As Mom and Larry say their vows, a school of dolphins appears in the ocean behind them, drawing cheers and gasps from the crowd. Mom looks out at the dolphins, but Larry doesn’t take his eyes off Mom. When the priest tells Larry he can kiss the bride, she turns away from the ocean and plants a tender kiss on his lips.
It isn’t until the wedding starts to conclude that Caleb’s words start to echo in my head. He’s right. I feel weird thinking of him as family when the ghost of the smell of his shirtless body still lingers in my nose, but that’s what he is. And I may not be married to him, but I am stuck with him, which means the two of us are going to need some serious boundaries. Fast.
***
At the reception, they have these little turtles made out of cheese cubes, grapes, and toothpicks. I put a couple on my little white plate, pop a cheesy turtle head into my mouth, and head over to congratulate Mom.
Mom looks like her heart just stepped off a rollercoaster. “I can’t believe I zoned out like that. I heard the crowd react to something, so I looked behind me, saw the dolphins, and…the next thing I remember, I realize that everyone’s waiting on me to kiss Larry.”
“It wasn’t that long, Mom, don’t worry about it.”
“That’s what everyone’s telling me, but it felt like an hour.” Mom laughs and shakes her head. “By the way, are you and Caleb going to stay out here through the week?”
I look over at Caleb, who’s having an extremely friendly conversation with the CEO who thought the two of us were dating. I can’t believe how good he is from switching from crude, vulgar fighter to well-spoken professional. “Well, I don’t know what Caleb’s doing, but I know I’m leaving tomorrow night. My internship starts on Tuesday. Besides, I wouldn’t want you worrying about me on your honeymoon.”
Mom looks surprised. “Our honeymoon?”
“Yeah, you’re staying in the Bahamas, right? Why else would you have the wedding out here?”
“Oh, honey, did I not tell you? Larry and I are going on a continental honeymoon.”
“What? What’s that?”
“It’s a honeymoon that spans every continent.”
I almost choke on a turtle fin made of sharp cheddar. “Is that a thing? Wouldn’t that take months?”
“Oh, don’t worry, I told Larry I needed to be back in time to send you off to college. We had to cancel the East Asian leg of the trip, but that’s not a big deal.”
“Mom! You’re going to be gone all summer and you didn’t tell me?”
“I’m sorry, honey. I guess I didn’t want to think too much about the honeymoon before the wedding and it just slipped my mind. You’ll be alright with the house to yourself, won’t you?”
“Yeah…I’m just surprised.”
Larry walks up to us, holding a kebab on a plate. “The catering here is incredible. I need to hire these guys for the Poodle kitchens.”
Mom motions to my plate. “Have you had the turtles?”
“No, are they good?”
I hold my plate out towards Larry. “I think so. Taste for yourself.” Larry bites a turtle in half, and his eyes roll back in his head.
“Incredible. Where did you say the plate was?”
I point behind me, and Larry puts his hand on the small of Mom’s back, leading her over towards the turtle plate.
Now that I’m alone, I look around nervously, suddenly aware that I don’t know anyone else here except Mom, Larry, and Caleb. I definitely don’t want to tag along with the bride and groom for the rest of the reception, so I look over towards Caleb. He’s still on the other side of the tent, talking to the same CEO as before, only now, he’s brought over his daughter, who’s looking up at Caleb with an expression most people usually reserve for baby seals.
She’s blonde, pale, and gorgeous, but I can’t help but feel a dark little twinge of satisfaction at the fact that the guy she’s batting her eyelashes at isn’t the real Caleb. If she saw the real Caleb, drenched in sweat with his Beast tattoos showing, she wouldn’t be looking at him like that. She’d either be horrified or she’d be throwing herself at him, depending on how much of a freak she is. She definitely wouldn’t be looking at him like she is now. Like he’s boyfriend material.
I tear my eyes away from Caleb before he can catch me staring and look around the room again. Maybe I should just head back to the hotel. I can eat in my room, curl up in a king-size bed, and maybe even fall asleep before Caleb’s stupid party starts.
