Stepbrother Inked

by Violet Blaze

  “It's not that he really did anything wrong per se,” I began, but a look from Addi stopped me short.

  “Practically fucking you in a restaurant bathroom was the right way to say no? Was that him letting you down easy? Was that him acting like an adult or a 'big brother'?” Addi made quotes with her fingers. I bit my lip but had no idea what to say. In fact, I had no idea what to even do. So much of my life had revolved around Flor. Sad as that might sound, I felt like I'd just lost a hobby. Well, okay, so it felt way worse than that, but it was as if there was this big gap in my life that I didn't know how to fill. We'd been together since I was five years old. Not being around him would really take some getting used to. Of course, this was just me thinking that we were done. Maybe he just assumed things would go on as they always had?

  “Coffee delivery,” a voice said from behind me, making me jump. Theo appeared in the doorway with a set of house keys and several Starbucks drinks in a carrier, placing them on the counter, giving me a look that I did not want to return.

  “I texted him as soon as I saw you. I thought you could use a shallow, useless day out, something that has nothing to do with Flor. Just us girls.”

  “Amen,” Theo said, passing me a cup and smiling. He, too, looked aggravatingly perfect in the early morning sunshine. I knew what I looked like: a wreck. My heart was on my sleeve and bleeding all over the damn place. “No tea, no shade, girl, but you don't look so good. What'd this brother of yours do this time?”

  I gave him a look and raised an eyebrow. Now, I wasn't one to gossip, but Addi had told me stories about Theo's dating life that made me falling in love with my stepbrother look like a party game.

  “I'll tell you later,” Addi said pointedly, gesturing at the coffee with her long fingers. “Just feed her some macchiato and then let's see what we can do with those black circles under her eyes.”

  “Do you remember that time in second grade when I made you a Mohawk with some Elmer's glue?” Theo asked, leaning on the counter and ignoring Addi. I smiled and then, just as suddenly, frowned. Of course I remembered that. I also remembered Flor's relentless teasing until he brought me to tears. And then he'd gone and stolen some cookies from River's supposedly secret stash, putting his arm around me and setting the goodies in my lap.

  You know what? he'd said, leaning down to look me in the eyes. I'd glanced up, my gaze blurry with tears and saw him smiling. Maybe it's not as silly as I thought? Rock stars have hair like that and everybody loves rock stars. Later that evening, when my father had come home and ordered me to wash the glue from my hair, I'd thrown a massive tantrum. Everybody loves rock stars. Crap.

  “No, no, no,” Addi said, shaking her shock of bright blonde curls. The look reminded me a little of Beyonce, circa 2011. “When you think about Florian, you get this faraway sort of a look on your face. You know, kind of like the one you have on right now.”

  “Huh?” I asked, waking as if from a dream.

  Theo and Addi exchanged a glance.

  I knew then that I was in trouble. I looked between the two of them, all dressed up from whatever escapades they'd gotten up to last night, and I tried to smile. The expression felt stiff, like my lips were dry and cracking as they spread. I reached up and brushed my fingertips across my lower lip, but it was moist. Guess it really was all in my head then.

  “Theo, it's time for an intervention,” Addi said, leaning down on the counter and crossing her arms. “The only two things Abi thinks about are school and Flor, but she's also incredibly shallow.” My friend winked at me, her silver eyeshadow flashing in the morning sunshine.

  “OhmyGod,” Theo gushed, leaning in close to me, pushing his shoulder into mine. “That's perfect. If you're going to be shallow, you might as well take advantage of that. Forget about your brother and that cheating whore of a best friend of his, and let's go find some hot piece of ass for you to work on. Trust me, I know exactly where to find a whole gaggle of guys.”

  “Straight ones, please,” Addi said and Theo made a pouty face at her. “I actually like Yuu, so don't screw this up. You promised I could be your maid of honor when you got married.”

  “Married?” Theo said in a high pitched voice, putting a hand on his chest. “I thought I asked you never to utter that word in my presence. If anyone's headed to the altar, sweetheart, it's you.”

