Escape: A Stepbrother Romance

by Ashe, Jessica

  I’d suspected as much for years. Although I had been too young to understand at the time, my dad had often stayed overnight in the City because, according to him, he finished work too late to come home. I knew solicitors worked long hours, but most of them still made it home at the end of the day.

  “It’s not my place to say,” Gemma said.

  “It’s okay, you don’t have to say anything. It’s not like I could hate my dad much more than I already do right now. Mum deserved better that’s all.”

  “She did,” Gemma replied. I caught her wiping a tear from the corner of her eye, but carried on chopping carrots so as not to embarrass her. “Promise me one thing,” Gemma continued, “don’t settle. Don’t end up with someone convenient or someone who is a good fit on paper. And certainly don’t put up with cheating. Your mum deserved better and so do you. You promise?”

  “I promise,” I said.

  When Gemma mentioned settling for someone who was a good fit on paper my first thought was Oliver. I’d only met him a few times over the course of a weekend, but he seemed like my destiny. Dad would love him. But I knew I never would.

  There were no other men in my life except Caiden but Gemma wouldn’t approve of him either, not if she knew he was on his way back to London to screw someone else right now. It wasn’t cheating, not technically, but it sure as hell felt like it. He was screwing someone else and it was tearing me up inside. If he was capable of doing that to me when we’d only shared one night together then he would cause me no end of misery if I let anything else happen between us.

  Caiden was the polar opposite of my father in many ways, but my father had cheated on my mother, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that Caiden would cheat on me the same way. I wanted to make my mother proud, and that meant being with someone who respected me. Caiden was not that person.

  The small town of Windsor was not the best place to be when you wanted to get your mind off someone. My usual way of dealing with problems consisted of finding a new woman to screw. I’d never been able to worry about a problem while balls deep in a new piece of pussy. I wasn’t going to find any of that around here.

  After Vicky had stormed out of the pub, I’d gone home to grab my bag and had gone straight to London. I didn’t want to go all the way back to the penthouse, but I had to after the fuss I’d made in the pub. It was a long train ride and I had no intent of meeting up with Naomi, so it was a wasted trip. Fortunately, Naomi didn’t know where I lived, so I texted back to tell her I was staying outside of London and wouldn’t be able to hook up with her.

  I thought Sheri might have been exaggerating about canceling the lease, but I found a note under the door from the landlord confirming that the lease would expire in a week. Most of the furniture had been there when I moved in and included in the rent, but I’d acquired boxes of books and a few additional wardrobe’s worth of clothes in the time I’d been in London. I decided to stay at the penthouse because I wasn’t ready to deal with Vicky just yet.

  I packed the clothes into bags and the books into boxes. The boxes would have to be shipped—there was no way I was lugging them back on a train which would probably be standing room only—so I printed off a few labels and found a delivery service that did collections.

  Now I just had to pass the night in front of the TV. There were a few bottles of whiskey that I had planned to leave behind in the apartment, but decided I might as well finish them off. Besides, that way I would smell of booze the next day and Vicky would think I’d been out drinking and, hopefully, screwing.

  After a few generous helpings of whiskey I decided that I did actually want to get out of the penthouse. I couldn’t keep my mind on any of the television shows that were on, and I couldn’t be bothered to dig out a book from the boxes that had already been sealed.

  I was starting to wish I’d just bought ebooks, but a bookcase full of hardcover books made a place feel like home to me. It was bad enough that we were living in a penthouse that screamed ‘temporary accommodation;’ I didn’t want the constant reminder that I would soon be moving again.

  Sheri had said we would only be in London for one year at the most, but that was before she met Roy. Now the stay would be indefinite—for her at least—and I was going to need to figure something out. Presumably Sheri would get a visa to stay in the UK if she was marrying Roy, but that wouldn’t do me much good.

  I sent messages to a few friends that I knew were in London. I’d not exactly enamored myself to the locals—probably because I kept fucking their women—but a few Americans from back home were in the area. Jason replied to say that he was in town and sent me the address of a club he was going to tonight. He’d been at university in the US, but when he was dropped from the football team he decided to study abroad for semester. The English university’s rugby team had welcomed him with open arms.

  All I knew about rugby was that it looked a bit like football without all the body armor and the players liked to get in a very aggressive huddle on a regular basis. The players all looked like they’d had their noses broken on more than one occasion as well. I tried watching the sport a few times, but couldn’t see the appeal. I wasn’t much of a football fan either, but at least I understood it and had a vague idea what was going on.

  I didn’t know much about rugby, but I knew a bit about the culture. Rugby players knew how to drink. They might be a little posh, but rugby guys could show frat boys a thing or two when it came to drinking and fooling around with women. It probably helped that rugby players could go drinking in bars and clubs, legally, whereas frat boys had to settle for drinking at unofficially organized parties once every couple of weeks. Still, there was something slightly more appealing to the way rugby players knocked back warm beer and picked up women in bars.

