Stepbrother At Last

I tried to back away a little, hoping she couldn’t tell. She was only eighteen, and I didn’t know if she’d ever had a serious boyfriend. I’d been away at college most of the time. But she didn’t want me to pull away. She grabbed me harder and started to grind into me a little. I gotta say, I was surprised, but I got over it pretty quick. Holding that hot girl in my arms, the girl who had starred in my dreams for years, feeling her rub herself against me that way—it was pretty great.

But we had to stop. I mean, there we were at a state park. I couldn’t just take her behind a tree and jump her bones, even though that was a tempting thought. When I got with her, I wanted to take my time, do it right. Not to mention, what were we going to do about the whole brother-sister thing?

“Hey Julia. If we don’t stop now, I’m not going to be able to stop”

“Okay.” She was panting a little, her eyes sparkling. “Let’s keep walking. If we stand still, I’ll molest you.” She winked.

“What are we going to do about Dad and Lucy? Should we tell them?”

“I never thought about this part. I don’t know. I don’t want to keep it a secret.”

“Yeah, me neither. It makes it seem wrong, kind of,” I said.

“So…do we just…start acting like boyfriend and girlfriend and see what they say? Or do we sit them down and tell them? Ha, I know, we’ll take them back to that restaurant where I had the escargot!”

“Jule.” I stopped laughing and pulled her close again. “This is more than boyfriend-girlfriend stuff for me. I love you.”

She leaned her forehead against my chest then, and I couldn’t see her face. Had I scared her? It felt like forever before she looked up into my eyes. “I love you too. I always have.”

Julia

When I got home from the hospital after clinicals there was no one there. Mom must have gone out. In the mirror beside the front door, I could see big black tracks of mascara running down my face. It had been my hardest day yet as a student nurse.

I really wanted to talk to my mom. She’d left me a note in the kitchen—it was one of her volunteer days and she’d be back late.

This was one of the things that I had to fix in my life: not enough friends. I used to have lots of friends, before the accident. But once I was out of the hospital and was facing life in a wheelchair, most of them just drifted away. It was partly my fault, but also part of it was that a lot of them had gone to colleges far away and just didn’t keep in touch. It would have been nice to be able to pick up the phone and talk to a friend about what had happened.

Of course the first person I wanted to talk to was Nick. I’d thought of him while I was still at the hospital, even. But I didn’t want to get all dependent on him. He was a freaking billionaire now. He could have any girl he wanted, not to mention go anywhere, do anything he wanted. No matter what he said, he’d be gone from Greenwood soon. He didn’t need to know how often I woke, tangled in the sheets, damp from dreams of him, of his hands and mouth on me—everywhere.

Still. He had ears, he could listen. We’d had coffee a couple of times and it wasn’t horrible. It was awkward, yeah, but once we’d been talking a few minutes, the awkwardness went away, and it was kind of like it was before the accident. And he kept asking for more—dinner, movie, fly to New York and see a play. I always said no—I knew that I didn’t want to start trusting him and get my heart broken. Again. But just this once wouldn’t hurt, right?

So I called him.

He answered right away, and it was the strangest thing, just the warm sound of his voice saying, “Hi Julia” got me all choked up again.

“Nick, I need you,” I said. I didn’t mean to say it that way—it just came out.

“What’s wrong?” Instantly his voice was serious, take-charge. “Are you okay?”

“I had…. I had a really bad day at the hospital.”

“Oh. Where are you?”

“I’m at home.”

“Okay, sit tight, Jule. I’ll be right there.”

I washed my face and changed clothes. Less than ten minutes later, his car pulled up out front.

When I opened the door, the first thing he did was to fold me up in a big warm hug. I wasn’t expecting it, but I didn’t freeze up like the last time he’d hugged me here. It wasn’t a sexy hug, or anything like that. Just a long, comforting one. I didn’t know how to feel about it. I didn’t want to let him get too close. His scent, some clean-smelling cologne and that sunshine smell, was almost intoxicating, though. Just friends, I reminded myself.

I led him to the kitchen, which was where everybody sat to talk in this house.

He said, “Can I make you some tea? Do you still drink that woo-woo herbal stuff you used to like?” He rummaged in a cabinet for a second. “Y

ep, here it is.” He started to heat water and got two cups out.

“You still remember where everything is?” I said.

“Yeah. Your mom’s still as organized as ever.”

When we were seated at the table with the fragrant mugs in front of us, he said, “So what happened today?”

“I was working surgical,” I said, and I felt my voice tightening up. “They brought a girl in through the ER who’d been in a car accident. Just a 13-year-old girl, Nick. Her injuries weren’t exactly like mine, but pretty close, with a crushed pelvis and broken legs.”

Nick pressed his lips together before saying, “Were you in the OR where they were working on her?”

“Yeah,” I said. “They operated for four hours. I was there the whole time. She’s in critical condition now, in the ICU. Just like I was. I was a basket case today. Once she was in recovery, I went to the ladies’ room and just cried and cried. Thank god my shift was over, because all I wanted was to come home.”

“So, you cried after?”

I nodded.

“But how about during? While she was on the table? How did you feel then?”

I took a sip of tea. “I don’t know. I just was focused on working. I was upset. But I still just did my job.”

He smiled, kind of a sad smile, but still a smile. “That’s great though, Jule. Nobody would blame you for falling apart in a situation like that. But you didn’t. You did the job.” He stroked my fingers with his thumb. I looked down. Somehow, he’d taken my hand while I was talking and I hadn’t registered the fact.

I left my hand in his, because, I told myself, it would be rude to pull it back right then.

Nick said, “Are you proud of yourself? Cause I’m really proud of you.”

“Well, yeah! Yeah, I kind of am.”

He looked at the time on his phone, and I said, “Oh, sorry. Do you have to be somewhere?”

“No, not at all. I was just thinking, it’s really early for dinner, but I bet you didn’t have lunch, did you?”