by Joey Bush
I was considering my options, gearing myself up for the frustrating task of navigating the impossible site that held the course catalog for spring, when my phone rang. It was my mom, and I considered letting it go to voice mail; I was tired, and I wasn’t really feeling up to a long conversation about how my classes were going and whatever new toy her boyfriend had bought her. But she paid the phone bill and I knew that if I didn’t answer right away, she would just call me again, and then a third time. When I had been in high school she had shut off my phone completely more than once when I failed to answer, and I didn’t want to have to deal with that again. “Hey, Mom,” I said when I picked up. “I was just about to get in bed.” Maybe if I told her that in the beginning of the call she’d keep it short; I’d be seeing her in a few days anyway, when I drove home for the break.
“Hey, Mia baby!” she said, almost a shriek in my ear. I loved my mom, but ever since she had taken up with her rich boyfriend, she was more than a little annoying. She always asked if there was anything she could get for me, if there were any clothes or shoes or bags I wanted. I was not by any stretch of the imagination the kind of girl that cared about shoes or bags—the most I cared was that I had a book bag that wouldn’t fall apart, and shoes that wouldn’t wear out or pinch my toes. But my mom had gotten on a kick of me being “presentable” and “looking professional.”
“What’s up?” I asked her. She was excited—I could tell that right away. I closed my eyes, wishing I was already asleep, already kicking aside the idea of perusing the course catalog. It could wait for tomorrow.
“I have a surprise for you!” I almost laughed, but kept it down.
“It’s not Christmas yet, Mom,” I reminded her, smiling in spite of myself. Even before she had started dating the rich boyfriend, she loved to surprise me—and even though I wouldn’t admit it to her, I loved it when she did.
“I know, baby. But I’ve got a really big surprise for you and I know you’re going to just love it.” I shrugged.
“Give me a hint?” My mom laughed.
“Not on your life, sweetie,” she told me. “I just wanted to make sure that you didn’t go to all the bother of driving up to our place—I won’t be there. We’re going to have Thanksgiving at Bob’s mansion.” Bob was the rich boyfriend. It bothered me a little bit that my mom insisted on calling his house a mansion; I’d seen pictures of it, and it was a nice enough place, but it was nothing more than a house when everything was said and done. It made her sound nouveau riche to keep referring to it as a mansion.
“Mom, I’ve never been there before. You’ll have to send me the address.”
“Of course, baby. I’ll email you the address. Try and get here before eight—it’s harder to find after dark.”
“Yes, Mom,” I said. “What’s going on? You’re so excited.”
“Just thinking about the surprise I have for you,” my mom said, her voice full of whatever it was. I shrugged it off. “It’s late—you should go to bed. I love you, sweetie.” I said my goodbyes, and hung up as soon as my mom got finished showering me with love and telling me to sleep well and be safe.
I lay in bed for a few minutes after that, trying to decide how I felt about the situation. The semester had been a long one—way longer than any I’d been through in high school—and after everything I’d been through, I was more than ready for a little break from school. I wanted to get away from my classes, from the situation with Jaxon, and even the frat itself. At least it’s a mansion, I thought, snorting. From the pictures I’d seen, it was a huge house, with a bunch of land around it. As far away from the cramped and crammed life in the dorms, even the packed situation at the frat house. If nothing else, it would be time away, and I could definitely use that before I went in to tackle my finals. I’d rest up, eat some good food, and make nice with the boyfriend. All I could hope for was that my mom wouldn’t want us to be all buddy-buddy all the time, doing “family” things together in the name of a happy holiday. I’d get out of whatever I possibly could.
CHAPTER 10
A few days later I packed up enough of my stuff to last me through the holiday weekend and loaded it into my car. I wasn’t looking forward to the long drive; when my mom emailed me the address to her boyfriend’s place, I’d looked it up in my app on my phone and found out that it was hours away from the campus. It was cold, heading into the official start of winter, with the first rounds of snow already on the ground. It wouldn’t be the first time that I’d driven on snowy, icy roads, but after the exhaustion of the semester, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to drive for two hours just to be with my mom for Thanksgiving.
