by Tijan
Copyright © 2019 Tijan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes only. This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created by the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.
Edited by Jessica Royer Ocken
Photograph by Rafa G. Catala
Models: Andrea Swreda, Oliver Buendia
Proofread by Kara Hildebrand, Paige Smith, Heather Brown, and Chris O’Neil Parece
Beta readers: Crystal Solis, Amy English, Eileen Robinson, and Rochelle Paige
Formatted by Elaine York, Allusion Graphics, LLC
www.allusiongraphics.com
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Epilogue
Other Books
Acknowledgements
Anti-Stepbrother Chapter One
To the readers!
To the ones who are going through something or have gone through something that is unexplainable to others. Hopefully, here are some of the words.
“Lucas is busy forking his new girlfriend, but if you’re feeling vengeful, I can pop in my dentures.”
Those were the words I heard as three things were happening at once.
One, I was just dumped.
The message was being delivered from Newt, my boyfriend’s—no, my very, very recent ex-boyfriend’s—grandfather, while I was standing on his doorstep.
Two, my phone started ringing.
I glanced at it, half hoping it was Luc-ass, but it wasn’t.
I gulped because the person calling was a blast from my past, like my way early past before Lucas, before the guy I was using Lucas to get over, before even him. That far back, and while the person calling me was a guy, he wasn’t a romantic guy. At all. It was more the group of people he represented, a group that I left in my dust years ago.
So, hence the gulp, because none of them had called for at least six years. Give or take.
While both those events were hitting me at once, the third was what shirt Newt was wearing—my Reese Forster shirt.
I pointed at him. “You stole my shirt!” And because I was getting flooded with everything happening, the question blurted out of me. “If an owl could talk, what accent would it have?”
My neck was getting hot, furiously hot.
Newt was the one in front of me, so I was dealing with him first.
Who did he think he was?
A thief, that’s what.
I loved that shirt. I lived in it. Slept in it. Drooled even. I did so many things in that shirt. And there was no way he could claim it wasn’t because the collar was ripped. I put it there, one time in frustration when I watched Forster get the ball stolen from him during the West Conference Finals.
Reese Forster was the Seattle Thunder’s star point guard. They had other star players too. In fact, their team was stacked this year, but it was Reese.
It was my shirt of him.
I got it the first year he was drafted, when he was nineteen, and while my obsession with basketball had waned over the years, my obsession with him had not.
I kept up on his stats. He was lined up to have one of his greatest years this next season.
Goddamn. I’d have to get a new shirt. Maybe a jersey even?
“Is that a no on the revenge sex?” Newt countered.
“I hope your dentures get glued to the bottom of someone’s saggy ass and you have to go to the emergency room to get them removed. You old fuck!”
I stormed off after that, but my phone kept ringing.
Shit.
Looking down, seeing a name I never thought I’d talk to again, I faltered in my storming away. I couldn’t lie, even to myself because I wasn’t sure how to proceed.
Too many things were all converging at once.
But Luc-ass.
Was I devastated? No.
Was I annoyed? Yes.
Lucas and I bonded over our love of Reese Forster and he’d been the first guy I could tolerate in over a year so I was using him. The whole mantra of getting under someone else to get over someone—well, I’d been trying to test that theory out with him.
It hadn’t worked.
So no, I wasn’t crushed about Luc-asshole’s cheating. I mean, it made sense. In a way. I could never bring myself to practice human corkscrewing, as he’d put it. He’d tried selling me on role-playing opening a bottle of wine.
I’d be the wine bottle, and…
Ring!
Okay. It kept ringing.
In the past, the very distant past, if they tried calling, it was only once.
They’d call. I wouldn’t answer. They’d leave a voicemail, which I usually deleted. There’d been a few I had kept saved in my mailbox and depending on how much I wanted to suffer, I might listen to them over a box of wine and Cheetos.
This was different.
He called. He called again.
He kept calling.
Oh boy.
Taking a breath for courage, my thumb lingered over the accept button. I mean, why not? The day had already gone to shit. Might as well add another to the pile.
But if I was going to answer it, I was going to do it my way.
“If you had to pick an alcoholic drink to be the title of your autobiography, what would it be and why?” Pause. A breath. Then, “Heya, Trent.”
Eight hours later, we were drinking.
Yeah. I was surprised myself.
At noon I was being dumped via a saggy pervy grandpa, then I answered my phone, and bam. We were here. I mean, that’s not exactly how it worked. There was an awkward call.
Trent just landed in the city, and his usual person he called to stay with wasn’t in. He explained it was me or a hotel. His gut had a word with him, and he chanced it, figuring he had nothing to lose.
