by Sybil Bartel
Her eyes wide, my angel looked over her sister’s head toward me, then focused back on her sister. “Um, what are you doing here, Phoebs? I said I wasn’t going out tonight.”
But she went out other nights to get laid?
The sister spun around. Her gaze hit below my waist then traveled up. “Wow.” She stared. “This?” Her hand waved between us. “I wasn’t expecting.” She shook the shock off her face and pasted on the type of smile I hated in a woman. “What are you doing here, Callan?”
Judge and jury, I knew her look and body language. Every word out of her mouth was equal parts challenge and strategy. My advantage was that she did not know yet I was not playing her game. I held the sister’s stare. “Taking Emily with me.”
“Really?” The sister drew the word out. “And where are you taking her?”
I looked at my angel. “Are you ready?”
She bit her lip.
The sister laughed once without humor. “Oh no, stepbrother McHottie. You don’t get to take her somewhere without telling me exactly where you’re going.” She snorted like an animal about to charge. “You could be a serial killer for all I know.” Her eyes narrowed. “And how, exactly, did you wind up here, in my sister’s apartment? Because I can tell you, you’re barking up the wrong tree, whatever tree that is.” She nodded toward her sister. “She’s too nice to say anything to you about that, but I’m not.”
The sister emphasized her words, as if their delivery was more important than their meaning. Anger simmering on my angel’s behalf, I questioned her last comment. “Are you implying your sister is incapable of speaking for herself?”
The sister’s hands went to her hips. “What the fuck does that mean?”
My angel quickly moved between me and her sister. “Okay, okay. Both of you drop it. We’re family.”
“She is not my family,” I stated at the same time the sister scoffed.
“Yeah, Ems. For once, I agree with him. Just because he’s Ted’s supposed son doesn’t make him our brother.”
“Phoebe,” Angel scolded. “Stop being rude.”
“More rude than him?” She pointed a finger at me. “Come on, are you that stupid? Why do you think he’s really here?”
My angel’s cheeks turned apple red. “Oh my God, Phoebs, shut up.”
The sister did not listen.
“Did you invite him over? Is that why you didn’t call me back?” The sister looked at me with disdain then trained her scowl back on my angel. “You have his number now? He’s your insta-brother? Are you going to cry on his shoulder about losing your dead-end job?”
“Enough,” I ordered.
“ENOUGH.” CALLAN’S DEEP VOICE rocketed through the small hallway.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
Phoebe didn’t even blink. “Let me guess. You’re an overbearing asshole just like your father.”
“I have no father,” Callan rebuffed.
The four words cut to my soul and broke my heart. Callan did have a father. Which was a hell of a lot more than I could say for me and Phoebe, but I wasn’t going to judge Callan’s feelings. I knew what it was like to feel abandoned by your own flesh and blood.
For once, Phoebe didn’t have a response.
“Let’s go sit.” I shoved Phoebs toward the living room. When Callan turned, I whispered in her ear, “Cut it out.”
She looked over her shoulder and gave me a look that said fat fucking chance.
I sighed and dropped to my worn-out couch. Phoebe sat on the arm, and we both stared at Callan as he stood there, imposing and stoic, looking down at us.
My stomach fluttered.
He wasn’t just beautiful, he was statuesque. He had more muscles on him than I’d ever seen on another human being, but more than that, he was reserved and proud. So proud that he didn’t want one ounce of compassion for the life he’d lived growing up or the atrocities he’d witnessed. Which only made me feel that much more unworthy of him when I didn’t stand up to Phoebe and tell her I was going somewhere with him. Afraid of what Phoebe would say to Mom, I’d cowardly said nothing.
Phoebe looked between us. “So, who’s going to tell me first how this happened?”
Callan said, “I followed her,” at the same time I said, “I invited him.”
Callan frowned at me, I lifted a shoulder in response, and Phoebe gawked at him.
“You followed her?” She looked half-incredulous, half-impressed.
Callan gave her an explanation he hadn’t given me. “Her car was unsafe.”
