Stepbrother Inked(13)

Two weeks later and I was finally feeling like I had somehow cracked my  Flor obsession. Three more dates with Dorian, and I hadn't seen my  stepbrother once except to listen to a ten minute lecture about his cat  and all of her special needs. I'd seen him dump girls over that cat. If  he had one, true love in his life, it was probably her.

"So," Addi said, stepping into the kitchen and leaning against the  fridge. "I have tickets for the Ducks game this weekend. You should  invite Dorian and we should go." I shrugged, stirring the pot of soup  I'd thrown together, ridiculously proud of myself for having made a home  cooked meal. Eighteen years old and my shit was much more together than  most of my friends' ever would be.

"I'm not really into sports," I said and listened as Addi sighed. I knew a pout was coming on.

"I agreed to go to your stuffy family dinner thing on Friday. The least  you could do is go on a double date with me. I mean, Dorian and Patrick  are only in town for a few more days and then it'll be a month again  before we get to see them." I listened to her whine with a smile curling  my lips. She knew I wasn't particularly stubborn when it came to these  sorts of thing. Some puppy dog eyes and a little pouty lip and my  resistance was broken.

"Don't act like Dorian and I are on the same level as you and Patrick,  Addison. He might be moving out here, but that's because his brother's  chasing you. It has nothing to do with me."

She slid up next to me and put her elbows on the counter, giving me a puh-freaking-lease look with her big, brown eyes.

"He talks about you like it was love at first sight."

I snorted, and then somehow, that reminded me of Florian, and I was  shaking my head. Love at first sight? I definitely didn't feel much when  I met Dorian for the first time, but I was trying to see if it would  grow as I got to know him. He was sweet, responsible, and good-looking.  Oh, and I wasn't related to him. These days, that seemed like a pretty  big bonus in my book.

"Come on, Abigail, live a little," she groaned, turning around and  leaning back far enough that her hair brushed against the tiles on the  countertop. "I know you don't like football; I don't like it either. But  you're the one that wanted to be a Duck, remember? Besides, much as I  hate to admit it, the Ducks are just  …  I mean, it's amazing what these  guys can do. Not to mention there are some real cuties on the team this  year." She elbowed me and I elbowed her back until we'd both devolved  into twelve year olds, screeching and tossing various cleaning supplies  at one another.

"Alright!" I shrieked as the toilet brush skidded across the floor near  my feet. I held up my hands as Addison backed up and looked inside the  box marked Cleaning Crap. "Alright, fine."

"And you'll invite Dorian?" she said again, staring straight at me, like  her eyes could punch right through my stoic expression and straight to  my face. But only Flor could really do that to me, the jerk. "And stop  thinking about your stepbrother."

"I am not thinking about my stepbrother," I said, reaching a hand down  to touch my hip. While my tattoo was mostly healed, it was still dry and  needed fairly regular attention with a bottle of lotion. Each time I  touched it, my mind was whisked away to that day, to Florian's fingers  untying my bikini bottoms. Grr. I shook my head to clear it, only  further confirming what Addison already knew: I was obsessed.

But I was making a clean break. It would work eventually, like I was  going through detox or something. Imagine that, detox to clear the brain  of one's brother and his perfectly sculpted abs. Ugh.

I grabbed the spoon and stirred my soup, scooping up a small mouthful to  test. It was hot, but good. All it needed was a little more pepper.

"Whatever," Addison said with a sigh, straightening out her black and  white striped dress shirt. She was always so fashionable and I was  always so  …  all over the place. I had a nose ring, a tattoo on my hip  and a red tank top that was too short, exposing the ring in my belly  button. Addison said I looked hot, that I had a good body, but she was  straighter than the I-5 and I didn't believe her. "So what time's this  dinner thing?" she asked, scooting onto a stool at the breakfast bar and  reaching out to grab a stalk of celery. She stuck it in her mouth,  leaves and all, and chewed loudly, eyes focused on the ceiling in  thought. "Is Satan's Spawn going to be attending?"                       
       
