The swim team had been more protective of her than the police force, who didn’t think it was much to worry about. Mr. Dumello was just a love-struck guy. Young and full of hormones. When she brought up a restraining order, an officer laughed at her and she didn’t pursue it. Then Milan got caught stealing in a grocery store and resisted arrest, which landed him in prison for the greater portion of her junior year. After he got out was when he became truly frightening.
She got home from the interview without seeing Milan anywhere, hating that she even had to watch. Her deepest regret was not going farther away for college than two cities over. That might have made him refocus his attentions elsewhere. Then again, he also might have just followed to her new location.
Her father was out of the house, but there was a note on her bed that he wanted to talk. Since she had had the car, she assumed that his girlfriend Ramona had picked him up to spend some time together. Setting down her purse beside the note, Aviana changed into shorts and a T-shirt and plopped on the sofa to search online for other jobs.
A lot of places wanted experience and she didn’t have that. Others only wanted people fluent in both English and Spanish. In retrospect, taking French in high school and college had been dumb. Her literature major hadn’t been so smart either. And then there were all the jobs that she did qualify for, but those were the same jobs that she could have had without going to college. Waitress. Barista. Pet sitter. Library page. She wasn’t going to make enough at those jobs to pay back her college loans. The six-month grace period would be ending all too soon. She almost hadn’t qualified for any need-based aid with the amount of money her father made, and the parental portion of the tuition to be paid up front had been given begrudgingly every year. His parents hadn’t helped him, so why should he help her? Meanwhile, he complained vociferously that she never visited him on weekends. She couldn’t. She had no car, and she had to work to pay for her books and everything else. He didn’t see the connection. Her father was not a bad person, but it was forever and always all about him.
It was late evening when she received a text. Picking up her phone, she smiled at the message from her stepbrother. I’m interested in acquiring a boom lift to reach the spider on my ceiling. How much would one of those cost me, Ms. Ballpunch?
She loved Hollis. Not so much the nickname, which she had earned at the age of five when they were playing baseball in the backyard. It was the first time she’d ever hit the ball, and it was a hard line drive right into Hollis’ crotch. She had never forgotten his agonized scream as he fell to the grass. Sorry, but I’m 99.999% sure that I didn’t get the job. You’ll have to ask someone else or just use the vacuum hose.
Vacuum? What is this word vacuum?
She laughed. He had been messy when her father was married to his mother, and he was still messy. But now he had a cleaning lady to pick up after him. Hollis was always on fast-forward, too much so to slow down and deal with the mundane. Any moment that he wasn’t at work, he was surfing, snowboarding, kayaking, jogging, charming the ladies at nightclubs, and doing pretty much anything else that wasn’t under fluorescent lighting and had to do with computers.
He only lived a few cities away but they barely ever saw one another. Texting sustained their friendship. It had been much longer since she had seen or heard from Wyatt, but she still thought about him often. The McAllister twins were the only good things that had come into Aviana’s life out of their parents’ many years of drama. The greatest love story ever told was how Dad and Lynda described it, but it had been hell for the three kids pushed to the side through their multiple marriages and divorces and reconciliations. They had broken up for good now, so Dad had promptly found another broken bird to try to save. The current one was Ramona. He could look at a room full of smart, secure, independent women and laser in on the one who was falling apart in five minutes flat.
She wrote back to Hollis. Would Mouseman or The Creature win in a fight? That was an interview question. I had to admit that I didn’t even know who they were.
The Creature all the way, Hollis replied.
If you could be super-smart or super-fast, which one would you pick?
I’d be super-sexy. Then nothing else would matter.
He was already sexy. With his dark hair and deep blue eyes, his chiseled, tanned body and white, even teeth, he had no trouble attracting women. But he didn’t keep them long. Aviana thought that deep down, he was scared to death of anyone getting to know him. Lynda had swung between utterly ignoring her sons to criticizing every last thing they did, especially with Hollis. Having been on the receiving end of it herself many times, Aviana knew how awful it was. Her former stepmother was a master at undermining everyone around her. It had been years since they had last spoken, and Aviana hadn’t missed her once.
A car pulled up in front of the house. It was Ramona’s old rattletrap. The disgruntled sounds of the engine penetrated all the way to the living room as Hollis sent another text. Have to put on my loincloth and hunt down some dinner now but just need to ask. You’d be renting out lifts and air compressors and power tools in that job, so how does any of this involve Mouseman exactly?
She had wondered the same thing. The rattletrap pulled away and the front door opened. “Hey, Dad,” Aviana called. His hair was rumpled and his shirt askew. It was better not to contemplate why.
“How did it go? Did you get the job?” he asked, putting down his wallet and adding a fistful of change to the ashtray in the entryway for that purpose.
Not a hello, not a question about how she was doing or how her leg had held up. She was very adept at reading her father’s moods, and he had cut right to business. That wasn’t a good sign. Since starting up his whirlwind romance with Ramona, he had become quite abrupt with Aviana.
“It was a bust,” Aviana said carefully. “And that’s for the better. I think I would have been really unhappy there.”
