Stepbrother Wow! (Bad Boy Frat #1) (8 page)

CHAPTER
9

It was a few days before Thanksgiving break and I
had just gotten back to my dorm room after a game at the Phi Kappa house. The
semester would be coming to an end just a little over a week after the break;
we’d come back, it would be reading week, and then there would be finals in all
of my classes. I was still struggling to keep up in Biology, but if I finished
with a C or higher in the class at least I wouldn’t have to take it again—I
could move on to another requirement. I hadn’t entirely settled on a major yet;
I thought I might go into political science or anthropology, something that
wasn’t quite as useless as English but was more fun than
something
math and science heavy. It wouldn’t really matter until the end of the year—or
next year at the latest—since as a Freshman I had to get all of the general
education requirements out of the way first no matter what. Finals week would
also be when registration for the next semester would start, and I knew that
I’d have to just take more of the same kinds of classes; maybe for spring I’d
take some art classes and get my electives out of the way, take it easy on
myself.

I was considering my options, gearing myself up for
the frustrating task of navigating the impossible site that held the course
catalog for spring, when my phone rang. It was my mom, and I considered letting
it go to voice mail; I was tired, and I wasn’t really feeling up to a long
conversation about how my classes were going and whatever new toy her boyfriend
had bought her.
But she paid the phone bill and I knew that
if I didn’t answer right away, she would just call me again, and then a third
time.
When I had been in high school she had shut off my phone
completely more than once when I failed to answer, and I didn’t want to have to
deal with that again. “Hey, Mom,” I said when I picked up. “I was just about to
get in bed.” Maybe if I told her that in the beginning of the call she’d keep
it short; I’d be seeing her in a few days anyway, when I drove home for the
break.

“Hey, Mia baby!” she said, almost a shriek in my
ear. I loved my mom, but ever since she had taken up with her rich boyfriend,
she was more than a little annoying. She always asked if there was anything she
could get for me, if there were any clothes or shoes or bags I wanted. I was not
by any stretch of the imagination the kind of girl that cared about shoes or
bags—the most I cared was that I had a book bag that wouldn’t fall apart, and
shoes that wouldn’t wear out or pinch my toes. But my mom had gotten on a kick
of me being “presentable” and “looking professional.”

“What’s up?” I asked her. She was excited—I could
tell that right away. I closed my eyes, wishing I
was
already asleep, already kicking aside the idea of perusing the course catalog.
It could wait for tomorrow.

“I have a surprise for you!” I almost laughed, but
kept it down.

“It’s not Christmas yet, Mom,” I reminded her,
smiling in spite of myself. Even before she had started dating the rich
boyfriend, she loved to surprise me—and even though I wouldn’t admit it to her,
I loved it when she did.

“I know, baby. But I’ve got a really big surprise
for you and I know you’re going to just love it.” I shrugged.

“Give me a hint?” My mom laughed.

“Not on your life, sweetie,” she told me. “I just
wanted to make sure that you didn’t go to all the bother of driving up to our
place—I won’t be there. We’re going to have Thanksgiving at Bob’s mansion.” Bob
was the rich boyfriend. It bothered me a little bit that my mom insisted on
calling his house a mansion; I’d seen pictures of it, and it was a nice enough
place, but it was nothing more than a house when everything was said and done.
It made her sound nouveau riche to keep referring to it as a mansion.

“Mom, I’ve never been there before. You’ll have to
send me the address.”

“Of course, baby. I’ll email you the address. Try
and get here before eight—it’s harder to find after dark.”

“Yes, Mom,” I said. “What’s going on? You’re so
excited.”

“Just thinking about the surprise I have for you,”
my mom
said,
her voice full of whatever it was. I
shrugged it off. “It’s late—you should go to bed. I love you, sweetie.” I said
my goodbyes, and hung up as soon as my mom got finished showering me with love
and telling me to sleep well and be safe.

I lay in bed for a few minutes after that, trying to
decide how I felt about the situation. The semester had been a long one—way
longer than any I’d been through in high school—and after everything I’d been
through, I was more than ready for a little break from school. I wanted to get
away from my classes, from the situation with Jaxon, and even the frat itself.
At least it’s a mansion,
I thought,
snorting. From the pictures I’d seen, it was a huge house, with a bunch of land
around it. As far away from the cramped and crammed life in the dorms, even the
packed situation at the frat house. If nothing else, it would be time away, and
I could definitely use that before I went in to tackle my finals. I’d rest up,
eat some good food, and make nice with the boyfriend. All I could hope for was
that my mom wouldn’t want us to be all buddy-buddy all the time, doing “family”
things together in the name of a happy holiday. I’d get out of whatever I
possibly could.

CHAPTER
10

A few days later I packed up enough of my stuff to
last me through the holiday weekend and loaded it into my car. I wasn’t looking
forward to the long drive; when my mom emailed me the address to her
boyfriend’s place, I’d looked it up in my app on my phone and found out that it
was hours away from the campus. It was cold, heading into the official start of
winter, with the first rounds of snow already on the ground. It wouldn’t be the
first time that I’d driven on snowy, icy roads, but after the exhaustion of the
semester, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to drive for two hours just to be with my
mom for Thanksgiving.

