Stepbrother's Gift (25 page)

“H
ey, what do you know about Ryan?” I asked after a few minutes of talking about crazy ex's.

Anne shrugged. “You mean Ol' Lefty? He's my boss, but he's not super responsible. I can tell you that people tried to set us up when I first moved here and before they knew I was gay.”

I laughed. “Both musicians, they must be meant for each other.”

She laughed back. “But seriously, even if I were attracted to guys, that guy would skeeve me out. He never stays with a girl for too long, often breaking their hearts when he's done with them. Loyal isn't exactly in his vocabulary.”

“Is he with anyone right now?” I asked.

She thought about it. “I think so, but I'm not sure. He's wealthy enough that he manages to impress some ladies. Why, are you interested in him?”

“No, actually. He got pretty handsy with me last night.”

Anne put her hand on her forehead, like she was disappointed with herself for not stopping it. “Really?”

“Yeah. If James hadn't walked in, I'm not sure what would have happened.”

Anne sighed. “I can't believe this shit. Yeah, I totally expect it out of him. I mean I can't afford to quit my job under him over this...”

“No, of course not,” I interjected quickly. “This wasn't your responsibility.”

“Yeah, but I should look out for girls around him. I'll make sure to keep an eye on him if any other new girls ever go to one of his after parties. Thanks for confiding in me.”

I actually did feel relieved to be able to talk to someone about it. “No, thank you. James already gave him a pretty stern talking to, though I think he can't get rid of him that easily either.”

“Probably not,” Anne said. There was an awkward silence for a moment, then she looked at her watch. “So, do you fly back to New York tomorrow?”

I nodded, then sighed. “Yeah. I probably won't be back until Spring Break or something.”

“What brings you back? Are you that close with your brother, or have you fallen in love with our fair city?”

I'm very close to my brother
, I thought. “I'm enjoying some things here and not looking forward to some things back in New York.” Specifically, I was thinking about Nicole continuing to hit on my brother. I knew it would end up negatively affecting our relationship, which was difficult since we still had to live with one another for the rest of the semester.

“Guy trouble?” Anne asked.

I smiled. “I told you, I'm single, but...” I trailed off and looked at her, not sure if I wanted to go any further.

Anne nudged me. “You just confided one thing to me, and it felt pretty good, didn't it? Go on.”

I sighed. Tessa should really know this first, but I knew that she'd guess right away who the father was. Anne was the closest thing to a neutral party that I had, and had also been a great listener up until now.

“You cannot tell James about this.”

“I promise,” she said.

I pulled out my phone and pulled up the most recent picture, then handed it to her. Her brow furrowed. “What am I looking at?”

“A pregnancy test.”

“Oh.
Oh.
” Her eyes immediately went to my belly, then back to the screen. “I don't know much about this, but on TV ads, don't they usually say that one line is a negative test.”

“Look closer,” I said.

She zoomed in on the picture and squinted. “I mean, I see what you're talking about, but I think it's still pretty clearly one line.” She handed me back the phone and bit her lip. Her eyes seemed a lot wider than usual. “Still, you must be freaking out.”

I nodded. “I'm late on my period, but that doesn't mean much for me. I also threw up this morning, though it might have been the alcohol from last night.” Anne didn't know that I hadn't drank alcohol last night, that my cup had just been full of soda, but it felt easier to explain that way.

Anne bit her lip. “Maybe you were just thinking of Ryan from last night and it made you retch.”

I laughed. “Yeah, that could be it. I don't know, though.”

Anne kept biting her lip. “I hate to ask, but-”

“No, I don't know who the father is,” I cut her off with a lie. I had been with Danny before Christmas Break, about six weeks ago, but he had always insisted on wearing a condom. No, I knew exactly who the father was. And, now that I was saying all this out loud, it occurred to me how real it all was.

Anne must have seen my anguish building, because she held out her arms in a hug. Without hesitation I buried myself in her shoulder, feeling the tears start immediately. She stroked my hair gently and said nothing, just letting me cry.