At the thought of him worrying about my safety, the already churning butterflies in my stomach had a party. “Okay.” I slapped my hands on my jeans, almost forgetting they were tearstained from a little four-year-old I would probably never see again. “Who wants a drink?” I stood and snatched the tequila off the coffee table.
My sister smirked. “Oh, I think we all need one.” Her phone rang and she reached for it.
“Right, okay.” The memory of Ethan’s tears as he held on to my leg while I was leaving ripped through my heart all over again. I fought another wave of sadness as Phoebe answered her phone with a “Hey, gorgeous.” Her voice turned all sickly sweet and she stood to walk down the hall.
I went to the kitchen and yanked a cupboard door open.
“You do not have to do this.” His quiet voice low again, his breath traveled across my neck.
“Do what?” His body engulfed my back, and all I wanted to do was lean in to him.
“Drink to forget your sorrow.” His hand landed on my nape.
Heat and goose bumps raced across my skin. “I’m not.” Oh God, his touch felt good. “No amount of alcohol will make me less sad that I had to say goodbye to that sweet boy.” Or less pissed at how his mom handled it, but I was no stranger to the shitty things parents did to their kids.
Fighting to keep from turning and just giving myself over to his strong arms, I moved out of his grasp and grabbed three small glasses.
The tone of his voice shifted. “You like alcohol?”
I turned to face him, but his expression was void of emotion. “Do you?”
He held me in his intense gaze. “I do not drink.”
Phoebe waltzed into the kitchen. “Maybe you should start. It wouldn’t kill you to loosen up.” She took the glasses from my hand, but wiggled her eyebrows at Callan. “What do you say, muscle man? You strong enough to hold a little tequila?”
Callan glared at Phoebe like he wanted to throttle her, but she didn’t notice. She was busy filling the three small glasses to the rim.
“Here.” She held what was more than a double shot out to him.
Callan didn’t move.
Phoebe shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She tossed the drink back then handed me one. “You’re next.”
I stared at the glass and bit my lip.
“Don’t leave me hanging, sis.” Phoebs drew out the last word, putting extra guilt in it. “You said we were going out tonight.” She glanced at my outfit. “Speaking of which, you need to ditch the mom jeans and put something decent on. We’re meeting Amber and Sky at Club Frenzy in an hour.”
Feeling Callan’s eyes on me, I ignored her insult about my clothes and shoved down the sting of embarrassment it caused. “I never agreed to going out.”
“Oh, please. Like you don’t want to. Take the drink and stop crying over this shit. You’ll find a new job.”
I glared at her, but then stupidly snatched the glass out of her hand. “You’re acting like a jerk.” I threw the shot back.
She laughed. “Says the sister who’s hiding stepbrother McHottie in her apartment like some dirty little secret.”
“She is not hiding anything.” Callan glared at her.
“Right.” Phoebs leaned back against the counter. “So, tell me. You two do it yet?”
I choked on the afterburn of the tequila.
Callan was at my side in an instant, his huge hand pounding on my back, but it was Phoebe he addressed when
he spoke with a deadly calm. “Where I come from, a sibling does not bait nor antagonize another sibling. You were given a gift to not be born alone. Respect it.”
Both of us stared at him.
But it was Phoebe who spoke. “I was only kidding.”
Without acknowledging her, Callan looked down at me. His gaze intense, his expression unreadable, he rubbed my back and lowered his voice. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I barely whispered, feeling the heat of his hand more than the burn of the alcohol.
Nodding once, he reached behind me and plucked my cell phone off the counter where I’d dumped it. A couple seconds later, he put the phone back down. “My number is programmed. Call me when you are ready to see what I want to show you.”
Before I could react, he was at the front door.
Suddenly panicked, feeling like I was never going to see him again, I called out, “Callan, wait.”
He didn’t even turn around. “Good night, Emily.” The door quietly closed behind him.
