by Demi Donovan
“To a baseball game?” I ask incredulously.
I don’t add anything about the Mets. Christine would skin me alive if I dissed the Mets.
“Baby steps.”
Christine grins and clinks her glass to mine. My ears ring again and we both take a drink.
Two
Austin
“Austin?! Get your ass in here,” Troy roars from somewhere in the back of the house.
“Do you want your cow still mooing? Because this is how you get a piece of steak that will fucking meander off your plate,” I holler back, flipping the steaks on the grill.
The weather’s mild, the sun’s shining, and we’re in the Hamptons. Not too surprisingly, I don’t find myself overly enthused by any of this, with the slight exception of the meat in front of me. I’m ravenous, and I took grill duty because I can’t trust my stepbrothers with a piece of meat if their lives depended on it.
Unless that ‘piece of meat’ happens to be of the female persuasion and they’re all suitably drunk. In that case, I can have full faith that my stepbrothers are capable of handling her just fine.
“Are you about done?” Callum asks, appearing on the porch door.
He’s cradling a beer in one hand and thrusts another one in my general direction, which I accept graciously.
“Almost.”
“Don’t overcook it,” Troy says, jostling past his twin and coming to inspect my handiwork.
“The last time you attempted to grill something, you almost burned the house down,” I remind him, taking a sip of my beer.
“Yeah, well, it’s my house, so I can,” he scoffs back.
We both know I’m full of shit. Troy knows his way around an open flame. I just wanted to delay the inevitable conversations we’re about to have that night.
I throw my hand up to silence Callum before he can drag us into the endless circular-logic argument on the topic of whose house it really is. Between Callum and Troy making all of their money together, and me being the one who handles and grows it for them, it’s an argument we’ve had one too many times.
Occasionally, it culminates in a bout of wrestling, and I’m too hungry to get possibly thrown around by two ex-NFL players. I can take both of them one by one, but these two have the unfortunate tactic of ganging up on you when you least expect it. They fight like cats and dogs half the time but when those two have to put their backs together, they go all out.
“Sure,” I say tersely, stabbing at the steaks one by one and maneuvering them onto a plate.
Callum snatches it up before I can and he and Troy disappear in unison as I turn off the gas and then stalk after them through the massive Hamptons’ house. I never really understood why they wanted it back when they were still actively playing, but I get the appeal now.
Then, they barely had a few weeks off from training camps, away games and generally making an ass of themselves on national media. With a beach view and more square footage than your average football stadium, I can now understand that they needed it all along to fit their egos in. Between the three of us, it can get pretty cramped, though.
The table’s set on the other porch, the one facing the beach. It’s probably so they could keep an eye on the beach bunnies, which is entirely unsurprising when it comes to my stepbrothers. I thrum my fingers against the cold beer bottle in my left hand.
The spread’s lavish as it usually is with these two. We have monster appetites and by the time I take a seat, I’m already calculating whether we’ll have enough potato salad to last us. One of the steaks lands on my plate with a fork sticking out of it.
“Dig in,” Troy urges, looking at the table with some obvious satisfaction.
The media can never know, but Troy Stephenson is an avid cook and I can be absolutely certain that there’s a cake waiting for us for dessert, handmade. He’s known to consistently burn meat, but he’s a beast with frosting.
“I saw the news this morning,” I say vaguely, scooping food onto my plate.
I have to work hard if I intend to keep up with my running back and halfback stepbrothers. Though Callum’s leaned down a little since he stopping playing and moved into sportscasting, a decision that probably shocked the whole world aside from the rest of his family, Troy’s kept his full bulk. I’m taller by a good two inches than either of my 6’2’’ stepbrothers, but challenging NFL players as a stock market trader is… well, difficult to say the least.
Needless to say, my gym routine is pretty extensive.
The brothers grunt noncommittally at my comment. Then, I notice them looking at each other, sharing a wicked grin.
“Just tell me that she’s not in the house anymore,” I say with a barely suppressed groan.
“Hey, we’re gentlemen. We called her an Uber an hour before you got here,” Callum says, wearing a satisfied smile on his face.
They were photographed stumbling out of a Hamptons hotspot last night with a starlet who is supposed to be sweet as sugar and wholesome and well-mannered. If she spent any time, and I mean any time at all with my stepbrothers, you can be damn certain that there’s nothing left of any of those traits.
I idly wonder what her PR team is going to do to clean her up. Maybe not just her image. My stepbrothers don’t play nice.
It’s not a mental image I ever wish I had so I try and wash it down with more beer.
It probably won’t help me much.
“I’m not sure that’s exactly how I’d refer to you two,” I comment, catching another conspiratory grin passing between Callum and Troy.
Out of the many marriages my father has had over the years, I think the one to Callum and Troy’s mother Maria might have been the best.
My mother chose to leave my father after I was born. Back then, the man still had some morals and he was worthy of the women who loved him.
Maria was an Irish immigrant, with two young boys from a previous relationship, and they got married with my father shortly after meeting. Maria died when the twins were ten and I was twelve. She was the only mother the three of us have ever had. Though we’re not related by blood, they’re my brothers, and my father has treated them as his own.