Why I answered, I don’t know. I didn’t know then. I didn’t know now. Maybe I’d look back later and know the answ
er, but when he asked if he could stay at my place for a night, I heard myself giving him my address.
Then there was a whole disjointed meeting.
I blurted out that I was dumped, I cursed Newt to him, and then told him about the real travesty of the day: my Reese Forster shirt had been stolen.
Trent was quiet at first, standing there as I told him all of that, but both of us knowing the big elephant in the room was my disappearing act from our group of friends, or really: the why I faded from the group.
He knew the reason. I knew the reason. Even Lucas knew the reason. None of us were talking about it.
“Charlie, uh,” he coughed. “The grandpa. The boyfriend.” He frowned, shaking his head. “This is a new boyfriend, right? I don’t recognize that name.”
“Oh, yeah.” My throat burned.
Somewhere an elephant was doing whatever sound they do, raising their trunk up, spraying water everywhere.
A bad taste rose up in my throat, and I clamped a hand on my stomach. “Oh no.”
I knew more were coming. They were never pretty.
“Do camels’ backs actually break?”
The words rushed out of me. I couldn’t stop them. I was biting my tongue, suppressing the rest.
I wanted to ask if he ever wondered if mimes enjoyed making sexual gestures more than the others?
What was the name of his imaginary pet chicken?
Did he actually have an imaginary pet chicken because everyone should have an imaginary pet chicken. Pros and cons, please.
Trent was eyeing me sideways. “You still do those, huh?”
I nodded. When things got too much for me, weird and random things came out of my mouth.
“So.” Another big sigh from him. He folded his head down, his hands in his pockets and he asked, “Wanna go get drunk?”
“If Jesus were alive, you think he’d be good at Jerkin dance?”
He just shook his head.
• • •
He yelled in my ear as we were dancing, “You should come with me.”
We were at the bar two blocks from my apartment.
For whatever reason, Trent decided to give me a break and not push for explanations and apologies that he deserved. Instead, he’d been on this new persuasion of getting me to go with him when he’d go back to our stomping grounds in the morning.
The music was now blaring, and I’d already sweated out two of the tequila shots, so I’d moved on to a Long Island Iced Tea. Which wasn’t much better alcohol-wise because dammmn they were tasty. And when I say dancing, I really mean we were bobbing up and down like apples floating in a barrel for a bad Halloween game—with random arm flailing.
I liked to pretend it was the surprise grouse attack. You’re walking, walking, things are great, calm, the world is beautiful, and whoosh—a grouse shoots up from the ground and you just peed your pants. It was that kind of arm flailing. Trent had it down perfectly. He was convinced he should be in a dance crew.
“What?” I stuck a finger in my ear, yelling back, but I was lying. Again.
I was a bad friend because I knew what he was asking me to do.
Echo Island Camp.
The name is deceptive. It wasn’t a total island, smack in the middle of the largest lake in Minnesota—well, the largest inland lake. Not Lake Superior. But it was scary big.
Despite all this, I did have a soft spot for Echo Island Camp.
It was a sanctuary place, kinda, for me. I went there as a kid, graduated to junior counselor in training during high school, then joined their summer staff full time after that. My family didn’t live far, so it’d been a second home to me. Kitchen. A brief stint on the maintenance crew. A counselor. I did it all.
That group of friends I ran from, they continued to get together every year—without me.
And Trent was asking me to go back. He was hired for a speaking event there tomorrow night.
The tequila had made all my thoughts and feelings fuzzy.
Is there such a thing as a tequila meltdown? Because I was nearing it.
I tapped his shoulder, and as he leaned down, I yelled into his ear, “Pee.”
He nodded, flashing me a smile. I started moving toward the bathroom, and when I glanced back, Trent was already angling toward a hot blonde back on the dance floor. Judging by the smile on her face, I knew he wouldn’t miss me any time soon.
Knowing that, I slipped out to the sitting area. A few tables were full, but I grabbed one toward the edge. Though we were outdoors, there were plenty of televisions and games like foosball and air hockey. There were a couple pool tables too, but they were at the other end. They tended to be surrounded by serious players, i.e., douchebags trying to look all tough and manly. Newt had probably been one of them in his younger days.
At the thought of him, I started growling. To myself. Because I was demented now. But he’d stolen my Reese Forster shirt. That pretty face didn’t belong over Newt’s saggy chest and balls. He deserved to be resting over me, keeping me warm—I had to stop myself. I noticed I’d started to caress my drink like it was Reese Forster.
