Stepbrother Inked

by Violet Blaze

  “Remember those kittens I told you about? Well, she wants to pick one out. Come on, Abs.”

  Flor reached down and grabbed my arm. I was so shocked to feel him touching me yet again that I almost dropped my yellow notebook on the floor, barely managing to grab hold of it before my stepmom saw.

  “Ah, that reminds me, Florian,” she said, following us towards the front door. Flor's hand on my arm was such an intense sensation that I forgot to protest. “Your father,” I saw my stepbrother visibly cringe at that, “and I are going out of town next weekend. Could one or both of you stop by and check on the cat? Oh, and don't forget to water my houseplants.”

  Flor let go of me and opened the door, lighting his cigarette before he even stepped outside.

  “Sure thing, kaa-chan,” he said, giving her another kiss on her other cheek. I rolled my eyes. Kaa-chan, another random Japanese word that Flor liked to toss around because it annoyed my father. He thought it was just another sign of Flor's disrespect. Kaa-chan was a pretty casual way to address one's mother, and my dad already thought Flor acted too much like his mom was just a friend and not a parent.

  I moved outside first and over to my car, the smell of cigarette smoke wafting around me as I paused to unlock the doors.

  “Meet me there?” Flor asked as I glanced over my shoulder at him. Really? He looked way too beautiful standing there with a lit cherry highlighting the strong bones of his face, the soft hardness of his mouth, the scar on his chin. I smoothed my hands down my skirt, unconsciously remembering the feel of his Flor's hands on my bare thigh.

  “I'm not going over to your house, Florian,” I said quietly, glancing up to make sure nobody was watching us through the curtains. I didn't see any curious faces, so I rounded on him and crossed my arms over my chest. “What part of that sounds like a good idea to you?”

  “We need to finish talking, Abigail.”

  “Is that what we were doing in the bathroom at the restaurant?” I asked, feeling my cheeks heat yet again. I just couldn't seem to stop blushing around Florian as of late. “I can't stand here knowing how I feel about you, utterly confused about how you feel about me, and having to look in your eyes and see hopelessness. This will never work. You know that, and I finally think I'm starting to get it, really get it.”

  Flor reached a hand over my shoulder, splaying his palm against the driver's side window and leaning close to me. It was a far too intimate position to be taking outside our parents' house, but I couldn't seem to find it in me to stop him.

  His face was pained and his eyes wouldn't quite meet mine, drifting away to stare at the house.

  “Abigail, I want to explain myself.”

  “Didn't seem so eager to do that before when you took off the first time, told me to shut up the second.”

  “I didn't want you to say it aloud, Abigail, because if you did, that made it real.”

  “What about fucking me and letting me go? What guy wouldn't want a chance at this piece of ass, right? Isn't that what you said?”

  “I never called you a piece of ass,” Flor growled, letting his cigarette tumble to the ground between our bodies. He crushed it out with his boot. “I … life isn't a fairytale, Abs. When you say you're in love with someone, it also usually means you want to sleep with them.”

  “Who said I didn't want to sleep with you?” I blurted and his eyes widened, lashes fluttering as he blinked at me in shock a few times. Finally, Flor leaned back and laughed at me. His laughter was so rare nowadays that it took me aback, made me remember strange things, like sitting shoulder to shoulder around a campfire, telling ghost stories with our foreheads pressed together and a flashlight stuck between us.

  I blinked back at him, wondering if he was trying to read my blue eyes the same way I read his green ones.

  “Can we please just talk? I'll even stop by Sweet Life and get you a lemon bar and a cup of bitter black coffee on the way.” Flor leaned in close to me again, brushing a stray curl over my shoulder with his fingers. The stars across his knuckles shimmered in the porch light that was bathing us both in orange-yellow. If I closed my eyes just a little, squinted just enough, those stars glimmered almost as brightly as the ones in the sky above our heads. Could've been a trick of the light, might've been because Flor not only remembered my favorite dessert but also remembered that I liked to have a cup of dark roast coffee, no cream and no sugar, to go with the sweet tartness of it.

