Score - A Stepbrother Romance (32 page)

S
ophie was
gonna be pissed as hell when she realized I’d stolen her manuscript.

But hear me out – I had a good reason. When I’d been sitting in her room waiting to see if she’d come out of the bathroom, it had caught my eye. I won’t lie; I’d been wanting to read it for weeks, just to see if she was as talented as I thought she was, and hell…she was more than talented. The first chapter of her book alone was enough to make me see how amazing she was. She had a real gift for stringing words together in the kind of way that sucked a person right in and kept them engaged in the storyline from the word go.

I knew writing was her true passion, not engineering. She’d only enrolled in Caltech because she wanted to please her Mom, and I understood that, but at the same time I thought it was unfair. Sophie was her own person, and the way I saw it, she should be encouraged to chase her own dreams. Now I wanted to help her realize those dreams.

She’d been avoiding me since our fight outside the club the other night, and I couldn’t blame her. Finding out about the stupid dare Caleb and I had come up with had been a real shock for her, and it had called into question every little thing I’d said and done in the last month or so. She had every right to be pissed at me. I’d tried talking to her multiple times since then to try and get her to hear me out, but she wasn’t having a bar of it.

I had a hell of a lot of making up to do, and I knew I had to do something drastic to prove just how much I loved her. I’d never said it to her, and now I was kicking myself for that. Why the hell hadn’t I? I’d damn well felt it.

After snatching the manuscript from her room like a literal thief in the night, I’d called my friend Ana, who had been accepted into the best college writing course in the country. It was at Hart-Guildford University, which was right here in Seattle, and even though college applications had probably been due weeks or months ago, I figured they probably had some sort of late application process. I was right – Ana told me that it was possible to send in a late application. All I had to do was fill out a bunch of paperwork that I could print off at home and stuff it in an envelope along with the manuscript and a check for the exorbitant late fee. See, I knew that Hart-Guildford didn’t require an essay with their applications. All they asked for was an original manuscript along with the requisite forms.

The problem? The cutoff time for late applications was midnight tonight, and it was already after ten.

So now I was speeding down the road to the main campus, praying that I’d make it in time. I’d told Sophie a while back that one day I was going to prove to her just how talented she was, and if I could pull off this application, then maybe she’d believe me. Maybe she’d believe how much I truly cared about her. In the end, even if she never forgave me, at least I’d still be helping her have the option of pursuing a career she was really passionate about.

I parked in one of the main university parking lots when I arrived and then shined the light from my cell phone on the first campus map I came across. The Arts and Literature department was to my right, so I dashed over there as quick as I could. The building was dark, and I cursed as I tried the door to the admin office.

“Shit!”

“Can I help you, son?”

I whirled around to see a middle-aged security guard standing behind me, a torch in one hand and a suspicious look on his face.

“Uh, yeah. I need to drop in my college application. The cutoff is midnight tonight.”

“Cutting it a bit fine, aren’t we?” he said, glancing at his watch.

“Yeah, I’ve been busy,” I said impatiently. “Look, is there somewhere where I can hand this in? If applications don’t close until midnight, then there’s gotta be somewhere I can put it.”

“I think most people who submit applications after hours do it online and pay with a card,” he said. “Why don’t you do that?”

Shit. I only had the print copy of her story.

“Um…this is the only copy of my manuscript that I have. My computer died after I printed it, and I didn’t back it up,” I lied.

He sighed. “That wasn’t very bright of you. And yet you’re applying to college. Well, I do have the keys…I suppose I could go in there and drop it in the office for you.”

“Really? Thanks, man, that’d be great.”

I handed him the envelope with the application, and he glanced at the name on it.

“Your name is Sophie Ramirez?”

“Uh…yeah. My parents are really progressive hippies. They decided to give me a girl’s name to…err…subvert gender stereotypes.”

He narrowed his eyes. I could tell he didn’t believe my ridiculous lie, but he must have figured it wasn’t really part of his job description to care, because he nodded a second later.

“Right. Well, I’ll drop this in there now. Good luck,
Sophie.
Hope you make it in.”

By the time I’d walked back to my car and left the campus, it was already well past midnight. I wanted to go back home and tell Sophie what I’d done for her, but it could wait. She’d probably be asleep by now, and my flight to New York was at five A.M. I needed to get to the airport an hour early to check in, so instead of heading home, I turned around and headed for the airport. My stuff was already in the car, and I wasn’t even tired. I could just hang around an airport café for a few hours before checking in.

