by Violet Blaze
“You forget that I'm only eighteen and I can't legally buy alcohol,” I whispered, slipping past him and moving back towards the fridge, a bottle in my hand. Being underage wasn't going to keep me from drinking it, however. I was good, but I wasn't that good.
“Oh, trust me, kitten, I never forget your age.”
My entire body went white hot as I spun around, suddenly afraid that Flor was going to touch me, push me down … maybe even screw me over this countertop? But he hadn't moved from his spot, standing there with the beer in one hand and an inscrutable look scrunching up his features. I watched as his fingers crawled across the countertop and grabbed his key ring.
“I didn't think you'd even manage to come up with the drinks. I brought my own,” he said, setting his bottle on the counter and moving out of the kitchen and towards the stairs. I waited until I was certain I heard him hit the landing and then slumped back against the cabinets. Crap. Crap. Crap. I pursed my lips. Fuck. That was more like it. Fuck it.
I tore open a drawer, flicked the cap off my drink and downed half of it before Flor even crested the top of the stairs. I was so … aware of how alone we were. No worries about parents coming home and finding us, no Addi, no tattooed and pierced up girlfriends with weird names. Just me and Flor. Me and my stepbrother.
I sighed.
Other than that one kiss way back when, I had no idea if Flor really did feel the same way I did. I mean, what if he'd moved on? What if I was just his pathetic little sister with a crush on her big brother? Only he didn't feel like my brother. I guess I had nothing to compare him with, but how come, when asked about my family, I always failed to mention that I had a stepbrother? It wasn't like Florian was ever far from my mind. Somehow, it felt like my brain – and my heart – were tainted with him, drenched in his citrusy-sweet scent, the smell of cigarette smoke, and the intense scrutiny of eyes so sharp they could cut.
I nibbled on my lower lip and took another drink of my beer. Flor was right; it was disgusting. I almost gagged on the heavy taste of hops and something spicy, like jalapeños. Gross. Guess that's what I got for telling Patrick and Addi to just grab anything. Oregonians love beer brewing almost as much as they love the outdoors; everybody and their grandma has a home brew, not all of them worth the label their logo is printed on.
I took another swig and pretended not to notice. Like hell I'd let Flor get one up on me. His know-it-all attitude had to be culled by somebody and since most people fawned over him, that duty had fallen to me. Even though I also, in secret, fawned over him, probably worse than any of them.
I jumped when I heard his boots hit the stairs and had barely enough time to collect myself before his aura pushed itself into the room and surrounded me, choking back the careful walls I'd built around myself these past three years. Crap. How could I keep saying I was over him, that I'd accepted the idea that he could never be mine, when my body writhed in blissful agony from a single, well-placed look?
Like the one he was giving me now.
I met his eyes and held on for dear life, watching him walk across the room towards me. If looks could kill, I'd be dead, but I'd also be a happy corpse. Yikes.
“Now this,” he said, moving back into the kitchen and depositing a heavy paper bag onto the counter, “is the good stuff.” I watched Flor reach inside, the strong muscles in his arms sliding and swelling beneath the layer of tattoos on his right arm, starting with the crescent moon and clouds on his hand and trailing up through a starry sky and various portraits that disappeared beneath his sleeve. For someone so young, he sure had a lot, but then again, it was his passion and his career. His mom was always half-joking that he was going to run out of skin by the time he was thirty, but I had a feeling that Flor didn't like to think that far ahead.
He produced a case of Total Domination by Ninkasi Brewing Company and popped the top, giving it a quick sniff before he downed a good two-thirds of the bottle. Even though he was only twenty-one, Flor had been drinking long enough to be considered a connoisseur. He turned around then, almost suddenly, like he'd half-forgotten I was there and tried to hand me his nearly empty bottle.
