by Megan Bryce
He wasn’t polished.
And she could see the headlines already, tearing him apart.
And then he wouldn’t be smiling at her over a movie either.
But she wouldn’t look at the headlines and she wouldn’t read the comments.
She wouldn’t.
And she wouldn’t let him either.
She couldn’t.
Nicole was incredibly grateful for the distraction from worrying when her phone rang and it was Scott.
“Hey, sis. Quick question. On a scale of one to ten, how horrifying is it that your sister came on to me?”
Nicole sat up as she heard Colette’s voice, faint but snotty.
Oh, you so wish.
Scott ignored her to say, “I mean, I get that we’re not really related. No blood at least. But isn’t it: The sister of my sister is my sister?”
The sister of your sister is your enemy. I am now!
Nicole said, “It’s still pretty horrifying.”
Scott sighed. “Another quick question. How old is she?”
“She’s seventeen.”
Nicole could hear Colette rolling her eyes.
Why is everyone so hung up on that?
Scott pulled the phone away from his mouth to say to Colette, “It’s a thing and it’s called underage. You’ll understand when you’re older. Or when some guy goes to jail because you told him you were nineteen.”
He put the phone back up to say to Nicole, “Well, then, I think I found something that belongs to you and could you come get her?”
I don’t belong to her.
Scott said, “Jail bait. Hoo-haa-haa.”
Oh, I can totally tell you’re related to Nicole.
Nicole said, “How bad is it?”
“She’s flying. I’ve crashed and burned.”
Nicole sighed. “I’ll be right there.”
She found them in the back of the club, side by side on a red velvet couch, both of their arms folded and both of them glaring at the other, unspeaking.
Relief crossed Scott’s face when he saw her. Colette rolled her eyes and looked away.
Scott jumped to his feet. “I’m sorry I had to call you but she was all over me and then she was Colette Bissette and then I needed a shower, stat. This is what I was talking about! We could be related to anybody here and we wouldn’t know it!”
Colette deigned to look at her sister. “There is seriously something wrong with that side of your family. I always thought it was just you. But anytime anyone comes over to see if I’m okay, and I’m not, he says in this deep voice like he’s manly, ‘She’s seventeen, bro. Save your rescue for someone who can thank you for it.’ So not funny.”
“So not,” Scott mimicked. “So thank you for coming so quickly.”
He jerked his chin at Flynn standing quietly behind Nicole. “Who’s this?”
Flynn reached around, holding his hand out. “Flynn. Hi.”
Scott shook it reflexively, then looked at his watch. “Kind of late for a date, isn’t it? This the not-boyfriend?”
Nicole took Flynn’s hand. “Just boyfriend, now.”
Colette stood, running her eyes up and down Flynn. “Oh, Nikita was not lying. You’re dating? Him?”
Scott folded his arms at Flynn. “Upgraded, huh?”
Colette smirked at her sister. “Now you’re going to see how annoying he can be.”
Scott glanced down at her, then unfolded his arms. “Nope, I’m done for tonight because I still need to go wash my sister’s sister off me.”
Colette made a face. “You’re disgusting.”
“You’re family. It is disgusting.”
“You wish you were my family.”
“Why would I wish that you little–”
Nicole stepped between them. “Okay. Thank you, Scott, for finding my sister. I’ll get her home.”
“Better you than me. She’s going to scream bloody murder when she gets close enough to the bouncer.”
Colette sucked in a breath, then bit down hard, her jaw jutting out with force, and Scott was the one smirking this time.
“Called it, didn’t I? Why do you think we’re hiding in this corner?”
“Because you’re a perv? That was my guess.”
Scott gave Nicole a truly disgusted look. “I made out with my sister’s seventeen-year-old sister so I can’t really argue with her, can I?”
Nicole was afraid her face was agreeing with him but she tried anyway.
“It’ll be okay. Tomorrow. She probably won’t even remember.”
“I can only hope. Maybe I’ll go find something to make myself forget. After my shower.”
He nodded at Flynn, heading for the stairs and outside.
Colette called after him, “Bye, Scotty! Call me!”
He jerked to a stop, then turned on his heel and headed for the bar instead.
Nicole blew out a breath and jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Let’s go.”
Colette folded her arms. “No.”
Nicole debated if they were ever going to get her sister out the door without her cooperation and then pulled out her phone.
She dialed.
She put the phone to her ear.
Colette asked, “Who are you calling?”
“The police.”
Colette blinked. “What?”
“My seventeen-year-old sister has been accosted in this club. And she’s high. I think she’s been roofied.”
“Are you crazy? I’ve got my fake ID and I was accosted by your brother!”
“Did you. . .”
“Give him the best night he’s ever likely to get? No! He flipped out when I told him my name!”
“Oh, good. I’d hate for him to be charged with statutory rape. That can ruin a man’s life. And I guess when they test your blood, it’s not going to be Rohypnol, either,” Nicole said, and then into the phone, “I can hold.”
“Okay, stop. Just hang up. Tell them it was a mistake. We can go.”
“This isn’t a game, Colette. You understand?”
