Dare: A Stepbrother Romance (13 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY

SOPHIE

“I’m going to kill him. I’m seriously going to kill him.”

I rampaged around my room, still searching in vain for my story. I’d tried calling Drew twenty times before I’d given up and gone to sleep several nights earlier, but he hadn’t answered. It had been five days since then, and he still wasn’t answering, let alone returning any of my calls. The story was still nowhere to be seen.

“I can’t believe you’re still looking for it,” Cerie said. She and Lana had come over to commiserate with me. “Sorry, Soph, but I think it’s about time you gave up. Hasn’t it been nearly a week since you lost it?”

“Yes. I just keep thinking it will appear if I keep searching.”

Truthfully, I was deluding myself. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was gone.

“Are you sure one of the maids didn’t accidentally throw it out?” Lana asked.

I shook my head. “No. It was right there before I left for dinner that night.”

I pointed to the spot on the desk, and Cerie wrinkled her forehead. “Maybe the window was open, and a breeze blew it away. Did you check outside?”

“The window wasn’t open.”

“Well, you still have a copy on your computer, right?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point. Someone took the printed draft, and I think we all know who,” I said. “I don’t want Drew to have it.”

“How long is his photo shoot thing?” Lana asked.

“He should be back by tomorrow,” I said. “I found out that it was only a week-long thing.”

“Well, when he gets back, you can ask him then.”

“I guess. But it would be nice if he hadn’t most likely stolen my freakin’ story in the first place.”

My phone buzzed a moment later, and I excused myself from the girls before answering.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Sophie Ramirez?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Sophie, my name is Alison Wilkins. I’m calling from the Arts and Literature department at Hart-Guildford. We received your late application, and quite frankly, we were blown away.”

Huh? I hadn’t applied to Hart-Guildford. It was a prestigious college not far from where I was currently living, and it offered the best creative writing course in the country. I would certainly have
liked
to have applied, but I’d concentrated my applications solely on good engineering schools.

“I’m sorry, what?” I said.

“Your application. Normally it would take us a couple of weeks to consider an application, especially a late one, but Professor Dunham couldn’t put your manuscript down from the second she picked it up. Congratulations, Sophie. We’ll be sending you a package in the mail to get started in the enrolment process, and we’ve just emailed you an online confirmation as well. And don’t worry, the late fee is all paid up. Your brother called us to confirm that the check cleared.”

What. The. Hell.

Drew must have handed in a late application for me, judging by what she’d just said about the late fee and the fact that he was the only one who’d had access to my story aside from me. But why would he do that?

“Um…okay, then,” I said, not really knowing what else to say without confusing the hell out of the woman on the other end of the line. “Thank you for letting me know.”

Cerie and Lana stared at me with their eyes wide, and I filled them in on the phone call.

“Oh my god!” Lana squealed, clapping her hands together. “Are you going to go?”

“I already enrolled at Caltech,” I said.

“So? You can pull out. It’s not too late yet.”

“Hmm…I don’t know.”

“What is it you really want to do?” Cerie asked, her hands on her hips. “Is it writing, or is it engineering?”

“Well…writing,” I admitted. “But my Mom…”

She held up her hand and cut me off. “It isn’t entirely up to your Mom. I think you should go and do what you want. If it doesn’t pan out, then you still have time to go and do something like engineering. You’re only eighteen, Soph. You don’t need to have your entire life planned out!”

I hesitated. She was right. I was too young to be chaining myself to a career I probably wouldn’t even enjoy. Maybe I
would
accept the position at Hart-Guildford. After all, it was really exciting that they’d accepted me. I’d heard their writing program only had an acceptance rate of ten percent. My application had been late, which made it even less likely for me to get in.

I guess my writing was better than I thought.

As I mulled things over, Lana’s phone rang.

“Hello?” she answered. Her eyebrows immediately shot up. “Oh. Hi. Uh-huh. Yeah, I’ll tell her. Yeah, they just called her. Yep. Err…probably a lot. Okay, bye.”

“Who was that?” Lana and I both asked at the same time.

“It was Drew,” Cerie replied. “He said he tried calling you the other day, but you’d blocked his number. Then he had to go do this shoot thing way up in the country in New York State somewhere, and he had no cell phone service. Now he’s back in New York City, and he still couldn’t get through to you so he somehow got my number and called me.”

Oops. I’d totally forgotten. When I was mad at him, I’d blocked him from texting or calling me, because I didn’t want to hear any of his crap. So even if he’d missed a bunch of calls from me, he couldn’t call me back.

“What did he want?” I asked.

“He just wanted to let you know that he dropped in the application for you, and he wanted to know if you got in. He also wanted to know how much you were going to stab him when he gets home tomorrow.”

A blush slowly crept across my cheeks. “So that’s why he took my story,” I said. “He thought he was helping. He wasn’t trying to be a dick.”

The anger I felt towards him was slowly dissipating, although I was still mad at him for stealing my story. At least his heart had been in the right place.

“Oh my god,” Lana said, a soppy expression on her face. “Soph, that’s so sweet of him. He knew you really wanted to study writing, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You can’t be mad at him anymore!” she said. “Seriously, I think it’s really cute how much effort he went to, just to make you happy.”

“Did you forget everything I told you about his friend Caleb and their little deal?” I said.

