Stepbrother Bestie (A Stepbrother Romance Novel) (48 page)

When it came to the deadweight
competition, I held my breath and hoped that he was winning the competition.
Once again, his form was better than anyone else’s, but I did know that there
was more to what was going on besides just form. I knew that there was some
kind of scoring system, but I realized that no matter what happened with him,
others in the crowd continued to cheer him on.

In a way, even though I wasn’t completely
sure what to be proud of, I still felt an immense sense of pride
toward
his work in general. I knew how hard he had trained for this and therefore, win
or lose, I was going to be thrilled.

At the very end there was the pulling
challenge, which had each contestant pull a truck with just their body weight
and strength. Once again, I was sure that Tyler had done magnificently, but I
couldn’t be completely sure until the winner was announced.

When the competition was over, the judges
deliberated for a little while until finally, they came out with a first,
second and third place.

Of course, they waited to reveal first
place until last and as they carefully laid out the winners of the first two
places, I held my breath, both hoping to hear Tyler’s name among the winners,
but slightly more hopeful that he didn’t get called until the very end.

After a long lead-in, in order to add to
the already mounting anticipation that had taken over the area, the announcer
made it official. Tyler won and I could barely contain my excitement. I jumped
up and down and screamed at the top of my lungs as he moved up to receive his
prize.

Yet, I noticed with a sense of happiness
that it wasn’t exactly the prize that Tyler had his eye on now; it was me.

Tyler flashed me a wink and I felt my
heart flutter while I watched him strut up to be front and center.

The whole crowd was going wild, but I knew
that he was looking at me and for the first time in a really long time, I was
happy for someone that was actually close to me, besides just a friend. I don’t
think that I had ever been prouder of anyone.

In a way, with all of the help that I had
tried to provide and the amount of emotion that I held for him, whether I
wanted to or not at this point, I was also proud of myself. I felt as though I
had done something significant in order for the win to have been attributed to
Tyler.

However, after everything that had gone on
during this summer, I didn’t feel bad or think that I didn’t deserve this. I
had worked hard and so had Tyler. For once in a very long time, I felt as
though I deserved every bit of the sensation that I had coursing through my
body.

When everything had calmed down and I was
able to meet up with him, I was still ecstatic. I felt as though my whole life
had a meaning and a purpose that I had never quite been able to contemplate
before. It was fantastic and I was ready to take every inch of that pride for
myself.

I had the distinct feeling that it wasn’t
just me and it wasn’t just him and I anymore; we had achieved something
together and that meant a lot to me.

So, as soon as I saw him in the crowd, I
was overwhelmed with emotion and excitement. I was happy to see that Tyler also
moved with a sense of excitement as I grew closer to him.

When we were within arm’s length of one
another, we embraced and, without even thinking, as I was completely overwhelmed
by the passion and excitement running through my body from the adrenaline of
the win, I leaned up and pressed my mouth against Tyler’s zealously and
comfortably.

For the moment, we were the only two
people that mattered in the world. There might be a whole crowd surrounding us,
but all we saw and all we felt was one another.

The now familiar taste of him was inviting
and alluring. Forgetting the world that surrounded us, he grasped onto me and
pulled me closer to him.

The moment, for the short period of time
that it lasted, was incredibly powerful. I had never felt such an amazing
experience coming unto me before, especially in public. All I really wanted to
do was tear his clothes off and make love to him right then and there.

However, the moment of such wild, careless
desire was short-lived, when I heard my father’s voice booming out to me,
loudly and completely shocked.

“Ashley! What the hell are you doing?” he
demanded, just before I felt his hand grasp my arm and yank me backwards.

Tyler instinctively moved toward the man
who was pulling me backward, but stopped short when he saw that it was my
father. “What are you doing here?” He sounded stunned.

“I came to watch you compete,” my father
answered heatedly. “But I certainly saw more than I bargained for…”

I looked at my father, who glared between
the two of us with a red face, full of fury. I knew that the only reason he
wasn’t completely going off on us was simply because he was too shocked to
rationalize his words.

Just like us, he couldn’t seem to
understand the full extent of what was going on. The world now seemed to be
spinning on around us, while we were completely oblivious to it, but for a
different reason.

I felt sick to my stomach.

“Come on, Ashley, we are going home,” my
father said sternly.

I glanced at him and thought of saying
something to the contrary, but figured this wouldn’t be the time. I just nodded
and left with him, without saying a word.

Chapter
40

Tyler

“Fuck!” I muttered to myself as I made my
way back to where the winners were supposed to meet up for a group photo.

I knew that I was distracted and that had
made the whole competition a shit-ton harder for me, but I had been just as
happy.

I enjoyed the idea of having someone to
cheer for me, but now, her father had gone and fucked everything up.

I sighed, trying to let some of the
aggravated tension I had built up in me go, before I just shook my head and
looked down at the ground. I couldn’t believe my rotten luck. I was just
starting to figure things out.

I wasn’t stupid enough to believe that we
would never get caught, but I figured it wouldn’t be at a time like that.

Since
when does he give a fuck about my life?
I thought with seething anger
as I kicked a rock through the crowd and then ran the other way so the person
that it hit wouldn’t figure out it was me.

