Stepbrother Inked

by Violet Blaze

  “I don't want to hear it, Abi,” he said, and I found my sudden sadness turning into anger. I clenched my fists tight and moved forward, grabbing at the back of his shirt and trying to get him to turn towards me. He refused to budge.

  “You don't even know what I'm going to say,” I growled at him, proud of myself for keeping my voice strong and even. “If you'd just let me speak – ”

  Flor interrupted me again, moving away and waving his hand dismissively.

  When he glanced over his shoulder at me, his eyes were cloaked in shadow and his expression unreadable. He reached up and patted the small box on the counter.

  “Enjoy your present,” he said, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and slipping one between his lips. “Call me when you remember mine, okay, nee-chan?”

  Flor turned away from me and descended the stairs, leaving me alone in the darkness of the apartment.

  I'd thrown all of my clothes onto the floor, emptied out the closet, flipped up the mattress and box spring and still, I hadn't found it.

  “Fuck,” I said, sweeping some stray strands of hair back from my face. Today, Friday, yet another family dinner looming on the horizon, and I couldn't find the damn box. That box. The one that held all of the items that used to grace my Florian shrine.

  “You're up early,” Addi said, blinking in the brightness from my open window. As I turned to look at her, I saw Patrick slide by in the hallway and disappear into the bathroom. My friend draped herself in the doorway to my bedroom and yawned. She and Patrick hadn't come home until dawn and all I had from Max was a text telling me that he was sorry I wasn't feeling well and that he'd try to bring over some flowers. Addi's lie to him about my not feeling well was far better than the truth. I caught you red-handed, you dick, I thought, pushing at a pile of clothes with my foot. I thought about asking Addi about the box, but I knew it was useless. She didn't have it; Flor did – as evidenced by the gift he'd left me last night.

  A locket. With a picture of us as kids inside. A picture that I knew had come from that box.

  “It's a little early for a clean sweep, isn't it?” Addi said, yawning again. I smiled at her and shrugged as she stood up and padded down the hallway on bare feet. My cheeks heated and I closed my eyes, biting at my thumb nail and trying to figure out what I was going to do about this. I mean, based on what happened last night, it didn't seem like my feelings for Flor were a secret, not really. And he'd basically … I stopped chewing on my nail and pressed my fingers to my lips. I could still feel his mouth there, hot and insistent and desperate. But for what? For me?

  I sighed and took a few steps back, plopping down on the window seat opposite my bedroom door.

  “This is a disaster,” I whispered, dropping my fingers down to the silver locket and letting it flutter between them as I leaned down and took a deep breath. Do you even know what today is? I hadn't known what Flor was talking about when he'd first asked that, but I did now. Yesterday was the anniversary of the day we'd first met. It hadn't meant anything to either of us for the longest time, but once, when I was thirteen, I remembered looking at the calendar and being overwhelmed with a memory. There was Flor, dark haired and brooding, even at age eight, standing hand in hand with his mother on my front door step. I remember hiding behind my dad, shy and confused at what was happening. The memory itself is blurry: what Flor was wearing, what River said to me while she stood there with her son, what we even did that day, but there's one thing that remains perfectly clear. Flor's eyes.

  I closed mine now and let the color flood back into my head.

  I'd looked at the calendar that day and brought it up casually, already embroiled in full-blown Flor obsession by that point. He'd sat at the counter in the kitchen musing on it for a while and then he'd said we should celebrate. We'd walked down to the burger joint that was a few blocks from our place at the time and splurged with Flor's allowance. Ever since then we'd been getting together and having lunch or exchanging stupid meaningless little gifts. Even in the dry years between the kiss and the day I'd graduated high school, we'd made time for that day.

  And here I'd gone and ruined it.

  I sighed again and stood up, pulling my phone from my pocket and removing the block on Flor's number. It took a few tries, but I finally forced myself to dial him up.

  “Abi?” he asked, sounding sleepy and confused.

  “Lunch,” I told him, and then after I listed the place and time, I added, “and bring the box.”