The twins are fair-haired, with Callum wearing his short like I do, and green-eyed while my eyes are blue. We share a common strong jawline and straight noses, though Troy’s now has a crook in his after a particularly nasty tackle that probably led him one step closer to his decision to quit his NFL career.
As with all things, the twins did everything together, while I mostly kept to myself. They were outgoing, I wasn’t. When they excelled in team sports, I got into reading. We ended up at the same place – as successful, powerful men – just we got there down very different paths.
“So what’s going down in New York City?” Callum interjects with mild interest, taking the limelight away from their antics.
It’s unusual for either of the twins to willingly give up being the center of attention, but I don’t need to think too long or hard to figure out why they’re doing it this time. I glance absently at my ring finger, the tan line still prominently visible.
“Yeah, getting into any trouble we should know about?” Troy questions with a waggle of his brows.
It’s my turn to scoff.
“Same old. Making people richer while doing the same to myself. Your portfolios are growing well,” I say, hacking a piece of meat off the steak.
I own Stephenson Trading, one of the premier foreign stock trading houses in New York City. I’m one of the youngest CEOs in my field and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thoroughly enjoying it. Success tastes sweet if you brew it yourself.
“That’s not what I asked, though,” Callum says over the rim of his beer bottle.
The breeze whips past, mussing up my hair. I hike an elbow on the table, giving my stepbrothers a long look.
“You want to come right out and ask me directly?” I ask, my voice dropping an octave.
“I know you don’t like talking about these th
ings, but you have to tell us how you are,” Callum says, dropping his utensils, while Troy’s expression becomes stormier. “We can… We can do something, man. It’s not something you have to go through alone.”
My divorce is too recent of a wound to go exploring, even with people as close to me as my twin stepbrothers. Though, they’re not wrong – divorce is something that all three of us should have plenty of experience with, courtesy of our father, the great Robert Stephenson.
“I’m fine,” I tell them gruffly.
And I am. Considering everything. I never should have married Selina to begin with, which is something I’m sure my family would gladly attest to. Now here I am, a whole lot poorer because of the settlement, and with a tan line around my finger where a wedding ring used to be. And she’s probably in fucking Cabo with some Frenchman with an accent, while I’m here, glaring at a piece of perfectly fine steak that has lost all of its appeal.
I didn’t notice that I was squeezing the fork in my hand with the piece of meat still stuck to it so hard that my knuckles were turning white before Callum reached over and clapped his hand to my shoulder. I practically drop the fork out of surprise.
Okay, so maybe ‘fine’ is a slight stretch.
“Hey,” he says, making me look up at him. “It’s alright, man. We’re here for you, if you need anything.”
I nod mutely, looking back at the food.
“How about we just eat?” I say, my tone allowing for no disagreement.
I focus on my meal, knowing full well that the twins are doing that thing they do, where they hold a long conversation with one another without saying a damn word, just through looks. We’ve always been close but there’s something about having a perfect copy of yourself with you your whole life that puts twins on a whole other level of connection.
They’re probably having a wordless discussion about how to get me ‘back in the swing of things’ and ‘out of my rut’ as they’d call it. These two whose idea of a healthy relationship is getting their previous night’s conquest out the door as early and as swiftly as possible.
“We got tickets to the Mets-Padres game tomorrow,” Troy comments after we’re all done with our meat and already digging into the chocolate-banana cake that Troy carted out. “We’ve got a few extras. Wanna join? Box seats. We can go hit the clubs after that. I’m sure we could scare up a couple of invites in your neck of the woods.”
He says that like he expects me to be within one iota of his enthusiasm.
I look up from my cake, trying to convey as much surprise as I possibly can on my face while chewing through dense, delicious, carb-packed cake. Somehow, I remember Troy’s cooking having tasted a little more flavorful before, but it’s still kick-ass cake and at this point, I’m not sure if it’s my mind playing tricks on me or my palate being well and truly destroyed by a nightly whisky habit.
I picked it up after Selina left. I call it a hobby, my brothers’ might call it a problem. Regardless, the choice to not fill them in about it comes easily enough.
“Have you ever seen me at a baseball game?” I ask.
It’s a legitimate question, because I certainly don’t remember ever going to one.
“I hadn’t seen you at a football game either before we started playing,” Callum interjects.
“Yeah, well, the moment the two of you become star MLB pitchers, I’ll be front and center at the games.”
They actually get a grin out of me. I don’t mind it.
The Stephenson twins are a natural phenomenon, in the sense that they’re the only two people who have any legitimate chance of distracting me from my own thoughts. Which is probably why I keep seeking them out at every possibility even now that we’re adults, though this particular visit isn’t purely for pleasure.
“Did you guys hear about the wedding?” I ask, as Troy passes around another round of beers.
The sun is starting to set and the beach is painted crimson. There are a couple of people strolling near the wave break, some others sitting on the sand.
Callum nods his head in the general direction of the kitchen.
“The invitation’s on the freezer,” he says.