I just hoped Sophie wasn’t
too
mad at me when she realized what I’d done.

“
I
’m going
to kill him. I’m seriously going to kill him.”

I rampaged around my room, still searching in vain for my story. I’d tried calling Drew twenty times before I’d given up and gone to sleep several nights earlier, but he hadn’t answered. It had been five days since then, and he still wasn’t answering, let alone returning any of my calls. The story was still nowhere to be seen.

“I can’t believe you’re still looking for it,” Cerie said. She and Lana had come over to commiserate with me. “Sorry, Soph, but I think it’s about time you gave up. Hasn’t it been nearly a week since you lost it?”

“Yes. I just keep thinking it will appear if I keep searching.”

Truthfully, I was deluding myself. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was gone.

“Are you sure one of the maids didn’t accidentally throw it out?” Lana asked.

I shook my head. “No. It was right there before I left for dinner that night.”

I pointed to the spot on the desk, and Cerie wrinkled her forehead. “Maybe the window was open, and a breeze blew it away. Did you check outside?”

“The window wasn’t open.”

“Well, you still have a copy on your computer, right?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point. Someone took the printed draft, and I think we all know who,” I said. “I don’t want Drew to have it.”

“How long is his photo shoot thing?” Lana asked.

“He should be back by tomorrow,” I said. “I found out that it was only a week-long thing.”

“Well, when he gets back, you can ask him then.”

“I guess. But it would be nice if he hadn’t most likely stolen my freakin’ story in the first place.”

My phone buzzed a moment later, and I excused myself from the girls before answering.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Sophie Ramirez?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Sophie, my name is Alison Wilkins. I’m calling from the Arts and Literature department at Hart-Guildford. We received your late application, and quite frankly, we were blown away.”

Huh? I hadn’t applied to Hart-Guildford. It was a prestigious college not far from where I was currently living, and it offered the best creative writing course in the country. I would certainly have
liked
to have applied, but I’d concentrated my applications solely on good engineering schools.

“I’m sorry, what?” I said.

“Your application. Normally it would take us a couple of weeks to consider an application, especially a late one, but Professor Dunham couldn’t put your manuscript down from the second she picked it up. Congratulations, Sophie. We’ll be sending you a package in the mail to get started in the enrolment process, and we’ve just emailed you an online confirmation as well. And don’t worry, the late fee is all paid up. Your brother called us to confirm that the check cleared.”

What. The. Hell.

Drew must have handed in a late application for me, judging by what she’d just said about the late fee and the fact that he was the only one who’d had access to my story aside from me. But why would he do that?

“Um…okay, then,” I said, not really knowing what else to say without confusing the hell out of the woman on the other end of the line. “Thank you for letting me know.”

Cerie and Lana stared at me with their eyes wide, and I filled them in on the phone call.

“Oh my god!” Lana squealed, clapping her hands together. “Are you going to go?”

“I already enrolled at Caltech,” I said.

“So? You can pull out. It’s not too late yet.”

“Hmm…I don’t know.”

“What is it you really want to do?” Cerie asked, her hands on her hips. “Is it writing, or is it engineering?”

“Well…writing,” I admitted. “But my Mom…”

She held up her hand and cut me off. “It isn’t entirely up to your Mom. I think you should go and do what you want. If it doesn’t pan out, then you still have time to go and do something like engineering. You’re only eighteen, Soph. You don’t need to have your entire life planned out!”

I hesitated. She was right. I was too young to be chaining myself to a career I probably wouldn’t even enjoy. Maybe I
would
accept the position at Hart-Guildford. After all, it was really exciting that they’d accepted me. I’d heard their writing program only had an acceptance rate of ten percent. My application had been late, which made it even less likely for me to get in.

I guess my writing was better than I thought.

As I mulled things over, Lana’s phone rang.

“Hello?” she answered. Her eyebrows immediately shot up. “Oh. Hi. Uh-huh. Yeah, I’ll tell her. Yeah, they just called her. Yep. Err…probably a lot. Okay, bye.”

“Who was that?” Lana and I both asked at the same time.

“It was Drew,” Cerie replied. “He said he tried calling you the other day, but you’d blocked his number. Then he had to go do this shoot thing way up in the country in New York State somewhere, and he had no cell phone service. Now he’s back in New York City, and he still couldn’t get through to you so he somehow got my number and called me.”