  I smiled at their banter, feeling a short lived moment of reprieve. If I sat still, if I barely moved, if I listened to my friends talk about their relationships, I could almost forget that I was bleeding from the worst wound there is: heartbreak.

  All I want is to be with you. But I can't. When our parents got married, I swore that I would take on the role of big brother and I have, damn it. I am your brother, whether you like it or not.

  Like an echo of a memory, I heard Flor's voice clear and sharp behind me.

  “Knock, knock.”

  Addi and Theo stopped talking as I spun, finding my stepbrother in the doorway with his keys in one hand and a slight frown on his face. He was staring right at me, looking too perfect in a clean shirt and jeans, a pair of black boots I'd never seen before gleaming on his feet. And those fucking eyes.

  I felt my own widen in response, knowing exactly what I looked like: smeared makeup, puffy eyes, dark circles, yesterday's rumpled clothes. Flor's gaze shifted to the abandoned cello lying on the living room floor and then back to me. Once upon a time, he'd sit and listen to my “concerts”, always attentive, never playing with his phone or horsing around. Then, of course, he hit puberty and he didn't have time anymore. I missed those days more than I could express in words.

  I looked away.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Addi snapped, coming to my rescue. She moved out of the kitchen to stand in front of me, acting like a shield between me and my heartbreak. My pulse sped up as anxiety curled in my stomach, making my body ache with tension. Crap. Addi and Flor had never really gotten along, but they'd made it work. Now? I wasn't sure she was going to pull any punches this time. “That you even have the audacity to show your face here – ”

  “Oh come off it, Addi,” he snapped back at her, “Abigail borrowed my car, remember? I brought hers back, but I need my keys.” I heard footsteps and suddenly Flor was right there behind me. I sensed him before I even saw him, glancing over my shoulder and finding Addi with her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl on her face. Flor was ignoring her, looking straight at me. His fingers came out and brushed some hair behind my ear, making me want to whimper. Luckily, I held the sound in. “You look terrible, nee-chan. What's wrong?”

  “Don't freaking touch her, Florian. What do you think is wrong? For years we've been dancing around this subject like it didn't matter. Well, it matters now. You hurt her, you insensitive asshole. If you really wanted to be a brother to her, you wouldn't have acted the way you've acted. She's been in love with you for years and you had the fucking gall to act like you didn't notice. You want to know why I've never liked you?” Addi pointed right at me as my stomach turned to ice, plummeting to my belly and shattering in a sea of shards that cut me to pieces. “This. This is why. She hasn't slept; she's been crying all night, Flor. This is not how you let someone down easy.”

  Shit.

  I appreciated Addi jumping in to save me, but … why did she have to say all of those things? Like I wasn't already embarrassed enough? Like I wasn't already humiliated beyond redemption?

  “I … ” For once in his life, Florian seemed to be at a loss for words. I found my hand straying unconsciously back to my tattoo, resting my fingertips on my hip as my vision swam and dizziness threatened to overtake me. Too much emotion, not enough sleep. I groaned and turned around, finding three sets of eyes fully focused on me.

  “Your keys are on the hook by the door,” I said, proud of myself for keeping my voice steady. I pointed and tried to smile again, but my mouth felt more than just dry this time. It was practically frozen in place. “You can leave mine in their spot.”

&nbs
p; I stayed that way for a long moment, holding my breath and hoping this confrontation would end sooner rather than later.

  Flor stayed very still, and then, like lightning, his hand was coming out to grip my arm, his tattooed fingers curling around my wrist.

  “Come with me,” he said as I resisted, dug my heels in quite literally. My stockinged feet slid across the floor as he tugged me from my spot on the stool.

  “I'm not really in the mood,” I said as Addi's defenses went up and she stepped forward to intervene. I gave her a look that said I can handle this and she paused.

  “Flor,” I said firmly, but he wasn't listening. He pulled me as far as the doorway before letting go and leaning down to pick up a pair of my ankle boots. He tried to hand them to me, but I wrapped my arms around myself and refused to take them.

