Stepbrother Fallen
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Authors: Aya Fukunishi
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~
Begging For It: The Breeding Trilogy
Learning to Love 2: Abi's Practical Sex Ed.
Mating Amelie: Shifter Erotica
My Lover the Bigfoot: Monster Erotica
name) ~
Wolves of the Five Tribes: The First
Alpha
Wolves of the Five Tribes: Bloodcoat
Rogue
Copyright © 2015 by Aya
Fukunishi
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
First Printing,
2015
A Bangkok Nights
Publication
crazy again.
"Karl, what did I tell you about leaving your wallet just
sitting here on the table?" There's no mistaking the tone of her
voice. Mom's on the warpath. "You
have
to get out of the habit! I'm sick and tired of
warning you time after God damned time!"
Dad drags his eyes from the TV and looks over at my mom,
tapping her foot and pointing at the sideboard like a cartoon
version of a nagging 50s housewife, then sighs and slowly lifts
himself from his chair. I could pick the tone of that sigh out of a
fucking lineup, I've heard it so often this past month. Over the
eight years of their marriage I've studied the complex language,
weird customs and bizarre, creepy mating rituals of my parents, and
by now I'm the Dian Fossey of Karl and Aubrey Moriarty.
Parents in the
Mist.
Translating this particular sigh from dad is pretty simple.
It's one of his favorites: a sad, dejected drawn out groan that
says '
I
really want to keep watching the golf in peace, but I'll give in
for the sake of an easy life.
' I probably hear it five times a day, and ten on
Sundays, but for the past few days it's been pretty much the only
sound he's made.
I roll my eyes at mom's paranoid display, and watch from
the safety of the couch as Karl trudges over to the sideboard to
make a big show of slipping his wallet in his pocket. He looks like
he's about to say something, but for the thousandth time over the
last month he manages to count to ten, bite his tongue and remain
silent.
Good
call, dad.
Any noise he makes now that doesn't sound like some form
of
'sorry, I
won't do it again'
would have the same effect as poking a silverback gorilla
in the balls with a sharp stick.
It was kinda funny when it started, but now her constant fretting
is starting to wear a little thin. Ever since she learned that
she'd have to share her home with Karl's long lost son her
craziness has stepped up a notch, from regular 'mom jitters' (the
condition that leads a parent to believe that a dish might explode
into deadly shrapnel if it goes unwashed for more than an hour) to
grade A, full blown crazy, where they get up in the middle of the
night to change the cat's diaper and sing it a lullaby.
Mom
really
didn't take the news well. She's always worn the pants in
the marriage. Dad's the big boss at work but the house is
unquestionably mom's territory, so when dad pretty much made a
unilateral decision that his son would be coming to stay mom took
it pretty hard.
The initial shock and bitter arguments gradually gave way
to a grudging acceptance, but mom's 'concerns' about the new
arrival have made the atmosphere pretty damned tense, and if
anything it's only gotten worse over these last few days as the
clock counts down to zero hour. It's been... well, it's been a
pretty messed up month.
and I brace myself as she fires off another shot of concentrated
neurosis. "Maddy, put away your iPad. Don't just leave it lying
around."
"It's not an iPad, mom. It's a Kindle." I tilt my head back over
the arm of the couch to look at mom, upside down, still fussing
over the sideboard. "You wouldn't let me have an iPad, remember?
You said I'd spend all my time playing Candy Crush, flunk out of
school and end up flipping burgers in McDonalds." Mom has a vivid
imagination, especially when it comes to dreaming up worst case
scenarios. "Besides, I'm using it right now. Why would I put it
away?"
"Well, whatever it is just make sure you don't leave it lying
around the place. You left it out on the coffee table last night,
and I don't want to see it there again. Rafe will be here soon, and
I need the house nice and tidy when he arrives."