  Flor looked a little wary when he stepped inside Plank Town Brewing Company, the box under one arm, and a beanie crushed over the dark hair on his head. He glanced around for a brief moment before spotting me and, my heart thumping in my chest, I waved him over.

  When he set it down on the pale wood of the tabletop, I clenched my jaw and spit it out.

  Instead of a hello, or a damn you for taking what wasn't yours to take, he ended up with this:

  “I love you, Flor.”

  A visible shiver shook his body as he took a step back and tore the beanie from his head, crushing it up in his fist and slamming it down on the table. Our waitress, approaching with a carafe of water, paused and set it down on the table two places to our right, pretending to tidy the menus stuffed between glasses filled with napkin wrapped cutlery.

  “Don't do this, Abigail,” he said, his voice rough again. I traced his face, the slight stubble on his jaw, his scar, the piercings in his eyebrow and those in his lips. I kept my hands locked together in my lap and said it again.

  “I love you, Flor. I always have, and I always will.”

  “I love you, too, Abi. You're my … little sister,” he growled out at me, slumping onto the bench opposite me. I noticed that Flor didn't bother to look my way, focusing on the waitress who finally decided it was safe to approach, picking up the water carafe and bringing it over to our table.

  “Can I get you anything else to drink?” she asked us, and I shook my head. The tension between me and Flor was thick enough to cut with a knife. As if she could sense that, she added, “I'll give you a moment to decide,” before disappearing.

  “Stop telling me you love me like I'm your sister, Flor.” I glanced down at the wood floor and tried to remember to breathe. “It's more than that. It has to be more than that.”

  “God, Abi, shut up,” he said as my eyes snapped back to him and found him bowing over the table like he was in pain. “I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear any of this.” He flicked his gaze suddenly up to mine, glaring at me through narrowed eyes, cutting so deep into me that I was certain if I looked down, I'd be bleeding. “Why the fuck do you think I cut you off before? I don't want to hear it, so please stop. You think I don't know? That you've been keeping this secret from me for all these years? I know, Abi. I'm fucking well aware.”

  Flor stood up suddenly and reached out, cupping my chin much harder than he had the night before, much less gentle. He gripped me with rough fingers and forced my gaze to remain on his, leaning over and getting close again, close enough that I could smell the slight whiff of peppermint and cigarettes on his breath.

  “You're hot, Abi,” he told me, his pupils dilating and his tongue running over his lower lip. “You have a good body, curvy with legs for days. Of course I want to fuck you. What guy wouldn't? But I've resisted for years because, obviously, there's a little something standing between us. We're family and you don't fuck your family, Abi. How would you feel if I took you home for a night and let you go? Would you still be able to look at me over the dinner table at home without cringing? Is that what you want?” Flor released me only when he realized other patrons were staring. Tears stung my eyes, but I bit them back with a choking breath.

  “You don't mean that,” I told him, but he was staring down at me with nothing in his eyes, just a blank expression that belayed little. The smell of your skin, your hair, your breath … it undoes me. Who says that to someone they just want to sleep with, that they care nothing about?

  “So in
one breath, you're telling me that you love me like a sister and the next, you're saying you want to fuck me like one of your groupies and let me go. Is that it?”

  Flor said nothing.

  He continued to stare at me, curling his fists so tight that the tattoos on his knuckles were stretched and distorted with the motion. I followed them up his arm, to the girl with the wolf skin thrown over her head and, for the first time in forever, realized that if I looked at her just right, she sort of reminded me of … well, me. I swallowed hard and dragged my gaze back to the table, focusing on the menu instead of my stepbrother.

  “I'm not saying anything has to come of this, Flor. I just want to be honest, for once in my life, about my feelings for you. I love you, Flor.” The words hurt, almost physically, forcing themselves from my suddenly tight throat as I struggled to catch a breath. Why did this have to hurt so much? Because it didn't matter how I felt, how he felt? Our love was doomed from the start.

  I stared at the menus until my eyes went blurry and I had to blink back tears. I found my hands reaching for the box and nearly tumbled out of my chair when Flor's fingers wrapped around my wrist, branding his fingerprints into my flesh like hot irons. I could feel each ridge, each swirl, like it was engraved on my skin.

