Chapter 13

“Why’d you do it?” I asked Jesse. My throat compressed in the heat dissolving me. The room’s darkness hid us both, and it was easier confronting him in the shadows.

“The kiss? The lie?”

“What do you think?” I ground out through clenched teeth.

He took no time to think, as if he’d practiced what to say. “You looked lost and alone.”

“You’re messed up.” I leaped up and his hand snaked out to grip my wrist. I let him take hold, his hot touch prickling up my arm in a trail of goose flesh, halting my slow melt, bringing me back alive. I hated myself for allowing him to drill into my emotions and thoughts.

“Chill, Ivy. It’s not like that.” The emotion in his hoarse voice forced me to wrench my wrist out of his clamp and turn to him. I clasped my wrist to hold his touch in. “I needed to feel you. I needed to see what Leo Lynwood had left behind. To discover why he’d hid you from us.”

I fisted my pendants. “Newsflash: you kissed me.”

“It was dumb. I wasn’t thinking. I was sunk.” He shrugged into himself as if letting the chair embrace him. “That wasn’t my first beer.” His fingers skimmed across his abdomen, strumming riffs on an air guitar. “I won’t do it again.” He said those words even though something like desire smoldered in his eyes as the TV light flickered bright. Was he a sick perv? Were we both? Yet, I nodded, and the subject plunged like an ice block into my pool of lava, shattering my illusions of Jay, perfect fantasy boyfriend.

“Can’t believe they cancelled this series.” Jesse pointed to the flat screen. “The best sci-fi show ever.”

“It’s my favorite.” I snuggled onto the couch. At least he wasn’t a badass rock star toting an ego the size of the Pacific. He appeared different from what the tattoos, earring, long hair, and guitar portrayed.

“Smart choice.” He scooped up the remote and turned up the volume, barely loud enough to hear. “Are you allowed to swim at night?”

And he wasn’t a rebel. I laughed, a grim dark sound. “I guess. Dad ruled the house. We weren’t allowed to swim when he was home, except on weekends. He hated the noise.” Even if we made no sound, his bulldog hearing kicked in.

Wide-eyed, Jesse ogled me. Had I sprouted ivy leaves in my hair? “What the hell?” he blurted.

“Jesse. I think we led two very distinct lives. And not simply from our more luxurious status versus—”

“Our cheap middle class?” He finished for me. “What other rules did you live by?”

I didn’t know how to say it, but it needed saying. “All rules all the time. We tiptoed on eggshells. He abused my mother and me, both verbally and physically. My mom did nothing right in his view. I never stacked up to the son he wanted.” Taken aback, Jesse’s breath whistled out. “He wasn’t much of a father other than providing our material needs. More like a slave driver. Who do you think kept his precious cars spotless and the house and yard when housekeepers and landscapers aren’t here?”

“Are we talking about the same Leo Lynwood?” Unnamed emotions hidden from me in the murky light roughened Jesse’s already raspy voice.

“Are we?”

“No.” Fists balled tight, he gave a sharp shake of his head. “Sorry. He loved my mother, Jade, and me. He gave us a lot, but my mom was prideful and didn’t want to take from him unless she needed to. She had a good-paying job and preferred to support herself. He was a good father. Loving, never demanding, and didn’t care what we did. I mean, get a load of Jade. He never said a word about her Goth phase. Or when I got my first tattoo or my earring. He supported my guitar playing.”

“And he let Jade have a cat. I begged him for a cat.” Why isn’t there a vaccine against two-faced assholeness? I hid my face in the toss pillow. “He would’ve killed me if I wore Goth makeup, or gotten a nose ring or tattoo, or merely played loud rock music.”

Before my next blink, Jesse knelt next to the couch. “This blows. I don’t understand this garbage.”

“Me neither.”

He sat cross-legged on the floor beside me, his knees sticking out from the holes in his faded jeans. “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

“Maybe his job and his outward-facing lifestyle were too demanding and he needed an outlet. A reality check.” I mimicked something I’d heard on TV. “Who knows?” I stretched out my legs to lie on the couch. Had I made up my little psych line for my trip down the river De Nile? Despite the issues between us, my sorrow lightened as I talked to Jesse about Leo Lynwood’s two distinct personalities—asshole and father. “Why didn’t you and Jade go to the funeral?”

“We were there, in the back. I saw you, your sister, and mom. Someone said she was his wife. First, we thought maybe he’d divorced your mom before he’d met mine, but you looked too young for the timeline. Anyway, we were freaked out because we didn’t know who’d arranged his funeral.”

“Was it then you realized he led a double life?”

“Pretty much. Then CPS came and gave us the four-one-one about you guys.”

“Jade didn’t come to the wake.”

“We’d just attended a joint memorial for them in Santa Cruz. Jade couldn’t handle another wake so her boyfriend picked her up from the funeral.”

“Why did you come?”

“I was mystified, trying to figure him out. Mostly, I was mystified by you.” Jesse eased back to lie flat on the rug.

