My lips twitched at the words. Older brother. Yeah. Yeah. Great.
"It's a beautiful piece," Addison chimed in, popping a green olive in her mouth and dropping the toothpick in glass bowl my stepmom had set out for that explicit purpose. "I've never seen anything like it."
I dropped my shirt and tried to keep smiling, but my nerves felt pulled taut, stretched thin. I almost couldn't breathe.
"I'm just gonna step outside for a minute," Florian said, flashing my dad another smile he didn't mean. I watched him walk to the French doors in the back of the kitchen and open them, letting in a rush of cool air and the sound of crickets. Once he was gone, the atmosphere in the room seemed to settle.
"Well, you know I don't like tattoos, honey, but I also know that you're an adult and I can't do anything to stop you. But I beg you, don't get any where any decent employer is going to see it." My dad cast a look at Florian's mom and I just knew, if she hadn't been in the room, he would've added one of his signature anti-Flor barbs, something like you don't want to end up like your brother, do you?
I sighed and nodded, letting my dad think he'd won for the moment.
As he moved away, taking Rhonda and my stepmom with him, I paused and stared through the glass of the back doors, searching for Florian. He was sitting on some patio furniture, staring off into his mother's garden. His inked fingers clutched the cigarette and brought it to his lips, leaving me to wonder what it was he was so upset about. Obviously there was something going on with him.
I shook my head.
I didn't know why I was even thinking about it; Florian would never confide in me.
I turned around and found Addison watching me sadly. Was I that obvious, that pathetic?
"Come on," I said to her, feigning a cheerfulness I didn't feel, "let's go eat."
"It was the worst family dinner in the history of bad family dinners," Addison was saying with a laugh as she shuffled a deck of cards and passed out a hand to me, Patrick, and Dorian. "I mean, after we sat down at the table, it was all about Rhonda," Addi scoffed and then shook her head as she continued, "and her relationship with Florian. Not that he offered up much of anything but a grunt. Abi's dad and Flor's mom just grilled her for like an hour and then it was over. I've never been so relieved in my life."
I frowned and picked up my hand, pretending I didn't care that she was right. It was a horrible dinner. I looked up and smiled at Dorian, glad that I'd let Addi convince me to invite him to the Ducks game. She'd also been right about that; it had been a blast. Dorian was so considerate and funny and sweet, everything that Flor wasn't. His only flaw – and I was trying really hard not to see it as a flaw – was that he hadn't tried to kiss me yet. Not once. Not even close.
Hmm.
It had been awhile since I'd had sex and even then, I'd only done it maybe six or seven times. I have to say, it was a hell of a lot easier to forget about sex when I'd never had it. Now that I had … I shook my head and tried to bring myself back into the conversation.
"Abi?" Addi asked, leaning over and peering into my face with a raised brow.
"Yeah, uh, what?" My best friend sighed at me.
"Whatever happened to Flor's dad?" The question took me by surprise. Flor's dad. To be honest, I actually knew little to nothing about him. Flor didn't talk about him and his mom had only ever mentioned him in passing.
"He was a client of hers," I said, knowing how taboo that was. Flor's mom was a psychologist and her patients … well, I have no idea how she'd ever ended up with one of them. I explained that to the others and watched their expressions as they all thought about it, about a forbidden love, one that crossed boundaries and made people uncomfortable. Just like my attraction to Florian. "I guess a few days after Florian was born, he went off his meds and disappeared. I don't really know anything else about it."
"Eight years later, she met your dad, fell in love, and then they became that couple," Addi said, digging her fingers into a bag of Doritos and swiping a handful. "The lovey-dovey, way too perfect, together forever kind, so sweet they make you sick."
"I mean, that's good, right?" Dorian asked, looking down at his cards and then up at me. His green eyes were pretty, but they didn't hold any heat. I made myself smile back at him. "You have stability, parents who actually give a damn about one another, that's pretty rare."
"It would be a good thing," Addi continued, slightly buzzed on a beer too many. "If Abigail wasn't in love with her stepbrother."
"Addison!" I shrieked, kicking her under the table. "I am not in love with him." The words sounded like a lie, even to me.
"Okay then, well you want to fuck him, at least."
"Addison," I moaned, doing my best not to make eye contact with either of the boys at the table. "You must be worse off than I thought. No more beer for you."
"Abi, look, I'm just trying to get this out there, so Dorian knows what he's getting himself into." I felt heat creeping into my cheeks and raised my gaze to find Dorian looking at me with curiosity, not judgment. Thank God. If I was honest with myself, that was the thing I feared most: being judged on my feelings for Florian. "All I'm saying is that you're not the innocent little lamb that you appear to be. Live a little, okay?"
An hour later, Addison and Patrick had disappeared into her bedroom, leaving me and Dorian on the couch in the half dark. The overhead lights were off, but the white Christmas lights that Addi liked to keep year round illuminated the large space, hanging in loops on the bricks across from us.
"Tell me more about yourself," Dorian said, his right arm wrapped around my waist, his fingers brushing the bare bit of skin below my shirt, right over my tattoo. His touch was warm, but not scalding. I felt comfortable, not like my skin was about to split in half and leave me a bleeding, ruined mess on the floor. It was an interesting change of pace. "I mean, what do you want in life?"
I giggled a slightly alcohol induced giggle.
"Is this where you ask me what my major is?" Dorian laughed and pulled me closer, clearing his throat in an awkward sort of a way that made me think of my high school boyfriends.
"Well, uh, what is your major?" he asked and I laughed again, loving the way the booze was going straight to my brain. I refused to let my mind think about my mother, how she'd been an alcoholic. What she'd done didn't have to affect me, not one bit.
"I haven't exactly decided that yet," I admitted. "I'm just focusing on my gen ed right now, and I'll figure out the rest later. What about you? A degree in computer science is – " Dorian cut me off with a kiss, leaning over and pressing his lips to mine. I was a little surprised, but I kissed him back, my body desperate for the touch of another. Not just another, but Flor. I pulled Dorian closer, opened my mouth and encouraged him with my tongue.
When he groaned and pushed forward, laying me against the couch cushions, it wasn't him I was thinking about, but my stepbrother. Instead of pale green eyes, I saw sharp ones, and instead of red hair, I saw ebony, curled my fingers in that thick darkness and pulled. Dorian was putting his hand up my shirt, feeling my skin, touching my tattoo. He moved his mouth from mine and started kissing my neck as he settled himself between my legs. Already I could feel his erection pushing hard and insistent against me.
He wants me, I thought, dreaming of Flor, thinking of Flor, aching for him. I know he does.
"Oh, Flor," I whispered, realizing when Dorian froze what I had just said. My eyes widened as Dorian pulled back, removing his hands from under my shirt as he stared down at me. There it was, in his dilated pupils and slack jaw, his parted lips and frustrated facial expression: judgment.
"Wow," he said, climbing off the couch and straightening out his shirt. I followed after him, fixing my own clothes and running my tongue along my swollen lips.
"Dorian," I said, but when I reached out to touch him, he pulled away. "Dorian, wait." He turned away from me and moved towards the front door, grabbing his boots off the floor and his coat from the rack. "I'm sorry. Look, can we start over? Can we just talk."
He just shook his head at me, grabbed the door handle and glanced over his shoulder.