Oops. I’d totally forgotten. When I was mad at him, I’d blocked him from texting or calling me, because I didn’t want to hear any of his crap. So even if he’d missed a bunch of calls from me, he couldn’t call me back.

“What did he want?” I asked.

“He just wanted to let you know that he dropped in the application for you, and he wanted to know if you got in. He also wanted to know how much you were going to stab him when he gets home tomorrow.”

A blush slowly crept across my cheeks. “So that’s why he took my story,” I said. “He thought he was helping. He wasn’t trying to be a dick.”

The anger I felt towards him was slowly dissipating, although I was still mad at him for stealing my story. At least his heart had been in the right place.

“Oh my god,” Lana said, a soppy expression on her face. “Soph, that’s so sweet of him. He knew you really wanted to study writing, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You can’t be mad at him anymore!” she said. “Seriously, I think it’s really cute how much effort he went to, just to make you happy.”

“Did you forget everything I told you about his friend Caleb and their little deal?” I said.

Cerie sighed. “I say this in the nicest way possible, but is there a chance you’re overthinking it and overreacting? I mean, he admitted the whole thing, and he said that after the first couple of days it didn’t meant anything, and he realized he actually really cared about you. He said he felt terrible about it, remember? Just think about it, Soph. He wouldn’t have done half the stuff he’s done if he didn’t genuinely care about you. And he wouldn’t still be trying, would he?”

I sighed and mulled over their words. Crap. They were right. I’d reacted in the heat of the moment and taken things too far by completely cutting him off, and even then, Drew was still trying his hardest to get me back. He wasn’t giving up on me, and I’d been wrong to give up on him so fast. Especially considering how I still felt about him deep down.

“You’re right,” I said. “I’ll talk to him as soon as he gets back.”

D
rew had just arrived home
, and he was sitting beside the pool, dangling his legs in the water and nursing a glass of what appeared to be scotch. Of course. Scotch whiskey for the cool kids. I could barely handle anything that tasted stronger than a vodka and orange.

I sat down next to him. “Hey. Can we talk?”

He looked over at me. “Did you think of more stuff to bitch at me about, or just can’t bring yourself to stay away from me?”

I winced at his words, and a cheeky grin broke out on his face. “Sophie. I’m kidding. Let’s talk.”

I sighed with relief. “I just wanted to say thanks for what you did. With the application and all.”

“Cerie said you got in.”

“Yes. I did get in.”

His grin grew even wider. “I knew you would.”

“I’m still mad that you stole my manuscript, though.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “How mad?”

“Mad enough to do this.”

I reached over and shoved him, and he went flying into the pool, drink and all.

“Oh, come on!” he said as he emerged, shaking his hair like a wet dog. “I know I’ve been a dick, but that was harsh.”

I flashed him an evil grin. “Now we’re even.”

He pulled himself out of the water and wrapped his cold, wet arms around me. “No,
now
we’re even!”

I giggled, and he pulled away from me. “So…in case I haven’t already said it a million times, I’m really fucking sorry about the dare,” he said, his words colored with pure regret.

“I know,” I said. And this time, I really believed it.

“I also thought about what you said.”

“Which part?” I asked.

“The other night when you said we just keep arguing, making up and then arguing again. Let’s not do that anymore. We’re not teenagers.”

“Err...yes we are. I’m eighteen. You’re nineteen.”

“Oh, quiet. You know what I mean. I meant we’re not dumb kids, and we should communicate better. Tell each other everything, even if we think it might make the other mad.”

“In that case, I have to admit something to you. I think the guy who comes to clean the pool every day is kinda sexy,” I teased.

“Oh yeah, with that beer gut and all. I think he’s sexy too,” he replied with a chuckle. “Seriously, though. Total honesty from now on. I won’t keep anything from you.”

My heart fluttered a little. “Promise?”

“Yes. I promise.”

“So there’s definitely no more dark secrets? No more Atlantis Phantoms in the closet?”

“Nope.”

“Well, in the name of total honesty, do you think it’s time we came clean to our parents about what we’ve been doing?”

He sighed. “Yeah, I guess it is. Dad’s away at the moment, but I’ll tell him when he gets back.”

“I’m meant to be shopping with my Mom tomorrow. I’ll tell her then.”

“Need me to come?” he asked.

“I think I can manage on my own,” I replied. “At least I hope so…”