“I understand you’re crazy. Willing to throw your new brother under the bus so I get punished. Let’s just go.”
Nicole hung up. She looked at her phone and said, “I can’t save you, Colette. You have to save yourself.”
“There’s nothing to save.”
Nicole looked up then. “No? This is all okay?”
Colette hmphed and brushed past Nicole on the way to the stairs.
Flynn watched for a moment, then said quietly, “Were you really calling the police?”
Nicole shook her head. “Nikita. Let’s take my sister home.”
Megan BryceBoring Is The New Black
Thirty-Five
It was crazy that Nikita looked like a supermodel even in the middle of the night.
Her face was makeup free but still striking in its beauty. Her hair was down around her shoulders and her dark purple robe belted high up under her breasts.
Those weren’t real, Flynn knew from extensive experience. Boob jobs were the first work models had done.
But there was something in Nikita’s bearing, in her eyes, in her movements, that said she would always be beautiful no matter how old she got and no matter what work she had done.
It was inside her.
And Flynn forgave his dad a little.
It was still gross, but Flynn got it. Got how this woman could make any man short-circuit, even if it was a memory.
He looked at Nicole, not seeing any of her mother in her at that moment.
No smiles, no laughter.
Just anger and worry, and Flynn reached for her hand so she didn’t have to be angry and worried alone.
He squeezed gently, and Nikita said looking at their joined hands, “Are you going to tell me his name now?”
Nicole looked like she was going to say no, so Flynn said it for her.
Nikita repeated it, stretching it out like she was tasting every letter, and Nicole said, “Mother. It’s y
our other daughter, and her choice in men, you need to be worried about right now.”
Nikita made a little sound of displeasure, then looked at Colette.
“Your brother, Colette? Really?”
“He’s not my brother. I’ve never even met him, how was I supposed to know?”
Nicole said, “He’s twenty-nine. Could that have stopped you?”
“Twenty-nine’s too old, too? You’re just never happy.”
“I’m just not happy that you’re apparently looking for a sugar daddy? No, I’m not.”
“Gross. He’s not that old. I just think teenage boys are boys and older guys are hot.” Colette looked at Flynn. “Some of them.”
Nikita looked at Flynn again, too, and Nicole’s hand tightened around his. She said, “Some of them are related.”
“I didn’t know he was your brother!”
Colette’s face flushed red and she spun around, nearly running to her bedroom.
They all watched, and Flynn thought there must be something in the Bissette bloodline. A bright neon light flashing around each of them, subconsciously shouting look at me, look at me.
Nicole closed her eyes a moment before Colette slammed her door shut but Flynn jumped.
Nikita was watching him and hardly let the echo of the shutting door fade before she said, “So, Ffllyynn, tell me about yourself.”
Nicole tugged on his hand. “Let’s go. We’ve delivered my prodigal sister to her uncaring mother.”
Nikita said, still looking at Flynn, “I care. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I don’t.”
“It’s just so hard to see it,” Nicole said, and Flynn had to disagree with her.
He could see it. Looking right at, and through, him.
Nikita said, “Give your sister a chance to apologize to you before you leave.”
Nicole laughed, short and harsh, and Nikita said, “She’s embarrassed that it was Scott she was making out with.”
“Wha– How could you even know that?”
“Because, despite what you think, I know my daughter. And I know that she doesn’t normally blush crimson when talking about men. She cares that he’s your brother.”
Nicole’s mouth opened and then she just stood there, staring disbelieving at her mother.
Nikita pointed to Colette’s door. “Don’t talk. Just listen.”
“You want me to just go in her room and say nothing?”
“Yes. Try it. You might enjoy the results.”
Nicole looked torn, wanting to go after her sister and wanting to stay with Flynn, so he gave her a quick smile and let go of her hand.
“I’ll be okay,” he said, not believing it at all.
Nicole sighed, looked at Colette’s door and then at her mother.
“Don’t,” she said, harshly, and Nikita put a hand to her chest as if to say, Moi?
Flynn thought the gesture looked very French.
Not French-American.
Nikita slid between the two of them, taking Flynn’s arm and saying, “Would you like a drink while you wait, Ffllyynnnn?”
Nicole said, “If she offers you a syringe full of bleach, don’t take it.”
Flynn smiled at her, then was pulled away by Nikita.
He said truthfully, “I could do with a Red Bull, calm my nerves. Or a Coke, if you have it.”
“I could do with a cigarette to calm mine. Daughters are so difficult. But I think we’ll both be disappointed tonight.”
She let go of his arm to push him into an oversized armchair, then left him alone while she headed to the kitchen.
He looked over his shoulder at Nicole, smiling again at her and getting an attempt at a smile in return before she turned and walked slowly after Colette.
He watched her knock quietly, then push the door in, and Flynn turned back around to stare at a pale cream sofa and a massive portrait hanging above it.
A younger Nikita lounging on a blanket in a field of grass, smiling out at the viewer. A baby laying in front of her, gumming ecstatically on her own hand, and an older girl sitting cross-legged at her mother’s feet, her back to the viewer and watching the baby carefully.