I wasn’t afraid of them, though. I just
didn’t want a confrontation, because I felt like I would end up doing something
that I regretted and that was the last thing I needed. So, I just shook my head
again and grumbled as I made my way into the middle of the losers who thought
they were hot shit, just because they made it to a place that was deemed the
‘winners’ circle.

I had come in first and in my mind, that
was the only place that really mattered. Second and beyond were all beat by
someone, usually me and that’s all there was to it. I had always maintained the
mentality that if I wasn’t first, I was last, because no one but myself usually
gave a shit anyway; so I might as well try to be hard on myself. Normally, it
would make me feel all tingly and cocky, being surrounded by losers, taking the
gold; after all, I had worked pretty damn hard. But this didn’t make me feel
anything except disappointment right now. I didn’t have any will to even take
the trophy, because I didn’t feel like I had won anything.

Even though I had done what I came to do,
I had unexpectedly lost something far more valuable to me and that was
surprisingly bothersome.

The look in Ashley’s eyes when she walked
away with her father was haunting.

To me, it meant that the fun we had was
likely over, which sucked because on top of the fact that our relationship had
always made me work for something, I felt that it was also making me a better
person.

I had no interest in straying from Ashley.
We were having fun together and for once, I was beginning to feel a connection
to another person, instead of the selfish, conceited air that I had become
accustomed to.

Now, it was all fucking over.

After we took the pictures, which were
probably going to be in the paper the next day, or something for the town, I
took my prize and left.

Instead of going back to the beach house
right away though, I went down by the ocean and began to run. I figured it
might be good to give everyone some space, including myself.

So I forced myself to focus on everything
about my stride, the feel of the air entering and exiting my lungs and the
soreness of my muscles, which were really feeling the pressure after having
completed the competition, instead of worrying about what was going on back at
the house.

I tried not to think about the fact that
the longer I stayed away, the longer I was allowing my mother and her father to
grill Ashley about our relationship and she probably wasn’t going to appreciate
that. But at the moment, I felt that I was too angry to be helpful. I wasn’t
going to want to explain myself like some fucking child.

I was going to want to barge in that house
and demand that I was allowed to do whatever the hell I wanted, with whoever
the hell I wanted.

They didn’t give a shit about us all
summer. All they did was fuck one another, but they were going to get pissed
off at us for doing the same thing?
What?
Because we’re step-siblings
.
Go blow
it out your ass. We’re not related and chances are, they won’t even last when
the novelty of being a married couple wears off.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen it before.
Actually, I had seen it twice before. My mother thought that marrying a man and
then taking him for all he was worth made her honest, but that only compounded
her sins.

At
least there’s no ulterior fucking motive for us being together,
I thought, not allowing myself to slow down, for I knew if I gave into the
temptation I would not be able to stop myself. Surely, I would just barge in
there and give her father and my mother a piece of my mind that they would
probably choke on.

That wouldn’t end well and even though I
wanted to do it really fucking bad, something told me that I would regret it.
So I continued to make my way down the beach, focusing, almost a little bit too
much on the hot sand being kicked up by my feet and the feel of my shallow
breathing trying to keep pace with the rest of my body.

For once, I didn’t know what I was
supposed to do and I didn’t want to act on my instinct so, I just kept running.

When I finally did stop, the fight hadn’t
been completely lost from me, but I wasn’t blindingly angry and I had managed
to stop seeing the situation as so unbelievably dire. I knew that I needed to
get my head on straight if I was going to walk in there, but I also was going
to lay down and take their shit.

So, once I had come to this conclusion, I
breathed a long sigh of relief before I huffed loudly as my body caught up with
everything I had demanded from it that day.

I knew how I was going to handle this
situation; the only thing that I needed to do now was find my way back to the
house.

I walked back up the dunes and gauged what
street I was on. I thought things looked familiar and I was right. I certainly
wasn’t that far from the house, so I decided to walk the rest of the way.

By the time I began my ascent up the
driveway, past the car that I had first seen Ashley come out of and the
family
car that we had driven up in, I
had made the decision that no matter what happened when I walked through that
door, I didn’t want to make anything more difficult for Ashley.

If need be, I would leave and never
return, if that would make everything all right. After all, my mother wouldn’t
give a shit and it would save Ashley from hating me when my mother eventually
tired of her father.

As I thought of this, I stopped to
reconsider the idea before I shrugged and thought that maybe I should leave and
never come back now.

However, then I thought of Ashley and knew
that I had to at least announce that I was leaving, if it came to that, but
there was also something else. There was a large part of me that didn’t want to
leave and I realized then that I hoped it didn’t come to that.

Perhaps
something could be worked out,
I considered with the
first stretch of positivity that I had ever since Ashley’s father showed up at
the competition.
I can’t believe I
actually want something to work out.

It was beginning to get dark now and I
figured I had better get to it and get this shit over with. Hopefully, it
wouldn’t take all that long.

With all of this in mind, I jogged the
rest of the way up the driveway and actually, honestly and truly hoped for the
best.

Chapter
41

Ashley

Awful would have been a gross
understatement to describe every long, daunting, terrible second of the ride
back to the beach house.