Stepbrother's Secret

Somehow with two less people in the back of the limousine, it seems infinitely smaller.

Tristan is across from me, his long legs stretched out and nearly reaching mine. He sits silently, watching me with one arm laid across the back of the leather seat, his jaw bunched like he’s chewing on metal. In the darkness of the vehicle, held captive in the intensity of my stepbrother’s stare, I feel vulnerable. Exposed in my threadbare dress.

“Are you overwhelmed, Cate?”

His deep voice almost makes me gasp, my head aching to fall back against the seat. Just so I can close my eyes and let the gruff, cultured quality of it swallow me like a wave. “Yes,” I whisper. “I don’t want to disappoint anybody.”

The limousine pulls out of the driveway and turns down a tree-lined avenue, silent, dotted with towering streetlamps. One of those lamps lights Tristan’s face long enough for me to see his frown. “You’ve been left to fend for yourself in a hovel and you’re worried about being a disappointment? Perhaps you should be disappointed in the adults who allowed that to happen.”

“I am an adult,” I whisper, though I don’t know why it feels like a secret I’m passing on. “Just this past May.”

Slowly, his fingers curl into a fist where they rest on the seat. “I see.” It takes him a moment to continue. “Still, that wasn’t always the case, was it?”

“No. It wasn’t. But I done just fine and kept on breathing.” I study my knees a moment. When I look back up, he’s staring at them, too. Where they press tightly together, the way I watched my mother do on the plane ride. Ladylike. “Tristan?”

Is that a shiver that passes though him? “Yes?”

I hedge for a few seconds. “Did my mother come to get me ’cause she missed me? Or ’cause she was worried it’d hurt your career if people found out I was all alone down in the marsh?”

A single brow raises. “She missed you.” A pause. “And it would hurt my career.”

“So…both?”

Tristan inclines his head, though making the admission seems to trouble him.

I nod, accepting that information. Trying not to be conflicted over it. Of course there’s a reason they made such a big deal of collecting me fast, quietly under the cover of night. Just like there’s a reason they’re going to keep me in an apartment, teach me things and dress me up. I’m not one of them yet. But do I want to be?

Already, I’m a little homesick for my tire swing and fireflies.

For the creaky floorboards of my house.

Squishy mud between my toes.

I packed up as many of Daddy’s things as I could, but I also miss the memories of him walking through the rooms. His laughter. Even the smell of his menthol cigarettes. We were all each other had for a long time.

“Everything is going to be okay, Cate.”

“I know,” I say, though I’m not as confident as he sounds.

Looking across the seat at my stepbrother, I find myself extremely curious about him. He’s so intense, so laser focused, but every once in a while, I catch him softening when he watches me. I don’t know how to feel about those too-brief slip-ups or how to read him. Does he like me or am I just a responsibility?

My father always used to tell me I asked inappropriate questions and made people uncomfortable. Maybe it’s in his honor that I blurt, “Are you married?”

A vein ticks in his temple. “No.”

“Oh.” Why am I so relieved? “Why?”

He starts to answer, stops. And begins again. “It has been suggested, mostly by my father, that I marry to further my career. Voters like to see a family unit, but I don’t want to make life decisions because they’ll look good on a billboard.” His tone thickens. “And there have been no women I’ve wanted to make time for.”

“You’re making time for me,” I point out without thinking, immediately wishing I could cast a line and reel the words back into my mouth. “B-but I’m your stepsister, so it’s different.”

“Yes.” His gaze bores into mine, then slowly travels down to the bodice of my dress. To the buttons that became harder to close when my breasts came in. “It’s different.”

The limousine rolls to a stop outside a tall building. So tall I have to lean sideways and tilt my head to see the top. It seems to stretch all the way up into the clouds. “No way. Is this where I’m going to live?”

“Yes.” Voice tight, Tristan doesn’t wait for the driver to open the door, but pushes out himself, briskly, as if escaping something. Though he does reach a hand back into the running vehicle to help me out. “Come.”

We hold hands a few seconds longer than necessary after I’ve exited.

Both of us look down at our joined hands and the sight of my small one in his much larger hold tickles something low in my tummy. Tristan makes a sound in his throat, gently rubbing a circle onto the small of my wrist. And I barely stop myself from sagging against him, that one small touch turning me into a beehive of sensation.