  “If you're going to drive five miles out of the way just for that, why not meet up there? It'd be safer that way.” I hated that the last sentence came out in a whisper. “Besides, my apartment's like seven blocks from there. It'd just be easier for me.”

  “Is Addi home tonight?” Flor asked, and I nodded.

  “Exactly. Max is booked solid tonight, so we'll have the place to ourselves. Do you really want to talk about this at a table in a busy bakery?” He was right, of course. Sweet Life was open until eleven, an oddity for any café or bakery, so it was always packed at this time of night. “I'll drive us and then bring you back here to pick up your car.”

  “I don't know, Flor,” I began, but he was already reaching out, wrapping his fingers around my wrist and pulling me towards his car. My heart was skipping beats, leaving me two lungfuls short of enough breath to protest. When he opened the passenger side door, against my better judgment, I climbed in.

  I clutched my coffee cup to my chest and watched my stepbrother bottle-feed a baby kitten.

  It was … well, God. Let's just say the sight did nothing to extinguish my desire for him. He sat there in an overstuffed armchair, his tattooed hand cradling the bottle gently, the kitten's tiny orange paws resting against his fingers. The piercings, the tattoos, the strong set of his shoulders, all of that juxtaposed against the tiny sweetness of the kitten? I felt my eyes swell with tears and had to look away. Damn you, Florian.

  “Never bottle-feed a baby kitten on its back,” he told me as the cat released the bottle and he checked the level of the formula. “They can aspirate the milk. Best to feed 'em like mom would've.” A dark look crossed over his face as he replaced the baby in the padded laundry basket by his feet. He curled his fingers gently around a black kitten, putting it on his knees and starting the process all over again.

  “Flor,” I said, but the only words that wanted to come out of my mouth were I love you. I stopped talking and sat back for a moment before changing the direction of my thoughts. “I think I've got it. Use the canned formula, mix it fresh with warm water, feed them on their tummies, not their backs.” I swallowed hard and glanced away, at the paintings hanging on the dining room wall – all of them Flor's. Max was a talented artist, too, but he rarely painted anything other than skin. “I don't want you to go to jail though.” I sounded like a little kid and that made me frown. Crap. I took a sip of my coffee and kept staring at the paintings on the wall. Each focused on a different woman in a different setting, all of them fantastical, each of them with a similarity I couldn't quite put my finger on.

  Florian snorted at me.

  “I didn't kill the guy, Abi.” He paused and his voice grew dark. “Though I wanted to.” I swallowed hard and took another bite of my lemon bar. “All I did was beat the crap out of him. He deserved it, too. Who the fuck dumps kittens into a garbage can like they're trash?” I didn't argue with him. In my opinion, he was right. But I still worried. “Anyway, I don't think anyone'll be able to trace it back to me, but I wanted you to know how to take care of these guys just in case.” Flor finished with the last of the three kittens and then leaned back in his chair, his eyes now entirely focused on me. I made myself look back at him, if only because it felt cowardly to look away and I'd been showing far too much cowardice lately.

  “So,” I began as Flor rested his left elbow on the chair arm and curled his fingers under his chin. “Now what?”

  “Why now?” he asked me as a horrible anxiety driven stomachache overtook me. I put my drink and my dessert onto the coffee table, suddenly
uninterested in it.

  “Why now what?” I asked, my voice hoarse and husky. It was always husky though, like I was some sort of sex phone operator. I couldn't help that, but I cringed at the roughness in it.

  “Why wait until now to tell me that you love me?” I bit my lip, wishing I'd sat a little further away from him. Our knees were only an inch or so apart. “And when, when did you know?”