  “I want to take you to lunch. That's it. Just lunch. Please, Abi. I don't want this … this thing to fucking ruin what we have.”

  Anger surged inside of me, hot and bright, like sunlight through a magnifying glass, its lens focused right between Flor's perfect green eyes.

  “This thing?” I choked before he had a chance to retract his statement. I could see him getting angry right back at me. Why, I'm not sure, but that only served to piss me off further. “This thing means everything to me!” I screamed at him, embarrassed that Theo and Addi were here to witness yet another epic confrontation between the two of us. If I'm going to move on, put myself together, I have to make sure I have no regrets. Right now, I still had dozens – at least. “Don't diminish my feelings, Flor. Don't you dare.”

  I hated the way his eyes slid to the side while the muscles in his jaw clenched angrily.

  After several seconds of standing there, wrapped in tension and hurting, Flor moved forward suddenly and grabbed me. One hand went around my waist, the other behind my knees, and he picked me up in his arms, my boots dangling from his fingers.

  “Lunch,” he said as he started down the stairs. “That's all I'm asking.”

  “I'm going to freaking end you,” Addi said, following after us.

  When we hit the bottom of the stairs, I finally woke up enough from my momentary daze to remember to be angry. Flor's hard chest pressing against me, his hands on my skin … Goddamn it.

  Passersby gave us some funny looks as people streamed in and out of the shoe store beneath my apartment, but nobody said anything, giving our little group a wide berth as they streamed by. I think – but I'm not sure – that Theo was filming the whole scene with his iPhone.

  “You want me to call the police?” Addi asked me as Flor set me down and I stood there in my socks on the pavement, my skirt rumpled, my head swimming.

  Flor looked straight back at me as I steeled myself and took a deep breath.

  I held out my hand for my boots.

  “Lunch,” I told him firmly, glancing sideways at Addi as if to say I've got this. “Just lunch. This is your last chance for redemption, Florian Harper Riley.”

  Flor and I decided to walk the mile to Toshi's Ramen. The air was cool, but the sun was out and its golden fingers felt warm against my spine. I kept my arms crossed over my chest and second-guessed my decision for nearly the entire walk.

  Being with Flor now was … odd. A good portion of my life had been spent by his side, but my feelings had always been a secret. Well, if not entirely a secret at least unspoken, unconfirmed. Now that he knew how I felt, it was just weird. I was standing next to the guy I loved, who said he loved me back, but yet we couldn't be together. I wondered absently if I were given the chance, if Flor said yes to this but our parents balked, would I choose a romantic relationship with him over my own father? Over the man who was gruff and frustrating at times, but who'd taken care of a baby in the wake of his own heartbreak, who'd done a pretty damn good job at it, too? Besides, even if it really did come down to a Flor or Father sort of a thing, I knew I wouldn't just be ruining my relationship with my dad. This could ruin Flor and his mom, his mom and my dad. There were any number of reasons that Florian was right about this.

  But why then did it feel so wrong?

  “I'm sorry you cried,” he told me, lighting up a cigarette as we walked. I kept my gaze straight ahead and didn't bother to look over at him. “If I'd known you were going to come home and be upset all night, I never would've let you leave.”

  “What? And give up a night of passion with Rhonda? What a sacrifice that would've been.” I was being a snarky brat, I knew, but I couldn't stop the words from coming out of my mouth. My emotions were in too much of a turmoil to allow for any form of self-control. Florian squeezed his fists at his sides, but he didn't deny the accusation. After I'd left, after I'd poured my heart out for him, had he taken Rhonda into his room and filled her the way I only wanted him to fill me?

  Jesus.

  My imagination spun with unwanted images of Florian and Rhonda having sex, any details I needed filled in and supplied by the many memories I had of catching my brother in the act. I could distinctly remember the first time I came home and heard strange sounds coming from upstairs. At only thirteen, and a fairly innocent thirteen at that, it had never occurred to me what those sounds might've entailed. I'd raced up the stairs, my heart thumping as it usually did whenever I was presented with a chance to see my stepbrother, and found Flor's door cracked. Sneaking quietly along the hallway, I'd peeped inside and found a girl with dark hair on her back, Flor on top of her, their bodies moving in ways that haunted me for months to come. It's not that I hadn't known what sex was, but I'd never seen the actual act before.