I hadn't cried like this since James had told me that he wanted me out of his life, and now it turned out that he might be in my life forever. Still, the stress of everything was building up. Between the possible pregnancy, having to keep my stories straight for all my friends, my roommate sending naked pictures to James, and my fight with James this morning, I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders.

And when I thought of all that on top of my classes and upcoming midterms, I really began to sob. Added to the fact that I'd have to drop out at least temporarily due to this, and it was enough to make anyone cry.

I don't know how long I sat there on Anne's couch, crying my eyes out and wracking my body with sobs. However, Anne just sat there, letting me ruin her Saturday plans with my emotions. Speaking of her Saturday plans...

I slowly sat back up. She had real concern in her eyes. “Feel better?” she asked.

I nodded while I was still unable to speak. She handed me a tissue box and I blew my nose a couple times. “You know what would really cheer me up?”

“I'd really like to know,” she said.

Just the answer perked me up. “I'd love it if I could just listen to you play the guitar for a little while.”

Anne smiled. “Gladly.”

And so Anne got out an acoustic guitar. I closed my eyes and smiled as I listened to her play next to me. She sang softly, her voice emotional as she sang about love. It wasn't really her voice I was hearing, though.

It was James.

I
left her house in much better spirits. I was ready to talk to James about Nicole. I was ready to talk to him about Ryan. I was ready to talk to him about playing the guitar, if he wanted.

I wasn't sure I was ready to talk to him about the pitter patter of little feet.

I thought about Anne's ex-girlfriend and how she accused her of making a lie of omission. I didn't think it was fair in her case, but I hadn't exactly been up front with James. In fact, I remembered what I had said when he had asked me, point blank, if I was on the pill.

“What do you think?” A wink and a smile as I laid across his desk, legs spread and already filled with his seed.

Yeah, I'd say that was a pretty big lie of omission. Still, it had been too late at that point anyway. Well, not too late for Plan B or something similar, but I never would have used those anyway. Still, he probably wouldn't have made love to me another five times if I had told him right then. Or he would have worn a condom? Or he would have watched me take the pill? I didn't know.

I sighed, thinking about what a mess I had gotten myself into. The cry with Anne had felt good, but it had hardly gotten rid of my problems.

I started to walk back to James' apartment, hoping he'd be there. As soon as I pulled out my phone to text him and make sure he hadn't gone into the office, it began to ring.

Tessa.

I sighed. One more problem that I hadn't even thought about. What was I going to tell her?

The truth, I decided. I had just told Anne, and I might as well tell Tessa as well. Except that I knew that she would ask if James was the father, and I wouldn't be able to lie my way out of that. She might judge me, but it was just something that I'd have to deal with.

I answered the phone. “Hey.”

“Hey, girlfriend. How was the concert?”

“Oh.” It wasn't the question that I had expected her to ask first. “It was okay.”

“Did Lover Boy sing to you?” Yeah, ha ha, this was more like it. Her mocking tone showed me that the first question had just been a setup for the second one.

“Har har. Actually, he didn't sing at all.”

“So. Tell me!” I was about to spill it all out. I still hesitated, but I knew I had to tell her. She was my best friend, and she deserved to know. I opened my mouth but before I could get any words out, she jumped in again. “He knocked Audrey up, didn't he?”

What? That's all she cared about?
I thought.

“No,” I said softly. “No, that's not what happened.” I kind of didn't know where to start.

“So he straight up told you he didn't sleep with her,” she stated.

“Tessa, I- Let me start from the beginning.” I wasn't sure whether to start with Ryan getting handsy with me last night or the concert that Audrey got pregnant at.

Unfortunately, I must have hesitated too long. “So now you're going to defend him too?”

“Tessa!” I yelled into the phone, annoyed.

She must have known that I meant business at this point. “I'm listening.”

I inhaled sharply. “James admitted to me last night that he did sleep with Audrey while she was still with her boyfriend, but it was over a year ago. His band mate Ryan-”

“Oh, so he's just going to throw his buddy under the bus, and you're going to believe him immediately.”

