by Wood, Vivian
I cringe inwardly. Why would she lie about our names?
Ducking my head, I take a sip of the too-sweet lemonade clutched in my hand. I feel judged by these guys, as if our personalities are reduced down to the sum of the how much skin we have on display. They survey our bare legs and our flat chests and try to decide if we are even worth talking to.
“What are you girls doing here? Seeing a movie or something?” Dane asks, crossing his arms. As he does, the guys circle in even closer. One of them reaches out a hand and brushes his fingers across the bare skin of my shoulders. They laugh at my knee-jerk reaction.
“Don’t touch me,” I grit out. I clutch the pretzel I’m holding, beginning to shake.
Why did I come here again?
Tanya smiles evenly. “Don’t get your titties in such a twist, Evelyn. It’s not a big deal.”
“Not that she has any titties to twist,” one of the guys says. The teenagers find this hilarious, laughing at me. My cheeks turn scarlet and my guts snarl into a knot.
I narrow my eyes at Dane. “I think I should go.”
“Hear that guys? She thinks she should go.” Sim leans in and grins. “Don’t be such a baby, Evelyn.”
I look pleadingly over to my friend, but Tanya is no help. “Yeah, don't be such a baby! They are just playing around.”
She’s aligning herself with the guys for some reason. I start to back away, ready to put the lemonade in the trash and hustle back to my backpack. But one of the teenaged boys is right behind me, his arms closing around me from behind as I stumble.
“Let me help you out,” he sniggers. This close to him, he reeks of pot smoke.
“Let go!” I whine. “Seriously—”
“Hey!” a male voice calls. “Take your hands off of her right now.”
The teenage boys part like a curtain, the one who has a hold on me dropping me like a hot potato. I look over to my savior, who is bearing down on our group with a long scowl.
I blink.
He’s tall and broad, with short dark hair and the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen.
“Aiden?” comes bubbling out of my mouth.
He sees me and looks doubly angry. He swings his head around, practically breathing fire. “Get moving, all of you. And I don't ever want to catch you grabbing a girl like that again. Ever.”
Dane and his crew are already turning tail and scurrying away. Tanya licks her traitorous lips and edges away, looking at me meaningfully. I turn around and look at her as she starts to drift off, trying to decide what I should do.
Aiden growls at me. “Not you, Olivia. You stay put.”
Facing back toward him with wide eyes, I realize that my hands are shaking a little. He circles me, glaring.
“It’s noon on a Tuesday. Where are you supposed to be right now? Don’t you have school?”
I flush. “Umm… it’s spring break.”
Actually last week was spring break, but he doesn’t need to know that.
Aiden looks unamused. “Uh huh. Does your mom know where you are right now?”
That one hurts. “Mom disappeared like three weeks ago. I’m doing fine on my own.”
His eyes are focused like a laser on my face. “I don't think you are doing fine. Where is Grayson?”
My gaze sinks to my feet. I twist my lips. “At basic training for a couple of months.”
Instantly Aiden’s face softens. “Ah. I didn’t realize. I just got home on leave myself.”
I nod, my face still scrunched up. Talking about how I feel about my brother all but abandoning me isn’t exactly high on my priority list right now. He takes another second to scan my face, then sighs.
“I think we should get you home. Or somewhere safe, at least. And…” He looks me up and down. “You have to wear… more.”
Cheeks burning, I don't know what to say to that. I have the distinct thought that if a giant sink hole opened up in the floor right now and swallowed me whole, I would welcome it.
Aiden raises both brows. “You ready to go?”
Confessing is the most intense kind of agony imaginable. “My backpack is stashed away in a closet. It’s got a change of clothes in it.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Alright. Let’s go get it.”
He waits for me to throw away the lemonade I’m holding. I keep the pretzel, though I couldn’t fathom being hungry right now. Still, it’s good to have. The kid that’s known real hunger before won’t let me throw it away anyway.
Dragging my feet as I go back to the closet and retrieve my backpack, I try to think clearly. As I change clothes, I wince. I’m in so much trouble as soon as Aiden tells Grayson the circumstances of his finding me.
When I come out of the ladies room, relief is written all over Aiden’s face as he surveys me. “That’s better.”
I look down at my faded too-big hoodie and my boy’s cargo shorts. For the first time, I feel ashamed of what I am wearing. More ashamed than when I was wearing the itty bitty dress.
At least when I wore that, it was easy to tell that I have a shape. In my regular clothes, I am literally hidden. I pull my backpack onto my shoulder and try not to cry, utterly miserable.
“You can take me home but no one will be there,” I rasp.
Aiden favors me with another long look. “Do you like pizza?”
My stomach rumbles at the very thought, even though I’m too worked up to really feel hungry. “I guess?”
“Come on. There’s a pizza place on the other side of the mall.” He reaches out and touches my shoulder gently, just to get me moving. “We can stop there on the way to your house.”
It’s almost electric, the feeling of his fingers on my thin shoulder. Sure, the hoodie is in the way. But that doesn’t stop me from looking up at him with something like awe.
Realization hits me like a lightning bolt straight to the heart.