And sitting alone at a table, that wasn’t a good look.
“…...Forster’s brother is going to damage his season? What do you think, Kat?”
I snapped around, hearing the sportscaster’s voice.
A few other guys were standing in front of the TV, one pointing a remote control and upping the volume level.
I went over, standing behind them to hear Kat’s response. “We all have to remember that this scandal isn’t Reese Forster’s scandal. It’s his brother’s. It’s getting coverage because of his relation to Reese, and I hope it doesn’t affect his season this year, but who knows? It very well could.”
On the screen, one of the other men at the desk leaned forward, his suit wrinkling. “You have to feel for the guy. Reese Forster is known to be private. He’s intense on the court. He’s a leader for that team, and now his name is being connected to what his brother—”
“—what his estranged brother—” Kat interrupted.
He motioned toward her, nodding. “Yeah. What his estranged brother has done.”
The first guy that spoke leaned back in his chair, frowning. “I do believe it’s Forster that’s estranged from his family. Not the other way around. That’s the one thing we know about his personal life—an ex let that slip.”
Kat barked out a laugh. “Oops. What an ex-girlfriend, huh?”
The first guy smirked. “Probably why she’s the ex now.”
Kat nodded. “And getting back to the estranged part, it should be the other way around, shouldn’t it? I mean, when you have a brother sexually assaulting women—”
“Allegedly.” The first guy pointed his pen at her, grinning out of the side of his mouth. “We have to use that term, remember?”
The second guy snorted, picking up his papers and organizing them. “Yes. We must use ‘allegedly’ or our own lawyers will be hitting the red light for us.”
All three of them looked up, past the camera, and laughed.
“And there you have it.” Kat leaned forward, the camera zooming in on her. “Our lawyer just spoke. We’ll be right back to talk about where the Seattle Thunder are allegedly going for their preseason training camp.”
The second guy laughed. “We’ll allegedly hear from our sponsors right now.”
They started laughing again as the screen switched to a sports drink commercial. If I drank the purple drink, and if I was wearing an almost see-through bathing suit, climbing out of a pool, then I’d be so sexy that I’d have to bat the boys away.
More like I’d scare the boys away.
I snorted to myself, and the guy with the remote control looked back, along with a couple of his friends.
I’d forgotten I was at a bar, and that I’d had four shots of tequila before coming here. Interest sparked in a couple of them. As their gazes roamed over me, I also remembered I hadn’t cared what I wore. I wasn’t dressed skimp
y, but I hadn’t changed since I left Newt’s house, and I’d been dressed for Lucas. He always gave me crap about not being sexy for him, so I’d put on a black, high-collar halter tank top. It was cashmere, and I’d paired it with a silver skirt that had a slit up the side.
“Uh. Hey guys.” I waved, still backing away. “How about Forster’s brother, huh? What do you think his favorite strain of weed is?”
The closest to me leaned forward, leering. “You like basketball?” His breath reeked of cigarettes, chew, and alcohol. I was a fan of only one of those things.
“Charlie!”
I sagged in relief, hearing Trent shout my name.
I pointed over my shoulder. “Gotta go. Catch you on the rebound.”
I’d taken three steps before I realized how that sounded. My cheesy basketball humor only made me seem desperate. Damage done. I headed toward the tables in time to see Trent going back inside. I waved, and he saw me, his eyebrows rising.
He held his arms out, weaving around to me. “Where’d you disappear to?”
I gave him a knowing look. “Like you weren’t having fun in there with Miss Boobs-a-Lot.”
He lowered his arms, but I caught the stupid grin on his face. And the way his cheeks got the slightest bit of pink in them.
He took the seat across from me at the table and raked his hands through his hair. “Her name is Claudia, and she was actually really nice.”
“Nice, like you want to head home with her tonight nice?”
“Har. Har.” He shot me a look, but I saw the interest in his eyes. He was Boobs-a-Lot smitten. I started to wave my finger in the air, the Trent and Boobs-a-Lot Sitting in a Tree song on the tip of my tongue, when he snatched my finger and shoved it back down on the table.
He glowered. “Don’t start. You’re about to break out in a full rendition with clapping and hand motions, and before we know it, I’ll be taking you to the hospital because you broke your nose trying to breakdance on the floor.”
My nose began smarting just at the mention, and I cringed. “Okay. One, I was a breakdancer at one point in my life.”
“Never. Never. You had two breakdancers in your cabin that summer, but you weren’t a breakdancer. Knowing two lock-and-pop moves doesn’t make you one of them, and those were with your wrists.”