I held up my hand, preventing him from skipping down Forbidden Lane. “Must’ve been horrible for you. Two funerals in a row.”

“We were wrecked.”

We lay in silence, sniffling our mutual sorrow in companionable commiseration. The TV shimmered starlight and space around the dark room, and I wanted to jet off on the spaceship Serenity, far from this travesty.

“Want to go swimming?” Jesse broke the flickering, blue-light silence. Our own blue-light special. “Will your mom care?”

“Mom and I used to swim at night when Dad was gone, or I guess at your house.”

“Or on the boat with Mom. They took it out a lot when Jade and I were busy.” Jesse snagged his guitar off the couch, his hand brushing my leg, leaving tingles skittering up my thigh. Jerking my leg to the side, I shivered from emotions too twisted to define. He didn’t notice the red tide sweeping up my neck, threatening to roast me into a crispy critter.

He followed me up the curved staircase to our bedrooms. “I can’t believe you guys live in this joint.” His voice held no jealousy or anger.

“It’s your house now too.”

“Feels more like a museum. I mean, the guest room’s a five-star hotel suite.”

“My mom’s good at interior decorating. That’s one thing Dad let her have her way with. It benefited his status.”

“Trophy home?”

“Exactly. How’d you know?” I stopped him at the landing.

“Wild guess.” Grinning, he spread his right arm to take in the whole house.

My breath caught at the gorgeous smile erasing his sadness, giving him a handsome, wild look, the kind googly-eyed, gaga girls tripped over. Any other girl. He was the fruit rolling down my forbidden dead-end lane, the new bane of my existence. Nix that. Jade was my bane. Regardless, I bet he wowed the crowds with his charming smile, strumming his guitar from the stage. Jealousy became a new emotion my body tentatively began to host.

“Check this out. Will your mom let me hang posters on the walls?”

I followed him into the guest suite. His electric guitar and amp drew my attention to the far corner in the sitting area. Open boxes littered the floor. Clothes, a laptop, and posters were strewn all over the luxurious comforter of geometric squares in blues and grays on the queen-sized bed in the room beyond the French doors. He pointed to framed and autographed posters of Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold, Seether, and other rock bands.

“Wow. Those are awesome. I love these bands.”

“You do?” Incredulity widened his eyes.

“Sure. Can’t a girl love hard rock too?” I snickered, defraying my nervousness from being in his bedroom, seeing his belongings scattered all over Mom’s beautiful decor. The room had only ever hosted corporate dignitaries to impress.

My sight skipped to the framed photos sitting on the whitewashed dresser in a haphazard display. I studied them, and then picked one up of a young man dressed in army fatigues standing in the desert, a rifle slung over his shoulder. He was maybe in his mid-twenties, with Jesse’s height and the same angular cheekbones, but he was more muscular and his skin looked weathered by the sun.

“Do you have an older brother?”

“No. Why?” Behind me, Jesse’s hand alighted on mine on the edge of the frame, covering my bewilderment. Weird jitters kicking in, I slipped my hand out from beneath his.

“Who’s in this picture? He resembles you.”

“That’s… my dad.”

My lungs quit pumping for a second. “Your dad?” I faced him. He stood so close, my breasts feathered his arm. Mortified, I inched backward, the edge of the dresser denting my butt.

“Didn’t your mom tell you?” He picked up the photo. I shook my head, waiting to hear words to untangle the knots in my head. “My real dad. He died in the Middle East right after I was born.”

“She didn’t tell me.” I touched my dragon, praying to the dragon lord that he told the truth. It explained the kiss. It explained the feelings I had for him. Draw up the commitment papers if he ended up my blood brother.

His face screwed up. “You thought we were related?”

“You kept calling my dad, Dad. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Oh, shit.” He backed up and sagged onto the bed. “Whoa, dude. That’s weird. I felt vibes between us. Not brother-sister vibes though.”

“You kissed me knowing the truth?”

“Yes.” His full lips kicked up at the corners. “I kissed you because I had to. You needed me to kiss you.”

Resting against the dresser, I wiped the sweat off my upper lip, unable to explain the vibes I really experienced without embarrassing myself into the deepest, darkest space portal. “What’s the deal, with you?”

His phone beeped an incoming text and he ignored it. “My mom met Leo not long after my real dad died. They dated and split up, but my mom was pregnant with Jade and didn’t tell him. Leo didn’t want kids of his own. Now I understand why. Three years later, he learned about Jade and returned. Then he adopted me.”

“Officially adopted?” My heart tumbled. So he was my brother, just not blood related. It explained a lot. It explained nothing. He was still forbidden… living in my house, in the room down the hall from mine.

“Yeah. We kept my real dad’s name, since Mom and your dad weren’t married.” He pulled a wrinkled pair of checkered swim trunks out of his suitcase.

My nerves tripped out, a totally different nervousness now. Like the prickling nerves I suffered meeting Will earlier, only ten times worse. “Meet you at the pool.” I dashed out of the room, kicking aside my newfound knowledge and the ramifications.