He saved me.
Now he’s taking care of me.
As we stroll toward the pizza place together, I can barely breathe because I know…
He cares about me. Not because he has to, like Grayson. And not because he’s paid by the state, like all those foster parents.
He just cares because he’s a good guy.
And that makes him a thousand times more attractive to me than I found him before. Starry eyed, I follow along, tongue tied and clutching to my backpack for dear life.
Chapter Seven
Aiden
The next morning, I wake up and force coffee down my throat. As I shower and get ready, I put a record in the record player. “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” blares through the crappy speakers, instantly lifting my mood.
I have a lot of vices, but my records are a lasting addiction that I don't want to shake. Marvin Gaye’s smooth voice sounds great despite the lack of sound equipment, and I like to think it makes being required to put on pants today bearable.
I’m not a natural early bird by any means, though working at the National Park Service put me on something of a daytime schedule. It’s been ten days now since I was put on leave there, and my night owl instincts are kicking in again.
Still humming that tune, I fill up a thermos with more coffee.
Then I head out of my apartment to find Olivia’s place empty. That figures. Olivia has always struck me as a morning person. Besides, this gives me a little time and a ton of coffee before I have to see her. Which is great, since I need to get my defenses up. Otherwise, who even knows what I will do or say around her.
I drag myself through the woods and up to the main house. As I go, I try to make a list of things I have to do around the house.
Scrape the old paint off the house and add a new coat.
The wraparound porch is in bad shape, so that needs fixing.
The roof of the employee quarters could use some serious patching, and from the looks of it the main house could too.
Clear the brush out of the yard. I think when I started, Mrs. Morgan mentioned a garden, but where it was exactly elud
es me just now. The yard is honestly a fucking wreck.
And that’s just the outside of the main house. Who knows what I’ll find when I start poking around on the inside.
So far, I have been raking the gravel that leads up to the house back into some semblance of a path, but that task is pretty much done. There is just so much work to be done, it’s kind of dizzying.
Under all of that, I’m supposed to be gleaning any kind of information that I can about the Morgans. Right now I don’t know whether I could be one of them or not. I know even less than I would want from them if I find out I’m actually a Morgan.
First things first. I need to ask Mrs. Morgan what she would prefer I start with. Then I need to find out a little more about her nephews. I know from public record that she had two nephews — Thomas and Robert — but there was almost nothing else to go on. I also remember what my mother said.
Your biological father is Thomas Morgan.
Stomping up the front porch, I stumble a little bit when my foot catches on a loose stair. My coffee sloshes over the side of my thermos, missing scalding my hand by the barest margin. I feel my temper flare up.
“God damn it,” I mutter, glaring back at the stairs. “Maybe I should fix you first.”
“Not a bad idea.”
I turn my head and see a man my age looking on from one corner of the porch, a hint of amusement on his aristocratic features. His skin is a few shades darker than mine, giving him a vaguely trans-European air. He’s tall and almost a broad as I am, with hair long dark hair pulled into an elegant bun. He sports a beard, looking like a very refined caveman in his blue button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the expensive dark slacks, a pair of dark oxfords on his feet. His outfit screams wealth. I know it all too well from my years at Bentham prep and Yale.
This guy is dressed like he has money, something I actively work to avoid. He looks like some kind of ad for an Ivy League college mixed with an ad for expensive cologne.
Staring him down earns him a steely look from me.
“Sorry, who are you?” I rumble.
One corner of his mouth kicks up. He pushes off the porch railing, extending his hand. “Carter Morgan. Margaret is my great aunt.”
My eyebrows lift. I shake his hand, taking his measure. Inch for inch, we are almost exactly the same height. I squint, pulling my hand back. “So you’re…”
Settling back onto the porch railing again, he cuts me off. “Thomas was my father.”
My heart starts thumping in my chest. If what my mother told me was true, I’m talking to my half-brother. It seems like I’m looking into a fucking mirror and I’m seeing myself, if I had turned out very differently. It makes me feel like I’m in some sort of alternate universe… and distinctly out of place.
All my questions about how true my mother’s deathbed confession was vanish. Before my eyes is the living, breathing proof that my mom was being completely honest.
I am silent for a little too long, looking at him agog.
He squints at me. I swallow, feeling as though I’m being judged. I should know, I’ve done it often enough to other people. He looks me over, his dark eyes calculating.
“You’re the new gardener or something?”
“You can call me Aiden.” I give him a humorless smile. “Your grandmother hired me on for the summer as a handyman.”
His lips lift for a moment, as if he finds that humorous somehow. “A jack of all trades, then.”
Normally I would show my distaste for his whole richer than thou persona he’s got going on, but just now I stifle my rebellious side. “Yep.”
We stare each other down for a solid ten seconds, until Olivia comes out of the front door. She is wearing pants and a tied up pink tee shirt that shows an inch of creamy bare skin above her waistline.
She’s heart stopping, even this early in the morning. For some reason that makes me frown.
“Carter, I—” She sees me and pauses, her cheeks going pink. “Aiden! You’re here. Have you two met?”
