Stepbrother Bestie (A Stepbrother Romance Novel) (37 page)

For once in probably the entire span of
time that I had known him, immense, slightly unnatural dedication aside, Tyler
was being normal to me. It was then that I realized he really did have a hobby
that did not include boning anything.

Granted, when I looked at him, with his
bulging muscles tensing and flexing as he lifted far too many weights for one
human being to be able to stand all by themselves, I was sure that one hobby
did quite a bit to help out the pursuit and inspiration for another. But it was
nice to see him perusing something that did not directly relate to Tyler
eventually getting completely naked.

As I watched him, hopefully unseen for as
long as I was standing there, I saw that instead of just talking about his
dedication, he was actually showcasing it. Plus, he got extra points in my book
for doing it at an ungodly hour.

That’s
when I
realized, once again,
that he wasn’t so bad.

The terrible person that I had
experienced, after a lot of drinks that night in the water was completely gone
and replaced once again by the debonair man that I thought I truly understood.

Of course, I didn’t do anything dumb, like
forget how he made me feel, but I did see a different side to him that I liked.

If nothing else, it made me believe that
there truly might be something good lurking in the recesses of this man’s
psyche and I wanted to find out more about what exactly was there.

So, that night when he finally arrived
home, I made my way over to his room and knocked on his door.

I was sure that he was in there, but my
knock was returned with silence at first.

“Come on, Tyler,” I insisted, unable to
hide what was on my mind, “I’ve had a pretty crappy day and seeing you was the
best part of it.”

“Come the fuck in!” he retorted, seeming
as though he was also angry.

When I made my way into the room, he was
sitting on his bed with his headphones jammed into his ears.

“Hi,” I said awkwardly, before I shrugged
as though I had made my concern for my day a little worse than it really was.
Perhaps I had gone a bit overboard, seeing as how nothing really happened, so
much as I allowed my own head to take over. Yet, it was this house, more than
anything that drove me crazy. I didn’t want to admit it, but I couldn’t seem to
resist the idea that this house, for my family, was just bad luck.

He popped the headphones out of his ears
and turned off the music that was still blaring through them.

“So, what’s up?” he asked in a slightly
angry manner.

I narrowed my eyes and moved closer to
him, but did not say a word about how I was feeling. Instead I asked, “I’m
sorry, are you okay?”

He narrowed his eyes and spat. “Just
because you’re fucking miserable doesn’t mean you have to come in here and
pretend I feel just as bad as you.

His words were loud and abrasive, which
made me quake with fear and pull back. I bit my lip and tried not to say
anything that I first thought of. “I came here for help,” I finally answered.
“But I only said something to you, because you seem…” I shrugged before I was
able to find the right word, “Tense?”

He barked a laugh before he answered,
“Yeah, so, what’s it to ya?”

I smiled, feeling almost like I had won
the lottery, getting him to admit that he was feeling like anything less than
god of the universe. “I’m concerned.”

“Well, don’t be. I’m fucking wonderful,”
he answered, now with an even more abrasive tone.

“I don’t think that’s true…” I answered
carefully, stepping towards him.

“What the hell?” he exclaimed. “Get away
from me! What is it with you? One minute you’re happy and the next minute,
you’re seven days fucking rain.” He glared at me with a serious expression that
gave me the impression he actually wanted to know the answer to the question
that he was about to ask. “So, why do you hate this place anyway?”

Well,
that was definitely an improvement.
Even though I wanted to
tell him how I felt and what I was feeling, I wasn’t sure if I would really be
able to form my concerns into words. There was just so much to explain.

So in lieu of trying to explain a
situation and a sense of loss that I still didn’t completely understand, I just
shook my head and mumbled, “Never mind,” before I turned to leave the room.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that he
was glaring at me as he huffed, “I’m just trying to be fucking nice.”

The moment I walked out of his door, I
lamented it.
Maybe
I really do need someone to talk to,
I thought before I
waited a moment.

Should
I ask him if I could come back?
I wondered, but hated
myself for even thinking about it.
He
doesn’t really care, so why would you want to encourage him? It is only going
to make things worse.

Yet, before I could completely convince
myself of this, I was making my way back over to the opened door and readying
myself to knock.

You’re
going to regret this,
I told myself, but for whatever
reason, I knew that I needed to tell someone what I was going through, or else
I would go insane.

Tyler’s
not the best option in the world for anything,
I thought as I rapped my fist against the door gently and looked over at him,
secretly hoping that he wouldn’t just curse me off before telling me that I had
to leave.
But he is the best chance I’ve
got!

Chapter
22

Tyler

“What do you want?” I asked, raising my
eyes to her. “I’m not a fucking therapist, you know. You can’t just expect me
to put up with you going in and out. If you come in, you’re here to stay.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” she answered, “It’s
just really hard for me.”

I cringed as I thought,
See? This is exactly the kind of shit I was
trying to avoid!
Nonetheless, I continued to look up and stare at the
beautiful blond woman who was insisting that she was worried about me instead
of begging to hop on my dick and take it for the ride of her life.

I
don’t need this,
I thought to myself, but
I
heard my voice say, “Yeah, I get it.”

I watched as Ashley paused for a moment
before she smiled and made her way back inside.