It’s tempting, but Responsible Emma wants me to stay and network with all these industry people. And as much as I’d prefer a good book and a soft bed, she’s right. This many CEOs in one room with their guards down…I should have brought a business card. As soon as I manage to calm my nerves, I walk over to the nearest important-looking person and introduce myself.
Chapter 7: Emma
The dashing knight just caught the princess alone in her secret orchard. After months of failed attempts to get his attention, she’s finally alone with him, and I think he might be about to admit that he has feelings for her. There’s only one problem: it’s hard to concentrate on a secret orchard over the insanely loud music coming from next door.
It’s not just the music, either: there’s so much banging on the walls that I’m starting to get suspicious that Caleb and his friends are actually fighting in there. I can’t believe the hotel hasn’t come up to make them shut it down, but I guess when you’re paying this kind of money, they tend to leave you alone.
Whatever. Parties end, and until this one ends, I have a romance novel to get through.
Tristan plucks a peach off the nearest tree and brings it up to his soft lips, never taking his eyes off of Analucia.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” he says.
“How did you know I was here?” Analucia asks, her thighs starting to quiver as she watches him eat her peach. When Tristan brings it up for another bite, she can almost feel his mouth between her legs.
“A garden full of forbidden fruits,” he says, smirking, “Where else would you be?”
Before I can turn the page, there’s a ridiculously loud bang coming from next door. It sounds like a human body just got thrown hard into the wall at full speed. They actually are fighting in there, aren’t they?
As much as I want to get back to Tristan and Analucia, I should probably make sure Caleb doesn’t spend the night in a Bahaman jail. That would be bad news for Poodle, which means it would be bad news for me. Rolling my eyes, I put down my book and get changed into something that I can wear next door.
With one hand on the door to Caleb’s room, I brace myself by imagining the roughest, trashiest party possible, and it’s still not enough. The smell of sweat and liquor almost knocks me over as I open the door, and the noise of the party is so loud that I have to step inside or else it’s going to wake up the entire hotel.
For the first couple seconds, no one even notices I’m here. They’re too busy staring at the center of the room, where two jacked up guys are rolling around on the floor punching each other. The room is pretty trashed, but it’s nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a few hours of elbow grease. Yet.
Caleb isn’t watching the fight. He’s sitting on the bed, which got pushed into the back corner of the room to make room in the middle. There’s a very tan girl in a tiny bathing suit sitting on the bed with him, but he’s not paying much attention to her even though she’s all over him.
I’m the only person in the room with their shirt on, but everyone is apparently too drunk to notice how out of place I look. Except for Caleb. He spots me before I can get halfway across the room and shouts “Emma!”
The whole room cheers, and I take the opportunity to weave between them and get to Caleb. Caleb hands me a red plastic cup from the nightstand. “I knew you’d come around. There’s rum over by the TV.”
“Thanks, but I didn’t come here to drink rum.”
“Emma,” Caleb says my name in a low, scolding voice that really shouldn’t get t
o me as much as it does, “What did I tell you back at the wedding? You need to loosen up. Have some rum. Throw a couple dollars down on the next fight.”
I sit down on the bed at Caleb’s feet, and the girl trying to get in his pants wraps her arms around him possessively.
“Look, I’m not telling you to stop the party. I’m telling you to stop the fight. I’m pretty sure you can hear it from the beach.”
“Emma, we can’t stop the fight. We’re fucking fighters. That’s what we do.”
I point at the guys grappling on the hotel floor. “They might be fucking fighters, but you are the son of a CEO. Other people spend their whole lives working for the type of opportunity that just fell into your lap, and you’re throwing it away so you can live out some stupid bad boy fantasy.”
I can see Caleb’s jaw clench beneath his skin. I think I just actually hit a nerve. A second later, though, and Caleb breaks into a smile again. “You saw what I can do in the ring. That’s not fantasy, that’s fucking reality. Do you know how much money I could make off this shit over the next couple months?”