  Jason’s family came from money, so I’d hoped he would be in an upscale bar, but the taxi took me into one of the grittier parts of London. It wasn’t dangerous—I’m not sure London could ever feel dangerous to me after growing up in America where the criminals had guns—but it was full of poor students getting pissed on cheap booze. Not exactly my sort of place, but I was the guest and couldn’t be picky.

  I slipped the bouncer a few ‘quid’ to skip the line and walk straight in. The British might have a respectable ability to stand in line, but queuing was not for me. Once I stepped through the door, I wished I had been in the line outside instead.

  The nightclub had the thick stench of sweat in the air which made me wish England hadn’t banned smoking in bars. At least that might cover the smell. I walked around the perimeter to look for Jason and found him at the sixth bar I went to.

  “Alright, mate,” Jason said, wrapping his arm around my shoulder.

  I had a solid build, but Jason was bigger and when he was this drunk he had a habit of leaning on me and throwing his weight around. I looked around at the rest of his teammates and noticed that Jason was by far the most drunk already. One of the first lessons I’d learned on arriving in the UK was not to underestimate the ability of the British to drink copious amounts of alcohol.

  Just before I left the US for the UK, a few friends had jokingly told me to ‘teach those English lads how to drink.’ That hadn’t been necessary. I’d failed at every attempt to keep up with British people when drinking and insisted on staying out of the rounds.

  In the UK, it was common for friends to take turns buying drinks for the entire group. The next round of drinks had to be ready for when the first person finished theirs, so you always ended up drinking more than you would if you bought the drinks yourself. That was another reason I stuck to whiskey. Nobody wanted to buy a round that included an expensive glass of whiskey. Jason needed to learn he couldn’t keep up with his teammates or he would arrive back in the UK with no memories of his time in the UK.

  Jason seem to be relieved to have a fellow American in the bar with him and showed me off to all his friends by saying that I was a god when it came to picking up women. Most of them just laughed—co
nfident in their own abilities with the opposite sex—but when women started approaching me without me even trying they soon started taking me seriously.

  “How do you do it?” asked the guy with a scar on his cheek. I considered giving him the nickname Scarface, but assumed he would’ve heard that a few million times before, so I just used it in my head.

  “I’m not doing anything,” I replied.

  “That’s what I mean. How do you get them to just come up to you like that? I spent over an hour talking to that blonde bird over there and bought her three drinks, but the second I tried to get her up on the dance floor she makes some excuse and disappears. Then you show up and she comes on to you.”

  “She offered to buy me a drink as well,” I said. “Don’t worry, I’m not interested. You can have her if you want.”

  “You’re a mystery, man,” Scarface said. “It’s like there’s some role reversal thing going on around you. I have never once had a woman offer to buy me a drink. Apart from my mom. I am in awe. Teach me, sensei.”

  “There’s nothing to teach,” I said. “You just need to stop trying so hard. You’re a confident guy which helps, and I’m sure you never go home empty-handed, but if you want the classy chicks then you need to change up your approach a bit.”

  I didn’t tell Scarface that I’d bumped into the woman in question on a visit to the bathroom. She dropped some money, and I ran after her to gave it back. She thanked me profusely, and when we saw each other again at the bar she insisted on buying me a drink. It probably looked like she was hitting on me and maybe she was, but I quickly got rid of her.

  Once it was past midnight, Jason and the rest of the rugby team was on the dance-floor trying to find the women who wouldn’t mind grinding up against them for a few hours. They easily found willing accomplices. At this time of night, the women left on the floor wanted to hook up with men as much as the men wanted to get in their pants, so it wasn’t exactly difficult.

  I stayed around the edge and just people-watched. The club only had three brands of whiskey, and all of them were fairly terrible—and American brands strangely enough—but the bar did have a respectable amount of vodka. I ordered the most expensive one and after a few sips found myself wondering why I didn’t drink it more often. Sure, it burned your chest on the way down, but the sensation was addictive and I soon found myself taking a lap of the club just to slow down the pace at which I was knocking back the vodka.

  My eyes scoured the room looking at the women, but never looking at the same one for very long. Most of them were in short skirts, high heels, and tops that revealed at least fifty percent of their tits, if not more. I’d usually be like a Texan at a barbecue right now—grabbing hold of every leg and breast that I could find—but tonight none of the women could hold my attention.

  The only one I looked twice at was the quiet young girl who looked like she had been dragged out by her friends straight from work. She wore a knee-length skirt and a blouse that looked a lot like those Vicky wore. If she’d had a pearl necklace as well then the choice of clothes would be almost identical.

  I smiled at the poor girl without thinking about it and she smiled back, probably thinking that for once a guy was actually interested in her. I felt guilty and looked away. She looked pleasant enough, and I’m sure she was a lovely girl, but the smile had been intended for someone else. Besides, the golden rule was still in place even though I had broken it recently—especially because I broken it recently. She would have to direct her innocent smile at someone else.

