Anti-Stepbrother(54)

“Where’d they go to college?”

May went to New York, and Clarissa was a few hours away. “One’s not far. The other’s across the country.”

“Do you want to go visit her?”

I’d been picking at the carpet, but I lifted my head. “What?”

“We could go see your friend, the one that’s close. I mean, as long as it works for her schedule. I know some of the girls would totally be up for a road trip.”

“You mean you and Shell? That group?”

“Maybe even Marcus.”

Lovely. He could drill holes in the back of my head close up.

“Caden might go, since it’s you,” she added.

My head was swimming. “You guys would go on a trip for me?”

“Of course. Road trips are fun.” She laughed, leaning forward and pressing her hand over mine. She squeezed. “It’ll be fun. Where’s she at? Let’s plan something.”

A road trip was a new concept to me, especially with such a large group, but that’s what ended up happening. Once I got a hold of Clarissa and May, we picked a weekend. May would fly in from New York. Soon all the details were ironed out.

We were going in a few weeks—the second weekend after Family Weekend. Avery had been right about Caden too. He’d said he’d come, but he’d drive, and only I could ride with him. The girls were unfazed by that request.

Claudia even said, “We figured he’d say something like that.”

And since Caden was coming, Marcus was in too, as well as some of the other guys from Caden’s fraternity. In fact, most of the guys from the fraternity were coming. They had a chapter at Clarissa’s college, which was smaller than North River. We had fourteen thousand students, and Dubrois College had about six thousand.

Caden’s chapter reached out, so the chapter there was taking care of finding a rental house for everyone to stay in. The list of travelers kept getting longer and longer, but I figured if there wasn’t room at the house, I could crash on a couch in Clarissa’s dorm.

“Like fuck you are.”

That was Caden’s response when I told him my plans. We were at his place, and two other guys were sitting in the living room with us. They’d been talking about a football game, but quieted after Caden’s statement.

I sat up on the couch, squaring my shoulders. He was at the other end, a beer in hand. He’d been half watching the game with his brothers, and half listening to me talk about the road trip.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“You’re not going off and sleeping at your friend’s place. We’re all going with you.” He gestured to the others with his beer. “Almost the entire house is coming. You gotta stay where we are.”

“But there’s so many people coming now.”

Avery was adding one or two more people every day, or so it seemed. I half expected her to reveal she was friends with Maggie again, and Maggie wanted to come. That hadn’t happened, so far.

But Avery didn’t say much about her ex-friend, and I knew her well enough to know that wasn’t good. She was probably talking to her again. Which reminded me that I wanted to ask Claudia about it. Despite my issues with Claudia, she was a pit bull when it came to Maggie. She hated her more than anyone.

“It’ll be fine,” Caden assured me. “A third of the people will be sleeping together. People can bring sleeping bags.”

“The guys will crash wherever,” one of the guys added. “Don’t be surprised if you find people sleeping on top of tables.”

“Or below them,” the second one grunted. “Shit, I woke up outside last weekend. Best sleep I ever got.”

The first one laughed. “That warm bed of grass and sprinklers?”

“It was nothing. Cold water on my face. It was a nice alarm clock.”

They snickered, turning back to the game.

Caden was watching me and suddenly, he pointed to the door. “You two, get out. I need some privacy.”

“What?”

The first started to protest, but the second slapped him in the chest and gave me a meaningful look. Whatever the message was, he got it. They stood and headed out.

Caden continued to focus on me, a deep frown on his face.

I sighed internally. God, he looked beautiful. He’d been working out more so he’d trimmed down a few inches, giving him a leaner look, but his muscles hadn’t gotten smaller. They seemed bigger, sculpting his body so he looked more and more like a Greek god or something. When he wore tight-fitting shirts, like he had today, I was having a harder and harder time remembering what kind of friends we were. We hadn’t held hands again, but even thinking about it, my hand itched to touch a different part of him. I wanted to trace some of his tattoos, find out where they ended.