She hadn’t given me any hint at all about the surprise, just telling me to make sure to come to Bob’s house without fail, that she’d tell me all about it then. I figured it must be something like a big gift—a new computer maybe, or something else that she wanted me to see in person without having any clue of it beforehand. She’d been convincing Bob for months to help her buy me little gifts and trinkets—a jersey for my favorite player on the Flames, tickets to a concert I wanted to go to that were impossibly out of my budget. It would be something like that, I decided, drinking coffee to keep myself alert on the roads. I had gotten out of my classes early; everyone knew it was snowing, and that a lot of people had a long way to go to get home for the holiday. Even in the classes I’d had we hadn’t really done much—some of the students had gone home the night before, hoping to beat all of the bad weather altogether. It wasn’t too bad, but it was so cold that I wished I’d brought my heavier jacket into the car with me. Even with the heater on I was shivering every now and then—though that might have been about the caffeine as much as the cold.
As I followed the directions my phone dictated to me, I found myself getting farther and farther away from the places I knew, going deep into the suburbs and then even farther, where the houses spread out with huge yards around them, classic architecture and pretentious designs. Gardens, big rolling lawns, huge arching trees lined the road on either side of me, and I was starting to feel out of my depth. I focused on what I knew about Bob’s house from my mom. He had a hot tub on the back deck—that could be a lot of fun to visit and enjoy. I’d have my own bedroom there just as I had at home with my mom—probably nicer by far than the one I had in our place. There was a fireplace instead of just central heat; there was a huge kitchen with lots of food. It would be a nice rest.
I started to get more and more tired as the sun went down around me, as I hit the last thirty minutes of the drive. I turned on my headlights and squinted into the growing darkness, looking out for the house number even as the turn-by-turn directions counted down the distance left to the destination. I recognized the outside of the mansion by one of the pictures my mom had sent me, and I pulled into the driveway—the gate was open—and yawned, grateful at least to have made it in good time. I wouldn’t have to really go anywhere at all for the next several days.
I got out of my car and hurried to the front door, shivering against the cold; the temperature was dropping second by second, or so it felt like, getting colder as the night closed in around me. Everything was brightly lit, and I had to admit that while my mom’s views on the house might be pretentious, it looked comfortable and luxurious enough to deserve the title of mansion. I knocked at the door as loudly as I could; when I’d turned onto the street leading up to the house, I’d texted her to let her know I was nearly there.
My mom threw open the door and pulled me into the house, hugging me tightly and kissing me on the cheek. “Oh, baby, you’re so cold! Come on, come into the living room, and get warm.” I was smiling, glad to be back together with my mom, glad of a few days of relaxation before I had to finish the semester out strong. “Oh! I almost forgot—your surprise!” I shook my head as my mom led me to a big, comfortable couch, a few yards away from a roaring fire, pushing me down to sit.
“Mom, I can wait for it, I promise,” I said, smiling and laughing at her infectious enthusiasm
.
“Well I can’t wait,” my mom said, sitting down next to me. “Are you warming up dear?” I nodded and all of her concern about me flew out of the window. “Okay, here it goes: I’m married!” she held up her hand and showed me the ring on her ring finger. My jaw dropped.
“You’re married?” I shook my head. “You’ve only been with him for five months!” I tried not to sound like I was judging her but I was shocked—and more than a little worried about her sanity.
“Oh, baby, I’m not a kid anymore; I’m in love with Bob and there was no reason to wait any longer.” I shook my head again.
“Mom, five months is not long enough to know if you can live with someone! This is crazy!” My mom hugged me.
