Stepbrother HOT! (The Stepbrother Romance Series - Book #3) (4 page)

At the end of the day, Mom and Bob waited for Jaxon
and me to finish our last run down the slopes, and suggested
we
all head over to the lodge to grab dinner and get warm. “How you two aren’t
freezing is beyond me,” Bob said, shaking his head.

“Young blood is always hot,” my mom said; her voice
was level, playful even, but when she looked at me I knew she was still
remembering the morning before, when she’d walked in on us.

“I could stand to eat something,” I said, to take
the subject off of young blood and being freezing. “And I saw the fireplace in
there before. It’s pretty epic.” We headed off to the lodge and I tried to
pretend
like
all I wanted was some food and a fire.
That everything would be okay.

Chapter
Five

The lodge was amazing; if it weren’t for how
incredibly awkward and stressful the situation was, I probably would have
enjoyed it a lot more than I did. Through some weird quirk, the four of us were
the only ones there other than the staff. The lodge was made to hold at least a
couple dozen people; there was a giant fireplace in the middle, with low
couches and chairs and soft rugs on the hearth in front of it. There was a full
kitchen in the back, and a menu with everything ranging from burgers and fries
to venison steaks. We sat around the coffee table near the fire, warming up,
all of us exhausted from the long day on the slopes; it wasn’t quite dark
outside, but it was definitely getting to be night time. I wondered at the fact
that no one was around. I guessed that everyone was
either in
their rooms
if they were staying there, or they were back to whatever
hotel or home they lived in. It would have been so much easier if there were
more people around.

I wanted more
than anything
to just get through the dinner and get back home. The day had been so long, and
while we sat around the fire, warming up, my bones started to ache. I could
feel every last bruise I’d managed to get during the day, falling on my face
and landing on my ass on the slopes.

The waiter took our order and we sat around with hot
chocolates while we waited for our food to get there. Bob was once more working
on trying to get everyone talking, even though everyone was exhausted. I tried
to put forth an effort for my mom’s sake, to make everything seem all right,
but Jaxon wasn’t doing anything other than looking at the fire or sometimes
looking at me. “Didn’t seem to be your usual smooth self on the slopes today,
Jax
,” Bob said, giving his son a playful shove to the
shoulder.

“Yeah,” Jaxon said, shrugging his father’s hand
away. “Just bad timing I guess.” Mom went on about the skiing, about what they
had been up to that day.

“Mia loves snowboarding,” Mom said, blathering
on and on and on
. “She’s always gone at it as hard as she
could. She’s great.”

“I’m okay,” I said, shrugging and glancing at Jaxon.
He was poking at the fire with a metal rod, frowning and staying quiet. “I
wasn’t on top of my game today.” I shrugged again. “You should’ve seen me
falling all over the place.”

I was relieved when the food got there. I didn’t
like being so close to Jaxon without being able to really talk to him. Maybe if
we could just get dinner over with and head back to the house, everything would
be okay. I could go to my room, get a shower, and watch some TV and go to
sleep. I could count off another day of this ridiculous holiday and be one day
closer to going back to school. I dreaded another silent meal like breakfast
had been; for lunch I had gone to the lodge by myself and grabbed something
quick—a grilled cheese and soup.

I was starving, and more than happy to tuck into my
food. Mom and Bob were talking, but they started to lose steam. Bob ordered a
bottle of wine and I sighed to myself—they were going to spend the entire rest
of the holiday half-drunk, I knew. So much the better for them, I thought.
Jaxon and I sat there, not speaking much, not looking at each other. There was
too much at risk. If we started looking at each other, we would start texting
each other. We’d start getting hot and bothered again. We would end up having
sex with each other again. We couldn’t do that.

The food was good; I had a steak and fries, with
carrot slaw on the side. Mom had roast chicken, Bob had baked fish. Mom
insisted on us sharing a huge baked Alaska for dessert and I sat there, hoping
against hope that Bob and Mom would just want to go back home and get to bed.
But instead, they were staring into the fire, they were cuddling up like the
newlyweds they were. “Shouldn’t we be heading back?” I just wanted to get out
of the incredibly uncomfortable situation we were
all in
.

