Quid Pro Quo: A dark stepbrother romance

by Nenia Campbell

  “Stay away from Courtney Ho,” she said, as soon as she was within speaking distance. “That's Quentin's little sister. He'll kill you if you break her heart—if I don't get to you first.”

  Nick swept himself up from the grass, unconcerned. “Her last name's Ho? That's perfect.”

  “What are you even trying to prove by being such a raging little misogynist? It's not cool.”

  “Well, it's like Dad says, Jay. Sometimes you have to test drive a car to learn that it's a lemon.”

  Jay had never heard Damon say anything like this in her life, but she wasn't exactly the prime audience for that type of rhetoric. Locker room talk. Man's talk. She'd heard him say other things, too. Flirting inappropriately with waitresses her own age—sometimes in front of her mother. Berating her mother in public. Even his praise could be offensive. Jay's hand closed absently over the charm bracelet around her wrist. Good girl.

  Shaking off her terrible suspicions, Jay narrowed her eyes at Nicholas. “I am seriously this close to driving you out to the middle of Coachella Valley and leaving you there for the vultures to fight over. I better not get any more girls crying at my locker over you, Nick.”

  “Whatever, blue jay,” he said, raking his hand through his gelled curls. “Stay out of my love life or all be all up in yours. You know you're such an ice queen, I'm honestly surprised your ass doesn't freeze the seat when you sit on it.”

  “Asshole,” she said.

  He snorted. “Prude.”

  ▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

  “You should be more like your sister.”

  Nick leaned back beneath the bleachers, his mood stormy, the words of his guidance counselor ringing damningly in his ears. Behind him, the bare wood of the fence separating the sports field from the rest of the world was splintery and badly weathered, snagging on the jacket of his uniform. In his hand was a pocketknife his dad had gotten him a while ago—rosewood with surgical grade steel—and he toyed with the blade, flicking it in and out.

  If the teachers caught him with it on campus, he'd probably have been yanked into the office and threatened with expulsion, Beaucroft or not. But he hadn't been caught yet.

  It never counted if you didn't get caught.

  Where was she, anyway? Not that he cared one way or the other, but if he was going to get yelled at for cutting class, he generally liked to have a reason for it.

  Eventually, he saw the silvery-platinum of Amanda Strife's blonde hair glinting under the sun. She told everyone it was real, but Nick had noticed her dark roots one day. Not that it mattered. She could tell everyone her hair was naturally green if she wanted. He really didn't give a shit.

  “Hi,” she said, in a breathless way that suggested she'd been running. “Sorry. I know I'm late. Ms. Chang is a huge bitch and she wouldn't let me get up to use the bathroom until I told her it was urgent.”

  “Not my problem.” Nick slammed the penknife into the fence, making her jump. “Come on.”

  When her mouth touched his, it was like a blade glancing off metal—it made something dull and dark inside him briefly light up with violence before the emptiness came flooding in like a black lake.

  It never once occurred to him that the reason messing around always left him feeling so angry and unsatisfied was because he was craving something else.

  “Hey,” an angry adult voice shouted. “What do you two kids think you're doing?”

  Stupid question, thought Nick, shoving the knife back into his pants as Amanda tried to flee. Watching her, he thought, Even stupider to run, though.

  The two of them both got dragged into the office for cutting class and making out, which he thought was stupid. People did way worse things under those bleachers—or did they think all those cigarette butts and crumpled condoms were from a squad of horny, chain-smoking bums?

  Nick glared at the principal, who looked back at him like he was a puzzle that needed to be solved. “I expect better from you, Nicholas.”

  “So sorry to disappoint,” he sneered.

  Amanda had been taken to detention, which Nick figured meant she'd narced. Her big mouth was probably why they were in this mess in the first place. He'd just bet she bragged.

  “I'm calling your father,” the principal said eventually, and Nick leaned back with a sigh.

  “Whatever,” he said. “Call him. He's not going to pick up the phone.”