“Well it’s done, baby. And now I can introduce you to your new step-father and step-brother.” I took a deep breath; it wouldn’t be fair to them to keep up the fight with my mom that I knew would erupt when she continued to insist that her getting married was a great idea—she’d get mad at me for being mad after a while, and if my new step-family was waiting to meet me, I should at least put on a polite face. My mom went to a door on the side and opened it. “Mia, meet Bob, your new step-father,” she said, grinning broadly. A man stepped through the door; he looked vaguely familiar and I tried to remember whether or not I’d seen a picture of him in the five months that my mom had been dating him. He had light brown hair and bright eyes; he was slim, not skinny but with subtle muscling on his arms and chest.
“Pleased to meet you finally, Bob,” I said, keeping my voice as level as possible. My mom beamed at both of us and Bob came in to sit down in one of the wingback chairs; he said something about being happy for the chance to get to know me better, but I barely heard him.
“Okay, baby, and now—here is your new step-brother!” I steeled myself—maybe the guy would be just as upset about his dad marrying practically a stranger as I was. But when my new step-brother walked through the door, my stomach dropped down to my knees. No wonder Bob had looked familiar; as my mom told me my new step-brother’s name, commenting something about what a small world it was—since he went to the same college as I did—I just stared at the man in front of me. He had stopped short and he was staring back at me, and I couldn’t imagine that I looked any less shocked and mortified than he did. Of all of the people in the world, my mother had managed to date and marry the worst possible man.
My new step-brother was Jaxon.
STEPBROTHER OMG!
The Stepbrother Romance Series Book #2
CHAPTER 1
I stood there in shock for a long time, just staring at Jaxon without knowing exactly how to react.
Jaxon was my step-brother. We were related—even if it was only just in the past few days or weeks. We’d had sex. It hit me all at once that Jaxon’s standoffish behavior made sense—at least, if he had already known about who his father was dating, who he had married. I hadn’t paid much attention to my mom’s dating life, other than to know that she had one. I had no idea what to do; I just stared awkwardly at Jaxon, my heart pounding in my chest.
Jaxon’s look of horror and humiliation faded abruptly. “Hey, Mia,” he said, putting on a smile and extending his hand. “Pleased to meet you; your mom’s told me a lot about you.” I swallowed the lump in my throat and shook his hand. I felt incredibly awkward about it, but I was able to come out of my shock enough to at least go along with the tactic that Jaxon apparently decided on. For a moment, as we chatted to each other awkwardly before our beaming parents, I thought to myself that if Jaxon had any kind of advance warning that this awkwardness was going to happen, he was an asshole for not warning me. But then I thought to myself that disengaging—breaking things off entirely, not even being my friend—might have been a clue that something bigger was up, even if he hadn’t wanted to talk about why he was doing it.
I found myself talking completely off of my brain; I was saying the most inane things to Jaxon and he was smiling and nodding and saying the same kinds of inane things back to me. It was the most awkward, embarrassing, ridiculous moment of my life; the only thing I could think about was how much I wanted it to end, how much I wished I could just run out of the stupid mansion and get in my car and spend the whole break in my dorm, being mortified in private like any self-respecting person who just found out that they had inadvertently screwed their step-brother.
Fuck. Step-brother. He’s my step-brother. Shit.
My cheeks burned over and over again and I struggled to push down the blushes that I knew were making my face bright red. I wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or disturbed at the fact that no one seemed to even notice the fact that I was humiliated.
I had never been more relieved in my life to be interrupted in a conversation as I was when Mom announced that dinner was ready. I’d timed my arrival pretty well; I’d intentionally wanted to get to my mom’s boyfriend’s house—or, rather, my new step-father’s house—right before dinner would be served. When I’d planned the drive, it had mostly been because I had wanted to minimize the awkwardness of meeting the guy she was apparently head over heels in love with. But I was definitely grateful that I’d thought ahead; the situation was way worse than I had imagined.
So Mom led us all into the dining room and I tried to get a grip on myself; it wasn’t that bad, I told myself over and over again, firmly. I hadn’t known that Jaxon was my step-brother when we’d had sex. I didn’t even know for sure that he’d known. I wondered if he had—if he’d found out before or after. Had he been nice to me before because he knew his dad was going to marry my mom? Had I been reading into his attention too much from the beginning? No—if he hadn’t meant to have sex with me, he wouldn’t have made a pass at me in the frat house. He would’ve kept it to friendly banter.