Dad flopped into his recliner beside the sofa and looked at her in dissatisfaction. There was lipstick on his collar. Above it, a hickey was developing nicely. “You aren’t going to find the perfect job!” he snapped at her. “There’s no such thing, especially when you’re starting out.”
“Dad, I’m not expecting the perfect job straight out of college,” Aviana protested. “It was just a very strange place. Pretty unprofessional and the owner practically has a toy store in his office.”
He wasn’t listening. “Every company has a culture. You have to fit in with what they want, not expect them to adjust to you.”
“I understand that.”
“Your generation is a bunch of bumblebees, always flying around searching for a better flower. I see it all the time, these new employees coming in looking for their gold stars and pats on the head, dreaming they’re going to be vice president of the company in months like this is a movie starring them. Instead of being quiet and learning how things are done, they barge in to tell people who have been doing the job for decades how to go about it. And when they don’t feel like they’re being appreciated enough for how wonderful they are, they have a tantrum and fly away. Burning their bridges all the way down into Mommy and Daddy’s basement.”
There had been two bad hires at his work in the last five years, only two out of a dozen or more, but he generalized their entitled behavior to everyone under the age of thirty. This was still far more vicious than he usually was about it, and she didn’t joke that they didn’t have a basement for her to live in. It would just set him off further.
“I had a job one week after my graduation, a good job,” Dad rambled. “I stayed there for twenty years and made myself into one of the team. And I would have died rather than have to live with my parents, leeching off them.”
He cast another dissatisfied look at Aviana, who said, “I want a job and I’m going to find one. I want my own place, too. If I hadn’t broken my leg, I’d have that job and place right now. I’m not a leech. This was just my first interview. It didn’t go well. The second one has
to be better.”
“Ramona says-”
Of course. That explained everything in a flash. She should have known that this wasn’t coming solely from him. He and Ramona had only been together for six weeks, but Dad was doing what he always did: taking on a new relationship way too fast and adopting her views in place of his. He was like an empty chalkboard just waiting for any random woman to stop by and scribble on him.
Dad was now snorting in derision. “Tough love! She had to use that to get her boy off his duff and did he throw a tantrum on his way out the door! Whining like a baby and what did he do but just go live with his grandparents to be a mooch there-”
Not wanting to hear stories, Aviana interrupted him. “Dad, are you telling me to move out?”
He blinked at her. “Well, it makes Ramona uncomfortable to think of living here with you-”
Her temper rising, Aviana said, “You’re telling me to move out so you can move her in. A woman that you have known for less than two months! Is that it?”
“She’s having a tough time and needs help in getting back on her feet. You’re back on your own feet and you’re twenty-two now. It’s time to take on adult responsibilities. That means-”
“I know what that means! And just when do I have to be out of here by?”
“Not right away. She has two more weeks until she has to be out of her apartment but she’d like to leave a little earlier so that-”
Aviana got up and said stiffly, “I’ll pack now and be gone tonight.”
His expression was halfway between angry and startled. To his perspective, she was the one being unreasonable and rude, not to mention heartless in the face of poor Ramona’s plight. The woman was in her late forties and lived in a perpetual state of chaos that was entirely self-created. She didn’t make enough money to live in this area, yet wouldn’t consider moving to a less affluent city and commuting. Nor would she consider taking a second job. She constantly threw her money away on lottery tickets and went shopping on credit cards. Aviana would have more compassion if it was for groceries, but Ramona couldn’t say no to shoe sales and fitness equipment and mini-vacations in ritzy hotels. Because she deserved it! If she was losing her apartment, it was her own fault. Aviana had felt like she was sitting with an impulsive fifteen-year-old in the one meal that she, Ramona, and Dad had had together at a restaurant.
But that was precisely what Dad liked. Pretty and powerless and seeking a white knight to save her. Aviana had become an inconvenience to her father again. It had hurt when she was a little girl, and it still hurt now that she was an adult.
Going to her bedroom, Aviana slammed the door and began to pack. Her stomach was dropping from agitation. Where in the world was she going to go? She didn’t even have a car. In her wallet was ten dollars, and her bank account held the not-so-princely sum of one hundred bucks. That was all the wealth she had. Her friends would have let her stay with them, but they’d all graduated at the same time and flown home to various states.
She received a text from Hollis. I speared a burrito. It was a noble death, and I thanked it for prolonging my life with its own. No longer in a good mood, she didn’t write back to him.
One of her professors lived locally, and she had his personal cell phone number. But it would be strange to cross that line with Professor Strammen. They had been close, but it was an academic closeness. He had a wife too, and what would she make of it? And Aviana hated asking anyone for help. She preferred to figure things out on her own.
Still, she couldn’t see a way out of this. As soon as her clothes were packed, she sat on the bed to think. Then she called Hollis. He picked up on the second ring and said in good cheer, “Avvie? Are you calling me, or is this your butt like last time? Don’t get me wrong: I like hearing from women’s butts. Men not so much.”
