Chapter 3 Charming Stepbrother
OLIVER
One week later, I’m shoving the last of my overstuffed suitcase into the trunk of my car.
A glance over my shoulder tells me my mom is still pacing behind me in her robes and slippers.
With the way she keeps wringing her hands, one would think she’s about to send me off to war.
“I’m so sorry I can’t come with you, sweetheart,” she says for the fourth time, her voice tight with guilt. “I should be there to move in and make sure you have everything. God, I’m such a bad m–”
“Mom,” I interrupt, shutting the trunk firmly before it pops back open. “You have a honeymoon flight tomorrow, and you need to rest. Seriously, it’s okay. I’m nineteen and I’m pretty sure I can move into college by myself.”
She stops pacing, but the look she gives me says she absolutely does not care how old I am. “Just promise me you’ll call. Every day, night and hour, if possible.”
“Every hour?” I groan and the movement hurts my still bruised- up face.
Her brow lifts, and a stubborn look I know quite well flashes in her eyes. “Don’t make me cancel my honeymoon.”
“Fine,” I laugh, promising to call as much as I could.
That earns me a watery smile. And then she steps forward, very gently pressing a kiss to my cheek as if she’s scared of aggravating my wounds.
“I’m so proud of you, sweetheart,” she whispers. “So…so proud. I love you.”
I swallow around the sudden tightness in my throat. “Love you too, mom.”
She squeezes me tight in a quick hug and finally lets me go, wiping her eyes and telling me to drive safely as she steps back into the house.
I watch her go in and then lean back against my car, pulling out my phone.
My thumb moves quickly, and I soon pull up Snapchat.
–omw to hell and missing you already.
Elliot’s reply pops up immediately, making me wonder if he was glued to his phone waiting for my text all day.
The thought makes me smile, and my smile grows even wider when I view his reply.
It’s a funny GIF of a cartoon character in hell.
–I miss you more. Wish you were here with me. He adds under it.
My smile slowly falls because his reply just reminds me all over again that we are now a long-distance couple, and I won’t see him until his summer break in a few months.
And he’s not even sure he’ll be back in Minnesota by then.
Should I send him a shirtless pic to lighten the mood? Or tease him?
A throat suddenly clears directly in front of me, and I’m so startled my phone nearly slips out of my hand.
Jesus, I say under my breath, looking at the last person I expected on this driveway at nine in the morning. He’s usually gone very early most days.
“Oliver,” My mother’s husband says with a curt nod.
Since the day I helped move my mom’s things into his house, I have never seen the man smile.
It’s like someone punished him for smiling too many times in his youth, or maybe he just doesn’t like me.
I mean, he does smile at my mom…sometimes.
“Uh–Mr. Calloway,” I force myself to say as I realise I’ve been silent for a bit too long.
“Call me Orson,” He waves a hand. “I told you that many times already.”
Right.
Sure.
Totally normal first-name basis with the man who married my mother a week after meeting me.
I slip my phone into my pocket, suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that I’d been seconds from sending Elliot something borderline pornographic. “Did you…uh…did you need something?”
“I wanted to apologize for my son’s behaviour at the wedding,” he says flatly, catching me off guard. “And at the reception. I hope it doesn’t damage whatever relationship we may have moving forward.”
Rhysand Calloway.
My stomach churns viciously as I recall him.
I can practically feel the bruises under my skin from when he beat me into the ground, and the acrid smell of his urine soaking my suit.
It was utterly humiliating.
But I force myself to nod at him.
“I don’t hold anything against your son.” I even manage a smile to sell that lie.
Mr. Calloway nods slowly, flicking his grey eyes away for a second as if he, too, is reliving the whole disaster at the wedding.
After security was able to drag the crazy guy off me, Orson called an emergency meeting where he explained that the psychopath was his son.
MY OWN FUCKING STEPBROTHER.
Apparently, he’d just graduated from a “Reform Academy’–Mr. Calloway’s words, not mine.
He thought his son wouldn’t be getting out until the 24th of this month, but the dates were mixed up.
On the 14th of August, Rhysand was let out of the prison–sorry, Reform Academy–and his father wasn’t there to pick him up.
So he showed up at the wedding in the most catastrophic, vindictive way possible.
It sounded like something out of a bad movie plot, and when I’d asked what his son was sent away for, Orson changed the subject so fast it gave me whiplash.
“Anyway, I should get going.” I finally say, breaking the awkward silence between us.
His hand, grabbing my shoulder, freezes me in place. “Do you remember what we discussed?”
Huh?
It takes me a moment, but I finally do remember what he’s talking about, and I nod quickly, shaking his grip off as politely as I can.
“Yes, sir.. Don’t worry. I’m not…telling anyone about what happened.”
His expression softens finally, and he gives me a ghost of a smile before moving back. “Good.”
Like I’d be dying to announce to the entire world that my new stepbrother is an asshole who pisses at weddings like an untrained street dog.
Forcing another polite smile, I give him a small nod and move closer to the driver’s door.
“Have a good trip, Oliver.”
“You too,” I answer automatically and climb into the car my dad got me for my seventeenth birthday—the last year we ever felt like a family.
It takes a few twists, but the engine finally hums to life, and I put the car into drive, pulling away from the house and toward whatever the hell comes next.
