Stepbrother Dearest(17)

“What happened to Lucky?”

“Lucky died shortly after Randy left my mother. So, it was a lot happening at once.”

I put my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Elec.”

“It’s okay.”

Looking down at my hand sitting atop his sleeve tattoo, I thought long and hard about asking my next question. “Why does he treat you like that?”

He looked over at me. “Thank you for standing up to him last night. I wasn’t that drunk. I heard everything you said, and I’ll never forget it.” He closed his eyes. “But I don’t want to talk about him, Greta. It’s a long story, and it’s too complicated to get into at two-thirty in the morning.”

I wasn’t going to press my luck. This was more than I’d ever gotten out of him.

“Okay. We don’t have to talk about it.” After a long moment of silence, I asked, “Can I read your book?”

He laughed and shook his head. “Wow. You’re just a million questions tonight.”

“I guess I’m just excited that I’m finally getting to meet my stepbrother.”

He nodded in understanding. “I don’t know if I want you to read the book. No one’s ever read it. I keep telling myself I’m gonna figure out how to publish it, but I never do. It’s not perfect, but it’s the story I’m most happy with. I’m pretty sure there are lots of mistakes I haven’t caught.”

“I would love to read it. And if I catch any mistakes, I can let you know. English is sort of my thing.”

He smiled and rolled his eyes. “I’ll think about it.”

“Okay. Fair enough.”

When he turned to me again, the gray of his eyes lit up in the lamplight. He made himself comfortable and relaxed into the pillow. “Tell me about your father.”

He was looking at me so attentively, and it touched me that he wanted to know about him.

I sighed and stared off. “His name was Keith. He was a good man, a Boston firefighter, actually. My mom was 17 when she met him, but he was older—in his twenties—so it was really taboo. He was her one true love. We lived a simple life, but it was a good one. I was his little princess. One day, he just started complaining about a cough and within a month, he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. It took him from us six months later.”

He placed his warm palm over my hand, which was still grasping his arm. Then, he ran his fingers through my own. His touch felt electric. I never imagined that just holding someone’s hand could make me feel more than anything ever had up until that point.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he said.

“Me, too. He left me some letters, one for every year until I’m 30. So, on my birthday, I read them.”

“He’d be proud of you. You’re a good person.”

I didn’t really know what I’d done to deserve this glimpse into what Elec was like behind the tough act, but I loved it. At the same time, I expected it to end at any moment.

“Thanks.” I caught my eyes lingering on his and abruptly turned away. He removed his hand from mine, and I felt it on my chin as he brought my face back to meet his stare again. “Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“You turned away from me. That’s my fault. I made you feel like I didn’t want you looking at me—that self-respect bullshit I fed you. Out of everything I ever said to you, that was the biggest lie, and I regret it the most. I’d started to let my guard down, and it freaked me out. I never had a problem with the way you look at me. My issue is the way it makes me feel when you look at me: things I’m not supposed to feel, things I can’t let myself feel for you. At the same time…nothing felt worse than when you stopped looking at me, Greta.”

He had feelings for me?

“What does it look like I’m thinking when I look at you?” I asked.

“I think you like me even though you think you’re not supposed to.” I smiled in silent agreement as he continued, “You’re trying to figure me out constantly.”

“You don’t make it easy, Elec.”

“Sometimes, you also look at me like you want me to kiss you again, but that you wouldn’t be sure what to do if I did. That kiss…was why I got the hell out of that restaurant so fast. It started as a joke, but it sure as hell felt real to me.”

My heart leaped to know he’d felt what I did that day. “Are you attracted to me?” I immediately felt stupid for having blurted it out. “I mean…I don’t look anything like the girls you date. I don’t have big breasts and don’t color my hair. I’m like the total opposite of the ones you bring home.”

He chuckled. “That you definitely are.” He leaned in. “What makes you think I prefer them just because I bring them home? Those girls, they’re…easy…for lack of a better word, but they don’t do anything for me, really. They don’t try to get to know me. They just want to f*ck me.” He wiggled his brows. “Because I’m really good at it.”

I laughed nervously. “I figured.”

The tension in the air grew thicker by the second. Nothing had ever turned me on like the sexual confidence he’d exhibited in that moment.

I was beyond intrigued…and curious.