  In addition to packing up the penthouse, the point behind spending the night in London had been to take my mind off Vicky, but she had a habit of creeping back into my thoughts more than a woman I’d only spent one night with had any right to. The club was full of women who ticked all the right boxes. Women who I could easily take home and fuck every which way until I’d finished off that box of condoms. I hadn’t even made a dent in the box yet. All I’d done was take one out and put it in my wallet for emergencies. Here was a club full of eager women and yet the only one who caught my eye was the one who resembled Vicky.

  I had a rule concerning going back to women I’d already screwed. It was a vague rule and hard to articulate, but basically I didn’t go back and fuck anyone I thought wanted more than just my cock and tongue for the evening. If it sounded like they wanted conversation or time together watching a movie then I wouldn’t go near them.

  That rule should stop me going back to Vicky, but to hell with it. I’d broken the golden rule for her and this was just a small side rule. Almost a technicality, really. If you’re going to break the big rule you might as well break all the little ones at the same time. Or shortly thereafter.

  I put my glass down on the bar and walked directly to the exit, picking up lots of small pieces of broken glass on the sole of my shoe as I did so. You’ve got to love student bars. I went back to the penthouse with a focus and determination I’d not had in a while.

  I needed to have Vicky again. I needed to taste her. I needed to feel my cock being clenched by that tight cunt. It was time to get serious and stop playing around. She wanted me and I wanted her. It was going to happen and it was going to happen soon.

  Today I could speak to Mum. Even though I called her every couple of weeks, I still felt like a kid before Christmas in the hours up to the call. Life wasn’t the same without Mum. Everything had changed the day of the accident and even though she was out of hospital and physically a lot better, she still had more bad days than good. I clung on to the news from the doctor that she was improving, but I rarely noticed any difference in our calls.

  I’d scheduled the call for when Dad was at work, but he came home early to get changed before dinner with Sheri. I hated talking to Mum while Dad was in the house in case he overheard any of our conversation, so I borrowed the spare car and drove to the park where I would have some privacy. Other than a few kids screaming as they messed around, the place was deserted, and I felt able to converse with my mother as normal.

  The conversation was a little stilted, but Mum asked a lot of questions today, whereas she often just let me do all the talking. Last time we spoke she had asked me if there was a boy in my life, but I told her I was waiting until university. She told me not to wait, but I explained that long-distance relationships were tough, and she eventually agreed that it would be sensible to wait a few months before dating anyone. I left out the fact that no men wanted to date me anyway.

  Today, I wanted Mum to ask me about boys—or men—but she didn’t. I’d made too much of a fuss last time, and she probably didn’t want to bring up the subject, so I took the initiative.

  Mum and I had been so close that if it were not for the accident I would have probably told her about losing my virginity. It wouldn’t have been an easy conversation; even though Mum was cool and became more like a sister than a mother, she still wouldn’t want to hear of her daughter’s loss of innocence. But she would’ve understood. And she certainly wouldn’t have judged.

  I considered telling her, but decided against it. She would have questions and I wouldn’t be able to answer them. How would that conversation even go? “His name is Caiden, and he’s not exactly the university type. We spent a wild night having sex, but now he’s screwing other women. Oh and Dad is getting married to another woman, and Caiden is her son.”

  I told a few minor lies and said that I was exchanging a few emails with someone at Cambridge, but that we weren’t officially dating. At least that way I would be able to talk to her about Caiden indirectly.

  Mum laughed even though I could tell she was tired. She thought it was weird that young people today started seeing each other via email instead of in person and she scolded me for using the Americanism ‘dating.’ Had that slipped in from spending too much time with Caiden?

  I could only speak to Mum for an hour at a time because she got tired. We’d already been talking for fifty minutes and I hadn’t told her about Dad getting remarried. I didn�
�t think she’d care, in fact I’m sure she wouldn’t, but that didn’t make the conversation any easier.

  No daughter wanted to be the one to tell their mother that the father had moved on and was in a happy relationship with someone else. Gemma offered to have the conversation with Mum instead, but it felt like something that should come from me. If it were up to Dad, Mum would probably never find out.

  My Auntie came on the line after an hour and insisted that we wrap up the call. I usually pleaded for another ten or fifteen minutes, but that had been a tough conversation and both Mum and I were exhausted.

  Mum’s voice generally lacked emotion these days, but I’m sure I heard sadness in her voice when she said goodbye. Maybe I was just projecting my own feelings onto her. Next time I would make sure the conversation was more upbeat. Before I spoke to her again, I planned to have designed a couple of recipes and recorded them on my blog. Screw the Mandarin lessons.

  Caiden and Gemma had both encouraged me to live my own life, and the conversation with Mum tipped me over the edge. She didn’t say anything about cooking, but speaking to her when she was in this state was a stark reminder that life is short and sometimes you need to live for the moment.

  The Mandarin lessons were to start tonight for the introductions and it would then be full-time five days a week plus additional studying at home until the end of the summer. The course was described as an ‘intensive program designed to impart rudimentary language skills on its students upon completion.’ Perhaps if I’d had a holiday to China booked or some other motivation to learn the language I wouldn’t have been so dismissive, but everything about the course reminded me of my father and how he dictated every moment of my life.