“Try a sip, see if you like it.” I obliged him, ridiculously aware that my lips were about to graze the glass in an indirect kiss. I quickly stifled that thought, fully and completely aware of how stupid it sounded. I wasn't fifteen anymore, but sometimes Flor made me feel like I was. I tipped back the drink, getting a punch of deep, dark bitterness in the back of my throat before I swallowed. Flor might be a beer expert, but I was most definitely a novice. Fancy, colorful, girly cocktails anyone? Something that tastes like juice? I kept my face neutral and nodded.
“Yeah,” I said, passing it back. “It's good.” Lie. But like hell I was telling him that. He smirked like he knew I probably didn't like it, but didn't say anything, the look fading slowly away.
Silence descended between us and that scared me. We usually had plenty of material to bicker back and forth about. I straightened out the baggy navy blue T-shirt I was wearing and wished I'd dressed up or something. I'd been planning on it, but he'd been early – much earlier than usual even.
“Hey Abigail,” he said, and I closed my eyes. He only ever called me by my full name when there was something going on that he knew I wouldn't be happy to hear about. For example, when I was sixteen and my first real boyfriend had been fooling around with other girls behind my back, Flor had told me. He'd called me Abigail then, too. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” I said, feigning nonchalance. In all reality, my heart was pounding so hard I could barely hear my own lips, betraying me with a single word. Sure. No, I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure about anything. I stayed silent and waited, staring at the label on my drink.
After a moment, I realized that whatever it was that Florian had been planning to say, he'd changed his mind. I could tell the moment I looked up and caught him staring at the bookcases that lined the walls between the windows, and not at my face.
“Flor,” I said and his gaze snapped back to me, his lips twisting into an evil grin.
“Let me take you out,” he said, sending a thrill of heat down my spine. My heartbeat picked up speed, something I hadn't even thought possible, making me dizzy for a split second before I realized I was overreacting.
“Out?” I asked, and was glad I actually managed to keep my voice in check. I sounded normal, or relatively normal for me anyway. My voice always sounded kind of husky, like I was trying too hard. “What do you mean out?” I looked at him looking at me and tried to figure out that enigmatic smile of his.
“You know, because your birthday was so goddamn fucking lame.” I raised an eyebrow at that, but he wasn't done, finishing his beer and taking a step towards me. “Your dad still hasn't gotten it through that thick skull of his that you're not a kid anymore. Cake and frigging ice cream is fine when you're six, but eighteen? Come on. Tell me that family dinner didn't suck some serious ass.”
I tried to smile, but what was I going to say? That my birthday was six months ago, that this was a little late, or that I'd snuck out of the house afterward and partied until dawn (at my friends' behest, of course)? None of that seemed appropriate, so I held my tongue and smiled instead.
“I guess so. What did you have in mind?” Flor raised his hand like he was going to touch my hair, but then he snatched it back, running his tongue over his lower lip and turning away from me. I may or may not have focused on his ass again.
“I don't know, nee-chan, let's figure this shit out.” He glanced over his shoulder at me and I died a little inside. Nee-chan. That's basically Japanese for 'little sister', made even worse by the fact that chan is an honorific usually reserved for little kids and people you're too close to to ever consider throwing over the couch and fucking until they scream. It also irritated me because I knew that Flor spoke little to no actual Japanese despite three years of high school classes. My dad pretty much forced me to take them, too, so I could tutor Flor and hopefully keep him f
rom flunking out. Since he managed to graduate high school, I considered it a great feat on my part. “We live in the greatest city in the world; there's always something to do.” A slight exaggeration when it came to Eugene, Oregon, but I wasn't about to burst his bubble. I'd have much rather lived in San Francisco, in some tiny little apartment in the Mission, but there was something other than the beautiful scenery and the microbrews that kept me here, and I'll give you a hint – it wasn't the Ducks football team.
I nibbled on my lower lip again, realized I was doing it and promptly snapped my mouth shut. The sudden silence in the room seemed even louder than before.
Flor dug into the pocket of his jeans for a light and lit up, putting a boot on the window seat and leaning forward to push the window up and out of his way. He must've grabbed the lighter when he'd gone back down to his car. I didn't know what his mother would think of him smoking in here, considering this entire building actually belonged to her. And I could only imagine what she'd do if she realized I was crushing on her son. Kick me out? Banish me from family gatherings?