  And I loved it.

  Florian's touch was like a drug, one that I'd had but a brief taste of but had stuck to the back of my tongue, always reminding me of how good it felt to have that one, single hit, stolen in the dark that fateful night.

  Grr.

  I clenched my fingers around the cardboard and tried to drag the box to me, but Flor wasn't letting go.

  “If I let you have me, Abi, if I gave you what you're asking for, I think you'd change your mind. Do you even really know what it is that you're saying?”

  “I'm not a kid, Flor. I haven't been a kid for a long time. Maybe you still see me as that fifteen year old girl you dragged out of a party she wasn't ready for, but I'm long past that.” I lifted my eyes to his and found him frowning down at me, green eyes dark and unreadable, full of shadows and ghosts that I couldn't figure out. What are you hiding, Florian? Whatever it is, you can tell me. I want to know everything about you.

  The air around us felt moist, like we'd somehow managed to infuse the molecules with our desperation, drenching our surroundings in desire. I imagined a cloud enveloping the two of us, obscuring us from the world for just a brief moment. I wanted to lean over that table and kiss him, hard and fast and furious, but I didn't. Because I was coward. I'd always been a coward, and my true colors were starting to show.

  I dragged the box into my lap as Flor yanked his gaze from mine and flopped onto the bench, grabbing a menu and slamming his elbows onto the tabletop with a sigh. He stared down at the text like he was reading it, but his eyes never moved out of their fixed position.

  “I found some kittens,” he said instead, randomly, his tone of voice smooth and expressionless.

  Great.

  We were letting it go, again, and I just didn't have the energy to keep pressing the matter. I'd said what I needed to say and that was that. Soon, I'd start to feel better. Soon, I'd get the release I'd been waiting so long for.

  “Flor,” I began, but apparently he was done listening to me.

  “Three of them, actually. They were in the dumpster behind the shop.”

  I cringed as Flor glanced up at me with a frown on his face.

  “I watched the security cameras and found the guy who dumped them. He lives across the street from the shop in an apartment. I waited until it got dark and I saw him coming home from work.”

  “Flor,” I warned, squeezing my fingers around the cardboard edges. My stepbrother had this sort of twisted justice that I both loved and feared. It was nice to know he cared so much about certain things; it was scary to see what he'd do when faced directly with them. “Please tell me you didn't do anything stupid.”

  “I jumped him in the stairwell of his place and beat the shit out of him.”

  I stared back at him, at the guy I'd seen with more girls than I could count, who was covered from shoulder to wrist in tattoos, who inked bodies for a living, and I thought about him beating some guy up for dumping kittens in the garbage.

  It made me want to kiss him again, even harder than before. I wanted to shove the water glasses and the menus onto the floor and crawl across the table, straddle him and find out exactly what it was that kept all those women interested.

  I swallowed hard and kept my grip on the box. I still had to ask him about this, about where he found it and why he'd taken it.

  “The kittens are okay; the guy isn't.” Flor sat up and took a sip of his water, apparently satisfied that we weren't going to address the issue of my passionately intense and long-term love for him. “They're at my house now. I wanted you to know in case I get arrested. I was pretty careful to keep my face hidden and I didn't see any cameras, but if I do, I need you to check on the cats for me. They're little and you've got to feed 'em, like, every four hours or something.” He raised his hand and placed it on the table, the crescent moon etched into his skin staring back at me like a pale blue smile.

  “Flor,” I began again, and he visibly cringed. I decided to lead into my questions about the box by leaning down and digging something from my purse. I tossed it across the table and watched him catch it single-handedly. He stared down at his palm with a frown.

  “The fuck is this?” he asked me, and I couldn't hold back a smile.

  “It's a toothbrush,” I said, “for your cat.” I felt my smile turn into a grin and my left hand unconsciously rise to finger the locket. After he'd gotten such a thoughtful gift for me, something that represented him and me, and all I could do was fall back into our old routines with a gag gift. Well, after the intensity of our conversation, I was kind of glad for it. “I got it at the pet shop. You can buy tuna flavored toothpaste, you know.”

