Stepbrother Dearest (22 page)

always felt that Patrick abandoned him, held no allegiance to his father. When Pilar admitted that her

feelings for her husband were platonic, Randy didn’t hesitate to take full advantage.

One day, he’d crossed the line and kissed her. From that point on, there was no going back. Their

afternoon encounters went from innocent conversations to sordid rendezvous. Eventually, they’d started to
talk about a secret future. The plan was to carry on their affair until Randy finished college and was no
longer financially dependent on Patrick. Then, they’d both run off together.

In the meantime, Randy moved permanently into Patrick’s house to be closer to her and pretended to

have girlfriends to throw his father off. Randy and Pilar were always extremely careful until the one time
they weren’t and miscalculated Patrick’s return date from a business trip to Costa Rica.

That was the day Patrick walked in on his young wife fucking his son in their bed. That was also the

moment that set off the chain of events that led to my existence.

An enraged Patrick locked Pilar in a closet while he beat the shit out of Randy before kicking him out

of the house. Patrick then allegedly raped my mother in the same bed he’d found her in with his son. By

the time Randy broke through the window, it was too late.

Exactly what happened next is not completely clear because the details given to me have always been

sketchy. The only thing I know with absolute certainty is that Patrick never left that bedroom alive.

Mami says he fell and accidentally hit the back of his head in the middle of a struggle with Randy. I

suspect that Randy might have killed him, but she would never admit to that if it were true. I knew she’d
protect Randy until the day she died despite his betrayal of their marriage.

The police never suspected anything and bought the story about Patrick falling and hitting his head.

Because he’d lived lavishly and had been putting Randy and Pilar through school, Patrick had no

money to leave them. Randy had to drop out of college and ditch his dreams to take odd jobs.

It was a really bad time for Pilar to find out she was pregnant. She knew it couldn’t have been Randy’s

since they’d always been extremely careful with protection.

The baby was Patrick’s.

Randy loved her and blamed himself for the situation they were in.

He begged her to get an abortion, but she refused.

He knew he could never grow to love the product of the night his father raped Pilar.

He was right. He couldn’t, but he would raise me as his own anyway and would spend the rest of his

life taking everything out on me.

That was how Randy became my father, and how I became my brother’s bastard child.

***

That was only the prologue, and already it felt like an earthquake had barreled through my head. I

couldn’t believe what I just read.

My mind and body were now in the midst of a war because while my heart needed a long rest before

continuing on, my brain had an urgent need to turn the page. Once I’d started reading, the pages wouldn’t

stop turning all night long.

I’d made it through the first half of the book by dawn. Reading about the verbal abuse Elec suffered at

the hands of Randy was extremely painful. As a boy, Elec would hide in his room and get lost in books to

escape reality. Randy would sometimes punish him for no reason and take the books away. One of those

times, Elec started jotting a story down on paper and discovered that writing was an even more satisfying

escape. He could control the destinies of his characters, whereas he had no control over the life he was

forced to live in Randy’s home.

As a child, he never knew the real reason behind Randy’s hatred. Pilar’s protection of Randy was

unacceptable, and I wanted to strangle her through the pages. The only good thing she ever did was go

against Randy’s wishes in buying Elec a dog. Lucky became Elec’s solace and best friend.

Elec also recounted the time when he found out about Randy’s infidelity. He hacked into his father’s

computer and discovered the online affair with my mother. Elec felt guilty because he was the one who

broke the news to Pilar. Randy moved out soon after.

Pilar’s subsequent breakdown opened up a whole new set of challenges. She became dependent on Elec

in the same way she’d always relied on Randy. That, coupled with Elec discovering the truth about Patrick,

and then the death of Lucky caused a downward spiral.

He started to smoke and drink to cope with the stress, developed an addiction to tattoos as a form of

self-expression and became sexually promiscuous. He’d lost his virginity at 15 to a female tattoo artist after he’d convinced her he was 18.

It was really hard for me to get through certain parts of the book, but his brutal honesty was admirable.

I read straight through until arriving at the one point where I absolutely had to stop before continuing.

It was the chapter about me.

***

Vengeance.

That was the only thing that was going to get me through having to spend the better part of the next

year living with Randy and his new family while Mami “went away.”

The only consolation was going to be the satisfaction that would come from making their lives

miserable.

He was going to pay for putting my mother in the looney bin and for leaving me to pick up the pieces.

I’d already decided that I hated her—the daughter. I’d never met her, but I imagined the worst based

on her name alone, which ironically rhymed with vendetta.

Greta.

I thought it was an ugly name.

I was betting she had a face to match.

The second I stepped off that plane, the smog and funky smell of Boston were a big giant “fuck you.”

I’d heard that song before about the dirty water here, and that didn’t surprise me after taking one look
around.

When we first pulled up to the house, I refused to get out of Randy’s car, but it was cold, and I was

freezing my ball sac off, so I finally gave in and dragged my feet inside.

My stepsister stood in the living room waiting for me with a huge smile on her face. My eyes

immediately landed on her neck.

Fuck. Me.

Remember that bet about the face matching the name? Well, apparently, I’d lost that bet to my dick.

Greta wasn’t ugly…at all.

This development was a minor hiccup in my plan, and I was determined not to let it slow me down.