           



       

"Don't call him that," I said as I opened the oven and bent down to  check the French bread. It was one of those 'buy and bake' things, not  homemade; if only I was as good as my stepmother. "River's really nice.  It's not her fault her son is a complete asshole." Okay, so maybe it was  a little bit her fault, but she'd always been  –  if not exactly a mother  to me  –  nice, like a favorite auntie or something. I didn't blame her  for not stepping in and taking the mother role completely; my father  wouldn't let her. While they did their best to raise Flor and me as  their own children, their whole 'my kid, my problem' routine often  extended to good times as well as bad. Some people might not have agreed  with the way Florian and I had been raised, but it had worked for us,  for our family. Our family. Ech. I really needed to get him out of my  brain permanently. "If you're going to call him anything, it can just be  Satan, okay?" I stood up and closed the oven, smiling at Addison over  my right shoulder. She dropped her eyes to mine, fluffed her curly hair  and shook her head.

"Sure thing, Abs. Just promise me, if he's there, don't play his games with him."

"Games?" I asked, looking up and out the window. Across the street a guy  was painting a mural in the alley between two large brick buildings. I  hadn't had the time to examine it yet, but from here it looked like a  bunch of naked women running through a field of organic vegetables  –   don't ask how I knew that they were organic, this was Eugene, Oregon; of  course they were organic. "What are you talking about?"

Addison sighed and slapped the counter with her piece of celery, making me jump.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about," she said, pointing  aggressively at me with the offending vegetable. Her brown eyes were  narrowed and glinting, so I knew I better pay careful attention. "He  purposely picks at you, Abigail, and you rise to the occasion. He knows  you have a thing for him, and he likes it." Addi's words were meant to  warn me, but instead they just sent a little thrill down my spine. I  stirred the chicken noodle soup with extra force. "Ignore him, and if  you can't ignore him, then answer with yes, no, or fuck off."

I nodded. Addi might be half joking, but she was right, I couldn't play  into Flor's hands. He did like to torment me, and I couldn't let him. I  reached a hand down and touched the spot where my tattoo was, fingers  resting against the soft cotton of my pj pants.

I'd turned over a new leaf, made a resolution, and I was sticking to it.



Florian brought Rhonda to our family dinner.

Yeah, that's right, the drag queen. He brought the freaking drag queen to our family dinner.

"Oh my, Florian," his mom, River, said, kissing both his cheeks and  leaning back to smile fondly over at Rhonda. River's dark hair was piled  on her head in a messy bun and she looked ridiculously chic in her  cream silk skirt and white blouse. I'd come straight here after my last  class of the day and hadn't bothered to change, didn't know I'd needed  to. We had family dinner every Friday evening and Flor only showed up  about once a month, if that. "If I recall correctly, this is the first  time you've ever brought a girl home to us."

Crap.

I reached up to check my hair and found it a flyaway, tangled mess of  brown curls and colored extensions. Addi had convinced me to wear them,  clipping each purple, blue and green curl into my hair with a smile. She  said I looked like a real Eugenian hipster badass punk bitch, whatever  the hell that means. I felt so inadequate suddenly, standing there in  torn jeans and a black tank top. I just knew my hot pink bra straps were  sticking out. Today had been laundry day and it'd been the only clean  one I had in my dresser. Normally I was on top of this kind of stuff,  but it'd been a hectic week. My forensic chemistry class was killing me.

Flor glanced up and over his mother's head, smirking at me with his  stupid lip rings decorating those perfectly full lips of his. He winked  at me, and I curled my hands into fists by my sides. I'd been about two  seconds from excusing myself to the bathroom to cry and now I wanted to  kill him.

Addi reached down and gripped my wrist.

"Keep it cool, Abi. Satan lives on the negative emotions of others."