  But his father had picked up the phone, marching into the office in his three-piece suit, causing the staff to scatter. He didn't even have to say anything to suggest his anger and Nick found that fascinating, even as part of him became instinctively wary about being a target.

  “You,” said his father. “Get up. We're leaving now.”

  Nick ignored the principal, who was sitting behind his stupid desk and twirling his stupid tie. He resented being marched off campus like a prisoner on his way to the firing squad, and when they got to his father's Mercedes, he flopped into the passenger seat with a put-upon sigh.

  “What,” said his father, in low, dangerous tones, “the hell do you think you are doing?”

  “Well, I thought I was making out with a girl who could keep her damn mouth shut,” said Nick. “But I was wrong, obviously.”

  His dad regarded him for a long moment, his sudden fury winking out just as abruptly as it had flared. “I can't have you embarrassing me like this. If you're going to do something stupid with your peers, don't get caught, and for God's sake, don't get me involved.”

  “Fine,” Nick muttered. “Can we go now?”

  His father started the car. “Why don't you get yourself a proper girlfriend?”

  “The girls in my classes are such a waste of time. They don't give a shit about anything.”

  “Then date an older girl. One of your sister's friends. Nothing wrong with an older woman. They have more experience, which you sorely need, and you could end up going to prom as a freshman.”

  “Jay would scratch my eyes out. Pass.”

  His father scoffed. “Your sister really doesn't have the influence you think she does. Date or don't, but I better not hear another whisper about you or your escapades from the school. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Crystal.”

  When Amanda came back to the bleachers the next day, Nick shrugged her off. “I'm not in the mood,” he said. “You're not really my type, anyway. I thought we were just fooling around.”

  “Seriously?” she asked, looking hurt. “I just cutted English.”

  Nick snorted as he walked away. “Yeah, maybe don't.”

  After that, he stopped cutting classes—or tried to—but they bored him and he found it hard to focus. What he did have was an aptitude for talking back and getting into trouble. He was in detention so often that Jay sometimes had to hang around for an hour to wait for him to get out so she could drive them both home.

  He could tell this annoyed her, which pleased him. He liked that his pretty, popular sister had to answer to him in this one regard; and when she was waiting around for him, on his dime, she wasn't out with her equally pretty and popular friends.

  “Why did you replace the dry erase markers with sharpies, Nick?”

  “I'm not owning up to anything,” he said. “They couldn't prove I did it.”

  “Right,” said Jay. “Which is the only reason you are in detention and not suspended.”

  “Mr. Masefield is always calling on me in class when he knows I don't know the answer,” he complained. “It's not like he's so perfect. He's always misprinting the damn formulas on the board. Of course, it's easy when you're always holding a fucking eraser.”

  “That's going to cost about a thousand dollars to replace.”

  “My dad makes that much money every time he sneezes,” said Nick, glancing over to see how angry with him she actually was. Her mouth was a hard line, nearly erasing the full swell of her lips. “The money's probably coming out of one of our family's donations.”

  “Here's a thought,” said Jay. “What if you
actually did the work instead of letting Mr. Masefield make you look like an idiot? You're good at math.”

  “He's the one who looks like an idiot. I'm a Beaucroft and he's some guy in short pants trying to teach Algebra to a bunch of burnouts. It's not like it matters. Dad doesn't give a shit. I could pull straight A's and he wouldn't even blink, and I'll still get in wherever I want because he'll just endow a library or make a big donation, so in the end, it doesn't really make much difference.”

  “So that's it,” said Jay. “You're not even going to try to do the work?”

  “I'll get what I want either way,” Nick repeated. “So I might as well take the path of least resistance. I'm tired of the bullshit. We can't all be sweet little angels like you, blue jay. Some of us have dirty wings.”

  “You think it's so easy for me?” she asked. “It isn't. I work hard for everything I have.”

  “Yeah, you do,” said Nick. “And you haven't figured out that it doesn't really matter for you, either.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  2004

  ▪▫▪▫▪▫▪

  It doesn't really matter.

