Step by Step Love: The Complete Collection (5 page)

Episode 3 – A Step Backwards

Veronica primped her hair and straightened her dress in the mirror. She wanted to look her best when Ryan returned from London, so she spent nearly two hours fussing over her appearance. She found it ironic that the first man she had made such an effort to impress happened to be her stepbrother, considering he had seen her at her worst dozens of times. Nevertheless, she wanted to show him the positive changes that she had made.

He had spent his time in London with her mother and Veronica was sure that he would be tired just from dealing with the woman. Veronica hoped she could offer him some stress relief after the long week that he had surely had. She chewed on her lip at the very thought.

She smiled and walked out of he bathroom before grabbing her keys from the key holder in the mudroom and walking out the front door. She unlocked her car and opened the driver's door before sliding into it. She looked into the rear-view mirror and fixed her hair one last time. As she looked in the mirror, she smiled at herself. It had been quite some time since she had driven entirely sober for weeks at a time and she was proud of herself. Taking a deep breath, she started the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot of the apartment complex. The airport was a short drive away and her excitement to see Ryan had been building up inside of her all day.

***

Ryan was stepping off the airplane with Jacquelyn at his heels. He had not spoken to her for the entire duration of the flight because it was far too awkward for him. He wondered how she was able to act so normal after having an affair with her own stepson, but he was well aware that Jacquelyn had never been the most grounded individual. Nevertheless, he thought she might have shown some kind of regret.

The terminal was crowded and extremely loud, but the loudest thing for Ryan was his own mind. His thoughts scolded him for his actions and he pondered whether or not he should tell Veronica about everything that had happened between him and her mother in London. He swallowed, anxiously, and closed his eyes. He knew that he would be seeing her soon and he feared that she would never forgive him for his stupidity. It did not help that Jacquelyn was tapping him on the shoulder and asking him questions every few moments. She clearly did not understand the dozens of hints that he had given her. Talking to her was quite difficult for him, but she seemingly could not comprehend that.

“Ryan, would you be a dear and hold my carry-on? I'm just exhausted after that flight,” Jacquelyn asked, holding out her carry-on bag.

Ryan glared at her as he snatched the bag out of her wrinkled hands and continued his trek through the sea of people to the baggage claim. His eyes were searching for Veronica, but his heart dreaded seeing her. He did not know how he was supposed to tell her what he had done. The anxiety had left a lump in his throat.

“Is that Veronica?” Jacquelyn asked, gesturing towards a blonde woman walking through the double doors.

Ryan peered over the conveyor belt and raised an eyebrow. The woman that Jacquelyn had pointed to was certainly not Veronica. Her skin was much darker and she weighed probably forty pounds more than his beloved stepsister. He had no idea how Jacquelyn could not even recognize her own daughter.

“That's not her, Jacquelyn,” Ryan murmured.

Jacquelyn frowned and held up her hand over her forehead, shielding her eyes from the bright, incandescent lighting. She squinted.

“Are you sure? It really looks just like her, I think.”

“It's not,” Ryan insisted in an annoyed tone. “Can't you even recognize your own daughter?”

Jacquelyn rolled her eyes and approached the conveyor belt, looking for her luggage.

“She's a mess, dear. She looks different all the time,” Jacquelyn muttered. She peered inside of the large machine from which the luggage was emerging. “Does that look like mine?”

“Jacquelyn! Stop putting your head in there,” he scolded, tugging on Jacquelyn's blazer. “You're going to get hurt for Christ's sake.”

She pulled her head out of the machine and looked around the large room again, craning her neck so she could see over the crowd.

“Is
that
her?”

Ryan rolled his eyes.

“No, ma. That's not her.”

***

Veronica honked her car horn. She did not realize how bad traffic could be near the airport, but she was quickly learning that she should have left the apartment a little earlier than she did. Looking at her car's digital clock, she tapped her foot impatiently and peered out her open window. The line of cars in front of her seemed to go on for miles and she was already late to pick up Ryan and her mother.

Suddenly, her cell phone began to ring and she pulled it out of her center console. A picture of Ryan flashed across the screen and she cursed under her breath. She already felt incredibly guilty for being late. After taking a deep breath, she swiped her thumb across the touchscreen and held it to her ear.

“Hi babe, I'm in my car,” she said. “I can see the airport right now. I'm just stuck behind a line of traffic. I'll be there as soon as I can.”

“Yeah, that's fine,” Ryan replied, softly. “Your mom has mistaken four different women for you, so I figured I would just call to take the mystery out of it.”

“She driving you nuts yet?” Veronica asked.