My head was spinning. Just get through this weekend, I told myself. Pretend like nothing ever happened with you and Jaxon and deal with the rest of it later. We all sat down at the table and someone began bringing out food. I should have realized that with a house like the one he had, my new step-father would have at least one or two people working for him—a gardener, a house keeper—but it was weird to watch my mom chatting with Jaxon’s dad, both of them looking into each other’s eyes and beaming like high school kids in love, while someone was putting a bunch of food on the table in front of me. It wasn’t—thankfully—an incredibly involved meal; chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes, normal food and not anything fussy or obviously high-end. I looked across the table at Jaxon and wondered if he felt half as mortified as I did. My mom and Jaxon’s dad were obviously incredibly into each other; they reminded each other of cute little stories, capped each other’s jokes, and they almost didn’t seem capable of keeping their hands off of each other.
It was obvious to me, at least, that they were still in the honeymoon phase. I wondered to myself—a little bitterly—just how long it would last. I was shocked that they were married at all. They’d only been dating a handful of months; it wasn’t like my mom to just rush into a relationship that serious so quickly. Bob must be really good in the sack, I thought to myself, looking at Jaxon’s dad. It was pretty easy to see the resemblance between the two of them. All of a sudden, I thought of the fact that Jaxon himself was good in bed and I felt my face burning as I realized I was actually—against my will—thinking of my new step-father having sex with my mom. I tried to distract myself, to think of absolutely anything, but the fact that I knew Jaxon was well-endowed and good in bed, and that his father might be too.
“It’s so good to be a family together,” Mom said, looking from Jaxon and me to her new husband. I suddenly didn’t feel very hungry, in spite of the fact that before I’d gotten the news about my new family members, I’d ben starving.
“Yeah,” I said, forcing a smile for Mom, who I knew was just fired up for the holidays. “It’s…it’s nice to get to know everyone.” Jaxon’s dad grinned, giving my Mom’s hand a squeeze. I picked at my green beans, making myself eat a few, trying to both av
oid looking at Jaxon and not seem like I had anything in particular on my mind.
“Are you feeling all right, Mia?” Mom asked me.
“Fine,” I said; my voice sounded annoyingly chirpy to my own ears. “Fine, just tired. It’s a long way out here from the college.” Jaxon’s father laughed.
“I’m surprised you got here so much later than Jax did,” he said. “You two go to the same school; I thought you’d get here about the same time. You could’ve even car pooled.” I swallowed down a lump of potatoes.
“Ah, well, I mean—we didn’t even know each other. We’re not even in the same year,” Jaxon said with a shrug.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s a big campus, tons of people.” I shoved some more food in my mouth to keep myself from talking.
“I got out of my classes early—Mia probably didn’t, or something like that.” I swallowed hard and took a long sip of water to keep from choking on a piece of chicken.
“Yeah, I couldn’t get out until this afternoon, it was lame.” Mom and Bob nodded and I was just grateful that they bought the idea that Jaxon and I weren’t even aware that the other one existed.
“Are you in any of the sororities, Mia? Jaxon’s in a frat, just like his dad was.” Mom—fortunately—saved me the trouble of answering.
“Mia would never join a sorority!” Mom laughed at the idea. “I’ve never seen her spend time with more than maybe two girls at a time.” I smiled slightly.
“I’m focusing on my classes and sports mostly,” I said, doing everything I could not to look at Jaxon.
“You do seem to have a lot in common, from what I’ve heard of Jaxon,” my mom said, looking over at Bob. “You guys should make an effort to get to know each other better. You’re going to be in the same family.” I smiled, but my stomach was turning front flips and cartwheels inside of me. I wondered if there was any way I would ever be able to keep the dinner down.