I lifted my gaze away from my stepbrother's ass and came to sit next to his foot on the cushioned seat. He maintained his vigil of the neighborhood and hooked up the left half of his mouth in a grin.
“Naked dude,” he said, and I smiled. Despite an ordinance banning nudity (don't ask about our sister city to the north and its infamous World Naked Bike Ride), it wasn't impossible to catch a glimpse of a brave soul every once in a while. “And he's got a pierced dick, would you look at that?” I scrambled to look out the window and catch a glimpse of this mystery dude while Flor roared with laughter. “Look at you, so desperate to see some guy's metallic junk. Do you know how bad that shit hurts?” I glanced back at him with a raised brow, my eyes dropping low … lower. Flor caught me looking and leaned down, whispering in my ear. “Wouldn't you like to know.” And then he stood up, took his foot off the window seat and flicked his cigarette in the sink. “Pick something to do or I'll pick it out for you,” he added, taking out another beer and chugging it.
My mind went immediately to all of the things we couldn't do together – like rip each other's clothes off – before it spiraled back down into the realm of the everyday and I was suddenly flooded with vapid indecision.
“Um.” This was the only word capable of escaping my suddenly parched lips. Go to dinner? No. No. That's either too lame or too much like a date. A movie? Definitely boring. A club? Did I really want to go to a club and watch a hundred other girls rub all over Flor? No. The answer was hell freaking no I did not.
I raised my head and found those eyes of his boring into me, cutting so deep I was pretty sure I was seconds away from bleeding out all over the wood floors. My breath remained trapped in my throat, choking back the words I really wanted to say, the questions I wanted to ask. Once, several months back, I'd braved the school therapist and I'd told her all about my problem, spilled my secrets to a stranger and sat back waiting for judgment. Instead, all I got was an understanding smile and more questions. Lots of questions. How does your attraction to your brother make you feel? Have you ever talked with him about it? Have you and your brother ever acted out on your feelings? I'd wanted to snap back at her, remind her that stepbrother and brother were two entirely different things. In some ways, though, she'd been right: I should tell him. Maybe, just maybe, if we talked about it together, if I was honest with Flor, I could get past this.
Instead I swallowed hard and blurted out the first thing that came to my mind.
“I want a tattoo.”
I don't think he'd have been anymore shocked if I really had confessed my undying love.
“You what?” he asked, scratching at the side of his head with those long, strong fingers I'd always admired. I knew how good those fingers could feel, how they could skitter across my skin like bits of coal, burning a trail of pleasure that stained the spirit and the soul.
I steepled my own hands together like a prayer and pressed them against my lips to hide my equally stunned expression.
“A tattoo, huh?” Flor asked again, sitting next to me on the window seat. I turned slowly to look at him and nearly exploded out of my skin when he bumped me playfully with his shoulder, just like he'd done when were kids – just like he hadn't done since we'd kissed each other that night three years ago. That simple touch, the slight brush of his skin against mine, was like an electric shock, waking me up inside, making me melt, paralyzing my heart for several beats.
“Yeah, a tattoo.”
I glanced over at my stepbrother, Florian, the boy who'd grown up practically alongside me but was still, somehow, a virtual stranger, like a long lost childhood friend that I'd once known but would never know again. I nibbled on my lower lip in thought and turned away, focusing on the kitchen instead of on his face. He seemed surprised still, but pleased. I mean, why wouldn't he be? Tattooing was his art, his passion, and his career.
“Only if you trust me,” he said, drawing my gaze back to him. Already I could see gears turning behind those green eyes of his. He blinked once and suddenly his entire focus was on me, on my face, my body. I could feel him looking not just at me, but into me. An involuntary shiver worked its way down my spine. “Let me decide what and where, Abi,” he continued, his voice dropping an octave, making me shift uncomfortably. I could feel things happening between my thighs that only Flor could do to me. Even my last boyfriend, the one I'd lost my virginity to, hadn't made me feel like this.