“I think
Mia’s getting
bored,” Mom said, glancing at me with a hard look.

“We’re not spending enough time getting to know each
other,” Bob told her, shaking his head. I barely managed to stifle the laugh
that rose up in me at the irony of it. Bob thought we weren’t spending enough
time getting to know each other, when Mom, Jaxon and I all knew the truth. “And
of course, Jaxon’s being all stuffy. I have no idea what’s wrong with him.” Mom
shrugged.

“It’s always difficult meeting new siblings,” she
said. She gave me another hard look and I turned my attention back onto the
fire.

“Ah, Jaxon’s just that kind of guy. He was hell on
two feet when he was coming up.”

“Mia was pretty difficult too,” Mom said. “But both
of them turned out all right.”

“I doubt Mia gave you as much stress as Jaxon did
me,” Bob said, shaking his head. I realized he was half-drunk and looked at
Jaxon. Jaxon had his lips pressed firmly together; he was staring into the
fire, pretending
like
nothing was going on, like he
was all alone.

“Jaxon seems like a nice enough
boy
,”
Mom said. I could hear in her voice that she was worried too. I remembered Bob
starting in on Jaxon the night before—hinting at things, and Jaxon leaving the
family room in a huff. He’d still been angry in the morning, but I hadn’t had
any way of knowing whether it was because his Dad was obviously trying to
embarrass him or because he couldn’t be with me and wanted to.

“Like I said before, he does well enough now. But
there was a time when I was convinced that Jaxon was going to end up in prison
for the rest of his life.” Mom laughed.

“Surely he couldn’t have been that bad. I mean, he’s
your son.” Bob shrugged. His face looked less attractive in the firelight, with
how stern he was, how irritable he’d suddenly become. Then he laughed.

“Well, you know, he’s not all bad, but he did give
me a scare or two.”

“What do you mean?” Mom’s curiosity overcame her
caution and I felt a jolt of dread in the pit of my stomach. This was a bad
idea. I could see Jaxon go tense in the corner of my eye, but I couldn’t look
directly at him.

“Oh, he was the worst kind of rebellious teenager.
It’s probably something to do with his mother being gone by then.” Bob
shrugged. “Everything a kid could possibly do to get in trouble, he did.”

“Like what?” Bob grinned.

“Well he started small. You know—cutting classes,
talking back to his teachers, pulling pranks.” I nodded quietly. Maybe, I
thought, if Bob saw how bored we were with the topic at hand, he’d give it up.
Find something else to talk
about
.

“That sounds about normal, especially if he’d lost
his mom.”

Bob laughed. “Yeah well, that was only the tip of
the iceberg. I tried grounding him, I tried taking away his privileges, but he
just got worse.” Mom shrugged.

“He’s definitely got your spirit then, doesn’t he?”
Bob shook his head.

“I at least had some sense when I was his age,” Bob
said, rolling his eyes. “He wasn’t content to just be a pest. He started
drinking. He went out to parties, you know—and I caught him swiping bottles of
my gin, my whiskey.” Bob shook his head. “He was getting drunk at school!”

“Ah but kids do that,” Mom tried to laugh it off. My
heart started pounding in my chest. I knew this was going bad. I thought of how
Jaxon was in the frat; sure he drank, but he wasn’t the kind of person to go to
class drunk. He partied when it was time to party and worked when it was time
to work. He had tutored me in bio! He wasn’t some loser.

“Well, then he started going in a downward spiral. I
couldn’t check it. He was going out all nights of the week. Jaxon—he got caught
stealing from some store, some cheap liquor store in the bad part of town. He
landed himself in juvenile detention three times in one year.” That was way
more serious than I expected.
Jaxon in
Juvy
?
That made no sense. I shook my head.

“I don’t believe it,” I said, in spite of wanting to
stay silent. Bob nodded, filling his cup with more wine.