Cerie sighed. “I say this in the nicest way possible, but is there a chance you’re overthinking it and overreacting? I mean, he admitted the whole thing, and he said that after the first couple of days it didn’t meant anything, and he realized he actually really cared about you. He said he felt terrible about it, remember? Just think about it, Soph. He wouldn’t have done half the stuff he’s done if he didn’t genuinely care about you. And he wouldn’t still be trying, would he?”

I sighed and mulled over their words. Crap. They were right. I’d reacted in the heat of the moment and taken things too far by completely cutting him off, and even then, Drew was still trying his hardest to get me back. He wasn’t giving up on me, and I’d been wrong to give up on him so fast. Especially considering how I still felt about him deep down.

“You’re right,” I said. “I’ll talk to him as soon as he gets back.”

***

Drew had just arrived home, and he was sitting beside the pool, dangling his legs in the water and nursing a glass of what appeared to be scotch. Of course. Scotch whiskey for the cool kids. I could barely handle anything that tasted stronger than a vodka and orange.

I sat down next to him. “Hey. Can we talk?”

He looked over at me. “Did you think of more stuff to bitch at me about, or just can’t bring yourself to stay away from me?”

I winced at his words, and a cheeky grin broke out on his face. “Sophie. I’m kidding. Let’s talk.”

I sighed with relief. “I just wanted to say thanks for what you did. With the application and all.”

“Cerie said you got in.”

“Yes. I did get in.”

His grin grew even wider. “I knew you would.”

“I’m still mad that you stole my manuscript, though.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “How mad?”

“Mad enough to do this.”

I reached over and shoved him, and he went flying into the pool, drink and all.

“Oh, come on!” he said as he emerged, shaking his hair like a wet dog. “I know I’ve been a dick, but that was harsh.”

I flashed him an evil grin. “Now we’re even.”

He pulled himself out of the water and wrapped his cold, wet arms around me. “No,
now
we’re even!”

I giggled, and he pulled away from me. “So…in case I haven’t already said it a million times, I’m really fucking sorry about the dare,” he said, his words colored with pure regret.

“I know,” I said. And this time, I really believed it.

“I also thought about what you said.”

“Which part?” I asked.

“The other night when you said we just keep arguing, making up and then arguing again. Let’s not do that anymore. We’re not teenagers.”

“Err...yes we are. I’m eighteen. You’re nineteen.”

“Oh, quiet. You know what I mean. I meant we’re not dumb kids, and we should communicate better. Tell each other everything, even if we think it might make the other mad.”

“In that case, I have to admit something to you. I think the guy who comes to clean the pool every day is kinda sexy,” I teased.

“Oh yeah, with that beer gut and all. I think he’s sexy too,” he replied with a chuckle. “Seriously, though. Total honesty from now on. I won’t keep anything from you.”

My heart fluttered a little. “Promise?”

“Yes. I promise.”

“So there’s definitely no more dark secrets? No more Atlantis Phantoms in the closet?”

“Nope.”

“Well, in the name of total honesty, do you think it’s time we came clean to our parents about what we’ve been doing?”

He sighed. “Yeah, I guess it is. Dad’s away at the moment, but I’ll tell him when he gets back.”

“I’m meant to be shopping with my Mom tomorrow. I’ll tell her then.”

“Need me to come?” he asked.

“I think I can manage on my own,” I replied. “At least I hope so…”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SOPHIE

Mom and I had just spent a relaxing day wandering from store to store at the mall, and we’d ended things by getting coffee at our favorite café.

“Did you get everything you needed?” she asked as she stirred a sugar into her latte.

“Uh-huh. Mom, there’s something important that I need to tell you,” I replied.

“What is it, honey?” she asked, her eyebrows drawing together in a concerned expression.

“Well, I really don’t know how to tell you this, but…”

My voice faltered and my sentence trailed off. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell her that I was in love with my stepbrother. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, not without him here by my side to support me. Dammit, he’d offered to come. I should have agreed.

Mom cocked her head to the side. “Well?” she said. “What is it?”

I had to come up with something, and fast.

“I…err…I’m not going to Caltech,” I finally replied. “I’ve been accepted into Hart-Guildford, and I’ve decided to go there instead and do a writing course.”

She hesitated for a moment, then looked slightly relieved. “Oh, honey. I was worried there for a minute. I thought you were going to tell me you were pregnant or something!”

“So you’re not mad?”

She sighed. “No, of course not. I know I’ve pushed Caltech and engineering on you pretty hard, but I’ve seen how much you enjoy writing when you think no one’s watching. If that’s what you really want to do and you think you can make it work, then I’m happy for you. God knows I’ve made some bad decisions in life...maybe I shouldn’t be giving you advice for yours at all.”

“No, don’t say that,” I said. “You were right to push me to study hard. And if the writing thing doesn’t pan out, I’ll enrol in engineering like we planned. I’m still young.”

She smiled and patted me on the hand. “I’m proud of you. And you’re right. You’ve still got your while life ahead of you.”

Well, that was a relief. That was another thing I’d been worried about telling her, and it had made the perfect cover for the situation I’d found myself in just now. She’d bought that it was the only thing I needed to tell her, and I was safe for now. Or so I hoped.

“Is there anything else you want to talk to me about?” she asked.

Uh-oh. For a split second, I thought she might actually know about me and Drew already.

“Um…no.”

“All right. Just remember, you can talk to me about anything.”

“Mm-hmm.”

I’d wussed out this time, but that didn’t change the fact that the truth was going to come out eventually.

My Mom was still watching me closely with an odd look in her eyes, and she stood up. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go home.”