He’d called me Emily, not Angel. The heavy sense of dread souring my stomach was nothing compared to the crushing guilt that settled in my chest. After everything he’d told me, after fixing my car, after giving me the best kiss of my life, and being nothing except attentive toward me, I’d just let him walk out.
Oh God.
“Shit,” my sister breathed out. “I don’t care if he is our stepbrother. If Mr. McHottie looked at me like he looks at you, I’d fuck him.”
“Phoebe,” I snapped, feeling like I’d just made the worst mistake of my life letting him leave.
“What?” She shrugged, reaching for the tequila. “He smells incredible, and I’m not even touching on the fact he looks like a Muscles-R-Us cover model. You scored, sis.” She threw back another shot and started shaking her head. “I don’t know what you did, or how you did it, but hell, you definitely scored.”
I snatched the dish towel off the oven door and threw it at her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I knew exactly what it meant. I wasn’t pretty like her. Maybe it was a good idea to let him leave. Not that I was under any misconception that I could’ve made Callan Anders do anything he didn’t want to do.
Phoebe held her hands up. “I’m not saying you’re not pretty. I’ve said before you’re gorgeous. You just never do anything to promote it. It’s like you purposely hide your assets.” She scowled at my jeans. “And you dress like shit.”
“Just because my jeans aren’t painted on like yours doesn’t mean they’re mom jeans.” I grabbed my phone and the tequila and walked into the living room. “My job isn’t chasing men, Phoebe.” I sank to the couch, wondering if I should text him.
“No shit.” She glanced at the front door. “You scored the mother lode without even trying.” She sat down next to me. “Shit, maybe I should’ve stayed in school.”
Completely unladylike, I snorted. “You think he likes me because I’m in college?” I was barely hanging on, I hated my classes, and if I was being honest, which I wasn’t, I’d admit defeat and bow out of the nursing program I hated more every day. But I wasn’t being honest, and I didn’t admit defeat because I had too many student loans at this point to fail. Nursing was a job that would ensure I’d always have gainful employment, and I’d never have to rely on anyone for anything.
Phoebe grinned at me. “So you are admitting he likes you.”
Oh my God. “Shut up. This isn’t high school.”
She turned serious. “No, but it may kinda be like that for him, like emotionally. We don’t know what kind of experiences, or lack of experiences, he had on that twisted compound. I’ve seen the news about it, Em, and that shit’s hard-core. He grew up in like a cult. Women were probably assigned to him, on the daily.” She looked at me with concern. “You need to be careful.”
I didn’t tell her what he’d told me. I would never break his trust like that. Leaning my head back, the alcohol already making me feel fuzzy, I sighed. “I’m not doing anything with him.” Maybe I shouldn’t text him. He didn’t seem like the texting type. He was barely the talking type.
“Okay, but let me ask you this.” She paused.
I turned my head to look at her, but she was staring off into the distance, biting her lip. It was a bad habit we both shared. “What?”
She released her lip and looked at me. “Tell me the truth, has he made a move?”
I felt the burn on my cheeks, and I quickly looked away, but it was too late. I sucked at lying, so I didn’t say anything.
“Okay, so he has.” She exhaled. “Do you know what you’re doing? Because a man like that—”
“Phoebe.” Jeez, I was not having the sex conversation with her again.
She held a hand up. “I’m just saying he looks intense. You better know what you’re getting into if you decide to go down that road.”
Oh my God. “There is no road! You make it sound like he’s declared his love for me and is going to carry me off like a caveman and hide me away for the rest of my life. Jesus, Phoebe, he’s our stepbrother.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Is that me you’re trying to convince, or yourself? Because I know men, Em. I know what it means when a guy looks at you like Callan Anders looks at you. He was practically undressing you at Mom and Ted’s. And trust me when I say, he only had eyes for you. Make no mistake, there is no way he would’ve stayed for dinner had you not been there. You can clearly see he’s pissed at Ted for abandoning him, and I don’t blame him. I thought Ted was a great guy. He takes really good care of Mom, but I saw a whole new side of him last night. And frankly, it sucks.”
