Stepbrother Dearest (14 page)

good as forks and spoons kept slipping out of my trepidatious hands.

With nothing left to do, I then sat down across from where Elec and Chelsea were sitting. My eyes

stayed glued to the reflection of my face on my plate.

“So, how did you kids meet?” he asked them.

I glanced up.

Chelsea smiled and looked adoringly over at Elec. “We both work at the youth center. I head up the

after school program, and Elec is a counselor. We started off as friends. I really admired how good he was

with the kids. They all love him.” She placed her hand on his. “Now, I do, too.”

I could see from the corner of my eye that she leaned in and kissed him. The black dress I was wearing

suddenly felt like it was suffocating me.

“That’s very sweet,” Clara said.

“Elec, how is Pilar taking this?” Greg asked.

“She’s not doing well,” he said abruptly.

I looked up upon hearing him speak. He hadn’t spoken the entire time since saying my name.

Chelsea squeezed his hand. “We tried to get her to come, but she didn’t think she could handle it.”

We.

She was close to his mother.

This was definitely serious.

“Well, it’s better off then that she stayed back,” Clara said.

Probably uncomfortable at the mention of Pilar, my mother took a long sip of her wine. She knew she

was the number one reason for Pilar not showing up today.

Chelsea turned to me. “Where do you live, Greta?”

“I live in New York City, actually. I just came into town a couple of days ago.”

“That must be exciting. I’ve always wanted to visit.” She turned to Elec. “Maybe we could visit her

sometime? We’d have a place to stay.”

He nodded his head once, looking extremely uncomfortable as he played with his food. At one point, I

could feel his eyes on me. When I turned to look at him to confirm it, our eyes met for a quick second

before he shifted his gaze back down to his plate.

“Elec never told me he had a stepsister,” Chelsea said.

He never mentioned me.

My mother spoke up for the first time. “Elec only lived with us for a short time back when they were

teenagers.” She looked at me. “The two of you didn’t get along too well back then.”

Mom knew nothing about what really happened between Elec and me. So, from her perspective, that

statement was an accurate one.

Elec’s deep raspy voice cut right through me. “Is that true, Greta?”

I dropped my fork. “Is what true?”

“That we didn’t get along?”

Surely, the hidden meaning in his question was meant for only me to understand. I wasn’t sure why he

was taunting me in the midst of what was already an uncomfortable situation.

“We had our moments.”

His eyes seared into mine, and his voice lowered. “Yeah, we did.”

Suddenly, I was burning up.

His mouth spread into a smile. “What was it you used to call me?”

“What do you mean?”

“‘Stepbrother dearest,’ was it? Because of my glowing personality?” He turned to Chelsea. “I was a

miserable fuck back then.”

A miserable “fuck.” He didn’t mean it that way, but I couldn’t help where my head went with that.

“How did you know about that nickname?” I asked.

He smirked.

I smiled. “Oh, right. You used to eavesdrop on me.”

“Sounds like those were some fun times,” Chelsea said as she looked innocently back and forth

between Elec and me.

“They were,” he said, glaring at me with a look that was hardly innocent.

***

Chelsea and I helped Clara bring the dishes into the kitchen. In forty minutes, we were scheduled to be

at the funeral home for the viewing hours.

Her voice startled me. “What do you do, Greta?”

I didn’t feel comfortable getting into the details of my job right now, so I kept my response generic. “I

work in an administrative position in the city, just mindless stuff, really.”

She smiled, and I felt like a jerk for liking that she had some laugh lines and the beginnings of crows

feet around her eyes.

I was stretching here.

“Sometimes, mindless can be good. Working with kids is fulfilling but exhausting. There’s never a dull

moment.”

We both glanced out through the sliding glass door. Elec was standing in the garden alone, deep in

thought with his hands in his pockets.

“I’m really worried about him,” she said as she looked out at him. “Can I ask you something?”

This conversation was making me uncomfortable. “Sure.”

“He won’t talk about his father. Did something bad happen between them?”

Her question caught me off guard. It wasn’t my place to talk to her about Randy and Elec’s relationship.

I knew almost nothing myself.

“They used to argue a lot, and Randy could be very disrespectful toward Elec, but honestly, I still don’t

know what caused it all.”

That was all she was going to get from me.

“I’m just worried that he’s bottling stuff up. His father just died, and he’s hardly shown any emotion. I

mean, if my father died, I’d be a mess.”

I know.

She went on, “I’m afraid it’s going to all hit him at once. He’s not okay. He’s not sleeping. It’s bothering him, but he won’t talk about it or allow himself to cry.”

My heart ached hearing her say that, because I was worried about him, too.

“Have you tried talking to him?” I asked.

“Yes. He just says he doesn’t want to talk about it. He almost didn’t come here for the service. I knew

he’d regret it, so I pushed and pushed and finally, he gave in.”

Wow. He really wasn’t going to come.

“I’m glad you did.”

“I really love him, Greta.”

I had no doubt that she did and while hearing her say that had made my stomach hurt, the more logical

side of me was happy that Elec had found someone who cared about him like that. I didn’t know what to

say. I couldn’t exactly tell her I might have felt the same way.

I cared about him, too.

Maybe that made no sense after so long, but my feelings for him were just as strong today as they were

seven years ago. And just like before, I’d have to harbor them.

She put her hand on my arm. “Will you do me a favor?”

“Okay…”

“Will you go out there…see if you can get him to talk about it?”

“Um…”

“Please? I don’t know who else to ask. I don’t think he’s going to be prepared for everything tonight.”

I looked back out at Elec and his strong stature as he stood in the garden. This could have been my only

opportunity to talk to him alone, so I agreed.

“Okay.”

She hugged me. “Thank you. I owe you one.”