“Well, she—”

“Hey, we're moving!” Veronica exclaimed, cutting off his voice. “Sorry, we've just been stuck here for like five minutes and we're finally making some headway.”

She put her foot on the accelerator and her car crept forward, following the slow-moving line of traffic.

“You're fine,” Ryan replied. “Yeah, your mom has just been a little bit much most of the trip. She's in the bathroom now but I really just can't wait to be back at home with you. It's been a bit of a nightmare all week.”

Veronica frowned as she turned her steering wheel and came to another abrupt stop.

“Damn!” she shouted. “Sorry, we stopped again. Anyway, how has she been a nightmare?”

“Just being, you know, herself,” Ryan retorted. “Listen, you're going to be here soon, right?”

Veronica pressed her foot down the accelerator once more, urging the car in front of her to catch up to the rest of the traffic jam.

“Yeah, babe. I can't see it being more than twenty minutes or so. Some idiots just double-parked and it's kind of an uphill battle to get through all the cars. I'm really happy you're back home and I can't wait to see you,” she said. “It's been really boring around here without you.”

Ryan sighed.

“I wish I could say the same on my end,” he murmured.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” he lied. “I can't wait to be home is all.”

“I can't wait for you to be home either.”

***

When Veronica finally arrived at the airport, her mother and her stepbrother were already patiently waiting outside the main entrance, their luggage in hand. She pulled up to the curb and stopped so they could get in, apologizing incessantly.

“I'm so, so,
so
sorry I'm late, guys,” she said. “Traffic was absolutely awful.”

“Don't worry about it, dear,” Jacquelyn murmured, opening the back door and sliding into the car. “I always expect you to mess things up.”

Veronica gave her mother a dark look in the rear-view mirror, but her anger was short-lived. Ryan got into the passenger's seat and buckled his seat belt. He flashed her a smile and her heart melted. Her mother's harsh words mattered much less when he was there to comfort her with his warmth.

“How was the trip?” Veronica asked, shifting her car into drive and pulling away from the curb.

Ryan shifted in his seat, uncomfortably, but Jacquelyn was quick to answer.

“Oh, it was
lovely
, darling. I wish you could have gone, but you had to work instead of play someday, didn't you now?” Jacquelyn replied, coolly. “Veronica, don't take a left here. Go straight. It's much faster.”

Veronica frowned and turned off her blinker before going straight, as her mother had suggested. She did not think that the direction her mother was leading her was actually any faster, but it was not worth having an argument with the stubborn woman.

As she drove, she looked at Ryan from the corner of her eye and furrowed her brow. He had been quiet since they had left the airport and she did not understand why. She wondered if her mother had beaten down his spirit so much that he could not even speak. With a sigh, she assumed that that was probably the best explanation for his strange behavior. Her mother had that effect on her too, so she could not blame him. Nevertheless, she found it quite strange.

“You're awfully quiet, Ryan,” Veronica said, glancing at him.

Ryan shrugged and snorted.

“Are you ill?” she questioned.

He did not answer her.

“He isn't ill, dear,” Jacquelyn quipped. “He is jet-lagged. We just had a very long flight, darling. I know that you have never had to fly sober before so you don't understand, but please try to be courteous of oth—what are you doing? Are you an idiot? Turn right. If you go straight you're going to end up on Hawthorn Street.”

Veronica sighed and turned on her blinker.

“Yes, Mother.”

The rest of the drive was fairly silent until they pulled into Jacquelyn's driveway. As soon as they arrived, she opened the door, stepped out of the car, and tapped on Ryan's window. Rolling his eyes, he rolled it down and gave her a questioning look.

“Ryan, would you be a dear and put my things in the house? I'm just too old to move these things on my own,” she asked in a sickly sweet voice, batting her eyelashes.

Ryan groaned and opened his door. He stepped out of the vehicle.

“Not too old for other things though, eh?” he grumbled, walking behind the car. “Veronica, pop the trunk, please!”

Veronica pressed the button to open her trunk and frowned as she eyed her stepbrother and her mother in her rear-view mirror. Her mother was clearly flirting with him, but she was not sure whether it was just to get her luggage moved or not. Narrowing her eyes, she continued to watch their interactions. She had a hard time believing that her mother would hit on her own stepson in such a blatantly obvious manner, but she saw it with her own two eyes.

“Is that all?” Ryan murmured after pulling her luggage up the stoop.

Jacquelyn smirked and tilted her neck to get a view of his firm buttocks.

“Now,
that's
all,” she said. “Have a nice day, Ryan. Thanks for actually showing up, Veronica!”

Ryan scowled and hurried back into the car. He locked his door and rolled up his window.

“Let's go. Please,” he muttered.

