RICH BOY BRIT (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)(11)

“Yes,” she said finally. “He told me. We’re going to be roommates, I guess. At least for the summer.”

“At least for the summer,” I agreed.

It was just the beginning of June, exams had just ended, and summer seemed like a very long time. A soft, warm breeze whisked down the street from the bay, and men and women walked the street in shorts and tank tops, even at this late hour. The sky was clear and even the light pollution couldn’t obscure the glittering diamonds in the sky. All in all, it was a romantic setting. But I couldn’t do anything romantic.

“We can never talk about it,” she said, maybe sensing my uncertainty, my wild thoughts. Her chest, her small, pert breasts, rose and fell quicker and quicker. “Do you understand? We can never talk about it.”

The night must’ve made me feel literary. I don’t know exactly how one feels ‘literary,’ but I did just then. Perhaps it was the warm tightness in my chest: warm because my heart was full of things I wanted to say to this shy, attractive woman; tight because I couldn’t bring myself to say any of them. “Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.” She looked at me, startled, and I shrugged.

“George Eliot,” she muttered.

“George Eliot,” I agreed.

“But—” She paused, biting her lip again. I wanted to pull her lip free, kiss it better from where her teeth had gnawed it.

“But what?” I urged.

“But I don’t believe you have nothing to say.”

I made to reply—though I had no clue what I would say—and then Mom and Andrew were with us, standing beside us, smiling in their love. Their love, right at that moment, was built for movie screens. They were so absorbed in each other that they hadn’t heard the tail-end of our conversation, though they would have if they’d listened for it.

“Are you ready to go?” Andrew asked, looking at Jessica.

“Yeah,” she said. She made to glance at me, but then stopped herself. “Let’s go.”

Mom and Andrew kissed, hugged, kissed again, and then parted. I climbed into the car beside Mom. When she gripped the steering wheel, she gazed for a few moments at her ring, her lips twisting again and again into a wide smile. “Wow!” she exclaimed as she started the car. “Just, wow! Right?” She turned to me.

“Right,” I agreed.

And it was ‘wow’ for me as well as her, but not for the reason she thought.





Jessica



He had quoted George Eliot. When he quoted it to me, I felt a sort of jolting of recognition. It was being shaken awake, and when I looked at him, he was not just the lion, the man who I had fucked one crazy night. He was a fellow literature student, somebody I could relate to, a man who was no longer a stranger. We were being thrust into each other’s lives whether we wanted it or not. There was no way I was going to ruin Dad’s happiness by trying to sabotage the relationship. That meant that Eli and I were going to be living together. There was no way around it.

The house was a five-bedroom on the outskirts of the city, with a gate that circled the large front and back gardens, and tall, well-maintained hedges which rose up around the gates. When we drove through those gates and crossed over to the property, I felt as though I were crossing from the outside world to a secret, private world. The hedges, when the sun was low, threw long shadows almost to the house itself, reaching across the stone pathways that connected the front and the back of the house. I had always known that Dad made a lot of money, but the way he bought this place, as though it cost nothing, still surprised me.

We didn’t have a lot of luggage. The usual things a person would take to move into a house—furniture, personal belongings, clothes—were back in Texas, in our two-bedroom house. We had our travel luggage; the rest Dad would buy. The door was framed with two white pillars, conjuring up images of ancient Greece. I stood outside the house, looking up at the wide pillars, the big red door, trying desperately to leave the bottom of my shorts alone. Soon, I knew (Dad wouldn’t stop talking about it) Annabelle and Eli would be here.

Dad walked up beside me. “What do you think?” he asked.

“It’s gorgeous,” I answered honestly. “It’s a real home.”

“It is!” he laughed. “A real home, for me and my wife! Can you believe it, Jess?”

“It is all happening very fast,” I muttered. His face dropped slightly. I quickly added: “But I’m glad you’ve found somebody.”

We moved the few things we had into the house. I chose the bedroom on the ground floor, the one at the back which overlooked the back garden. Somebody, the previous owners maybe, had planted roses and tulips along the back of the garden, where the hedges split off and a shaft of sunlight shone straight onto the lush green grass. It was the smallest bedroom, but I liked small bedrooms. They made me feel wrapped-up, like I was being hugged by the walls. I hated sleeping in big rooms, feeling like I could roll over and land on the floor and keep on rolling forever. No, I was a small-bedroom type of girl.

I was looking around the room, planning where to put the bed, the small desk, the bookshelves, when Dad knocked on the door. I opened it to see his wide-grinning face. He was grinning no more than I had seen him grin in years. “They’re here!” he cried, clapping his hands together like a young boy. It would’ve been annoying, grating, if I wasn’t happy for him. I swallowed, and wore my best smile. This was a happy moment, I reminded myself. This was a happy moment between two fiancés and their children. There had been no steamy night, no connection, no writhing in a hotel room while wearing masks.