Flynn knew it was Nicole, even though just a sliver of her face was visible, and he was studying it still when Nikita handed him a short, fat glass half-filled with Coke.
She sat down across from him on the sofa, pulling her feet up and tucking them under her robe.
She leaned forward, pulling open the door under the coffee table and pulling out a small machine. She wrapped tubing around her head and put a nose piece in her nose and said, “Oxygen. You have your substitute, and I have mine.”
She flipped on the switch, a low humming sound coming to life, and sucked in a long puff of oxygen through her nose.
“It is a poor substitute. Dammit.”
Flynn almost laughed, then remembered who he was talking to.
“But it makes me feel better, as I discovered a few years ago when oxygen bars were all the rage. I can trick myself, you see, into thinking that it’s almost as good. More oxygen to the brain must feel better, don’t you think?”
She laughed at herself, closing her eyes and leaning her head back and breathing in and out deeply.
Flynn drank his Coke, and then because his options were talk to Nikita, look at Nikita, or look at the portrait, he looked at the portrait.
After a long minute, she murmured, “It was a photo but I loved it so much, I had it painted.”
Flynn flicked his eyes to her but she was still leaning with her head back and her eyes closed.
“Nicole hates it, of course, but it’s so us. Me, only paying attention to the camera. Nicole hiding from it. Colette oblivious to it. Still true for all of us, or at least mostly true. I find that the older I get, the more I pay attention to. Like men who make my cautious, careful daughter a little less careful and cautious.”
Flynn couldn’t help it, he sat up a little at being called a man by Nikita.
But he didn’t know what, or if, he was supposed to say anything and all he could think was, Thanks?
Maybe, You’re welcome?
So he sipped his Coke and said, “Mm.”
“I’d ask if you love my daughter but I already know you do.”
Flynn choked on his next sip and Nikita chuckled.
“Don’t take it personally. Any man she’d let get close enough to her would have to be in love with her.”
And just like his dad, he made a face when he asked, “Because she’s beautiful and famous?”
“Because she’s beautiful and famous. Because she has a vulnerability that she hates and tries to hide, and that makes men want to protect her. Because she wouldn’t let any man get close to her unless she loved him and it would be impossible for any man not to love all of that in return.”
Flynn’s reply to that was: gurgle gurgle cough gag hack thump thump.
And when he could breathe again, he almost asked to share her oxygen.
He put his drink down on the coffee table, lucky and grateful he hadn’t spilled it all over the chair, and looked up at the portrait.
At that sliver of Nicole, knowing that was all she would ever show anyone.
Just a sliver of herself. Hiding and protecting the rest of herself.
Away from all the eyes that had been watching her, judging her, since the day she was born.
Except she’d shown him so much more than a sliver. Maybe more than she’d shown anyone before.
Because. . .she loved him?
Tingle. Tingle.
In his toes. His fingertips.
The hair on the back of his neck stood up.
Maybe this wasn’t crazy craziness.
Maybe this was love.
Body, heart, and soul.
Zap.
It felt about as good as he’d thought it would.
Like he’d never be the same again.
“Well,” he said. “Well.”
“Loving my daughter will not be easy, Ffllyynn.
”
He did know what to say to that and he was so flustered by the thought that Nicole might actually– could she?– be in love with him, that he said it.
“No shit, Sherlock.”
Nicole had already told him.
It’s not going to be easy. I’m not easy.
If she’d been a normal girl, he would have realized sooner.
He would have been thinking about the future. Thinking about where they’d go from here.
But she wasn’t normal.
She was Nicole and Nicole Bissette, and instead of realizing that maybe she was it in the comfort of his own home, here he was doing it while having some warped version of the talk with her mother.
He said, “And Nicole has already warned me.”
Nikita smiled. “I have no doubt. But I will warn you again.”
She opened her eyes and lifted her head and said, “You have an argument, there will be no complaining to a buddy over beer because it will find its way to the tabloids. Every vacation you take, you’ll be followed, hunted, photographed. Any problems in your relationship will be whispered about and amplified until neither of you can remember the truth. Your parents will be staked out by neighbors who will be offered ludicrous amounts of money to alert the paps when she’s visiting. Friends, and family, will become snitches and ‘inside sources’ because the money is just too good.”
Nikita took another deep breath.
“And lord help us all if after love comes marriage. After marriage comes that baby carriage. They go crazy over wedding photos, pregnancy pics, baby shots. And Nicole will go crazy from the attention. More, when she will always want less.”
Flynn already knew what that would look like, too.
Nicole hiding beside the AV cart, fear in her eyes. Hiding behind her desk, tears on her cheeks.
Nikita’s eyes flicked over his shoulder and then she leaned forward.
“And above all that, every day of your life together, you will be judged. You will be found wanting. You will come up short and declared that you are not her equal. You are not enough. Why is she with you? And then, one day, she’ll think it, too. You are not enough, and why is she with you? Because we all believe, eventually, what others tell us.”
Flynn waited for her to continue and when she didn’t, said, “They, and she, will be right, won’t they?”