“Believe it, Mia—your brother used to be a total
loser. He got caught stealing a car once! He took the neighbor’s Mercedes out
on a joyride while skipping school. So of course he got himself caught and was
hauled before the judge on truancy as well as theft.” Bob shook his head.

It was insane.
Jaxon, stealing a
car?
Cutting classes, getting drunk
, going
to
juvenile detention? It didn’t add up. Sure Jaxon partied hard, and he belonged
to the frat that had a reputation for the wildest pranks and the craziest
adventures. I knew all the guys in the frat. They weren’t bad—but they were
definitely rambunctious. I couldn’t picture Jaxon stealing things or going to
school drunk, or ending up in court because he’d stolen a car. It was a totally
different kind of thing.

I didn’t look at Jaxon; I couldn’t look at him. I
knew it was horrible enough for him. He had to be getting upset. The night
before, he had nearly gotten into a fight with his father for hinting at his
misdeeds. If even half of what Bob was saying was true, Jaxon probably wanted
to move on, to forget it—how would it help him if his dad kept bringing it up?

My mom laughed and I looked at her; she took a sip
of her wine but I could tell she was just as uncomfortable as I was. I saw her
glance at Jaxon and then she put her wineglass down. “Well, you know, Bob, kids
are all crazy when they’re teenagers,” she said, putting her hand on his knee
to make him stop before he interrupted her. “I mean, Mia was pretty wild
herself. I remember,” Mom laughed again. “How old were you, Mia? I think 14 or
was it 15? Anyway…” I groaned. I knew the story that Mom was going to tell. I
hoped against hope that it would at least take some of the pressure off of
Jaxon—maybe distract Bob for a while.

“Mom, that story is so dumb,” I said, playing along.
I didn’t dare look at Jaxon, but I could see him out of the corner of my eye;
he was getting tenser and tenser, looking like he was about to blow. “I just
did stupid kid things.”

“Oh yeah, stupid kid things—like the time you tried
to skip classes by telling the nurse you had a fever and you put the
thermometer in your thermos. That’s just stupid kid stuff. The really good one
though was totally out of left field.” I rolled my eyes, pretending to be put
off by my mom’s story. It was dumb, and it wasn’t nearly as bad
as any of the things that Bob had said Jaxon had done
. But
maybe it would help.

“Mom no one wants to hear it,” I looked at her. She
knew I was playing along with her—in spite of how mad at me she must have been,
I could see she was a little relieved that I was still able to read her.

“Well we’re all getting to know each other and I
want to tell it. Anyway—so Mia got really into graffiti artists when she was
like, 14 or 15.
Thought they were the coolest thing since
sliced bread.”
Mom had Bob’s attention, which should have helped things,
but I could tell Jaxon was still just waiting to blow. I chimed in, pretending
to be more embarrassed than I was, saying that I’d just been a stupid kid back
then.
“So Mia gets it into her head that she’s going to be a
graffiti artist in her own right.
She gets this big huge plan
together—she’s going to tag her first building. Of course, she doesn’t tell me
about that. I didn’t find this part out until after when she’d gotten caught.”

“If it weren’t for that stupid tattle tale Laura
Peters…” I said.

“Oh, she’d have gotten caught no matter what. You
see, Mia thought it would be a great idea to tag the town water tower with her
own name.”

“Plenty of people are named Mia!” I laughed, wanting
to clear the air, wanting for everything to be okay again.

“So she tags the thing with her own name, in her
favorite colors, and then of course Laura Peters confirmed that it was her.”
Mom was shaking her head, laughing. “So then I get a call from the police—if
she’ll go up again and paint it over they’ll let bygones be bygones.”

We laughed about it as much as we could, and I
glanced quickly at Jaxon. He didn’t look as though he’d gotten over the
situation. Bob himself was laughing, and I hoped—I prayed—that it would blow
over in a few minutes. Mom and Bob started to talk about how stupid kids are,
and how it’s a good thing that we had both finally grown up. Jaxon was getting
more and more uncomfortable. I watched, looking from him to Bob, wishing that
we could all just go home, that it could all be over and done with. Jaxon stared
his father down; Bob didn’t even blink.