Stepbrother Bestie (A Stepbrother Romance Novel) (6 page)

With that, her posture eased a little and
she stared at me intently, as though once again trying to figure out whether or
not I was telling the truth. Her lie detector wasn’t very good, since I had
never lied to her a day in my life, but she seemed to think it was and tried to
convince me that it was almost every time we fought.

It was at that moment I was left to her
whim. This was the difficult part to Dalilah, but I supposed like with every
relationship, you had to take the good with the bad.

“Okay…”

“And I’m sorry,” I said again. “I promise
I will make it up to you.”

“Take me to the movies,” she demanded with
just enough sweetness to sugarcoat the fact that this wasn’t a question. “There
is a new movie coming out on Friday and I want to be one of the first to see
it.”

I shrugged, just happy that I dodged a
bullet that would have made for a very unpleasant evening. “That sounds like a
plan.”
    

Chapter
9

Valerie

Distraught, I didn’t come out of my room
all afternoon. I wasn’t quite sure how I was feeling about my boyfriend. I knew
that I would probably, eventually feel guilty for being so hard on him and that
would require a nice apology, but no one insulted my friend and got away with
it.

More like an older sister, I supposed, than
a friend, I could say anything I wanted about Shawn; but no one could say
anything against him, or I would fight them tooth and nail, even if they were
right.

I didn’t think that Zachary was right.
After all, he didn’t know the ins and outs of Shawn’s strange family dynamics.
Not like I did. I had grown up with them. I had watched his mother destroy his
spirit, again and again, while also witnessing his father crash down on him and
then turn around and say something nice to me, as though nothing had happened.

In a way, I wished I did know why his
father
 
did those things, but I hadn’t
the faintest clue. Shawn’s father was a mystery to me. He was nice and he was
always good to my mother, but there were certain aspects of his relationship
with Shawn that I had never understood.

When we were little, he seemed to be a
doubting, supportive father. Shawn and his father were almost friends, even
though he always had respect for him. Shawn’s father, Paul, always treated me
nicely and had concern for me, when no other male figure did, which was always great.

Every time Paul and Shawn went anywhere,
Paul would always offer to take me and he would teach me, right along with
Shawn; but it did seem as though the moment he married my mother, his
perspective on how he treated his son changed.

They instantly seemed to grow apart, but
neither me nor my mother could figure out why. It seemed that Paul refocused
himself from his son to his new family, all but cutting Shawn out of the frame.

He had always been strict about grades,
but Shawn had never done well; yet it never seemed to be much of a problem
until we all became a family. Then, it seemed that the hammer came crashing
down on literally anything that Shawn tried to do. Where his father was once
encouraging, he was now even more strict and constantly borderline of being
mean about it.

I had hated when he said anything about
Shawn in relation to Zachary, because while I was happy about my parents liking
my boyfriend, obviously, I knew that, just like Shawn, there were issues that
Zachary had that they had no idea about.

Zachary wasn’t a bad guy, but just as I
wouldn’t be so quick to judge Shawn’s reactions, I also wouldn’t be so quick to
assume that Zachary’s excellence in virtually everything he did was completely
genuine.

Zachary always
had
to be the best. He put that pressure on himself and that
bothered me quite a bit. I tried to help, but after dating him for as long as I
had, I realized that there was no way to get him to ease up on himself.

He felt as though he had something to
prove to everyone, since he didn’t have a father figure to prove it to.
Personally, I thought he should seek council, since I was afraid that one bad
failure would send him reeling into insanity, but that was just me apparently.
Everyone else seemed to think he was absolutely wonderful and that failure
wouldn’t even grace his life, no matter what he tried to do.

For Zachary’s sake, I hoped they were
right.

“Valerie!” my mother called as she knocked
on the door to my room. I thought I had heard her talking to someone.

I took a deep breath, trying to decide if
I really wanted to answer her or not, considering the sense that I received
from her voice. I knew that I had to say something, since she knew that I was
in here, but I had really just hoped to be alone.

“Yes?” I tried not to sound so upset over
literally everything.

“Zachary is here. The sweet boy brought
flowers.” She laughed, but then turned serious. “He said you had a fight. What
would you like for me to do?”

I rolled my eyes, suddenly realizing that
his effort to make up with me first was the trigger that made me feel intensely
guilty. “Please tell him I’ll be right out. Thanks Mom!”

“Can I come in? Just quickly…”

I slapped my hands against my face, trying
to relieve it from the rush of tears that were previously flowing down it.
“Sure…” I sniffled up my last bit of sadness, at least for the time being.

My mother opened the door with a concerned
look on her face. “Are you all right?”

I nodded.

“You’ve been crying. Honey, what’s wrong?”

“I’m fine,” I insisted and then sighed.
“I’ve just had a long day…”

“Zachary?” She asked in a careful tone,
turning her head sympathetically. As I shrugged, trying to be more convincing
then I was, she sighed and added, “Shawn?”

I nodded.

“Both…in one day?” She asked, almost as
though shocked.

“It’s a new record,” I answered, trying to
lighten the mood. “But, it’s okay. It’s not my fault with Shawn…I know that.”

“I was afraid something like this would
happen…” She sighed and dropped on my bed.

I shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess. No real
harm done.” I smiled sadly at her. “I don’t know.” I stopped and looked up at
her before I answered as her comment clicked, “Wait…What do you mean?”

