes my hand in his much larger one and beams a perfect white smile at me.

Oh hello.

*****

So, as it turns out, if I can avoid looking at the scowling, brooding, shadow-faced Knox slouched in the chair across from me, this dinner might not be so bad after all. The Josh Riley that I remember is
gone
; replaced by this charming, cultured, and
interesting
young man sitting next to me now. And I’m actually
really
enjoying conversation with someone my own age that isn’t laced with filthy language or crude comments.

Of course, the fact that Knox has been acting like a dick means that maybe I’m giggling a
little
louder than I might normally at something Josh says; letting my hand linger a
bit
longer than necessary on his arm while I’m smiling at him. I can practically
feel
Knox’s eyes burning a hole through me, and I know I’m being petty by acting like this in front of him just to get to him, but I push that aside as I concentrate on the handsome man showing me actual - and not just crude and raunchy - attention.

My phone dings with a text message from its place stuck under my thigh, eliciting a look from my dad, who I know
hates
cell phones at the table; “Sorry,” I mumble, ignoring the phone. I turn back to Josh, but it dings again with another message, drawing my father’s ire once more as he glances up sharply from his conversation with Mr. Riley down the table.

Red faced and cringing, I snatch the phone from under my leg in order to turn the sound off.
Instantly
, the heat in my face roars up ten more degrees as I quickly shove the phone back under.

Because the offending message was right there, plastered across the screen. A picture message, in fact.

Of a cock.

I only saw it for a quarter of a second before I shoved it away so Josh wouldn’t see and think I was some sort of pervy creep, but I know what it was. And furthermore, I know
whose
it was. I glare up at Knox, who’s calmly looking everywhere
but
me across the table as he takes a bite of his roasted chicken.
 

God
, he’s so
gross
; so crude and
so
freaking arrogant. I mean, who actually texts someone a picture of their dick? Who even
has
a picture of their dick?

The phone buzzes again next to my leg, and I cringe; at least the ringer’s off this time. I ignore it, and then the
next
message, followed by the one after that.

Jesus, how many damn pictures of his dick does he have?
 

*****
 

Ten; the answer is ten.
 

It’s forty-five excruciating minutes later of ignoring Knox’s pornographic text messages, when we’re clearing the table, that I finally secret away and glance down at the phone.

I about die right then. There are seriously
ten
freaking pictures of Knox’s dick, standing upright and looking...
ugh, do NOT say ‘good’.

I cringe as I quickly shut off the phone and bring the dishes to the kitchen.
 

“Hey, Paige,” I turn and smile as Josh follows me into the kitchen; “Listen, I’ve had a great time catching up with you tonight.”

OK, he might be the exact opposite of Knox - clean-cut, devoid of tattoos, groomed, a baby-kissing politician’s smile instead of a devilishly tempting one, but he is one
very
good looking man. And hey, maybe that’s a good thing considering the way things are with Knox and whatever that whole thing is.

“You know,
me too
, Josh!” I say with a smile.

Just then, as if
summoned
like the demon-spawn he is, Knox comes strolling into the kitchen;
wonderful
.

“Listen, I’m going to a party later at a friend’s house,” Josh looks at me and smiles - a smile that makes me a little weak in the knees; “Do you want to come?”

With you?
I look up past him to see Knox glaring at me. OK, there’s teasing and playing up the flirting with Josh in front of him just to get under his skin and give him a taste of his own medicine, and then there’s just being cruel. I have no intention of letting anything
happen
with Josh Riley besides giggling and flirting a little more than usual in front of Knox.