Finally, the other elephant in the room. The lifestyle of our beloved father.
“Are you going?”
“Do we have any choice?” Troy asks, quirking a brow.
He looks somber, as does Callum. It’s a rare sight to catch Callum without a wide grin on his face and it pretty much tells me everything I need to know. No one’s excited for our father’s sixth marriage, with the slight exception of himself and possibly his new bride, a woman who could be my sister as far as age is concerned.
“Look on the upside, the ceremony’s going to be in Hawaii.”
Callum’s easy smile is back.
“I fail to see how that’s an upside,” I comment, actively considering how damn difficult it’ll be with the time difference to make sure my office is running the way I want it to.
“The sun, the beach, the girls,” Troy counts, holding up fingers. “I can keep going if you need me to.”
“I don’t, thanks,” I say, taking a long swig of the beer.
The last thing I need is to be involved in another damn wedding. I don’t think my face could contort into a legitimate smile at the moment if faced with the supposed happiness of two people who should not be getting married, not with everything going on.
“I’m still not coming to the baseball game,” I say, standing up from my seat. “I’ve got some research to do. We’re trying to open up some new Far East markets and I can foresee my time being well-spent at the library this weekend.”
“Pussy,” Troy hollers as I half-salute them and excuse myself from the table.
“That’s the spirit,” I yell back over my shoulder. “I’m sure that’s exactly the kind of battle cry that brings ‘em to your doorstep.”
I can hear incoherent cackling coming from the twins as I track upstairs towards one of the guest bedrooms, with the sun sinking out of view.
Knowing those two, I’ll probably find another household name A-lister movie star sprawled out on the couch the next morning, a little worse for wear, and a whole lot dirtier than she was when she came in here. Suddenly, the life of an independently wealthy stock trader seems a hell of a lot less fun than that of nationally renowned former NFL stars and current sportscasters.
Then again, foregoing fun has been my middle name for a while.
The thought of changing that crosses my mind for a moment, to be discarded just as swiftly. I don’t think I belong in a club, or at a baseball field, or anywhere in between at the moment.
Three
Lily
“You know, faking a smile won’t make you any less legit,” Christine comments, offering me a handful of popcorn. “It might just make some people think you’re actually enjoying yourself a little.”
I accept it with the slightest of glowers, settling into my plastic seat a little lower as I pop a few of the kernels in my mouth. They taste good, even if my guilt trigger is immediately activated by them. Salts and carbs are bad, right?
Then again, we’d gone through a serious amount of wine last night, so I think the damage has already been done.
“I’ll take that into consideration.”
“No, you won’t,” Christine snorts, throwing a couple of the popcorn bits at my head.
One of them sticks to my auburn hair, thrown back in a loose plait that day. I pick it out of the long tail and after a moment of consideration, pop it in my mouth. Mm, salty goodness.
“Hey, I’m making an effort by being here, alright?”
And I am, even Christine couldn’t argue that. She gives me a long look but doesn’t say a word, instead diverting her attention to consider everyone around us. The stands are packed, a decent turnout for a Mets-Padres game. Or so I presume. I pull my baseball cap – the one that Christine made me buy, with the Mets logo front and center – lower over my eyes and focus on the popcorn and
staring right ahead, waiting for the game to start.
Or end.
“Ooh, he’s cute,” Christine says, nudging me in the ribs and kicking me out of my self-imposed solitude.
She is craning her neck, looking over her shoulder at a pack of guys that have just come and sat down behind us. We are pretty far down in the stands, behind one of the VIP boxes, and that thing was still empty. I hoped it would remain that way so I could prop my legs up on the railing.
I glance in the direction to where Christine was motioning and pursed my lips slightly. They are cute, sure, if you are into the jock-y, big, brutish and muscular type. Which Christine definitely is.
Me? I usually go for the tall, quiet and nerdy type. Admittedly, it hasn’t done so well for me thus far, but at the moment I am not exactly interested in any male attention. It was the first thing Christine pointed out when seeing the oversized jersey and worn jeans I am wearing to the game.
“Hey, ladies,” one of the guys says, leaning forward to our seats.
I’m practically blinded by the white gleam of his perfect row of teeth. Christine giggles appreciatively, putting on her usual routine of the clueless female that works so well on that type of guys. Watching her is like watching art being made right in front of you. It’s sort of amazing.
She twirls a strand of hair around her finger and bites her lower lip, immediately capturing the attention of the guy. He props his elbows up on Christine’s chair and she twists around in it to face him better, looking all wide-eyed and innocent. She isn’t one or the other, but I’m not about to comment on it.
Let her have her fun.
“So what are you ladies up to today? Big Mets fans?” he asks, and the two of them launch into quick dissection of the Mets’ performance this season.
I don’t even know the meaning of half the words they’re using, so I think it’s better if I stay out of this one.
I grab another handful of popcorn and sink even lower, to the point where my cap was basically level with the backrest of the chair. Busy thinking about what the case might bring, and also busy guilt-tripping myself about not being in the library, doing my research, I almost miss when the VIP box fills in front of me.