I stared at her while she hovered by the
door before I demanded, “Well, what are you waiting for? If we’re going to have
an intimate conversation, we might as well be intimate.” I smiled at her in a
way that was supposed to be suggestive, but she rolled her eyes and caused me
to fear she was going to change her mind about telling me. So I quickly sat up
and said in a smooth, understanding tone, “Listen, Ashley, I meant what I said.
I really want to know what your deal is with this place.” I made my eyes wide
as I tried to seem extremely convincing. “Please…I’m here to help.”

That’s
bullshit…
I thought, but didn’t entirely believe it, which made
me feel even worse.
And to make matters
even more dire, not only is she getting me to ask questions that I shouldn’t
want to know the answer to, she is making me actually care enough to want to
help. Why the fuck should I care the reasons behind her hate for this beach
house?
But
I did care nonetheless.

In truth, today was a pretty shitty day
for me as well. It wasn’t anything anyone did or said, but more about what I
had thought about the whole day.

Therefore, I couldn’t help but want a
little human connection. Since Ashley was giving me that connection, I figured
I would listen to her problems. Maybe it would distract me from my own.

It was a stupid thought, brought on by the
stupid amusement park, but I couldn’t seem to get the thoughts out of my head.
The more I tried to ignore them, the more they seemed to keep pummeling me. It
was awful and weak. I wanted no part of it, but as I continued to look at
Ashley’s expression, I found, to my dismay, that I was actually considering
telling her about what it was that made me so upset.

I watched as Ashley contemplated my offer,
before she moved over to me and sat her perfectly shaped ass right down on the
bed and I felt a ping of attraction. My eyes easily made their way down to her
cleavage and I wondered what it would take to get her to take her top off for
me.

Be
tactical,
I thought before I answered seriously while going for
broke, “So, what is it, Ashley…Why does this particular house seem to bring out
such horrific memories?”

“It’s not that the memories are bad,” she
sighed, leaning back against the wall on the other side of my bed. “It’s the
fact that I won’t…make anymore?” She stopped and shook her head, as though re-thinking
telling me any of this. “Forget it! It’s too heavy for right now.” She smiled
then, trying to feign positivity, before she added in an encouraging manner,
“What happened to you today?”

I snorted a laugh and answered callously,
“You think that your story is heavy. Fuck your story.”

“Oh yeah?” Instead of being offended, she
seemed far more intrigued. “Then what is it? What has been on your mind today?”

I thought about this for a second,
disgusted at how much I actually wanted to tell her what it was I was thinking.
However, my first reaction was to tell her, in no uncertain terms to fuck off;
that I wouldn’t tell her my problems if my life depended on it. But before I
could open my mouth and ruin my otherwise glorious chances, I had a thought.

I stopped and allowed my emotions, for the
first time in a long time, to get the best of me. “It’s…my dad,” I answered
carefully. “The man who screwed my mother to make me…” I shook my head and made
sure the door was closed. In case the two newlyweds decided to come home, they
wouldn’t hear what I was divulging. “Literally the worst fucking decision that
man ever made.”

I saw her eyes grow even more concerned
for me as she answered, “That’s terrible, Tyler. Why would you say something
like that?”

I sighed and tried to control myself
before I answered, far easier than I had meant to, in a way that almost scared
me, “Well, the short version is that if he had never created me, he probably
would still be alive.”

I saw her eyebrows raise, but she didn’t
seem nearly as alarmed as I thought she would be. It took her a moment to
recover though and when she did, her voice was far more understanding than I
knew I deserved. “Well Tyler, I would feel a lot better if you told me the long
version.” With that, she gave a reassuring smile and patted my leg with her
hand.

The feel of her skin touching mine made me
even more excited, despite the pain of the past that I had now willingly opened
myself up to. I sighed, not wanting to have this conversation, but realizing
that I probably didn’t have much of a choice, now that she likely thought I
blew his brains out because he waited up to punish me when I came home past
curfew or something stupid like that. I only wished it was that simple.

“All right,” I answered, feeling as though
the words were far too simple for everything that I was feeling, along with
everything that I was about to divulge. “Growing up, I didn’t really have any
kind of fucking father figure. My mother swore up and down that he was a
bastard and had left the two of us the moment he found out that she was knocked
up, never to be heard from again. My grandmother took care of us when I was
little, because my mother wasn’t really good for anything except screwing
people and I suppose my grandmother felt bad for me. Who the fuck knows?”

I felt myself grow nervous as I realized
that I had never actually spoken this story out loud before. “Then, when I was
five, my grandmother died and left everything she had in the world, being
well-off thanks to my grandfather, to my mother, so that she could take care of
me. It was a lucky break for her and at least she had the decency not to spend
it all in one place, but she also didn’t work very much. Therefore, while we
had the house, which was going to shit because my mom didn’t know the first
thing about fixing it, we still had to be fairly sparing about what we did.
Then, she married again, when I was ten and that guy taught me a little bit
about how to work on a house and be a good provider.” I shrugged, feeling as
though I had nothing to hide anymore, since I was already explaining my most
coveted secret to her. “I fucking liked him. He was a hard ass, but he was what
I needed at the time.”

As I spoke, I watched Ashley as she took
it all in. I wasn’t sure how much she could relate, but I was sure that on some
level, she felt like we were connecting. For all the lies I had told women to
get them into bed with me, I had never told any of them the truth except
Ashley, so I thought we were connecting a little bit too.

“However, that marriage didn’t last long.
Once again, my mother said that he walked out on us.” I shrugged and allowed my
voice to drop to a pitch that enticed Ashley to read between the lines. “She
sure got a shit-ton of money from that deal though, which leads me to wonder.”