Based: A Stepbrother Romance (Extreme Sports Alphas) (27 page)

“They really are.” We laughed together.

Jules poked her head around Lincoln. “So, you two liked it?”

“I thought it was interesting,” I said.

“It was moving,” Jules replied, nodding.

“Didn’t expect ‘moving’ to describe my months of pain, but yeah, it was,” Lincoln said dryly.

“And I was barely in it!” I said, shaking my head.

He laughed. “For all that torture in those interviews, you got maybe two minutes.”

“I know. I’m almost upset about it.”

Jules laughed. “I got more time than you did, and I was barely around.”

I smiled at her. She hadn’t mentioned the kiss yet, though I was positive she knew. There was something in her look, knowing and playful, and for a second I thought she winked at me.

“Anyway, I’m heading out,” she said.

“Oh. We’ll come with you.”

“Actually,” Lincoln cut in. “We won’t. I’ll drive us back.”

We stood up and began walking back out of the theater, laughing about the film as we went. Lincoln said he remembered pretty much everything that happened opposite of how Jess portrayed it.

Instead of inspirational and heartbreaking work, he remembered annoying, tedious hours of torture. Instead of an enlightened journey of a man used to breaking the law in the name of his sport, he remembered a guy who couldn’t wait to jump off the biggest, most illegal tower possible for the fun of it.

I glanced around the room, wondering where she was. I figured she was probably too busy filming her latest to show up.

All in all, Jess came through. She made Lincoln’s struggle, from the time he jumped off the building, through the trial, and up until the moment we stopped filming, seem like a heroic journey. Lincoln said he could hardly believe anyone was buying into it, but according to the conversations we heard around us, people seemed genuinely moved. People kept coming up and shaking his hand and congratulating him.

“I’m amazed you could get any emotional response out of these people,” I said between admirers, elbowing his ribs.

“Yeah. Since most of them are so old they’re practically dead.”

I laughed. “You’re not exactly the most subtle person in the world.”

He stopped walking and grinned at me. I couldn’t believe he was moving around so freely, with only a slight limp. But he didn’t seem to need the cane at all, and that was an enormous improvement.

We stood out front of the theater underneath a large tree, out of the way of the crowd.

“So what are you doing all summer?” he asked.

“Not much. Probably just sitting around. Nothing special.” I gave him a playful smile. “How about you?”

He got close to me. “I have this girl. I haven’t been fucking her enough lately.”

“Oh yeah? I’m sure you’ll fix that.”

He reached around me and grabbed my ass. I giggled as he pressed me against him.

“Yeah. As soon as possible.”

We kissed for a second and then pulled away. “Are you trying to start something right here?” I asked.

He looked around. “Why? Are you into it?”

I laughed. “I think kissing in public is pretty much my limit.”

He gave me a sly smile. “We’ll see about that.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Are you sure it’s okay with Jules if I stay at your place over Christmas break?”

“Absolutely. She’d love to have you.”

“Now that she knows we’re a thing, think she minds?”

“Probably a little bit more, but not enough to stop us.”

I laughed. “Perfect.”

He smiled at me and hugged me close. “Listen, I have something for you. One more surprise.”

I blinked. “What is it?”

He took a step back and held my hands. “I want to say something first.”

“Okay. Sure.”

“I fucking hated our time apart.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Me too.”

“Really fucking hated it. Long distance is bullshit, and I don’t want to be apart from you ever again.”

I nodded sadly. “I have to go back to school in a few weeks you know.”

“I know.”

“And you really don’t want to live in South Bend, Indiana. Trust me. There’s nothing in the town around Notre Dame.”

“It’s not that bad, but you’re right. I don’t want to live there.”

“I don’t know what we can do, Lincoln.”

“I do.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a small box. My heart started hammering in my chest, my breath coming fast. “Go ahead. Take it.”

I reached out and took it from him. He smiled and I slowly unwrapped the ribbon and pulled open the lid. Inside was a piece of paper folded neatly into a tight square. I took it out and unfolded it, and realized that it was actually two pieces of paper.

I stared at what it said and couldn’t help but break out into happy laughter.

“You like it?” he asked.

“It’s everything a girl could ask for.”

They were one-way tickets for me and Lincoln to Chicago for the day I was leaving to go back to school. Chicago was only two hours away from Notre Dame.

“I’m going to move there, at least for as long as you’re in school. After that, who knows?”

I pulled him close. “You’re doing the driving,” I said.

He laughed. “Yeah, I figured. Two hours is fucking nothing.”

