Dirty Stepbrother [Part One] Read online

  Dirty Stepbrother (Part One)

  Harper James

  Favor Ford Publishing

  Copyright © 2018 by Favor Ford Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Want To Be In The Know?

  Dirty Stepbrother (Part One) by Harper James

  1. Josie

  2. Josie

  3. Josie

  4. Xander

  5. Josie

  6. Xander

  7. Josie

  Want To Be In The Know?

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  Dirty Stepbrother (Part One) by Harper James

  Josie

  I’ve got this. I’ve so got this.

  I mean, it’s just walking to get something to eat. I exhale and push my shoulders back, glancing right and left, searching for a little burger joint I found on my phone while sitting through our dorm orientation.

  New York is disorienting, in no small part because of the skyline. I know the New York City skyline. Everyone knows it— it’s in show credits, on post-cards, on screen savers, on news clips. The New York City skyline is familiar. It’s stretching, yawning, expansive and soothing in shades of gray-blue.

  The New York City streets, however, are nothing like that. They’re congested, filled with obstacles— bags of trash, bike share racks, food vendors, people walking with their heads down and earphones plugged in. Shops and restaurants are tucked into impossibly tiny places, but have massive, flashing neon signs to draw attention. The city is set up on a grid system, which should make it easy to navigate, but actually just makes it feel like a labyrinth you must—but can’t— memorize.

  The other girls in my dorm seem thrilled by the city’s complexity. I can’t help but wonder why I’m more scared than excited. Perhaps I just don’t fit in at school. I did community college before coming to New York, so I’m different from most of the other students.

  Maybe twenty-one is too old to really become part of things here. Or maybe my mom and stepdad were right, and I’m just not a “city girl”.

  Ugh— that’s the worst theory of all. I don’t want to find out those two are right about anything, frankly. The whole reason I’m here is to get away from them and their drama.

  It was easier to move two hours away than it was to deal with that crap. I know my decision shocked them— in no small part because I wasn’t the first family member to pack up and leave town. They just never expected that I, good little Josie, would follow in my stepbrother’s footsteps.

  But when I think about him, it’s like my insides freeze.

  Along with the thought comes all those images, all those feelings, the secret yearnings, all unrequited.

  That’s the past. I’m stepping into my future.

  And with that, I walk into an intersection, hugging my arms to my chest even though it’s far from cold tonight. I think the burger place is up ahead, but you can’t see much in this city until you’re right up on it. Taxis zip by, the squeal of subway beneath me sends a rush of air along my legs, and bodega after bodega tempts me to just grab some snacks and rush back to the dorms, where I can hole up in solitude— relative solitude, anyway, since I’ve got my own room in a larger suite.

  No. I’ve got this, I remind myself. I’ve spent a stupid amount of my life holed up in a bedroom, and it feels like however I spend my first night in New York will determine the next decade. I hug my arms closer around my shoulders as the wind kicks up the edges of my skirt, shoulder past a family hustling to make it through the crosswalk, trying to remember which road I’m supposed to take a left on.

  I’ll have to check my phone. I sigh, stop in front of a brightly lit Duane Reade, and fish my phone out of my purse. My purse hangs limply on my wrist as I open up the map and search for the blinking blue dot in the midst of the Manhattan grid. It looks like I haven’t quite gone far enough yet— one more block.

  Someone smacks into my shoulder; I instinctively look up with an apologetic smile, an explanation of why I was stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. There’s an arm at my shoulder, and for a moment it feels like someone is falling—after colliding into me— and I reach forward—

  Except no. The person— the man— isn’t tripping. He’s grabbing my arm because he’s grabbing my purse. I make a shrieking sound of protest and try to twist away, but it happens lightning fast. He yanks the bag off my forearm, snagging my thumb and twisting it painfully in the process; I spin from the momentum and then fall over my own feet, tumbling onto the sidewalk. I get my bearings just in time to see him sprinting away— dashing through an intersection, then cutting to the left, vanishing around the corner.

  I’m too stunned to do anything but gape from my spot on the concrete. Did that really just happen? I— my purse, my credit cards, my ID, my tampons. It’s all just gone, and I—

  “Miss? You okay?” a man is saying in a thick accent. “Did he hurt you, miss?”

  I look up; the man is silhouetted by the bright lights behind him, which causes me to squint. “He— he took my purse, I—”

  “Yes, miss. Must be careful! They target tourists,” the man says, shaking his head. “Come up, come up, the ground is no good.”

  Shaking, I lift myself to my feet. My phone is still clutched in my hand, but I’ve shattered the screen. My palms and knuckles are scraped, and I can feel a sizable bruise forming on my tailbone. I’m trying to smile at the man helping me, but I can’t seem to do anything but shake. My hand keeps reaching reflexively for my purse, but it’s gone—

  “You have your phone, that is good! They take phones— took my son’s phone once,” the man says, pointing to a small sandwich shop that he must work in— he’s wearing an apron, I realize, and a cap. He’s my stepdad’s age, but his eyes are warm and genuine.