“Well, it isn’t like I haven’t noticed
that you and Shawn have been on the outs with one another and then had a
miraculous, slightly random rekindling of your friendship over the weekend.”
She sighed. “But that kid is so angry, I don’t think he can actually forgive
himself, or anyone else for how he is feeling. I was hopeful that you two would
start to actually be friends again, like you were before, but I was afraid that
once the medicine wore off and you got back to our daily routine that you would
just go back to being…whatever it was that you two have started to be.”

“Yeah…I know. It sucks.”

She nodded. “It does, but if Shawn wants
space, it is best just to give it to him. I know it’s hard, but sometimes, that’s
just what we have to do for those that we care about.”

I thought about this before I smiled,
genuinely enlightened this time. “Thank you, Mom. Maybe you’re right.”

She smiled as she patted my shoulder. “I
know I’m right. If nothing else, I know you two kids. Come on! Get going! You
don’t want Zachary’s apology flowers to wilt out there.”

At that, I got up and walked out onto the
porch. Zachary stared at me for a moment while I closed the door, but did not
speak until we had the assurance that we were actually alone.

“So…” he said carefully, “um…These are for
you…” He extended his hand out with the flowers.

“Thank you,” I answered easily and took
them. “They’re beautiful.”

“Thanks,” he smiled, before he started to
say something else, but I interrupted him.

“Hang on,” I put my hand up in the air.
“Before you say anything, I just wanted to say I’m sorry. It was completely
wrong of me to say anything like that. I was out of place and I was upset, so I
just said things that I shouldn’t have.”

“But, not that you don’t mean?” He asked,
staring at me suddenly with a hard expression.

Now I was caught off guard. “I…Well, it
wasn’t my place.”

“No,” he replied, “You’re right. I
understand where you were coming from and I also completely get that what I
said, how I said it especially, was not right and I am sorry for that. I know
that you two are close, or were close…but I just don’t like to see him hurting
you, especially when his reasoning has absolutely nothing to do with you.”

I smiled at him and kissed him. “You are
forgiven.”

He beamed at me. “I was never really mad
at you. I’m sorry that I overreacted, about everything. You know I could never
really be angry with you.”

At that I stopped and even though my lips
were smiling, the last thing I felt was happiness.

In fact, I felt just a little bit guilty.
Still, I ignored the feeling and moved forward. “Thank you.”

“Hey listen…I was thinking…Maybe I could
make it up to you? Get your mind off of this whole Shawn fiasco.”

“Okay,” I sneered in a teasing manner.
“I’m all for being made up to.”

He chuckled. “Well, I know that new movie
that you wanted to see is coming out and I was wondering if you wanted to go
with me?”

“You want to go see that?” I asked,
narrowing my eyes and looking at him suspiciously. “You really must feel the
need to make something up to me. Are you sure that all you are repenting for is
our argument this afternoon?”

He shrugged and easily replied, “I don’t
know…I’m a glutton for punishment?” His smile was cute and reminded me exactly
why I liked him so much.

“Must be,” I answered, still eyeing him
with mock suspicion. “But before you come to your senses, sure! I would love to
go!”

Chapter
10

Shawn

Throughout the course of the next week,
Dalilah came over a lot, but I rarely saw my mother.

I supposed I was happy with that, but even
if I wasn’t, there wasn’t much that I could do about it. So I might as well
just be happy with what I had.

Now that Dalilah had me alone though, I
couldn’t help but notice her willingness to assure me that she was the only one
for me; that she was the only person on the planet that I could really trust.

In a way, I felt that she was right,
especially in light of what had happened with my stepmom, my dad and Valerie. But
in another way, it really bothered me.

So, after one comment too many, I finally
asked, “Why do you say that, Dalilah?”

She seemed confused at first.
“Because…it’s true? I would think that you, of all people would realize that.”

Usually, I liked the fact that Dalilah was
so direct, but today, not so much. “What are you talking about? I’m the one who
ended things with them…”

Dalilah gave me a slight attitude before
she answered, “I would think that you’d
 
be able to understand that…” She glowered at me. “Seriously, I have been
here almost every day since you moved out and I have yet to even meet your
mother.” She tilted her head to the side, almost as though she was mocking me
and demanded, “And have you ever even heard from your stepmom, who you seem to
think you are
so
close to?”

I went to refute her claims but stopped
short, not exactly being able to defend either one of my mother-figures, my
stepsister, or my father, even though he hadn’t even come up.

“Well…” I said carefully,, “no, but that’s
just because I pushed them away. I wouldn’t contact me either after treating
Valerie the way I did.” I did have to admit that I was beginning to feel a
little bit guilty for saying what I did to her. The more time that passed, the
more I felt that perhaps I really had taken it out on her too harshly.

Dalilah barked a laugh. “What? Are you
serious? She deserved every word you said. She is horrible to you. She can’t
even stick up for you with your father and she reaps all of the rewards…” She
raised her eyebrows as though she was wondering why this was even an argument.
“They’re only dragging you down. You’re an adult. This is your life. It
shouldn’t be dictated by people who don’t even care about you.”

I was uncomfortable with what she was
saying, but wished that I felt more strongly about it as I rebuked, “They care
about me!”

“Oh yeah? Well, who has been the one
helping you fight your demons for the past three years and who came over to
help you get settled into your mom’s house?” She reared her head back as though
she had just thought of something. “Who has helped you to do pretty much
everything you have needed to do since moving out?”

“You,” I answered truthfully. “But…”

“There’s no buts about it!” she bellowed
before she softened her voice and stared at me with conviction. “If you care
about me, then I want you to forget about them.”