RICH BOY BRIT (A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)(75)

“No, Kevin. And no, you don’t know him.”

“And I don’t like him,” Tyler said.

“How can you not like someone you haven’t even met yet?”

“Just saying I don’t like him. I don’t understand how you met another man while on date.”

“Well, it happened,” I said, scooping a large spoonful of cereal into my mouth, hoping that chewing it would buy me time to respond to whatever he said next.

“I see. Have fun.”

“Thanks. I surely will.” I thought he would leave, but he sat at the table next to me, saying nothing. After a few more moments of silence, I said something that almost broke my heart. “Why don’t you hang out with Stacey?”

Tyler looked at me like he hadn’t thought of that possibility.

“She’s your friend, right?” I continued.

“If you say so. You’re right. She wanted to go shopping today and I was going to skip. Maybe I should go hang out with her. You’re not available anyways, so it doesn’t matter.”

I nodded in agreement, but deep inside, I was kicking myself for making that suggestion to him. My goal was to get them apart, not pitch them so close together that I’d be the loser. But it was too late to take my words back, so I tried to make light of the situation. “Shopping? You’re going to have a very interesting day.”

“And I’ll be happy to blame it all on you.” He grinned at me.

I knew Tyler hated shopping with females. One part of me was glad that he wouldn’t have a blast with Stacey; the other part was suddenly mad that I wasn’t tagging along.

“Well, I’ll make the best of it,” Tyler said.

“Best of what?” His mom was standing by the kitchen door, dressed for work.

“Jenn has a date,” Tyler said before I could get a word in.

“Oh yeah? Someone we know?” Lauren asked.

“No, someone she just met,” he replied. “Not sure if that’s a wise move.”

“She’s old enough to go out on dates, Tyler,” Lauren said.

“It’s just that it’s someone she just met. Maybe I should go with her?” Tyler asked.

“What? Did I hang out with you and Stacey?” I replied loudly.

“Who’s Stacey?” Lauren asked as she poured some coffee into a mug.

“Someone he just met,” I said, stressing JUST.

“Looks like you two have been busy. We need to talk about these dates when I come home from work,” Lauren said as she bade goodbye to us and rushed off to work.

“No way you’re coming with me. What am I, a two-year old?” I stormed out of the kitchen.

“Wait Jenn, I didn’t mean it like that,” he said, running after me.

“What did you mean?” I slowed down just enough to give him a second to talk. He wasn’t fast enough, so I kept moving. I yelled, “I guessed as much. You have nothing to say.”

“Jenn. I just care that you’re okay,” he said.

I looked at him, unsure whether to believe him or not, but he had made one of those faces that always made me smile. Before I knew it, I was laughing like crazy.

“Does this mean I’m forgiven?” he asked, coming closer to me.

“No, Tyler. It means you’re no longer on my blacklist, but you’re far from being forgiven.”

“Come on, Jenn, you know I was only kidding.”

“I know, but I’d like to punish you just a little bit,” I said, smiling and walking past him. He followed me to my bedroom door.

“Hmm, that might not be so bad,” he said.

So many pictures flashed through my mind on how I could punish him. I had to get a hold of myself. He probably didn’t mean for me to punish him the way I was thinking. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Tyler. If you’d excuse me, I do have a date.”

“You’re still going?” Tyler asked.

I looked at him and, without saying a word, shut the bedroom door in his face.

“That means no?” he asked through the door.

“Really, Tyler, go hang out with Stacey,” I said as I headed to the shower. I needed to cool down.





TYLER


I knew Jenn wasn’t really mad at me based on how she had smiled at me right before she shut the door in my face. If only I didn’t want to overstep my boundaries, I would have opened the door and demanded she didn’t go anywhere. But on what basis? She was a grown woman; even my mother had acknowledged that. Granted that my mom was a lot more liberal than most women and sometimes acted like Jenn was her younger sister rather than a daughter, which made it hard for me to really think of Jenn as my sister.

I was not over Jenn’s date with Josh, having waited up all night for her, waiting to hear her car pull into the driveway. It had been nerve-wracking to think she was kissing and making out with some boy who wouldn’t appreciate her after the night ended. That was how these sorts of things went. I was an asshole myself and had broken up with so many girls after one date. Sometimes it was mutual; the girls didn’t want to see me, but most times it was me moving on. I didn’t want Jenn to have to deal with some idiot boy moving on after sleeping with her.

I went down to the kitchen to finish my breakfast, but thoughts of Jenn and Josh kept flooding my mind. She hadn’t liked him much last summer, and I wasn’t sure what had changed since then, but if she was willing to spend all day with him, then something I didn’t want to know about must have happened. And now she was on her way to spend time with Kevin? She should have been spending time with me! She was my stepsister! We used to spend most days together when she was in town, but she’d barely had time for me this time.