I kept my gaze locked on his and for a split second there, I saw indecision and secrets. They fluttered behind his eyes like shadows and then were gone, buried deep down God only knows where, somewhere inside of Florian that nobody was allowed to see.
I wished desperately that he'd let me in.
Instead, I smiled, nodded and stood up.
“Okay, Flor,” I told him, trying to keep my voice light. “Okay, I trust you.”
His smile then was positively wicked.
“Hey Abi,” he said as I raised my eyebrow and forced myself to appear nonchalant, taking another sip of my beer, “do you have any of those side-tie bikini bottoms in that conservative little closet of yours?”
“Why?” I asked, feeling a certain amount of heat suffuse my face. Sometimes it felt like Flor's opinion of me hadn't changed in three years, like he still thought of me as that innocent little fifteen year old, sneaking off to a party. I did, in fact, have the type of bikini bottom he was talking about, the kind with the ties on either hip.
“Because,” Flor said, standing up and getting way too close to me for comfort. I looked up at him and traced the scar on his chin with my eyes, wishing I could touch it with my fingers instead. “You're gonna need it.”
Florian drove us both to his tattoo shop in downtown Springfield, an up and coming neighborhood that I'd once never even considered visiting after dark. Now, the historic buildings on either side of Main Street had more than just for sale signs in the windows. Across the street from Flor's studio, there was an old brick building painted a cheerful yellow that housed a café, and on the opposite corner, two previously empty shop fronts had been turned into a busy restaurant/brewing company. With the city of Springfield (Eugene's neighbor across the I-5) onboard, decorative posts, light fixtures and crosswalk improvements were being added block by block along the seven mile corridor. Flor's shop, On Bent Wings, was smack dab in the middle, still open and filled with people even at this hour.
As he snagged a lucky parking space directly in front of the studio, I twisted my hands nervously in my lap and tried to hide the sheen of sweat building on my forehead. I knew my dad was not going to be happy when he found out Flor had tattooed me. He'd been terrified of it since the moment my stepbrother had gotten his first piece of ink and he'd seen how his eyes lit up. If it were up to my father neither Florian nor I would ever have a piercing anywhere other than our ears and tattoos would be out of the question. Already, I'd managed to piss him off by getting my nose pierced and Flo
r … well, my stepmom and my dad had always agreed to disagree on Florian. It had prevented a lot of fights between the two of them as they had drastically different parenting styles, but I could see the way my father looked at my stepbrother. He might love him like a son (might), but he wasn't exactly always ready with a smile and a hug either.
Flor parked the car and shut off the ignition, turning to look at me with one raised brow. I focused on the three piercings there and refused to look into his eyes. Enclosed spaces like this only seemed to trap the sexual tension between us, lock it inside a bubble that threatened to drown me with its intensity. Sometimes I wondered if I was crazy, if I was the only one that felt these things when we were together.
“You look like you're about to puke,” he said with a smirk, like he found the entire situation hilarious and was trying to hold back his laughter. I'd have been annoyed with him if the lights from the shop hadn't fallen across his brow just so, revealing the natural blue-black highlights in his hair. “If you've already changed your mind, we can go grab some dim sum or something. Besides, your dad's going to fucking kill me when he finds out about this.” Dim sum. Exciting. I'm sure all of Flor's other dates are this entertaining.
I dropped my gaze to his as I reached out and opened my door to release some of the pressure that was building inside the car.
“I can do this, Flor,” I told him, squaring my shoulders and straightening my spine. “I want to do this.” Flor shrugged like he didn't care either way and climbed out of the car. I followed after him, aware of all the eyes that swung our way when we entered into the shop. I knew some of these girls by sight. They hung out here a lot, flirting with Flor and some of the other tattoo artists that worked alongside him. What I really wanted to do was tell them all to get a life and stop clinging to my brother, stop touching him, stop going home with him.