In that case, I’ll take Elec.
I couldn’t help my thoughts, which were out of control.

That embrace had made me realize that it was absolutely possible to genuinely like someone that you

were insanely jealous of.

I took a deep breath and made my way through the sliding glass doors. The sky was turning gray as if it

were about to open up into a thunderstorm.

It was not the appropriate time to notice how incredible his ass looked through the fitted black dress

pants he was wearing, but nevertheless, I did. A breeze blew around the sexy black waves of his hair.

I cleared my throat to announce myself.

He didn’t turn but knew it was me.

“What are you doing out here, Greta?”

“Chelsea asked me to come talk to you.”

He shrugged his shoulders, his laugh full of sarcasm. “Oh, really.”

“Yes.”

“Were you two comparing notes?”

“That’s not funny.”

He finally turned around to look at me, blowing out the last of the smoke from his cigarette before

promptly throwing it on the ground and crushing it with his foot. “You think she would have sent you out

here to talk to me if she knew the last time before today that you and I were together, we were fucking like rabbits?”

Although it shocked me, hearing him acknowledging that sent a shiver through my body. “Did you have

to put it like that?”

“It’s the truth, isn’t it? She would freak the fuck out if she knew.”

“Well, I’m not going to be the one to tell her, so you don’t have to worry. I would never do that.”

My eye started to twitch.

He lifted his brow. “Why are you winking at me?”

“I’m not…my eye is twitching because—”

“Because you’re nervous. I know. You used to do that when I first met you. Glad to see we’ve come full

circle.”

“I guess some things never really change, do they? It’s been seven years, but it seems just like—”

“Like yesterday.” He repeated, “It seems like just yesterday, and that’s fucked up. This whole situation

is.”

“It was never supposed to happen.”

His gaze fell to my neck and then back up to my eyes. “Where is he?”

“Who?”

“Your fiancé.”

“I’m not engaged. I was…but not anymore. How did you know I was engaged?”

He looked dumbfounded then stared down at the ground for the longest time before dodging my

question. “What happened?”

“It’s kind of a long story, but I was the one that ended it. He moved to Europe for a job. It just wasn’t

meant to be.”

“Are you with anyone now?”

“No.” I changed the subject off of me. “Chelsea is really nice.”

“She’s wonderful; one of the best things that’s ever happened to me, actually.”

Punched in the gut.

“She’s really worried about you, because you haven’t shown any emotion. She asked me if I knew what

the story was between you and Randy. I didn’t know what to say because there is so much I still don’t even

know.”

“You know more than she does, and that wasn’t my choice. The bottom line is, he was a crappy father

and now, he’s dead. Seriously, that’s all my mind can process right now. This hasn’t even hit me yet.”

“It was such a shock.”

“My mother is taking it really hard,” he said.

“How was she doing before this?”

“Better than she was back then, but not 100-percent. The verdict is still out, though, on what Randy’s

death is gonna do to her mental state.”

The wind suddenly intensified, and misty raindrops started to fall. I looked up at the sky then down at

my watch. “We have to leave in a few minutes.”

“Go back inside. Tell her I’ll be in there in a minute,” he said.

I ignored him and stayed standing there. I felt like a failure. I’d gotten nowhere with him.

Fuck.
My eyes were starting to water.

“What are you doing?” he snapped.

“Chelsea’s not the only one who’s worried about you.”

“She’s the only one that has a
right
to be.
You
don’t need to be worrying about me. I’m none of your concern.”

It had stung harder than anything he had ever said to me.

In that moment, he’d violently thrown back and stomped on whatever piece of my heart I’d given him

all those years ago. It disappointed me that I’d idealized him all this time, compared all my boyfriends to

him, put him up on a pedestal when clearly he didn’t care about my feelings.

“You know what? If I didn’t feel so sorry for what you’re going through right now, I’d tell you to kiss

my ass,” I said.

“And if I wanted to be a dick, I’d say you were asking me to kiss your ass because you remembered

how much you fucking loved it when I did.” He brushed past me. “Take care of your mother tonight.”

The past couple of hours had been an emotional roller coaster of shock, sadness, jealousy and now…

anger. Pure anger. The tears started to pour down my face in a stream that matched the intensity of the

raindrops now steadily falling after he left me speechless in the garden.

***

“I didn’t know Randy had a son.”

I couldn’t count the number of times someone visiting us in the receiving line had said it. It made me

feel really bad for Elec despite his crushing me earlier.

The smell of flowers mixed with the perfume of a dozen random women was suffocating.

Most of the people who showed up to the wake were either Randy’s work friends from the car

dealership or neighbors. The line curled around the corner, and it was a little unsettling to see people having easy conversations, sometimes laughing as they waited to visit the coffin. It was like a cocktail party

without the alcohol, and it was pissing me off.

I stood next to my mother who’d broken down completely after seeing her husband’s lifeless body for

the first time since the heart attack. I rubbed her back and replaced her tissues and did whatever I could to help her hold it together long enough to make it through until the end.

Chelsea had convinced Elec to stand in the family lineup despite his initial resistance. I think he was just too worn out to fight it.

The makeup caked onto Randy’s face made it look stiff and almost unrecognizable. It was devastating

to see him lying there and brought back flashbacks of when my father died.

Elec wouldn’t go up to the casket or even look at it for that matter. He just stood there, stoic and

robotically shaking hands while Chelsea responded on his behalf as people repeated the same phrase.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

Elec looked like he was about to break, and I felt like I was the only one who knew it.

I had to go to the bathroom at one point, so I let my mother know I’d be right back. I hadn’t been able

to find it and eventually made my way downstairs to an empty seating area. It smelled a little musty, but it was a relief to escape the noise of the crowd.

Upon entering the quiet of the lower level, I finally saw the sign for the bathroom at the other end of the