My Not-So-Toxic Stepbrother
If you don’t want any secrets, that’s fine. But I don’t mind keeping secrets for you. I don’t mind cheating, stealing, lying or sneaking into your room when you’re not there just so I get to be close to you.
It’s like I can hear him. Right now. I can hear him saying all these things to me, whispering them in my ears. Or more like rasping, with how rough his voice is. How full of gravel. I also smell him, in this moment. In the air, through the walls. Sweet and tart strawberries. But then who am I kidding, I alwayssmell him. Even when he’s not home. But I remind myself of my promise, my goal as I put the phone aside and go back to work.
But then a couple of days later, it becomes really hard to stay true to my good intentions because he doesn’t come home. He isn’t home by the time he usually is to play FIFA with my sister. While Snow is disappointed as she goes upstairs to bed, I’m more worried. I know him. There is no way he’d miss his time with Snow. There has to be something wrong.
And then I find out why.
I have alerts set up on my phone, about his articles and things. I know most of them are lies but I have no way of knowing how he’s doing at practice. While most of the articles are stupid gossip about the supposed love triangle and all the dire predictions about his stats in the upcoming season, some of them do say that his performance is improving in practice. He may not be where he was last season before everything went to shit but he isn’t as bad as he was when the pre-season practice started. It warms my heart, knowing he’s doing better. Of course, he doesn’t tell me anything when I ask because I’m not his ‘cheerleader’ but I don’t let that deter me. I still tell him how much I believe in him and how he’s going to prove them all wrong.
Not to mention, having these alerts also made me aware of what Snow had been afraid of. As in, the media knows about us. Or at least, about me and what I look like.
One morning we woke up to find my picture in an article, in my uniform from the coffee shop. I was at the register, and the angle was such that the photo was taken from across the street. It was seriously violating. The only consolation was they didn’t have Snow’s photo, just her name and all the information was about how Thornes had helped us with her sickness. Nothing of our parents and the sordid history.
But if they found out about the coffee shop, then there’s a chance they could also find out about the strip club. While I have no issues or shame admitting I worked there once, there are certain things I don’t want them to find. Like the fact that a certain soccer player I’m related to, the one who’s been in the news a lot lately used to visit me at the club. I mean, everyone saw him when he used to go and back then, I was just an anonymous redhead that he may have taken a shine to. But apparently, I’m not anonymous anymore. What if someone finds out and it’s all over the news? What if he loses his place on the team because of it?
But when I see the notification of an article on my screen tonight, it’s not about me or Snow or predictions about his performance. It’s something even worse. It’s the news of Isadora and Stellan. They’re engaged. My eyes fly through the article as I read, trying to absorb every word all at once. It says that someone spotted a ring on her finger while she was out with friends. And sources close to them say they got engaged in secret and were keeping it on the down low. And is it because they didn’t want to hurt Stellan’s twin brother who also happens to be Isadora’s ex-fiancé? After that, they go on to compare the two rings, the one Shepard gave her and the one Stellan has proposed with.
What fucking assholes!
Before I can think about it, I call him. He picks up on the second ring and his voice fills my ear. “You okay?”
And then it fills my heart because I called to see ifhewas okay. If I read the article, I bet he did too. He may have found out about it at practice, in front of everyone. Clutching my phone in my hand and standing stuck to the door of my—his—room, I ask, “Where are you?”
“Are you guys okay?” he asks again.
“Yes. Yes, we’re fine,” I tell him, realizing he’ll never answer me until I give him the answer he’s looking for. “Where are you?”
He takes a couple of beats to answer and my heart squeezes and squeezes in my chest. Then. “I’ll be home late.”
“Is it true?” I ask then and wince myself so I don’t even know what he’s going through. All I know is I don’t have to tell him what I’m talking about because he knows. Because he hasn’t spoken a single word in the last however many seconds.
He hasn’t even breathed.
And God, I can’t breathe either. I can’t breathe with this pain in my chest. But somehow, I manage to whisper, pressing my spine against the door, “Come home. Please, come home, Shepard.”
“Why?” he asks, his voice rough, cracked.
“Because I…”
I love you. I love you so much. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone and please let me make it better. However I can. However you want. I’ll do anything you want me to. Just please come home.
“Because you what,” he growls, angrily, torturously almost. “Talk to me about what I deserve and all the fucking hardships I’ve gone through. All that bullshit you never stop reminding me. Or maybe you wanna talk to me about my practice and fucking smother me with your belief that I can do it and that I can prove them fucking wrong.”
“Shepard, please, you?—”
“Because if that’s what you want to do, then I don’t know how many times and how many ways I can tell you to fuck off. I don’t need your fucking friendship. You know what I need from you. Unless you’re ready to give me that, leave me the fuck alone.”
Chapter Twenty
He’s leavingfor his first game tomorrow.
And he’ll be away for a few weeks before he comes back for his first home game. I don’t really know who makes these schedules and how it all works—Snow probably would—but he’ll have pockets of time when he’ll be away and on the road. But he’ll get to come home too.
I’m getting ready in front of the bathroom mirror. Because his team is having a going-away party, or more like a gala, to kick off the season and as part of his family, Snow and I are invited. Honestly, I’m nervous. I’m used to serving at these events, not going as a guest. I didn’t even have a dress, so Tempest lent me this really pretty and sexy black dress.
Made of satin, it’s a bodycon that fits me like a glove and has a really long slit down one side. It’s strapless so my shoulders and my back are bare, not in a strip club-y way though. More in an elegant, classy way like I’ve seen women at these events be.