I found my modest one-piece bathing suit front and center in my dresser, the suit I wore around Dad or he’d go off the deep end. The idea that Jesse and I weren’t blood related made life weirder in a different way. I didn’t want to compound it by wearing less clothing. Was he still forbidden fruit? Did it even matter if he didn’t like me as more than a half-sister? I keep hitting the escape button, but I’m still here.

Wearing my terry cover-up, I met Jesse in the hallway. Bare-chested, he only wore his long swim trunks. His vine tattoo wound around his biceps and chest, leaves, guitars, and music notes dripping off the ivy. I gulped, unable to tear my sight off the ink decorating his lanky, yet solid, torso.

He traced a vine up his arm, chipping away at the icicles plaguing me.

“What’s the significance of the vine?” I fought to keep my hands at my sides and not touch every inch of his tattoos. A new war I’d stumbled upon. Days ago, there wasn’t one boy in sight. Now I lived in the same house with my pseudo-brother. Flowers in the Attic anyone?

“Dad, your dad, gave my mom an English ivy. It grew crazy in the backyard. I kinda felt out of control when I started the tattoo. Every time my control slipped, I’d add to it.” He traced his finger over a guitar dangling from the vine on his upper arm.

We hopped down the stairs. “Out of control?” I repeated, my mind still playing in Antarctica. Dad had given Mom the same ivy plant once. It represented a family tradition, stemming from the time my great-great-grandparents had named my great-grandmother Ivy. Mom let the ivy die off bit by bit until she had nothing left to transplant in San Jose. A small slash of resentment cut across the barren tundra inside me.

“You know, teenage stuff, girls, and school.” He shut the door behind him. “Towels?”

He held the French doors open for me to pass through. I flicked on the patio lights and he flicked them off. Playing it rough?

“Towels pushed you out of control?” I teased. He flicked his finger at my shoulder. “In the pool house.”

“With the cabana boys?” Again, his phone beeped another incoming text and he ignored it. It rang and he turned his phone off.

“Aren’t you going to answer your adoring fans?”

“They can wait. You’re more important tonight.”

His words thawed the boundaries of my barrenness. “The pool house is hidden off to the side.” Landscape lights rendered shadows on the bushes and trees along the walls of the house, undulating from the wispy breeze in the balmy night. I walked to the replica Mediterranean house with a full kitchen, living space, bathroom, bedroom, and a workout room housing a treadmill, weights, and other machines my body hid from, and a combination ping pong–pool table. I turned the pool lights on the random color setting. “Towels are in the bathroom.”

“Man, this place is off the hook.” Jesse wandered the rooms.

“Since you’re in the guest room, I guess this is the guesthouse now.” I’d taken all we had for granted until I’d seen how much it cost for upkeep. Having witnessed Jesse and Jade’s modest home, our lifestyle became an embarrassment of riches. “Do you resent living here now? I mean, it’s different.”

“Who wouldn’t mind living here?” He unsnapped his leather wristband and set it on the table. I read the tooled inscription on the inside. “Good luck, rock star. Love, Dad.”

Shaken and stirred, I replied, “I don’t mean—”

He slipped a finger over my mouth. “I know what you meant.” He removed his finger and handed me a beach towel.

My lips burned from his touch. I wanted to lick his taste, feel it in my mouth, and savor him. Deep end, open up wide, Insane Ivy’s bringing nutjob cookies.

Jesse crashed onto the leather couch and buried his face in his hands. “I miss my mom, Dad. I miss our house, our life, my friends, everything.” His shoulders shuddered and he was lost in a world of emotional upheaval.

Welcome to awkward. Unsure what to do, I sat beside him on the couch and gave him a few moments to compose himself. I never believed I did sympathy well, but he calmed from my presence. I wanted to caress away his sadness, lick it up, and spit it in Dad’s urn. Still had those nutjob cookies in hand.

He wiped his eyes on the beach towel. “I don’t mind being here. Plus, I want to know the real Leo Lynwood, the good, bad, and ugly. I want to make sense out of everything he did.” Emotions in check, he turned to me. “Jade needs a mother, and she needs a sister too.”

I uttered a pig-in-a-trough sound between a snort and laugh. Jade needed a knock upside the head more than she needed a mother and sister. We were worlds apart on the sister spectrum.

Jesse bumped his arm against mine. “She’ll come ’round.”

“Will I live to see Around?” I flicked my finger at his arm.

“I’ll protect you, Vine.” His hand alighted on my thigh, his long, slender fingers dark against my lighter tan, warm against my sudden chill. “I like being here because I want to know you too.”

“Why? You said we’re not related,” my idiot five-year-old self, lacking a filter, piped up. I wanted to touch him with an intensity that startled me.

“I’m glad,” he whispered, his head listing sideways to touch mine, leaving me reeling, unable to move or breathe for the longest time.

“Me too,” I said, shivering from the cool air filtering the uncomfortable truths released into the winds of change.