The girl in the bathing suit looks at me with hostility in her raccoon eyes. “Caleb, is this your girlfriend?”
Caleb laughs. “She wishes. No, this is my stepsister, Emma. Emma, this is Kira. I met her on the beach yesterday.”
Kira has a trashy, obnoxious voice that makes me instinctively dislike her, and up close, her blonde hair is clearly a horrible dye job. We shake hands.
Caleb puts one hand on Kira’s waist and the other one on my thigh. “Hey, why don’t you two fight?”
I look Kira up and down. Her legs are like short little sticks. I could probably take her.
Wait, what am I thinking? This is ridiculous.
Unfortunately, I think I sized up Kira for a second too long. Caleb launches himself up so that he’s standing on the bed and knocks on the ceiling until he has everyone’s attention. I cringe as I imagine the upstairs neighbors calling the front desk to complain.
“Everybody shut the fuck up! Our next fight is going to be a ladies’ fight. Kira versus Emma. Winner gets to be my girlfriend for the night.”
The whole room cheers. Meanwhile, I’m sitting at Caleb’s feet, blushing crimson. This is what I get for trying to save his ass, I guess. “I was trying to help you, asshole. Good luck with hotel security.”
I get off the bed and make a beeline for the door.
“Sis, wait, it was a fucking joke.”
I slam the door behind me and head back to my room.
Over the next couple hours, the party actually gets louder. I try opening up my romance novel again, but I’m too pissed off to make it through a single paragraph, so I hug a pillow, stare up at the ceiling, and listen to the fighting through the wall.
Why can’t there be guys like Tristan in real life? Devoted, compassionate men who fight for the things they want? Why does every guy I meet have to be so immature? So selfish?
And why am I thinking about Caleb like he’s some kind of stupid crush? He’s my stepbrother. Not only that, but my crush was never on Caleb. It was on the Beast, which is just some kind of character Caleb has when he’s in the ring. And I absolutely cannot waste any more time fantasizing about my stepbrother’s alter ego, especially when his real ego is so obnoxious. There are plenty of other guys out there worth my time.
Next door, the party starts to die down, but I’m still tossing and turning in bed. Then, right when I think I might be falling asleep, I hear a knock at the door. If it’s Caleb, I am going to throw him off the balcony.
It’s Caleb. Too bad my room doesn’t actually have a balcony. “What?”
Caleb looks tired. And more than a little drunk. “My bed is covered in passed out guys. Can I sleep in here?”
“Seriously? Where’s your girlfriend for the night?”
Caleb shrugs. “I have no idea. You know that was just a joke, right?”
“Maybe I don’t appreciate jokes like that made in public places. What would you have done if I made jokes about you being an MMA fighter at the wedding reception?”
Caleb nods. “Good point. I’m sorry for doing that. Can I come in?”
Actually apologizing to me is probably the most shocking thing Caleb’s done yet. “If you don’t mind sleeping on the floor, then yes.”
“Cool.” Caleb pushes the door all the way open and brushes past me as he enters my room and sits on my bed. “You were fucking right, you know.”
“About what?”
“About the party. It was a really stupid idea that could have fucked up my cover.” Caleb runs his hand through his messy hair.
“Why’d you throw it, then? What did you think was going to happen?”
“I don’t know. I just didn’t want to…I just…didn’t want to think about the wedding, so I set something up to distract me.”
“Oh, well, it looked like it was working.”
Caleb shakes his head. “It didn’t. I mean, don’t get me wrong, your mom seems really nice, but…I still kind of wanted my mom to come back, you know?
“Where is she now?”
Caleb looks at me, brow furrowed. “I have no idea.”
“Well…if you don’t mind me asking…why’d she leave?”
Caleb is quiet for a little while, looking around the room like he’s struggling to find the words to say. “I, uh…had an older brother. Zane. He fell in with a bad crowd, and when I was 14…he just left. Mom blamed herself, and moved to the other side of the country a couple months later.”