“Dad is kicking me out,” she blurted, embarrassed to be telling him. They didn’t confide very personal things to one another, despite the fact that they had grown up on and off at each other’s sides. “I don’t know where to go. Hollis, I don’t know what to do.”
Surprised, Hollis said, “What happened?”
“He has a new woman moving in, which apparently puts the house over capacity.”
“Wow. And you know how fast the fire marshal will show up to slap a citation on the door.” He yawned. “You can come over here if you want. This is a big house and you haven’t gotten to see it yet. Stay as long as you need to. There are two spare bedrooms. Wyatt’s always gone on business trips and I usually just come in to crash at night.”
Humiliated even further, she said, “I don’t have a car.”
“Take a bus. Or go online to Fast As A Bullet. Those are cheap rides. Will you hold on a second? I’m talking to Wyatt on the other line. He’s on the East Coast and it’s late there, so let me tell him goodbye.”
She waited, idly packing more of her belongings. The bus system sucked, and she doubted her ten dollars would cover the ride between their homes. She would have to walk to the bank and withdraw as much as it let her. Milan. She couldn’t stop being aware of her surroundings just because she was preoccupied and he hadn’t shown his face in a while.
To have a place to go was making her stomach stop dropping. She would find a job as fast as it was humanly possible so she didn’t impose on Hollis’ kindness for too long. She hadn’t done all that studying for her degree just to work in a fast food drive thru, but almost any means of income was preferable to nothing.
When the relationship with Ramona went sour, as it inevitably would, Dad would begin calling and leaving messages like nothing was wrong. Aviana didn’t know if she would return them.
Going to her desk, she picked up the framed picture of herself and the twins when they were small. The only way to tell Hollis and Wyatt apart back then was by their expressions. Hollis always had a big smile. When he was happy, it lit up his entire face. Wyatt was much more serious. Even in his joyous moments, he didn’t brighten as much as his brother. Standing between them, a towheaded young Aviana was clutching her favorite stuffed bunny. She had to clutch it when the boys teased her relentlessly by hiding it.
Just as she was packing up the picture, Hollis came back. “I’m sorry-”
She couldn’t stay with him. Her stomach dropped again.
“Wyatt just yelled at me for suggesting the bus or some weirdo’s personal taxi. He’s probably still yelling and hasn’t realized I clicked over to you. I should be there in less than an hour, depending on traffic. Are you okay until then?”
“Yes!” she said, overcome with gratitude. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” Hollis said casually. “See you soon, Ballpunch.”
Chapter Two
She watched out her window for Hollis’ car, wanting to go out with her things the second he pulled up to the curb. Dad would change faces on a dime if Hollis appeared at the door. Clapping him on the back, asking after Lynda and Wyatt, making jokes about the empty nest he was going to have, he would rope Hollis into a long, friendly conversation that ended up with them staying at the house deep into the night. Aviana didn’t think that she could stand to listen to it.
Betrayal was a sour taste on her tongue. She wanted to be close to her father. Her biological mother had died before Aviana was a year old, leaving him as the only parent she had. But she was painfully aware of how peripheral she was to his life. She never came first. He had his work, he had his hobbies, he had his women. He was only there for Aviana when he had nothing better to do. Yet at those times he could be sweet and understanding, and she’d clung to those moments as proof that she was more to him than what she actually was.
Bright headlights turned down the road. When the car slowed as it approached the house, she slung her loaded backpack over her shoulders, gathered the straps of two packed purses in her left hand, and picked up her suitcase with the right. Then she hobbled down the hallway, unbalanced by the weight. Dad was watching television in the living room. No. The television was playing
softly, but he was chuckling into his cell phone. She could hear the flirtatious cadence of his voice, if not the words.
The ashtray was overflowing in the entryway. Setting down her suitcase, she rapidly plucked out all of the quarters, dimes, and nickels. It was communal change and she was going to need it. After she pocketed several dollars in coins, she opened the front door just as Hollis was coming up the steps.
He looked good, and her heart beat a little faster. The adorable little boy from the picture had turned into a handsome guy. Broad shoulders and broad chest, narrow at the waist and hips, he had the perfect shape for a man. It had been over a year since she had seen him last. His hair had gotten longer in that time.
Was it strange to look at him like she would any other cute guy? Maybe if she had grown up with him day in and day out it would be, but there had been long stretches when their parents were separated that they didn’t see one another or have any contact. He had been a brother to her when they were small, but now? She wasn’t having sisterly feelings. And whenever he flirted a little with her, it made her melt into a puddle.
He smiled to see her and opened his mouth to speak. She put a finger to her lips and he snapped it shut. Taking the suitcase from her, he carried it down the steps as she quietly closed the door. Dad could move Ramona in tomorrow. Let her spend everything in his bank account on yoga balls and trips to the casino, let him wheedle for her to budget or enroll in a personal finance management class and pout when she pushed back. One woman he dated had pulled herself together, and it was very telling how Dad tried to undercut her newfound self-sufficiency. He couldn’t cope with a woman who wasn’t reliant on him to save the day.
Stepbrother Romance: The Complete Box Set Page 6
