Fenn
My stepbrother is caught in a perpetual trance lately. Used to be you couldn’t pry his eyes away from his computer screen, but at least he’d occasionally mumble a response to conversation. Now I can’t seem to get so much as a grunt out of him while we get ready for class in the morning. His head has been buried in his phone since the second he woke up.
“Dude.” I throw a tennis ball across the room that flies past his head to thump the wall.
RJ whips around in his desk chair. “Fuck’s sake. What?”
“Have you heard anything I’ve said for the last ten minutes?”
“No? I don’t know. Christ. What do you want from me before eight a.m.?”
“I get you’re pussy-whipped these days, but how about sparing a little time for your friends now and then?”
Fuck. That sounded clingy. Was it clingy? I don’t know how to do this whole brother thing. I was an only child my entire life. And now I’ve got this stepbrother who ended up being cooler than I anticipated.
When we met five seconds before our parents’ wedding and were standing there in our tuxes sizing each other up, I honestly didn’t expect to ever like the dude. Hell, it took me a couple of weeks to even remember his name. But then my dad got RJ into Sandover, and we were thrown together as roommates, and now…well, I guess we’ve bonded. Sounds cheesy as hell, but it’s true. We might come from vastly different backgrounds and are polar opposites in terms of our attitudes toward socializing, but somehow this weird new familial relationship works.
Or at least it did before he went and fell for Sloane frickin’ Tresscott. Of all the chicks he could’ve gone after, he picks the headmaster’s daughter. The ice princess. The girl who’d rip my balls off if she knew I’ve had my tongue in her little sister’s mouth every day this week.
“Did you have a point, or are you just being needy?” RJ finally puts his phone down and hauls himself out of his chair to start getting dressed. As it is, we’ll only have time to grab a quick pastry at the dining hall before first bell.
“You have to do me a solid this weekend. I’m taking Casey out for a picnic on Saturday.”
He glances at me over his shoulder. I think I catch something of a grimace before he turns back to his closet.
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“Keep Sloane busy for me.” I sit on the couch in the middle of our spacious dorm room and put my shoes on. “I know she’s not Team Fenn on this, and I don’t want every date with Casey turning into a standoff.”
“So, this is happening?” RJ furrows his brow as he throws his bag over his shoulder. His tie is undone around his neck like it’s a statement against The Man. In reality, he’s been at Sandover for two months and still can’t tie the thing without my help most days. “You and Casey?”
The question catches me as odd. And he takes on a strange demeanor full of mysterious subtext that makes me uneasy. “Yeah, and…?”
“What are your intentions there?” he asks.
“Intentions?”
What the hell? Granted, we aren’t great at the heart-to-hearts, but I thought RJ understood how I feel about Casey. She’s not some conquest to me. This girl is special.
“Did Sloane put you up to this?” I ask warily.
“Just asking the question,” he says with a shrug that’s a bit more pointed than his words suggest.
He’s not entirely wrong to be suspicious. Not even a little. Under the surface of what he knows about me, there’s a ship-killer of guilt lurking in the darkness. Because I’m an asshole for wanting her, and an even bigger asshole for letting this happen against my better judgment. With every day, every kiss, I’m a little closer to ruining her.
RJ stands between me and the door, a not-so-subtle signal of the sincerity of his interest. I asked for his attention, and now I’m not getting out of here until I’ve satisfied it.
“I’d never hurt her,” I tell him, my voice coming out gruff. I want it to be true. And that’s the best kind of honesty I can give him.
Appraising me, RJ clearly wants to say something else, but my phone buzzes in my pocket. I release a breath, surprised at the relief to be let off the hook. Then I see my dad’s number on the screen and curse under my breath.
“It’s my dad,” I mutter, then put the call on speakerphone with a curt, “Yeah?”
I’d have let it go to voicemail if I wasn’t somewhat thankful for the rescue. This stare down with RJ was getting intense. I can’t imagine where his interest is coming from except that Sloane is far more put out over our relationship than I had assumed. Part of me wonders if she might be on a campaign to turn RJ against me, so long as Casey and I are together. I know it comes from a good place—she wants to protect her little sister—but Sloane is ruthless when she wants to be.
“Good morning,” my dad answers with a pathetically cheerful voice I assume he’s doing for the benefit of RJ’s mom on the other end. “Did I catch you before breakfast?”
“Yeah, what do you want?”