  The feeling of heartache I'd had that day returned a hundred times over as I reached a hand up and clutched at my chest. I'd been in love with him and, according to him, that was just after he'd realized he was in love with me, just after that barefoot hangout session on the roof, a bottle of champagne sitting between us on the shingles. Instead of waiting for me, he'd followed his dick to greener pastures. Anger washed over me, doused only by yesterday's memory of Flor's words. And you wanted me to what? Wait around for you to grow up, like some kind of freak predator? Why did he have to make so much damn sense?

  “All I'm saying is, I don't want you to waste your life pining after me, Abi.”

  Wow. Now if that didn't sound pathetic, I don't know what did.

  “I'm not wasting my life,” I assured him as we neared the ramen shop. “I have friends and a life outside of you, Flor. I've had boyfriends, when you haven't bothered to step in and screw things up that is.”

  “Don't forget the ones you've dated behind my back. You know, like my best friend from elementary school.”

  I ignored the comment and continued as if he hadn't spoken, anger lacing his words and heightening the growing tension between us.

  “Just because I've always … ” I couldn't say the word love, not in the bright sunshine like this. I felt too exposed. I rephrased my words. “Just because I care about you, because I wanted to see what a relationship between us would be like, that doesn't mean I'm just wasting away pining after you. Yeah, last night was rough for me. You basically told me it's never going to happen. I left knowing you and Rhonda were going to spend the night together. Not to mention the fact that you said she wanted to get engaged.”

  “She does,” Flor said, his voice freakishly calm. I kept my gaze away from him, on the green hills in the distance, covered in trees, on the people riding bikes, on the students walking quickly with backpacks over their shoulders. I needed to look at anything and everything but those eyes. “I was serious when I said that. Rhonda spent most of her life in foster care, and all she wants is a family. She wants to have children soon.”

  “You're only twenty-one,” I said, wondering if I sounded as terrified as I felt. No. I didn't want Flor to be a dad, didn't want to see another woman swollen with a baby that I desperately wished would be mine (not anytime soon, obviously, but eventually). “Isn't it a little early to start a family?”

  Flor shrugged. I could see his muscula
r shoulders moving from the corner of my eye. He was actually considering this? Commitment phobic Flor, the guy who had a new girl every week and then some, he was actually thinking about settling down with a woman he'd known for a few months? I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. I hadn't been worried about Rhonda. Maybe I should've been?

  “Max was asking after you, too.”

  I felt my lips purse. Max. The boy I used to substitute for Flor. It was sad, but true.

  “Tell Max that … ” I almost told Flor that he could tell his friend to shove it, but then I changed my mind. I hadn't actually seen Max doing anything with that girl. For all I knew, he was just flirting. Besides, the thought of being alone right now was more than I could bear. I immediately regretted what'd happened between me and Dorian. Of course, even when he wasn't actually involved, Flor could still find a way to mess up my relationships for me. “That I'll call him. In fact, I'll send him a text as soon as we're done here.”

  “After he cheated on you?” Flor asked, voice low and dark, nothing at all like the warm sunshine-y day around us. He opened the door to Toshi's and ushered me in, brooding behind me in line while I examined the simple menu hanging behind the counter. I didn't bother to say anything in response to Flor's words. It might've been a little childish of me, but I knew that by dating Max again, Flor would suffer. If I had to see him have kids with Rhonda, I wanted him to know that I was sleeping with his best friend.

  “How are you folks doing today?” the guy behind the counter asked as we moved up in line.

  “My sister's dating a guy who cheats on her,” Flor said blandly and I felt my cheeks flush.

  “Dude, that's a bummer,” the guy said, still smiling. I glanced around, hoping nobody else had heard. Only Flor would ever dare blurt something like that to a random stranger. I finally looked over at him and found his know-it-all asshole face firmly locked in place.