  “Screw you,” he said, but at least he said it with a smile. “This probably takes the cake for the worst anniversary gift ever.” I thought about mentioning the vibrator he'd gotten me one year and then decided it didn't seem so funny anymore, not with the moist droplets of desire coating my forehead and lower back. If Flor were to touch me now, lay his fingers against the nape of my neck, press his lips to my forehead, I'd melt. The heat between my thighs would consume my body and leave me nothing but ashes.

  “What about yours?” I said, trying to deflect my feelings with humor. I raised the chain of the locket and let its silver surface dangle between my fingers. “Where did you get this box?” Heat suffused my cheeks as I leaned back and pretended not to give a shit. But I did. I really, really did.

  Flor spun the toothbrush between his fingers, focusing on it and not on me.

  “It was on the truck. I dropped it and the top opened. I didn't mean to snoop through your shit, Abi, but when I found like, a fucking shrine to myself, curiosity sort of took over.” I pursed my lips, about to blurt that it wasn't a shrine, but that was only partially true. It just wasn't a shrine anymore. “There's a lock of my hair in there, Abi. That's creepy as hell.”

  I clutched the box even tighter and leaned forward, desperate not to let anyone else in the restaurant hear this portion of our conversation. I'm sure they'd heard enough already. I eyed Florian with my best take-no-prisoners look and tried to be stern. The hair thing was a little weird, but I'd found it on the floor after he'd cut his own hair with a razor; it wasn't like I'd snipped it myself. Yes, still stalkerish, but on a slightly lesser level. That didn't stop a slight flush from coloring my cheeks.

  “It's just … stuff of yours that I had or that I found.” I let my eyes slide from his for a moment to regain my composure before letting them move back over. Flor didn't look like he believed me, but I didn't care. What did it matter anyway? He'd literally just told me to shut up rather than reveal my feelings for him.

  Those green eyes though … oh God, those eyes … why did he have to look at me like that? Why did his d
ark brows have to frame that green gaze so perfectly? I refocused my attention back on the menu and waited for him to say something. The silence between us stretched thin and brittle, broken only by the tentative steps of the waitress as she approached and took our order. We both got burgers, medium-well, ketchup and lettuce only; he ordered himself a pint and the only reason I wasn't jumping in right alongside him was because legally, I couldn't.

  Bleh.

  “When?” Flor asked, toying with his water glass. When I hazarded a glance at his face, he wasn't looking at me. Good. That gave me some time to study his expression. Unfortunately, it was as unreadable as a rock face. I sighed.

  “When, what?” I asked, my voice weighty and weary, like my throat had realized far before my heart what had just happened: we'd lost. We'd really … lost. Tears pricked the corners of my eyelids, and I curled my fists in my lap, cutting into my palm with my fingernails as I tried not to cry.

  “Don't do that,” Flor said, his smooth voice rough and husky, a trait he seemed to reserve only for me. But why? If he felt the way he said he did, why bother? It seemed that as much as I'd promised a relationship between us was possible to myself, that I hadn't been honest. I'd wanted it. Oh yeah, in the back of my mind, I'd been betting on it. But now, I had my answer. No. “Don't cry, Abigail,” he pleaded as I stood up suddenly, pushing my chair back across the wood floor.

  I made myself smile. It hurt to twist my lips like that, but I managed it.

  “Be right back, 'kay?” I said and then hurried away before Flor could stop me. Once I was in the bathroom, I found myself hunched over and choking back sobs. Wow. It felt like my heart was coming undone, like it was unraveling inside my chest and leaving me empty. All of the anxiety and the hope and desperation I'd felt over the years slammed into me all at once, leaving me gasping for breath.

  “Abi, I'm coming in.”

  Shit.

  I spun around just in time to see Flor burst through the door, running his hands through his dark hair as he paused in front of me, face falling at the scene before him. A quick glance to my right and my reflection told me all I needed to know: I was a wreck. Makeup ran down my cheeks in two rivulets and my skin was flushed a ruddy color, turning my naturally bronze skin into a muddy mess.