by Claire Adams
I was considering my options, gearing myself up for the frustrating task of navigating the impossible site that held the course catalog for spring, when my phone rang. It was my mom, and I considered letting it go to voice mail; I was tired, and I wasn’t really feeling up to a long conversation about how my classes were going and whatever new toy her boyfriend had bought her. But she paid the phone bill and I knew that if I didn’t answer right away, she would just call me again, and then a third time. When I had been in high school she had shut off my phone completely more than once when I failed to answer, and I didn’t want to have to deal with that again. “Hey, Mom,” I said when I picked up. “I was just about to get in bed.” Maybe if I told her that in the beginning of the call she’d keep it short; I’d be seeing her in a few days anyway, when I drove home for the break.
“Hey, Mia baby!” she said, almost a shriek in my ear. I loved my mom, but ever since she had taken up with her rich boyfriend, she was more than a little annoying. She always asked if there was anything she could get for me, if there were any clothes or shoes or bags I wanted. I was not by any stretch of the imagination the kind of girl that cared about shoes or bags—the most I cared was that I had a book bag that wouldn’t fall apart, and shoes that wouldn’t wear out or pinch my toes. But my mom had gotten on a kick of me being “presentable” and “looking professional.”
“What’s up?” I asked her. She was excited—I could tell that right away. I closed my eyes, wishing I was already asleep, already kicking aside the idea of perusing the course catalog. It could wait for tomorrow.
“I have a surprise for you!” I almost laughed, but kept it down.
“It’s not Christmas yet, Mom,” I reminded her, smiling in spite of myself. Even before she had started dating the rich boyfriend, she loved to surprise me—and even though I wouldn’t admit it to her, I loved it when she did.
“I know, baby. But I’ve got a really big surprise for you and I know you’re going to just love it.” I shrugged.
“Give me a hint?” My mom laughed.
“Not on your life, sweetie,” she told me. “I just wanted to make sure that you didn’t go to all the bother of driving up to our place—I won’t be there. We’re going to have Thanksgiving at Bob’s mansion.” Bob was the rich boyfriend. It bothered me a little bit that my mom insisted on calling his house a mansion; I’d seen pictures of it, and it was a nice enough place, but it was nothing more than a house when everything was said and done. It made her sound nouveau riche to keep referring to it as a mansion.
“Mom, I’ve never been there before. You’ll have to send me the address.”
“Of course, baby. I’ll email you the address. Try and get here before eight—it’s harder to find after dark.”
“Yes, Mom,” I said. “What’s going on? You’re so excited.”
“Just thinking about the surprise I have for you,” my mom said, her voice full of whatever it was. I shrugged it off. “It’s late—you should go to bed. I love you, sweetie.” I said my goodbyes, and hung up as soon as my mom got finished showering me with love and telling me to sleep well and be safe.
I lay in bed for a few minutes after that, trying to decide how I felt about the situation. The semester had been a long one—way longer than any I’d been through in high school—and after everything I’d been through, I was more than ready for a little break from school. I wanted to get away from my classes, from the situation with Jaxon, and even the frat itself. At least it’s a mansion, I thought, snorting. From the pictures I’d seen, it was a huge house, with a bunch of land around it. As far away from the cramped and crammed life in the dorms, even the packed situation at the frat house. If nothing else, it would be time away, and I could definitely use that before I went in to tackle my finals. I’d rest up, eat some good food, and make nice with the boyfriend. All I could hope for was that my mom wouldn’t want us to be all buddy-buddy all the time, doing “family” things together in the name of a happy holiday. I’d get out of whatever I possibly could.
CHAPTER 10
A few days later I packed up enough of my stuff to last me through the holiday weekend and loaded it into my car. I wasn’t looking forward to the long drive; when my mom emailed me the address to her boyfriend’s place, I’d looked it up in my app on my phone and found out that it was hours away from the campus. It was cold, heading into the official start of winter, with the first rounds of snow already on the ground. It wouldn’t be the first time that I’d driven on snowy, icy roads, but after the exhaustion of the semester, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to drive for two hours just to be with my mom for Thanksgiving.
She hadn’t given me any hint at all about the surprise, just telling me to make sure to come to Bob’s house without fail, that she’d tell me all about it then. I figured it must be something like a big gift—a new computer maybe, or something else that she wanted me to see in person without having any clue of it beforehand. She’d been convincing Bob for months to help her buy me little gifts and trinkets—a jersey for my favorite player on the Flames, tickets to a concert I wanted to go to that were impossibly out of my budget. It would be something like that, I decided, drinking coffee to keep myself alert on the roads. I had gotten out of my classes early; everyone knew it was snowing, and that a lot of people had a long way to go to get home for the holiday. Even in the classes I’d had we hadn’t really done much—some of the students had gone home the night before, hoping to beat all of the bad weather altogether. It wasn’t too bad, but it was so cold that I wished I’d brought my heavier jacket into the car with me. Even with the heater on I was shivering every now and then—though that might have been about the caffeine as much as the cold.
