Escape: A Stepbrother Romance (26 page)

We finally got around to talking about the end of the summer. The discussion was inevitable, but neither of us wanted to have it, so we easily delayed it for week after week until the calendar rolled over into September—the month Vicky left for college. We came close to talking about it many times, but somehow always ended up having sex instead. Usually angry sex, like we were taking out our frustrations about the future on each other.

The trigger point ended up being an email from the University of Cambridge. I walked into Vicky’s bedroom one morning and found her crying at her laptop. I looked over her shoulder to see a book list. The University had sent her some recommended reading for her to tackle before the course started and a list of books she should make sure she has for her first week. It seemed unfair to dump pressure on students before they even started, but apparently it was so the students had a chance to buy books secondhand from online retailers as opposed to getting ripped off at the University bookstore. It was a responsible thing to do, but in this case it set off a chain of events that neither of us wanted to deal with.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Vicky said, as she tried wiping away her tears only to find they were quickly replaced by new ones. She didn’t look over her shoulder at me, but I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her chair away from the laptop.

“It’s not too late,” I said. “You still don’t have to go. You can back out at any time. Your dad will lose a few hundred pounds of fees, but the tuition isn’t payable until you start.”

“What else would I do though?”

“Whatever you want,” I replied. “Your dad’s not suddenly going to kick you out of the house just because you decided you don’t want to go to university. You could just tell him you want to take a year to think about it. Didn’t you say all your friends are going on gap years? Just say you’re doing something like that.”

“There’s no way my dad would let me stay at home and do recipe development. You know what he’s like. He might be okay with me going abroad as long as it was part of an organized volunteer project, but there’s no way he will let me do my own thing.”

“You don’t have to ask your dad’s permission. Why don’t you go to culinary school? That way you are still studying for something but you won’t be at home all the time.”

“There’s no way he will accept that. My dad associates cooking with being a housewife, and he won’t pay tuition for me to do that.”

“You won’t enjoy your time at Cambridge if you don’t really want to be there. It will end up being a waste of three years, but even worse you may end up find yourself getting pushed into a job and a career you don’t like. Then we’re talking about being miserable for the rest of your life.”

“What about you?” Vicky asked. “Are you just going back to being the carefree playboy? When are you going to accept that you want more from life?”

“What do you mean? I don’t have any particular passions.”

“You’re worse than me really,” she said with a big grin. “At least I know I want to do recipe development. You won’t even admit that you enjoy studying history. English history in particular it seems. Why is that?”

“I guess I just prefer the era of swords and shields as opposed to guns,” I replied with a casual shrug.

“I meant, why do you not admit to yourself that you actually enjoy studying? You’re like the opposite of me. I pretend to enjoy it because I have to, but I think you would like to take my place at Cambridge.”

I shook my head aggressively. “No way. No offense, but that course you are taking sounds boring as hell.”

“Then take a course in history. That’s it, that’s what you should do. Why don’t you come to Cambridge as well. Then we can be together.”

I forced a smile, but looked Vicky in the eyes and shook my head. “There are a million and one reasons why that won’t work.”

“Name one,” she said excitedly.

I could tell she’d already got the idea in her head and wasn’t about to let it go without a fight. “For one thing, I’m far too late to apply to start this year.”

“Start next year then. Name another reason. A good one this time.”

“I never bothered taking the SAT. I’m pretty sure Cambridge needs to see something like that before accepting a foreigner to the University.”

“You can study for that now. You have a year to wait before you start anyway. You need a better excuse.”

“I’m not looking for excuses, Vicky,” I said. “I like the idea, but it’s not a solution. You’re just trying to avoid dealing with the real problem.”

“What’s that?” Vicky asked. “Because the only problem I see is that you don’t really want to be here. You’re looking forward to leaving, aren’t you?”

“Vicky, you know that’s ridiculous. But that’s the real problem, isn’t it? I’m leaving in a few weeks and so are you. Like it or not, we’re going to have to go our separate ways.”

“Don’t you want to even consider doing a long-distance relationship? Or are you just looking forward to going back to sleeping around?”

“Don’t be a bitch, Vicky, it doesn’t suit you. You know that’s not true.”

I’d thought long and hard about the long-distance relationship thing. A few times I even talked to myself into thinking it might work. It wasn’t impossible—stranger things have happened—but at the end of the day I always came back to the same answer. We
could
do it, but we shouldn’t.

I
could
visit England for three months a year without any visa issues, and if I spread those visits out over the year it might just about be bearable. We’d fuck like rabbits when we saw each other and probably never leave the bedroom, but it was just about manageable.

However, every time I thought about it, I decided it wasn’t the best thing for Vicky. She would be starting university soon. She’d be meeting hundreds of people and would be chased by guys on a regular basis. She would also change. We were both young and university changed everyone. I didn’t want her to spend three years fighting off men only to realize that I wasn’t the one she was meant to be with anyway.

“We’re not doing a long-distance relationship,” I said firmly. “It won’t work and I think you know that.”

“Fine, I’ll go off to university and be miserable while you go back home and go back to your old life.”

“You shouldn’t go to university,” I said, ignoring her comment about me going back to my old lifestyle. I’d already told her I wouldn’t do that and I didn’t intend to keep repeating the point just to make her feel better. “You should seriously consider doing something else. You have a smile that lights up the room and a wicked sense of humor once you set yourself free of your father’s shackles. You’d be perfect for television—certainly a lot better than my mom ever was. That’s what you should concentrate on.”