I paused, unsure of what to say. “Tessa, you seem to be taking this awfully personally.”

“Well, he has a long history of manipulating women. And if you could ignore your schoolgirl crush on him for one minute, you might see that he's pulling the wool over your eyes, too. I've got better things to do than to hear another story about Billionaire James the saint. I'll chat you up later.”

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. “Okay. Bye.” The line was already dead.

I looked down at my phone, not sure I could understand or believe what just happened. Had my best friend just hung up on me over this? I thought about my pregnancy test, how I hadn't had a chance to tell her about it. I hadn't had a chance to tell her anything, really. It was unsettling to say the least. I wondered what happened to her.

I didn't have a lot of time to think about that. I was already almost back to James' apartment.

T
he doorman let me in with no problems. I was worried that that might be an issue, but apparently I wasn't barred from the premises. I walked in and went to the elevator, trying to think of what I would say when I saw him. Would I say that I was sorry? Would I tell him right away that I was pregnant, and that was why I was emotional? I wouldn't know until I saw him.

He had left the door to his apartment unlocked. I heard music faintly, but as soon as the door opened I heard the sound of him wailing on the guitar. It was chaotic, with no rhyme or reason to it. Every few seconds I recognized a chord or something that sounded like it was from a song I knew, but just as soon as I did, it would be gone.

I kicked off my shoes by the door and walked toward the sound, my fingers on my ears for the last few feet before I appeared in the doorway. James had put nothing on but pajama pants since I last saw him. As soon as he saw me, he stopped playing. The electric guitar twanged silent but the reverb on the amp lasted just a few seconds longer.

I stood there for a moment, still unsure of what to say. I didn't know if he read something in my face or what, but suddenly he broke out into that cocky grin of his. “I forgive you.”

I couldn't help but break into a smile but I looked away as I did so. “I can't stay mad at you, either.”

He released his grip on his guitar. “I haven't done it yet, because I wanted you to think about how it would look, but I'll tell Nicole that I have no interest in her if it makes you happy.”

I thought about it. It would definitely be one less source of stress in my life. I hated the thought of going back to my dorm and looking over at her, knowing that she was trying to chat up James and seduce him. Still, he was right that it would look weird for him to break it off with her.

“Let's not talk about that right now. What did you have planned for today?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Nothing. I took the entire day off to be with you.”

I laughed. “I'm impressed. Your time must be worth a lot.”

“'A lot' doesn't even begin to cover it,” he said. “But, I guess I can give you the 'friends and family' rate. A mere ten thousand dollars an hour.”

I laughed at that, but considering that he made something like a billion dollars in the last three years, that might be close to the truth. A hundred hours a week, a hundred fifty weeks... I wasn't very good at math but even I could see that his time was a lot more valuable than my temper tantrum.

“I didn't bring much cash, can we come to some kind of an arrangement?” I asked, batting my eyelashes in an over-the-top fashion.

I watched his eyes do a once-over on my body. He started walking toward me, then stopped himself when he realized his guitar was still attached to his body and he was still hooked up to the amp. He stopped, then beckoned to me. “Come here,” he said. I walked up as he pulled the guitar strap from over his neck. “Have you ever played the guitar before?”

I shook my head. He smiled and help up the guitar strap, gesturing for me to stand where he had been. As I stood there, he slipped the strap over my head, adjusting it to fit me better.

“There's been a few things bothering me recently. Did you know that I had to throw the lead singer of my band out of my home yesterday?”

How could I forget?
I thought.

“Then, on top of that, a girl that I'm falling hard for thinks I'm cheating on her.”

My heart skipped a beat.
He's falling hard for me
, I thought with a little big of an inner squeeeee.

“Do you know how that makes me feel, Allie?” he asked, looking into my eyes.

I shook my head. “No.”

He grabbed my hand and moved it to the neck of the guitar. I watched as he put my fingers on two of the strings, and with his other hand, he violently strummed the guitar for a few notes. The sound was discordant and harsh. “It makes me feel like that.” Then, he turned and grabbed the microphone from its stand and sang, “It sucks.”