I let my silence hang in the air. I know
exactly
why mom wants the
house to be tidy
,
and it has nothing to do with being a good hostess. It just
means there won't be so much expensive stuff laying around for the
deadbeat criminal to slip in his pocket and pawn for drugs, guns
and hookers. It's for the same reason that she's had locks fitted
to all the bedroom doors and hidden the good silverware up in the
attic.
tension: Rafe fucking Stone, a name none of us had ever heard until
a month ago, and a name that now hangs over the family like an
angry, bruised storm cloud. When mom says 'Rafe is coming' she uses
the same tone you might hear from Ned Stark warning of the
approaching winter. Just the sound of his name is enough to send
her to the edge of a panic attack.
I'm being a little hard on mom, and I'd hate for you to think I'm a
bitch (I'm really not, I promise), so I'll tell you all about the
terrifying specter that is Rafe Stone, and you can decide for
yourself.
background. Here goes...
suburb of San Francisco with my mom, Aubrey, and my stepdad, Karl.
I turned 18 a couple of months ago, and two weeks ago I graduated
from Harvey Milk High here in SF. After the summer I'll be moving
down to UCLA where I'll major in English Literature before going on
to become either a world famous author or the best damned waitress
this side of the Rockies, but for now I'm pretty much just sitting
around, enjoying the summer.
know about me? I hate describing myself. I always feel like
whatever I say I'm either bragging or selling myself short. I
should be better at this shit. God knows everyone my age has enough
practice at self promotion with Facebook status updates.
I guess I'm just a regular kid - sorry, bright young woman.
Solid B+ student, clean criminal record, blond hair, nice clear
alabaster skin I hope I'll keep forever. Maybe a few pounds of
puppy fat I'd like to lose, if only someone would invent a fat free
Big Mac. I don't wanna make myself sound boring or anything. I'm
not a wet fish, but I'm just
normal.
me is that I've wanted to be an author as long as I can remember.
My dad was a pretty successful author, and though he died before I
was old enough to read any of his books he passed on that
enthusiasm for words to me before he left. I'd love to follow in
his footsteps and write stories about my adventures around the
world, but I need to actually have those adventures first. Y'know,
get some experiences under my belt, like Ernest Hemingway, only not
a fat drunk. Right now I just don't have any stories to tell.
a little streak of crazy that bubbles over every so often, but I
guess she has an excuse for that, considering what she's been
through.
When I was about five years old my dad - my
real
dad, I mean - died
in a car accident. He was driving me and mom home from the theater,
where we'd watched Ice Age, when a drunk driver plowed into us
while we were sitting at a set of lights. It wasn't a spectacular
crash or anything. We were just sitting there at the same
intersection we passed every day on the way to school. Dad was
waiting for the lights to turn green, mom was tuning the radio and
I was sitting in the back seat, playing with a little soft toy of
Manny the mammoth. A few seconds later the car was upside down, and
dad was dead.
So, yeah, mom doesn't like change. She likes routine. She
likes every day to be just like the last, and when things get a
little crazy
she
gets a little crazy.
Shit. I
am
being too hard on her, aren't I? Sorry, mom.
my real dad - met when I was about eight years old, and they
married when I was ten. Karl has his own record label that makes
him a lot of money, but these days he's semi retired. He says music
is a young man's game, and now he spends most of his time watching
his investments and shouting frantic instructions at spandex-clad
guys on ESPN.
to teach Spanish at Harvey Milk, but these days she just does a
little private tutoring whenever she gets bored. It's not like she
needs the money.
not crazy rich, but we have a nice house with five bedrooms, a pool
out back and a couple of cars in the garage, so mom and dad are
pretty much just living the American dream, right? It's pretty dull
and not exactly romantic, but they have enough savings that they
don't have to worry about the cost of my college tuition, and they
can just relax and enjoy life. It's not a bad set up.
So now you'll probably better understand why mom kinda went
off the deep end last month. We were sitting around the dinner
table when the phone rang, and that's when the craziness began. The
guy on the phone told dad he was a public defender working out in
Colorado, and he told dad he might want to sit down (that's
never
a good
sign).
prank played by the guys at the office – they're always dreaming up
new ways to tease the boss – but as the call went on he realized
that it could only be true. The guy on the other end of the line
had too much information for it to be a prank; too many details of
Karl's past that only mom and I know.
has been dropped in the middle of his life like a live grenade. Not
even a good kid. An asshole.