I reminded myself to keep a serious face.

Her long strawberry-blond hair was tied up into a ponytail that swung back and forth as she moved

toward me.

“I’m Greta. Nice to meet you,” she said

She smelled good enough to eat.

I corrected the thought in my head: good enough to eat and SPIT HER OUT. Don’t lose focus.

Her hand was still suspended in the air as she waited for me to take it. I didn’t even want to touch her.

That would further throw me off track. I eventually took her hand, squeezing it too tightly. I wasn’t

expecting it to be so goddamn soft and delicate like a bird’s foot or some shit. It trembled a little. I was
making her nervous. Good. This was a good start.

“You look different…than I pictured,” she said.

What was that supposed to mean?

“And you look pretty…plain,” I retorted.

You should’ve seen her face. She thought I was being nice for a split second. I nipped that in the bud

when I added the word “plain.” Then, her pretty smile dipped down into a frown. That should’ve made me

happy, but I didn’t like it at all.

In reality, she was anything but plain. Her body was exactly my type: petite with small curves. Her

perfectly round little ass stretched through a pair of gray yoga pants. It was no surprise that she did yoga
with a tight body like that.

And her neck…I couldn’t explain what it was, but it was the first thing I noticed about her. I had to

urge to kiss it, bite it, wrap my hand around it. It was fucking weird.

“Would you like me to show you to your room?” she asked.

She was still trying to be sweet. I needed to get out of there before I cracked, so I ignored her and

headed for the stairs. After a brief encounter with Sarah, who I always referred to as stepmonster, I finally
made it to my room.

After Randy came in to give me shit for a good half-hour, I chain-smoked and played some music to

drown out the noise in my head.

Then, I went to the bathroom to take a hot shower.

I squirted some girly pomegranate body wash into my hand. There was a pink loofah sponge hanging

off a suction cup on the tile wall. I bet that was what she used to clean her pretty little ass. I grabbed it
and washed my body with it before putting it back. The pomegranate crap wasn’t really enough to do the

job, so I used some men’s body wash to finish.

The bathroom filled with steam. I got out, and as I was wiping my body down, the door opened.

Greta.

Now was my chance to prove that I wasn’t all bark and no bite.

I let the towel drop to the ground to shock her. The idea was that she’d run out so fast that she’d

barely see anything.

Instead, she stood there with her eyes glued to my cock ring.

What the fuck?

She wasn’t even trying to turn away as her gaze traveled slowly upward to my chest. Finally, after

what seemed like an eternity, it was like she woke up and realized what she was doing. She turned away

and apologized.

But by that time, I was starting to have fun with it, so I stopped her from leaving.

“You act like you’ve never seen a guy naked before.”

“Actually, I haven’t.”

She was kidding, right?

“How disappointing for you. It’s gonna be really hard for the next guy to measure up.”

“Cocky much?”

“You tell me. Don’t I deserve to be?”

“God…you’re acting like—”

“A giant dick?”

Heh heh. That shut her up.

Then, came more staring.

Now, this was just getting uncomfortable.

“There’s really nowhere to go from here, so unless you’re planning on doing something, you should

probably leave and let me finish getting dressed.”

She finally left.

I hoped to God she was kidding. If she’d never seen a guy naked before then what I’d just done was

really fucked up.

***

A couple of days later, I’d overheard her telling her friend that she thought I was hot—“so fucking

hot”—to be exact. Honestly, even though I knew I had some kind of effect on her, I wasn’t exactly sure if it
was physical attraction. So, hearing that was a little bit of a game changer. The good: I knew I could use
it to my benefit. The bad: I was unbelievably attracted to her, too and needed to make sure she didn’t know
it.

Living at the house seemed to get a little easier each day. Although I would never have admitted it, I

wasn’t exactly miserable anymore—far from it.

I took joy in doing little things to mess with her, like stealing all of her underwear and her vibrator.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t such a little thing. Overall, though, I started to realize that the motivation

behind my actions wasn’t what I originally intended.

Getting back at Randy was barely an afterthought anymore. Now, I was messing with Greta simply to

get her attention.

In a matter of days, I’d all but forgotten about my “evil plan.”

One afternoon, though, shit got real when I intentionally brought a girl from school to Kilt Café where

Greta worked. I’ll admit; I had no problem getting girls and had been with a few of the hottest ones at

school within the first month. But they all bored me. Everything bored me—except getting a rise out of my
stepsister.

Greta never bored me.

The first thing I’d think about when I’d wake up in the morning was how I was going to ruffle her

feathers next.

That day at the café was no exception, but it was a turning point—one I couldn’t turn back from.

Greta was waiting on our table, and I’d been intentionally giving her a difficult time. She ended up

trying to get back at me by pouring a shitload of hot sauce into my soup. When I figured it out, I gulped
the entire thing down to spite her. Even though it burned like hell, I didn’t let it show. I was so impressed
with her that I could have kissed her.

So, I did.

Under the guise of retaliation, I used the soup as an excuse to corner her in a dark corridor and do

what I’d wanted to for weeks. I’ll never forget the noise she made when I first grabbed her and claimed

her wet little mouth with mine. It was like she was starving for it. I could have kissed her all damn day, but
this was supposed to appear like it was about the hot sauce and not the kiss. So, I reluctantly ripped