Veronica sighed and took the car out of park. She backed out of the driveway and started driving towards their apartment complex.

“Doesn't seem like you had a very good time with my mom, eh?” she asked.

Ryan shook his head.

“You don't even want to know.”

***

Ryan was lying on the sofa, watching a football game. He had been home for three hours and he had not said more than just a few words to Veronica, despite her dozens of attempts to strike up conversation with him. Instead, he lay there, watching a sport in which he was not even interested, moping.

Veronica had given up trying to speak to him and hoped that it was only the jet lag that was making him act so strangely. In an effort to clear her mind, she decided to unpack his luggage for him. She thought that, perhaps, having one less responsibility would make him feel a little better.

She began pulling his dirty laundry out of his luggage and putting them into the washing machine until, suddenly, she noticed something strange about one of his shirts. On a white button-up shirt, right on the upper crease of the collar, was a maroon mark. Veronica frowned and pulled it close to her face so she could see it better. Upon further inspection, she noticed several small creases and that it was in the shape of lips. It was clearly lipstick, and to her horror, it was the same exact shade that her mother wore.

For a moment, she was speechless. She clutched the shirt in her hands, unsure what she was going to say to her lover. She did not know that the lipstick belonged to her mother, but it seemed quite coincidental to her that it was the same shade of maroon. Even if the lipstick did not belong to her, that meant that Ryan had been with another woman. She took a deep breath and a tear fell down her cheek. She never thought that she would get so upset over something like lipstick on a collar, but she could not control her emotions any longer. She knew that she had to confront him.

After inhaling and exhaling deeply, Veronica stomped to the living room and seized the remote from Ryan. She turned off the television and tossed the shirt at him. It landed on his face and she backed up to stand in front of him, tapping her foot, angrily. He pulled the shirt off his face and frowned.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“You know what it was for!” she shouted. “Lipstick on your collar?
Maroon
lipstick? Who the hell wears maroon lipstick in 2015 other than my mother?”

“A-a lot of women do—”

“You're not helping your case!” she yelled. “How could you do this to me?”

She was shaking out of a combination of both sadness and anger. She could not even determine which emotion was stronger. Ryan sighed and closed his eyes before standing up and wrapping his arms around her. She pushed him away and gave him a dark look, folding her arms over her chest.

“Please, don't be mad,” he murmured, approaching her again and taking her hands in his. “It just kind of happened—”

She slapped his hands away, seething.

“Just kind of happened with my mother or with some other maroon lipstick-wearing tramp?” she snapped. “I thought you cared about me, Ryan! I thought we were risking it all because
you
can't live without
me
, but come to find out, you're nailing my mum!”

Ryan closed his eyes and took a deep breath, rubbing his temples.

“Veronica, it will never happen again. It was the biggest mistake of my life,” he said, softly. “Please, I can't lose you. I was drunk and it was all just one big huge goddamn mistake and I've felt miserable ever since it happened.”

Veronica sighed and closed her eyes, walking around him to sit on the couch and bury her face in her hands. She rubbed her forehead and wiped the tears from her eyes, lost in her own thoughts and overwhelmed by her feelings. Part of her wanted to hate him, but she knew that she could not. She cared about him far too much and that was what scared her the most. A man that had hurt her deeply still had her heart and that was a mistake that she had made in the past. She looked up at him and chewed on her lip.

“I want to hate you so badly,” she murmured with a chuckle. “I just can't.”

Ryan frowned and sat beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“What do you mean you just can't?” he asked.

She looked back up at him, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. He frowned. He was overwhelmed by guilt.

“I can't forgive what you did with my mother,” she murmured. “I just wish it never happened. But at the same time, part of me just wants you even more. I don't know if it's because I haven't seen you in a week or if it has anything to do with you hooking up with her. I really wish I knew because I want to know how messed up I am, but I guess it really doesn't matter.”

She shook her head and sighed, rubbing her head. Ryan kissed the top of her head.

“You know I would never do anything like this again, right?” he murmured. “She seduced me when I was drunk. I know that's not an excuse, but I just feel like that should be on record.”

Veronica scowled.

“Why am I not surprised she did that? She's married. Why can't she leave you alone?” she ranted. “I'm just sick of her constantly trying to ruin my life and we have to see the miserable old bat next week. It's going to be awkward as hell. I don't know if I can even tell her that I know but I know she's just going to know I know and—”

Ryan pressed a finger to her lips.

“Shhh. We will worry about that when it comes time, okay?” he said in a comforting tone. “For now, let's just try and focus on us, alright? I just want to make this up to you however I can. I know it was a huge mistake, but I'll do anything you want.”

Veronica sniffled and smiled.

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

***