“We have,” Carter replies evenly. He moves a little closer, which makes Olivia turn faintly red. “I suppose I don’t have to introduce you?”
Olivia licks her lips as looks at me, her blue eyes shining. “No. I’ve known Aiden since we were kids.”
Carter smiles blandly. “How nice.”
Olivia shrugs a shoulder. “At least I’m not staying in the servants’ quarters with a total stranger. What’s more, Aiden is going to help me move those huge stacks of papers and books around in the library.”
I raise a brow. This is news to me.
Carter doesn’t skip a beat, though. He leans closer to Olivia and intones, “Are you sure you don’t want my help instead?”
I grit my teeth, my fists clenching. That sounds like a line I would use on her, if Olivia weren’t absolutely off limits. Somehow the thought that Carter is allowed to hit on her if he wants to doesn’t register for me at that moment.
I can feel a growl gathering in my throat. “Don’t talk to her like that.”
Carter scoffs. “Like what? Like a pretty girl that I’d like to know better?”
Olivia flushes again, her blue eyes wide as she looks between us. “I... I think I should go inside. I’ll be in the library whenever you two finish… whatever this is.”
Ducking her head, she slips away, disappearing back into the house.
That leaves Carter and me standing outside, frowning at each other with narrowed eyes.
“I don’t know if I like you,” Carter says calmly.
“And I don’t like the way you talk to Olivia,” I spit back.
He cocks his head. “Is she spoken for?”
I snort. “It’s 2019, dude. Get enlightened. A woman doesn’t need to have a boyfriend in order to not be harassed.”
Carter takes a second to process that. He seems a little disbelieving. Fair enough, as they aren’t my words; I’m just repeating what an angry girl in a bar said to me about her drunk friend a couple months back.
He settles for avoiding another argument. “I should go.” He looks out across the yard. “And it looks like you have a ton of stuff to do here…”
No shit. I lift my chin and stalk to the front door, my mind whirring. If Carter is indeed my brother, that meeting could have gone better. Then again, when was the last time that I met and got along with another guy?
“I’ll have my eye on you,” Carter says, just as I’m almost through the door.
I freeze for a second, my temper flaring briefly. It is basically taking everything in me to just let that comment slide. I’m here for a reason, not that he knows that. My fists clench tightly and my heart rate speeds up.
I’m practically spoiling for a fight. But I’m not ready to pick one with a guy that could be my blood.
Not yet.
I lumber inside the house, shutting the door hard on Carter. I stop and sip my coffee, looking around.
“Aiden?” Olivia calls.
I move toward the sound of her voice, skirting the large staircase and heading toward the right. She pokes her head out of a doorway a little down the hallway. She looks relieved as I walk toward her.
“There you are. Margaret has already gone to town on an errand this morning, but she agreed to lend you to me today.” Her head disappears as I get closer. I’ve never been further than the front sitting room, so when I see the library it is a complete surprise.
The ceilings are two stories high and vaulted, daylight pouring in the room from several skylights. The walls are lined with books; before me are piles of books and papers reaching up half the wall. It looks a little like something out of “Hoarders”.
I cough at some of the dust that’s in the room. “Jesus.”
Olivia doesn’t look daunted or put off by the clutter. In fact, she looks excited by the prospect of it. She pulls her hair into a high ponytail, her arms lifting to show off that section of toned midriff again.
My fingers itch with the need to reach ou
t and trail them across the exposed skin.
Ripping my eyes away, I scold myself. I know better than to look at Olivia that way. I’m just going through a self-imposed dry spell. I need to remember that.
“I’m ready,” she says, her eyes shining. She puts her hands on her hips and looks up, then scrunches up her face. “Actually… I guess I should catalog what’s in here before I do anything else. Do you think I can borrow a ladder?”
I’m more relieved than I should be. I have a ton of shit on my to do list and I have a lot of thoughts to wade through. There is also the distinct possibility that I don’t want to deal with my libido right now. In any event, I’m not needed here.
“Definitely. There are some really tall ladders in the maintenance shed. I’ll go grab you one and bring it back.”
Olivia smiles. “Thanks, Aiden. And…” She blushes. “Thanks for sticking up for me earlier, with Carter. It wasn’t necessary but it was very sweet of you to think of me.”
More like I couldn’t stand the thought of my maybe-brother talking to you for more than a second. But I don’t say that. Instead I just nod, turning on my heel and head out of the room.
I need to do something. Something that will distract me from Olivia. Anything that will keep me from doing what I want to, which is to bury my hands in her hair, take her mouth, and fuck her up against the wall of that overfull library.
Loathe though I am to admit it, this isn’t the first time I’ve been attracted to Olivia. Not by a long shot. It started when she was around seventeen and has only gotten stronger with every year so far.
Blowing out a breath, I tuck my head down and dash across the yard, trying to pretend that I can run away from my problems.
Chapter Eight
Olivia
I stand in a little space I’ve cleared by one of the library windows, staring outside at Aiden. He doesn’t even notice me there, not that he would particularly care either way if he knew I was watching. I’ve always been essentially invisible to him.