We held each other like that for a few minutes. I loved the feel of his strong chest, his deep breath, and his smell. Two hours really was nothing. I could spend weekends in the city, or he could come spend a day or two during the week with me. We were going to make it work. No more bullshit long distance. He could finally meet my friends, even though they were going to have to wrap their heads around the ex-stepbrother thing. He could see the campus and see where I lived and worked.

He could be an everyday part of my life. A flesh and blood part of it, not just pixels on a screen.

“I thought that was a ring for a second,” I said softly.

He pulled back and looked at me. “It will be one day. I fucking love you, you know that, right?”

“I love you too.”

I had loved him for a long, long time. He didn’t need to say it, but finally hearing the words in person did something to me. Something shifted, and suddenly my world permanently included one more person.

We kissed.

It wasn’t the last kiss or the first kiss, and I knew there were many more to come. But in that moment, it was the perfect kiss, because it meant that there would be a future.

A future with Lincoln Carter.

Nothing could be more exciting.

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I
looked up at the old brick façade and the black wrought iron detailing around the front stoop and couldn’t believe I was back.

The cab pulled off, back out into traffic, before I had the chance to change my mind, hop back in, and head anywhere but home. I cursed my rotten luck and looked around. The old neighborhood looked the same: old brick Philly row homes, but clean and orderly—one of the richer south Philly neighborhoods.

Briefly, I wondered how many crimes had been committed in the halls of the houses that I could see. I wondered how many crimes had been committed in my own house.

Probably a lot.

With a sigh, I lugged my over-filled suitcase up the stoop and stood in front of the door. Did I have to ring the bell and knock, or could I just walk right in? That was a weird thought; it was my childhood home, after all, though I hadn’t been back in years. I opted for informal, grabbed the front door knob, and pulled it open.

I could feel that my back was covered in sweat already as the air conditioning hit me hard. I must have looked like a mess. It wasn’t a long trip from New York, but it felt like it had taken ages. I hated riding the train, but there were no other good ways to travel. Plus, I had left in kind of a hurry.

It wasn’t good to be home. Far from it, actually. I hadn’t exactly left on friendly terms, and my relationship with Daddy dearest had been strained at best ever since. We spoke a few times a year on the phone, but that was about it. Pleasantries, the bare minimum of small talk, and then nothing for months at a time.

Still, it was a nice trip down memory lane as I walked into the familiar foyer. Pictures of myself as a kid, smiling into the camera, my mom smiling up by my side, my dad with his typical mean mug look. I smiled softly to myself. That was back before she had passed away, before things began to take a turn, before I knew what dad did for a living. Those were the good old days.

“Hello?” I called out, and heard only my own voice echo back at me.

Typical. Of course my dad wasn’t home. He was probably too busy breaking some guy’s knees or whatever it was he did all day. Then again, I was a few hours early, so I could probably cut him a little break on that one.

With a grunt, I lugged my suitcase up the stairwell, heading for my bedroom. It wasn’t exactly graceful, but I was exhausted and alone and anyway, so what did I care? I was home; I didn’t need to be on all the time.

I looked around my nearly-empty childhood room and tossed the suitcase onto the bed. There wasn’t much left of it: everything I had cared about I had brought with me, and it looked like my dad hadn’t exactly kept it up.

I sighed. I guessed there would be plenty of time to redecorate.

My stomach grumbled as I looked around, and I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since I left New York. There wasn’t exactly enough time to have a nice meal; I hadn’t really given much thought to my escape. The only thing that mattered in that first hour or two was getting the hell out of there before things got even worse. I had been frantic as I threw things into my suitcase and ran out of my apartment, trying to get the image of what I saw out of my mind. Her blonde hair, bobbing up and down. The look on his face.

I shook my head. I couldn’t deal with those memories, not yet. Food first, emotional healing later. Maybe.

The hallway was empty as I walked quietly back toward the thin staircase that led into the kitchen. I remembered the hundreds of times I played in that space, running around and climbing down the weird staircase, which I now realized was for the servants or whatever back when the house was first built in Colonial times. I'd had a pretty good childhood, though my dad wasn’t the most attentive person in the world. But he had shielded me from the worst of the shit that went on around us, keeping me blissfully ignorant. I'd lived in my own little bubble, daughter of one of the largest Irish Mob bosses in the entire city, the Mob Princess. I remembered all the men that came in and out of the house, and how kind they were to me. At the time, I had thought I was special. Now I realized they were just trying to suck up to my dad.