She hadn’t given me any hint at all about the
surprise, just telling me to make sure to come to Bob’s house without fail,
that she’d tell me all about it then. I figured it must be something like a big
gift—a new computer maybe, or something else that she wanted me to see in
person without having any clue of it beforehand. She’d been convincing Bob for
months to help her buy me little gifts and trinkets—a jersey for my favorite
player on the Flames, tickets to a concert I wanted to go to that were
impossibly out of my budget. It would be something like that, I decided,
drinking coffee to keep myself alert on the roads. I had gotten out of my
classes early; everyone knew it was snowing, and that a lot of people had a
long way to go to get home for the holiday. Even in the classes I’d had we
hadn’t really done much—some of the students had gone home the night before,
hoping to beat all of the bad weather altogether. It wasn’t too bad, but it was
so cold that I wished I’d brought my heavier jacket into the car with me. Even
with the heater on I was shivering every now and then—though that might have
been about the caffeine as much as the cold.

As I followed the directions my phone dictated to
me, I found myself getting farther and farther away from the places I knew,
going deep into the suburbs and then even farther, where the houses spread out
with huge yards around them, classic architecture and pretentious designs.
Gardens, big rolling lawns, huge arching trees lined the road on either side of
me, and I was starting to feel out of my depth. I focused on what I knew about
Bob’s house from my mom. He had a hot tub on the back deck—that could be a lot
of fun to visit and enjoy. I’d have my own bedroom there just as I had at home
with my mom—probably nicer by far than the one I had in our place. There was a
fireplace instead of just central heat; there was a huge kitchen with lots of
food. It would be a nice rest.

I started to get more and more tired as the sun went
down around me, as I hit the last thirty minutes of the drive. I turned on my
headlights and squinted into the growing darkness, looking out for the house
number even as the turn-by-turn directions counted down the distance left to
the destination. I recognized the outside of the mansion by one of the pictures
my mom had sent me, and I pulled into the driveway—the gate was open—and
yawned, grateful at least to have made it in good time. I wouldn’t have to
really go anywhere at all for the next several days.

I got out of my car and hurried to the front door,
shivering against the cold; the temperature was dropping second by second, or
so it felt like, getting colder as the night closed in around me. Everything
was brightly lit, and I had to admit that while my mom’s views on the house
might be pretentious, it looked comfortable and luxurious enough to deserve the
title of mansion. I knocked at the door as loudly as I could; when I’d turned
onto the street leading up to the house, I’d texted her to let her know I was
nearly there.

My mom threw open the door and pulled me into the
house, hugging me tightly and kissing me on the cheek. “Oh, baby, you’re so
cold! Come on, come into the living room, and get warm.” I was
smiling,
glad to be back together with my mom, glad of a few
days of relaxation before I had to finish the semester out strong. “Oh! I
almost forgot—your surprise!” I shook my head as my mom led me to a big,
comfortable couch, a few yards away from a roaring fire, pushing me down to
sit.

“Mom, I can wait for it, I promise,” I said, smiling
and laughing at her infectious enthusiasm.

“Well I can’t wait,” my mom said, sitting down next
to me. “Are you warming up dear?” I nodded and all of her concern about me flew
out of the window. “Okay, here it goes: I’m married!” she held up her hand and
showed me the ring on her ring finger. My jaw dropped.

“You’re
married
?”
I shook my head. “You’ve only been with him for five months!” I tried not to
sound like I was judging
her
but I was shocked—and
more than a little worried about her sanity.

“Oh, baby, I’m not a kid anymore; I’m in love with
Bob and there was no reason to wait any longer.” I shook my head again.

“Mom, five months is not long enough to know if you
can live with someone! This is crazy!” My mom hugged me.

“Well it’s done, baby. And now I can introduce you
to your new step-father and step-brother.” I took a deep breath; it wouldn’t be
fair to them to keep up the fight with my mom that I knew would erupt when she
continued to insist that her getting married was a great idea—she’d get mad at
me for being mad after a while, and if my new step-family was waiting to meet
me, I should at least put on a polite face. My mom went to a door on the side
and opened it. “Mia, meet Bob, your new step-father,” she said, grinning
broadly. A man stepped through the door; he looked vaguely familiar and I tried
to remember whether or not I’d seen a picture of him in the five months that my
mom had been dating him. He had light brown hair and bright eyes; he was slim,
not skinny but with subtle muscling on his arms and chest.

“Pleased to meet you finally, Bob,” I said, keeping
my voice as level as possible. My mom beamed at both of us and Bob came in to
sit down in one of the wingback chairs; he said something about being happy for
the chance to get to know me better, but I barely heard him.

“Okay, baby, and now—here is your new step-brother!”
I steeled myself—maybe the guy would be just as upset about his dad marrying
practically a stranger as I was. But when my new step-brother walked through
the door, my stomach dropped down to my knees. No wonder Bob had looked
familiar; as my mom told me my new step-brother’s name, commenting something
about what a small world it was—since he went to the same college as I did—I
just stared at the man in front of me. He had stopped short and he was staring
back at me, and I couldn’t imagine that I looked any less shocked and mortified
than he did. Of all of the people in the world, my mother had managed to date
and marry the worst possible man.

My new step-brother was Jaxon.

Stepbrother
Wow #2 comes out April
29th

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