I felt even worse about letting Callan leave, and I thought about our own dad, the one I’d never met. The one who’d ditched Mom when she was pregnant with me and Phoebe was six months old. I didn’t have respect for him for what he did, but I also still wanted to meet him one day. I couldn’t help it. Phoebe, on the other hand, had written him off as an asshole of epic proportions.
“I don’t know if he’ll ever go back and see Ted,” I admitted.
Phoebs scoffed. “Why should he? I wouldn’t.”
“We don’t know the situation.” I didn’t know why I was defending Ted. “Maybe Callan’s mom was already entrenched in the cult and he didn’t have a choice.”
I wanted to know so bad what had happened all those years ago, but in the same breath, I wondered what it mattered now. Callan was an adult, and what was done was done. Ted couldn’t get those years back with his son, just like I would never get all those years without my own father.
“We don’t have to know the situation.” Phoebs stood. “Men are dicks.” She held her hand out to me. “Come on. I came here to cheer you up and take you out. And for the record, your boss is a dick too.”
A small laugh escaped. “My boss is a she. She can’t be a dick.”
“Fine, she’s a bitch. But taking Ethan away in the middle of the night is totally a dick move. After two years, you deserved a little warning.” Her voice got quieter. “You deserved a little time to tell that kid you would miss him, make some memories with him.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat, but I couldn’t stop the tears from welling. “Yeah.”
Phoebs was talking about more than just memories for Ethan. She didn’t have any memories of our father. How could a six-month-old? As much as she said she didn’t give a shit about our father, I knew it would always be a hole in both of our hearts that we carried. And seeing Ted as a father just like ours, it didn’t help anything.
I took my sister’s hand. “Good thing we have each other.” But the second I said it, I thought of Callan.
Phoebs pulled me into a hug and squeezed me tight. “Yeah we do.”
Who did Callan have?
SHE DID NOT CALL.
MY HAIR WAS ROLLED with big loose curls hanging down my back. My dress was too damn tight, and my face was painted like a fucking clown. I hated Phoebe. And dancing. And sweating like a pig.
Thank God, I’
d refused to wear the heels.
A second ago, I’d been laughing at my bad dance moves, but then Callan’s face right before he left tonight popped into my head and my mood tanked. That had been my whole night. Alcoholic highs interspersed with shit lows. I was ashamed to admit most of those lows were because of a blond Greek god and not a four-year-old angel.
The only time I fell for a guy, he was my stepbrother.
I laughed.
Then I wanted to cry.
Fuck my life.
Already feeling like I could fall over, I waved off Amber and Sky and pushed my way off the dance floor. A stool opened up at the bar, and I thanked the universe for not completely sucking.
A cute bartender showed up and winked at me. “What’ll it be, gorgeous?”
Fuck him. I hated how guys like him would smile at you when you looked like a cheap whore, but if they saw you in sweats studying how to save their ass if they came into an emergency room bleeding, they wouldn’t give you the time of day.
I didn’t smile back at him. “Water.” Wait. Fuck this. “No, Coke, please. With lots of ice.”
He nodded and dropped the I-want-a-big-tip smile. “You got it.” Quick and efficient, he filled a glass with ice and squirted soda from a gun into it. Sliding it across the bar, he made one last-ditch effort for a decent tip. “There you go, gorgeous. Three-fifty.”
I reached in my purse for money and my hand landed on my cell. I swept my thumb across the screen and the contacts list popped up. There he was, right at the top. C. Single initial, then his number.
I’d wanted to call him all night, but Phoebe had said no way. She’d said men liked a chase. When I’d sworn I wasn’t chasing him and said I had no intention of making him chase me, she just rolled her eyes and told me I needed game.
“You want to start a tab, gorgeous?”
“Oh, sorry.” I reached for my wallet and a hand landed on my arm.
“It’s okay.” Another male voice spoke. “I got this.”
I looked up just as a dark-haired man slid a five toward the bartender.