These days he’s on my phone more times than in the last several years of my life combined. It’s all part of his sudden character turn toward some network TV dad impersonation that’s both disturbing and insulting. Ever since Michelle came along, it’s like he’s discovered his paternal roots and is trying to make up for a decade of benign neglect. Or at least he wants RJ and his mom to believe he’s trying to be a better father.
I’m not buying it. People don’t change overnight. Hell, I’m not convinced people change at all. They just get better at hiding their malfunctions. So, no, I don’t believe my father suddenly stopped being a selfish prick and now cares about pesky matters like “family.”
Where was Mr. Family Man after Mom died? Nowhere near me, that’s for sure. Before her death, he and I were close. We laughed together, went sailing. I even got him to play video games with me sometimes. We used to have fun.
Then she was gone, and Dad completely iced me out. He buried himself in work and relegated me to afterthought territory. When he did remember my existence, he’d feel guilty and throw money at me, then disappear again.
And eventually, I liked being left alone. I mean, what teenager wouldn’t want to run wild with zero consequences? No matter what I did, what crazy shit I got into, Dad didn’t even bat an eye. The summer before sophomore year—back when I was still at Ballard like seventy-five percent of the rejects who now attend Sandover—I threw a party at our house in Greenwich that resulted in the entire place being trashed and the cops showing up after a dozen noise complaints—and Dad couldn’t care less. He just hired a cleaning service and then went into his study to finalize some deal he was negotiating with a tech company in Japan. When I was expelled from Ballard and that snooty Swiss prep school? He didn’t even blink. Merely wrote another check and shipped me off to Sandover.
So whatever this is, this unwelcome olive branch he keeps trying to wave in my face, I’m not interested. I lost interest years ago.
“I hoped we could talk again about Christmas break,” Dad tells me. “Taking a little family vacation with all of us.”
“Uh, yeah. I think it’s a little late for that trip to Disney World, Dad.”
“Michelle suggested we go somewhere with mountains. Maybe some skiing?”
“What do I care? Do whatever you want. I’ve got other plans.”
“Think about it,” he urges, apparently choosing to ignore my blatant rudeness as some sort of psychological warfare. “In the meantime, Michelle and I wanted to come out for a visit sometime soon. We could take you boys out for a nice dinner. How does that sound?”
“Hard pass.”
I end the call without the slightest trace of remorse. Not even the flicker of disapproval in RJ’s dark eyes triggers any sort of repentance. I get we’re stepbrothers now and this affects him too, but RJ would do better to butt out. He can’t possibly appreciate eighteen years of history based on knowing David for a few months. Most of which we’ve spent in this dorm.
“That was messed up,” my stepbrother says. “You could try a little.”
“I could, but I don’t want to. Trust me, don’t fall for this act. He doesn’t deserve you caping for him. And these conversations go much quicker when I don’t pretend to participate.”
“Maybe it’s not an act,” RJ points out.
I roll my eyes at him. For some obnoxious reason, he’s been on my case this past week about how I should be open to reconciliation. But he doesn’t know my dad or what it was like waking up one morning and realizing my father had chosen to stop noticing I existed. At least RJ’s dad had the decency to get sent to prison.
“I told you, this nice guy bullshit is just that—bullshit. Showering you and your mom with gifts and vacation suggestions. Trying to be your buddy. It’s fake. He’s trying to impress your mother. Make himself look good so that when they eventually divorce, she doesn’t take half his money.”
Hesitation creases RJ’s features.
“What?” I demand.
“I don’t know…” He fidgets with the bottom of his tie.
“What?” I repeat.
“Part of me thinks maybe the marriage will actually work out,” he finally admits.
My jaw drops. “Dude.”
“I know.”
“Since when?”
He offers a shrug. “They seem happy.”
“They’re newlyweds. Of course they’re happy right now. He probably ate her out on the kitchen counter this morning.”
RJ blanches. “Gross. That’s my mom. Anyway, I’m not saying it’ll last. Only that I might not be totally shocked if it does.”
I shake my head at him in reprimand. “What happened to your cynicism? It was my favorite thing about you. I fucking blame Sloane for this.”
“I don’t mind seeing my mother happy,” he grumbles as we head for the door. “So sue me.”
When we reach the doorway, though, he stops and looks at me. He hesitates again, blocking my way.
I lift a brow. “Was there something else you wanted to say?”
After a beat, he breaks eye contact and steps out of the room. “Nothing,” he says without glancing back. “Forget it.”