  Jay thought about Nick's words a lot in the following weeks. The bleakness of them resonated with such harsh dissonance, resounding in that hollow space inside her body that constantly echoed with the thought: None of this will ever be enough.

  It was her worst fear, summed up eloquently in a single sentence, and to hear it come from Nick, who had nothing to fear, both chilled and angered her. It was as if he'd reached inside her and pulled out a piece of her that she had never wanted to come to light. What did he have to be worried about, anyway, beyond the usual adolescent ennui? His future was secure.

  Jay shook her head and jotted down notes for Composition. She was brainstorming ideas for her journalism piece. She thought she might interview the owner of Red Brook Preserves, a local family-owned company that made jam from the orchards that used to be the property of the original founders. Mr. Garcia was the dad of one of the kids she read to on Wednesdays, and the way that young Miguel talked about his dad made her heart melt.

  She wished she had a father like that, someone who made her light up with pride to talk about.

  Smoothing over the page of her notebook, she paused and tapped her gel pen thoughtfully against the lined surface as her friends' chatter broke through her thoughts. Jordan was talking about her shopping trip at rodeo Drive last weekend. She'd gone with Clary because Jay had been watching one of Nick's swim meets. As usual, she was stuck chauffeuring his ass around.

  Angela was harping on whale tails—the Y-shaped high-rising thongs that peeked out of girls' waistbands—which Jay figured was probably a dig at Amanda Strife. After being chased around by another faculty member with a ruler for rolling up her waistband, she had taken to pulling hers down so everyone could see her Frederick's of Hollywood thongs.

  Jay actually thought it was kind of funny because Amanda at least seemed self-aware in a way that a lot of girls who were playing a much longer con with the guys in this school weren't, but Angela seemed to really have it in for the poor girl. “She's just, like, so slutty,” she was saying. “Like a little baby stripper. It's disgusting.”

  Something cold clenched in Jay's chest. “And what's wrong with that?” she snapped suddenly.

  Angela paused, momentarily derailed. “What?”

  “So what if you can see her thong?” Jay closed her notebook with a slap, startling her friends. “So what if she looks like a stripper? There's nothing wrong with stripping. They're not whores. They're just dancers who . . .” she faltered, wilting a little under Angela's glare. “Take their clothes off.”

  “Wow, Jay.” Angela sneered. “You seem really knowledgeable about strippers all of a sudden. Did you moonlight as one or something? I hear there's a lot of those kinds of places in San Francisco. They practically have their own red light district.”

  “No.” Jay stared at the blurring cover of her notepad. “I'm just saying—it's not the same.”

  She could feel her friends staring at her and her face flushed, emitting a heat that seemed to buzz around her like a radiator. Suddenly, Jay felt raw, exposed—emotionally skinned. Just like how she felt when Nick told her that nothing she did would matter, no matter how hard she tried. Does everyone see me like this? she wondered. Am I really that transparent?

  The conversation resumed again and she saw Quentin Ho giving her a probing look that she quickly looked away from.

  When the bell rang, her friends all got up to leave without waiting for her, even Jordan, who she had class with. Jay's eyes stung at the slight and she deliberately lingered, taking an extra moment to pack her schoolbag. When Quentin strolled up and held out his hand, she took it hesitantly. “Thanks.”

  “Jay,” he said amiably. “What the fuck?”

  “I know. I don't know what came over me.”

  “You know Angela's going to go around now telling everyone that you're a secret stripper.”

  “Yeah, I figured.” Jay closed her eyes. “I don't know why she makes me so mad.”

  But that was a lie. She did know. Shit.

  “You have to stop letting her mess with you, Jay-Jay,” said Quentin. “It's been four years. You're like a guitar on stilts, you're so high strung.”

  “A guitar on stilts,” Jay repeated, laughing. “That's a new one.”

  “Come on. I'll walk you to class. Dance, right?”

  “You don't have to be so nice.”

  “Babe, I hate to break it to you, but you don't have the patented trademark on nice. Don't worry about Jordan,” he added, with surprising sympathy. “She'll come around. She's not really mad at you. She's just fronting for Angela Diamante because they're going shopping later and Angie just leveled up in bitchcraft.”

