Anti-Stepbrother

“You do that sort of stuff?”

“Don’t you?”

I couldn’t even figure out my signals to myself. “No. You do all that in a regular conversation?”

“More or less.”

I had things to learn. “Wow.” So much to learn.

He grinned, seeming to relax. “It feels good. Refreshing.”

“What is?”

“A conversation that’s just about what we’re talking about.”

I felt a headache starting. “Okay. I can’t wrap my head around the kind of conversations you usually have, so let’s let it go.”

“Okay. Good.” His grin went up a notch, and his hands came to rest on my shoulders. He squeezed. “This is what being normal is like. Huh.”

I tensed and looked at his hands. “Not in the slightest.”

“What?”

I bounced my shoulders up. “Those.”

“My hands?” He let go and backed away, his palms spread out toward me. “That wasn’t a normal thing to do, was it?”

“Nope. That’s totally normal to do,” I paused. “If I were your girlfriend.”

“Right.” He backed away another step and slid his hands back into his pockets. “I might have some things to learn.”

“Don’t think about sex when you’re talking to a girl.”

“Well, don’t get ahead of yourself.” He grinned ruefully at me. “No guy can do that.”

“Then I’ve got nothing for you.”

“That’s okay. I’ll figure it out.”

And now cue the uncomfortable silence. Everything in me wanted to go see Caden. Marcus was there, talking to him. He could be saying things about me, about how I was leading him on, how I was hanging out with Kevin. I couldn’t defend myself. But instead of bursting in and protecting my relationship with Caden, I was stuck trying to teach my stepbrother how to be a normal, nice guy.

This conversation blew.

“Am I bothering you?”

“What?”

Kevin motioned to my face. “You did like eight eye-rolls in a row there. Is it Caden?”

My eyebrows shot right up. “Caden?”

“You do like him, don’t you?”

I couldn’t even think about lying because I already felt the heat inching up my neck, and my cheeks warmed. I looked down at the ground.

“It’s okay, you know.”

It wasn’t. He could say something. He could turn Caden against me, or worse, tell him what I was convinced Marcus was already saying. He could tell Caden I was obsessed with him. Or how delusional I could be.

Oh, God. Kevin knew my crazy better than anyone. I was already in the pre-stalker phase. I was beginning to recognize my phases.

Step one: realize you’re in love.

Step two: deny you’re in love.

Step three: start staking out his hangouts.

Step four: obsess every minute about him.

Step five: I gulped. I didn’t want to name it because I was pretty sure I was there. I didn’t want to know how far away I was from sneaking into Caden’s bed wearing lingerie. A restraining order came after that.

“Hey.” Kevin put his hands on my shoulders again.

I tensed.

He shook his head. “I know. I know, but I’m not being flirty here. I’m being a friend, or trying to be. It’s okay if you have feelings for Caden. I know a lot of girls do. Half the girls I’ve hooked up with were just using me to get to him.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

I nudged his hands off my shoulders.

He backed away, his hands in the air. “Listen, I’m glad you’re here. I was coming to find you.”

“I knew it!”

He lowered his hands to his side. “Not for that.” He sounded hurt.

I shrugged. He’d get over it.

“I was thinking we could start fresh, try to be the way my mom wanted us to be in the first place.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We should be more like family, you know? So I was thinking you could help me learn how to be a nice guy, and in the process, we could maybe become actual stepsiblings. What do you say?”

My eyebrows locked forward. “What’s the catch?” There always seemed to be one with him.

“No catch. I promise.” He offered up a grin, one that seemed genuine. “I mean it. I want to change, and since you’re the closest thing I have to a sister, I thought you’d be the perfect one to help.” He held his hand out. “Deal?”

I glanced at his hand, then back to his eyes, and I caught his small smile. Then an all-business look took over, and he nodded as if to reassure me. This could go all sorts of wrong, but I found myself reaching out. My hand slid against his palm, and I sucked in my breath. Maybe I hadn’t thought this through…

Then he said, “Deal.”

And it was too late.

I never found out if Marcus said anything to Caden. I was a chicken shit. I made that deal with Kevin and as soon as I did, a part of me felt like I was betraying Caden. The next day already, Kevin started coming over. I would’ve loved this new development a few months ago, but it was weird now.

He showed up in the mornings. We had breakfast together. He would point out the girls he “would do,” which was almost all of them. I made him tell me what lines he would use to pick the girl up, then I dissected each statement and explained how it could be rephrased or redelivered so the sexual innuendo wasn’t there. Most of Kevin’s lines weren’t sexually suggestive, but they were when coupled with the boyish grin he always seemed to have on his face.