As I followed the directions my phone dictated to me, I found myself getting farther and farther away from the places I knew, going deep into the suburbs and then even farther, where the houses spread out with huge yards around them, classic architecture and pretentious designs. Gardens, big rolling lawns, huge arching trees lined the road on either side of me, and I was starting to feel out of my depth. I focused on what I knew about Bob’s house from my mom. He had a hot tub on the back deck—that could be a lot of fun to visit and enjoy. I’d have my own bedroom there just as I had at home with my mom—probably nicer by far than the one I had in our place. There was a fireplace instead of just central heat; there was a huge kitchen with lots of food. It would be a nice rest.
I started to get more and more tired as the sun went down around me, as I hit the last thirty minutes of the drive. I turned on my headlights and squinted into the growing darkness, looking out for the house number even as the turn-by-turn directions counted down the distance left to the destination. I recognized the outside of the mansion by one of the pictures my mom had sent me, and I pulled into the driveway—the gate was open—and yawned, grateful at least to have made it in good time. I wouldn’t have to really go anywhere at all for the next several days.
I got out of my car and hurried to the front door, shivering against the cold; the temperature was dropping second by second, or so it felt like, getting colder as the night closed in around me. Everything was brightly lit, and I had to admit that while my mom’s views on the house might be pretentious, it looked comfortable and luxurious enough to deserve the title of mansion. I knocked at the door as loudly as I could; when I’d turned onto the street leading up to the house, I’d texted her to let her know I was nearly there.
My mom threw open the door and pulled me into the house, hugging me tightly and kissing me on the cheek. “Oh, baby, you’re so cold! Come on, come into the living room, and get warm.” I was smiling, glad to be back together with my mom, glad of a few days of relaxation before I had to finish the semester out strong. “Oh! I almost forgot—your surprise!” I shook my head as my mom led me to a big, comfortable couch, a few yards away from a roaring fire, pushing me down to sit.
“Mom, I can wait for it, I promise,” I said, smiling and laughing at her infectious enthusiasm
.
“Well I can’t wait,” my mom said, sitting down next to me. “Are you warming up dear?” I nodded and all of her concern about me flew out of the window. “Okay, here it goes: I’m married!” she held up her hand and showed me the ring on her ring finger. My jaw dropped.
“You’re married?” I shook my head. “You’ve only been with him for five months!” I tried not to sound like I was judging her but I was shocked—and more than a little worried about her sanity.
“Oh, baby, I’m not a kid anymore; I’m in love with Bob and there was no reason to wait any longer.” I shook my head again.
“Mom, five months is not long enough to know if you can live with someone! This is crazy!” My mom hugged me.
“Well it’s done, baby. And now I can introduce you to your new step-father and step-brother.” I took a deep breath; it wouldn’t be fair to them to keep up the fight with my mom that I knew would erupt when she continued to insist that her getting married was a great idea—she’d get mad at me for being mad after a while, and if my new step-family was waiting to meet me, I should at least put on a polite face. My mom went to a door on the side and opened it. “Mia, meet Bob, your new step-father,” she said, grinning broadly. A man stepped through the door; he looked vaguely familiar and I tried to remember whether or not I’d seen a picture of him in the five months that my mom had been dating him. He had light brown hair and bright eyes; he was slim, not skinny but with subtle muscling on his arms and chest.
“Pleased to meet you finally, Bob,” I said, keeping my voice as level as possible. My mom beamed at both of us and Bob came in to sit down in one of the wingback chairs; he said something about being happy for the chance to get to know me better, but I barely heard him.
“Okay, baby, and now—here is your new step-brother!” I steeled myself—maybe the guy would be just as upset about his dad marrying practically a stranger as I was. But when my new step-brother walked through the door, my stomach dropped down to my knees. No wonder Bob had looked familiar; as my mom told me my new step-brother’s name, commenting something about what a small world it was—since he went to the same college as I did—I just stared at the man in front of me. He had stopped short and he was staring back at me, and I couldn’t imagine that I looked any less shocked and mortified than he did. Of all of the people in the world, my mother had managed to date and marry the worst possible man.
My new step-brother was Jaxon.
Stepbrother Wow #2 comes out April 29th
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 Claire Adams