“Whatever. Now, if you don’t mind leaving me alone, it looks like I have some books to buy.”

Vicky was stressed about the last couple of weeks we had together and so was I. Not just because I didn’t want to say goodbye, but because I needed to tell her something. She had to know the truth and I had to be the one to tell her. I’d had plenty of opportunities, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. That had to change and soon. I wouldn’t do it today—she was too mad with me to listen to what I had to say—but I made a promise to myself to tell her tomorrow. I had no idea
how
to tell her, but she deserved to know the truth about her mom.

---

Vicky and I didn’t speak to each other for the rest of that day, although my mom and Roy came home soon after the argument so we settled back into our routine of pretending to hate each other anyway. The next morning I went for a run. I kept half an eye out for Patrick, but I hadn’t seen him around since I confronted him. He was clever enough to know when to leave well alone.

I still treated running like a chore; something to do to keep fit until I had access to a decent gym again. However, I was getting used to it and perhaps even beginning to enjoy it. When I put some music on and just ran I found the time flew by and would run a little bit further each time I went out.

When I got home, Vicky was in the kitchen setting herself up to cook another meal. By the time I had gone upstairs and showered and dressed, Gemma, the fairly attractive older woman from nearby had joined Vicky in the kitchen. I sat in the lounge and put the TV on, but kept the volume down low so that I could overhear Vicky and Gemma talking. Even just hearing Vicky’s voice was enough to help me relax.

Vicky and Gemma had a surprisingly strong connection given that there was a generation between the two of them. Vicky still only swore in front of me, so with Gemma she was polite, but Gemma didn’t hesitate to curse when she felt the need to. Apparently Gemma had been a close friend of Vicky’s mom before the accident.

That meant Gemma must know the truth as well, but for some reason was okay keeping Vicky in the dark. I couldn’t understand why everyone was okay with her not knowing. It seemed weird, dangerous even, but they must have their reasons for it.

Vicky was teaching Gemma a recipe, but when the food went in the oven they started cleaning up and conversation turned to Vicky’s mom.

“Have you spoken to your mom recently?” Gemma asked.

“Yes, a couple of days ago. I didn’t really have any exciting information to give her though.”

“Really? Are you sure about that?” Gemma teased.

I wasn’t looking into the kitchen, but just from the tone of Gemma’s voice it was clear she knew something about Vicky and me. At the very least, she knew that Vicky was sleeping with someone—that much was obvious to everyone apart from her father because of the glow on her face—but she might not know it was me.

“What do you mean?” Vicky asked. She was so bad at keeping secrets. Even without looking at her, I knew she’d gone bright red and was probably staring down at her feet.

“Nothing, just thought you might have someone in your life you wanted to talk to your mom about.”

Vicky quickly made an excuse about having to go print off some more recipe pages upstairs and left the kitchen. I decided to use this as a chance to speak to Gemma. I had to tell Vicky about her mom today and before I did that I wanted as many facts as possible.

“Can I speak to you for a moment? I asked Gemma.

“Sure,” she replied, looking a touch surprised. We’d spoken a few times, but only when Vicky was around.

I beckoned her into the lounge because the tiled walls in the kitchen had a habit of amplifying all conversations. “You know about Gemma and me?” I asked, getting straight to the point.

Gemma nodded. “I’ve seen you two coming and going in and out of the house a lot together and you don’t have to be a genius to notice the chemistry there.”

I didn’t mind Gemma knowing. I wanted to be honest with her about it and hoped that she would return the favor.

“We’ve gotten close over the summer.”

“I’m glad she’s happy,” Gemma said. “I think she needed… someone like you. And what you can give her. She lived far too long under the iron fist of her father.”

“It’s a shame her mother isn’t well enough to look after her still.”

“Yes,” Gemma said. “It’s a shame. Does Vicky talk to you about Stephanie?”  

I nodded. “She talks a lot about what her mom was like before the accident and she’s told me her mom is slowly recovering. I know they talk every week or every couple of weeks, but she’s not yet ready to tell her mom about me.”

“It’s complicated,” Gemma said.

“I know. I know it is complicated and I know
why
 it's complicated.”

“You mean you know…”

I nodded. “I know what happened with the car accident.”

“How?” Gemma asked.

“I had a run-in with Patrick McDade. The man driving the car that crashed into her mom.”

“Jesus. That must’ve been weird.”

“The whole thing’s weird,” I said. “Why doesn’t Vicky know? What the hell’s going on?”

“God,” Gemma said, her voice giving away strains of emotion. She wasn’t crying, but I sensed she wasn’t far off. “I’ve wanted to tell her so many times.” She paused to take a few breaths before continuing. “I started to tell her once, but I didn’t have the courage to go through with it. Once the lie had been allowed to run for a few weeks it became harder and harder to explain it. I’ve also been told that if she found out before she was ready then it might be bad for her mental health. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I didn’t want to risk it.”

“I have to tell her,” I said. “She needs to know and I think it should be me to tell her.”

“She’ll hate you for it,” Gemma said. “It’s not your fault—it’s mainly her father’s—but she’ll hate you for it anyway.”

“I know. But I have to go home in a few weeks anyway and she hates me right now as it is.”

“Thank you,” Gemma said. “Thank you so much. When are you going to do it?”

“Soon. But first, I need all the information. I have a fair idea how this happened, but I need to know everything or I might do her some permanent damage.”

“I’ll tell you whatever you need to know,” Gemma said.

“Good. We don’t have much time before she comes back downstairs. Start with explaining what happened in the weeks after the accident.”