  “I … ” This is exactly what you wanted when you started all of this. Try honesty and see what happens. Secrets and lies are what got you here in the first place. “I … ” My voice failed me, cracking on that single syllable. Something shifted on Flor's face, something that looked an awful lot like sympathy. That's what got me angry. I didn't need his sympathy, didn't want it either. Even if this love was unrequited, or doomed, it was still mine and I cherished it. “I've always loved you, Flor. I can't think of a single moment when it started, maybe when I … first saw your eyes. I've been under your spell since I was five.” I choked up a little when I said that, memories assaulting me from every angle. Why him? Why did Flor have to be my stepbrother? Why not Max? If Flor had been a childhood friend or a classmate, we would've been free to act on our feelings. When he said nothing, I continued, letting it all fall out. “I decided to tell you now because I'm tired of living with the shame and the secrecy. I'm tired of getting stomachaches when I see you with other girls, tired of dreading family dinners because I just know that one day, you're going to meet a girl and get married. I'll have to watch you have kids with her, love her, hold her, and there I'll be, standing in the background like I've always been.”

  I clenched my fists by my sides.

  “You never saw me, Flor, even when that's all I wanted. I wanted you to treasure me the same way I treasured you. But the second you matured? You ran off and started collecting girls like trophies. Why couldn't you see the hurt in my eyes? Why didn't you care?” He opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off. Whatever he was going to say, it wouldn't matter. “I've been waiting since … since I was thirteen for you to really notice me, to treat me like a girl. And then, that day, when I was fifteen?” Flor cringed and it was his turn to look away. “Why did you kiss me if it didn't mean anything to you? You broke my heart.”

  “Who ever said it didn't mean anything?” he snapped, spinning back to face me, his fingers curling in the black fabric of the armchair. “Abigail, you're my sister.” He sat back suddenly and groaned low in his throat, dragging his hands down his face. “What was I supposed to do? Listen to yourself. You were young, you looked up to me, you followed me around like I was your superhero. And you wanted me to what? Wait around for you to grow up, like some kind of freak predator? Sneak into your room on your sixteenth birthday and ravage you? For fuck's sake.”

  He looked away again and I reached up suddenly to find liquid on my cheeks. Tears. More tears. Ouch. Why did what he have to say make so much sense? And why did it have to hurt so much?

  “Please don't cry,” he said, this time more softly than before. I swiped an arm across my eyes, but the tears wouldn't stop. As if the floodgates had officially been opened, my emotions streamed down my cheeks in two salty trails. It didn't help when Flor got up and came to sit next to me, pressing the length of his thigh against mine.

  “What exactly are you saying then?” I asked, sniffling, turning to look at him with my stomach in my throat and my vision blurring with tears. “That you don't like me? Or you do? You're not making any sense, Flor.”

  His hand reached down and curled around mine, mixing the plainness of my fingers with the color of his.

  “Like I said, I've known about my feelings for you since I was sixteen.” Flor took a deep breath. “I've loved you for far longer than that.”

  “Then why?” I asked, trembling against him, feeling so small I thought I might shrivel up and die. “Why wouldn't you let me tell you?”

  “If you told me, then I knew it was real. It meant I had to admit to myself how I felt, admit that you felt the same way.”

  “So you don't just want to fuck me?” I snapped, remembering his cruel comments in the restaurant. Florian squeezed my hand harder but didn't respond at first.

  “You're only eighteen, Abigail,” he said and I almost howled in frustration. It was like that day all over again – this time, it was twenty-one year old Flor that knew everything and I was still the baby. I tore my fingers away from his, certain that I wouldn't survive another minute of his touch. “I'm not going to take advantage of you like … like … ”

  “Like Max?” I asked and I felt Flor cringe beside me. “I know Max is no good, Flor. I caught him cheating on me last night. But I'm not with him because I love him. I'm with him because he sees me as a woman, because I want someone to hold me at night, but mostly … ” I trailed off for a moment, but then decided fuck it. “Mostly, I'm with him because he reminds me of you.”

  Flor growled low in his throat and leaned forward, putting his elbows on his thighs, resting his head in his hands.

  “But this will never work, right? Even if I love you and you love me and we both want to … sleep with each other. I think I get it, Flor. I get it. You have other girls and other priorities and it's just not worth it.”

  “I can't, Abigail. Why can't you understand that? I can't. I just can't. I've tried to forget about you.” He lifted his head just enough to look at me. “I'm trying to move on, but when you look at me like that … ” Flor sat up and looked straight at me. “When you smell this good, when you feel this soft … ” He ran his fingers along my cheek and I cringed away, not because his touch bothered me but because it felt so good. Too good. Perfect. “All I want is to be with you.” My heart sputtered, stilled, stopped. “But I can't. When our parents got married, I swore that I would take on the role of big brother and I have, damn it. I am your brother, whether you like it or not.”