After a long, heavy pause, Caleb looks over at the nightstand. His eyes fall on my romance novel, and he bursts out laughing. “What the fuck is this?”
I guess he wants to change the subject. That’s okay, I just wish it was about anything other than my current choice of reading material. “That’s my book.”
“The Forbidden Grove: A Young Woman’s First Love. I bet you read this with one hand, don’t you?”
I try and snatch the book out of Caleb’s hands but he pulls it away from me. “It’s a fantasy novel!”
“I bet. I bet you get all kinds of fantasies reading this.” Caleb slides up onto my bed and opens it to a page near the end.
His eyes go wide. “Wow, this is fucking filthy. I knew you weren’t as innocent as you looked.”
There’s no way to take my book back from Caleb now without climbing into bed with him, so I decide to let him have his fun. “I haven’t gotten to that part yet, so I don’t know how dirty it gets. Maybe you should read the whole thing. You might learn something.”
Caleb laughs, and starts reading a sex scene out loud in a deep, melodramatic voice. Not wanting to be spoiled, I jump into the bathroom and take a shower, hoping that he’ll be tired of making fun of my book by the time I get out.
15 minutes later, and he’s definitely tired of it. He’s out like a light, right in the middle of my bed. I try to nudge him awake and get him on the floor, but he won’t budge. He must have been pretty drunk, I guess.
Well, I’m definitely not sleeping on the floor. Not with a red-eye flight tomorrow. And since he’s too heavy to safely move, it looks like I have to do the one thing I told myself I was never going to do: get into bed with Caleb.
I push Caleb over to the side of the bed and click off the lights. As I’m lying there with my eyes closed, though, I’m thinking about what he said about his mom. He threw the party so he wouldn’t be thinking about her. Maybe that explains a lot of the stupid stuff he does. I roll over in bed and wrap my arms around Caleb’s neck. “I lost somebody, too. My dad. You’re not alone, okay?”
I squeeze Caleb tight and roll back over to my side of the bed. For a second, I feel the whole bed vibrate, like maybe he heard me, and he’s saying thanks.
But it’s probably just my imagination.
Chapter 8: Caleb
Emma looks frustrated. She’s got the cutest little pouty face on as she hauls armfuls of books back and forth across the bookstore. On her adorable fucki
ng perfect summer calendar, it says that this is supposed to be a publishing internship, but I’ve been here all day, and all I’ve seen her do is get people coffee, haul books, and catch a lot of undeserved shit from some short guy with a comb-over.
I’m surprised she hasn’t noticed me yet. I’m not hiding or anything, I’m right here at the fucking reading table, reading Emma’s book, The Forbidden Grove: A Young Woman’s First Love.
At first, I thought it was hilarious, but now I’m actually kind of getting into it a little bit. The princess in this shit reminds me of Emma. Tristan obviously wants to make a fucking move on her, but every time he tries she runs back to her little garden and plays hard to get, even though she totally wants him.
On the other side of the book store, Emma drops an armful of books on the ground, sighs, and starts picking them all up. My original plan was to wait until she got off work to surprise her, but if I have to sit through any more of this shit, I’m probably going to end up throwing that short guy into the clearance rack. I’m pulling the plug on this shit now.
“How’s the summer of adventure going?”
When Emma sees me, she drops all the books she picked up back on the floor again. “Caleb, what the fuck are you doing here?”
I shrug. “Book shopping.”
Emma drops down to her knees, and I go down with her. “You have to get out of here. I’m not supposed to be talking to anybody.”
“So I’m not allowed to help you? They’re paying me the same amount that they’re paying you.”
“Seriously, get out, my boss is going to kill me if he sees you.”
“You mean that short guy with the shitty hair? I’d like to see him fucking try.” I take all the books out of Emma’s hands and start carrying them in the direction she was headed.
Beast: An MMA Stepbrother Romance Page 5