  “Fuck Angela Diamante,” Jay said darkly, and Quentin let out a surprised burble of a laugh.

  “Well, there you go,” he breathed. “Justine Varens can be a bitch. I feel like all might just be right in the universe, after all. You know why Angie's really mad at you, right? It's because she knows that Michael Valdez only asked her out to make you jealous, and when your dumb, tightly-stringed-guitar-ass self didn't even notice, he dumped her right before school on Monday.”

  “Oh,” said Jay, in a small voice. “I thought Michael actually liked Angela.”

  “He likes you. He asked her out in front of you.”

  “In front of all of us,” she said defensively. “I thought it was a romantic gesture.”

  “Babe.” Quentin looked pained. “He invited her out to Bubble Trouble. Your place. Nobody sucks down boba like you. Angela doesn't even like it. She only said yes because Michael is fine.”

  Jay laughed uncomfortably. “Oops?”

  “Well, he's single now. If you want to rectify that fuck-up and suck his straw. Ow.”

  She lowered her hand. “Come on. I barely touched you.”

  “It was assault and I'm suing your father for damages so I can retire in Palm Springs at twenty.”

  Stepfather, Jay mentally corrected, but she was smiling by the time they made it to Arts and Humanities. Nick and his friends were just leaving. She mentally ticked them off, knowing their faces from seeing them bumming around the house. Alonzo, Dave, Ian, and that skinny little creep, Jake, who always looked at her like he was picturing her without clothes on.

  Nick glanced up, leveling an unreadable look in her direction. He looked . . . annoyed for some reason. But just as abruptly, he turned away.

  Jay thought she might be reading too much into the exchange until she heard Quentin ask, “Why is your brother mean-mugging us?”

  She started to shrug, until she remembered that one day in the field. Courtney, she thought, feeling herself becoming annoyed again. “He's been sniffing around your sister,” she said, hoisting her backpack a little higher. “He probably thinks I'm snitching.”

  “Um,” said Quentin. “You are.”

  “Whoops. Anyway, I told him to
back the hell off or you'd kill him dead.”

  “Thanks for that, Bizzaro Jay, you unexpected bitch. Like I really want to duel for my little sister's honor against the captain of the junior varsity swim team. Have you seen the biceps on that dude?”

  “I don't mack on my brother like that, you gross person.” Jay rolled her eyes. “Like you would really rather see her sad hangdog face across the breakfast table after Nick's done with her?”

  “Don't ask me that right now,” said Quentin. “I'm ready to bring the pain on her skinny little ass. The little monster told my mother that I got a B- in Calculus because I wouldn't drive her to a fucking Dashboard Confessional concert. I am ready to make her weep.”

  Jay smiled. “So, what, did your mom ground you?”

  “Worse. Every day she conveys to me through a series of eye blinks and complex gestures that I have disappointed her with every one of my life choices leading up to this moment. Also, and even more annoyingly, she's started bragging about Courtney to all of our relatives on the phone whenever I'm around—” he raised the pitch of his voice “—let me tell you about my daughter, Courtney, she's so good at figures, oh, wait, let me go into the other room, Constance, Quentin's here.”

  “Wow,” said Jay. “Subtle.”

  “Fucking tiger moms. I can't wait until my college acceptances start pouring in. Once I get into UCLA, Courtney could become class fucking president and my mom would literally not give one iota of a shit.” He glanced over at Jay. “Where'd you apply, you bright young thing?”

  “My stepfather made me apply to Stanford but I also applied to UCLA, Irvine, Berkeley, and USC.”

  “Spicy. You know Stanford and Berkeley are rivals, right?”

  “Yeah,” said Jay. “I've heard that. Don't tell my stepfather, but I hate Palo Alto. San Francisco got a whole lot worse once all the tech people started pouring in.”

  Quentin shuddered. “The only person in this town I want to fight less than your scary brother is his scary dad, Jay. And with my blood now solidly curdled, I'm leaving now. Have fun at dance.”