  I threw myself off that couch, practically falling over the coffee table in my haste to get away from Flor. He stood up, too, and I spun to face him, but before we could take the conversation any further, a knock sounded at the door. Before either of us could be bothered to open it, it swung inward and there was Rhonda, the drag queen. Only … today she didn't look so much like a drag queen. Her fluffy, frothy blonde hair was slightly damp, hanging straight past her shoulders like she'd recently showered. The over the top makeup was gone; all she had on was a dash of eyeliner, a splotch of shadow, and some lip color. In her tight skinny jeans and purple corset top, she was pretty. No, not pretty, gorgeous. Sexy. Put together. All the things I wasn't and would never be.

  We stood there staring at each other for several silent seconds before she smiled at me, lighting up her face in a way that made my blood chill.

  How many times had she and Flor slept together? How many times had he kissed her, whispered sweet nothings in her ear? Had he ever told her he loved her?

  “Abi, nice to see you again. What are you two up to?”

  “I was just leaving,” I said, noticing the bag of takeout in her right hand. Either she didn't know tonight was family dinner night or she didn't care. I moved around Rhonda and down Flor's front steps before I remembered that I didn't have my car with me. Downtown Springfield in the middle of the night, still not a savory place to be by myself. I noticed Rhonda's car in the driveway next to Flor's and held out my hand when he came out to see what I was doing. “Keys,” I whispered in a voice so rough it was like gravel.

  Flor hesitated before depositing them in my hand. When he did, he tried to grab hold of me, but I pulled away. Noticing that Rhonda's eyes were on me, I forced myself to hold back another burst of tears. When I climbed in the car and started down the street, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw that Flor was still watching me with those green eyes, eyes I'd fallen in love with. Eyes that would never look at me the way I wanted them to.

  I went home to a dark apartment, lit only by Addi's Christmas lights, and found a note taped to my bedroom door.

  Out with Pat t
ill late. TURN YOUR PHONE ON AND CALL ME!

  I smiled sadly through the tears that just wouldn't seem to stop and went into my room, sliding open the closet doors and pulling out my cello. I hadn't played it since graduating high school, but I felt like I needed it now.

  I sat down in the living room, closed my eyes and played the prelude to the first of Bach's infamous cello suites, letting my heart guide my hands. It might be broken, but maybe that was the point? Yuu's words from the WOW Hall came back to me. It's going to blow your mind and break your spirit, and then it's going to put you back together again. Well, I'd been right to doubt that a simple concert could do that to me, but Flor's words? The first half of the equation had been accomplished oh so well.

  I was shattered. I felt broken. Never in my life had I felt so alone.

  Flor had always been by my side and although I'd had to keep a secret all these years, I'd been wrong about one thing. Pretending that there was some hope for us, not knowing if we could ever be, that was so much better than knowing we never would be. I shouldn't have told him anything, should have left things as they were. At this rate, our friendship would decay just as quickly as the relationship we could never have.

  Flor left me in pieces.

  Now it was up to me to put myself back together.

  When Addi came home early that next morning and found me sleeping on the living room floor with my cello, she practically tore the story from my throat, glaring at me with those caramel-brown eyes of hers until I fessed up about everything.

  “That pig,” Addi growled, her righteous indignation making me smile. “God, I knew I hated him, but this … ” She made a noise in her throat and ran her tongue over her lower lip like a predator getting ready to hunt down some particularly troublesome prey. She looked it, too, in her high-high heels that she didn't bother to take off, stomping around the kitchen like it was a runway. Patrick was one lucky guy, taking out Addi in that off the shoulder top that I could never pull off, those designer jeans, makeup that was still perfect after a long night out. He hadn't come home with her, so that must've meant he'd left for San Diego again. “How dare he stomp all over your feelings like that. You want me to kill him for you?” She held up a knife in jest, but I just smiled sadly and shook my head.