  “I’m not a tourist,” I finally stammer, looking back to where the mugger disappeared. “I’m a student.”

  “Oh! Tut tut,” the man says, shaking his head. I must not answer for a few beats too long, because the man says again, in a softer voice, “Are you sure you are okay, miss?”

  My lips part. I look down at my hands, at the dots of blood welling up, the bits of dirt embedded in my skin. My ankle hurts too, I realize, and my chest feels tight— it’s like my body is allowing me one more shot of pain at a time, testing my tolerance. Unfortunately, it’s that chest tightening that’s a hair too far— my face contorts, my face tightens, and I try very hard not to cry, choking breath in, grimacing a smile at the stranger. He gives me a pitying look, and I rattle and shake my way into his restaurant, where he and a younger employee give me water and pita chips.

  “Would you like me to call taxi?” the man asked me in a kind voice after I’ve rearranged the pita chips a thousand times, too shaken to eat them. They’ve offered to call the police, but I can tell from the look on their faces that it won’t do much good— I didn’t even see the guy’s face, and honestly, I don’t want to recount the whole thing just for posterity. I just want to go home.

  “I can’t pay for a taxi. He took my wallet,” I say shakily. I meant to set up Uber on my phone before I moved, but I never did, so that’s out too. “I’ll have to walk back,” I say.

  “Perhaps there is someone you could call, miss? A friend to come walk with you?”

  But I don’t
have any friends. I mean, not in a sad, lonely way, but in a practical way: I literally just moved here. I barely met my suite mates before they took off to their various rush week parties. On my dresser there’s a little campus security card, with a number we’re supposed to call if we need help…which does me no good here. There’s literally only one person in New York City whose number I have, and I haven’t seen him in…what’s it been? Three years?

  But he’d come. I know he’d come. He’s family, after all. Sort of.

  “I don’t think you should go alone, miss.”

  “No, I— I have someone. I can call someone,” I say rockily, then carefully unlock my shattered phone screen. I scroll through my contacts and stare at his name for a few moments before tapping it to dial.

  It rings.

  It rings, and rings, and rings, and just when I think he’s not going to answer, he does.

  “Hello?” his voice is full of doubt, like he’s certain he’s going to discover this is nothing more than a pocket dial.

  “Hey, Xander? It’s, uh— it’s Jocelyn.”

  “Josie,” he says, voice cool as always.

  “Yeah. I’m in New York and, uh…look, I’ll explain later, but is there any way you can meet me somewhere? I need a ride home. Or a…walk home. Or something,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking— which inevitably makes it shake more.

  “Where are you?” he says immediately, though his voice is calm and flat.

  I give him the address, then hang up and sit back. I’m not shaking anymore, I realize, and from the look on his face, I can tell the man who saved me has noticed this too. He looks relieved.

  “Someone is coming?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say, looking at my phone. “My stepbrother.”

  Josie

  Xander arrives in a half hour. I’m somewhat tucked into a corner, and so he walks straight into the restaurant, toward the older man, without a glance my way. Given that I haven’t seen Xander in years, I’m grateful for the chance to get a look at him, to replace my memories.

  Last time we were together, at a disastrous family Thanksgiving, he was lanky, made of angry angles and frustratingly excellent boy-hair. The excellent boy-hair is still there, but he’s filled out. Even in the dress shirt I can tell his long limbs are now muscular, those of a man, not a boy—

  Wait. Xander is in a dress shirt? Xander, who wore shitty band t-shirts for our brief shared childhood? We were only in the same house for three years— our parents got married when I was twelve, he was fourteen, and then Xander got thrown out at eighteen…but in that time, I’d pretty much pegged him as the “like hell I’ll ever wear a button-up” type. I’d also pretty much pegged him as “my type”— I had a crazy, embarrassing, all-encompassing crush on him, back then…

  “You are here for your sister?” the older man says.

  “Stepsister,” Xander says swiftly, and hearing the word in his voice kicks up memories like fall leaves. He always, always made sure people knew I was his stepsister, not biological sister. Our parents, who had this nutso idea that we’d all move in together and suddenly become this flawless ideal American family, hated when he called me that. They hated it even more when, following Xander’s lead, I only referred to him as my “stepbrother”, never “brother”— a distinction I was also clear to make, given that whole all-encompassing crush thing.

  The older man points to me, and Xander spins around. It takes his eyes a moment to find me, even though I’m the only one in the tiny restaurant. When he does finally see me, there’s a weird flicker of distrust— like he thinks this might be a mistake. That I’m not his stepsister at all. He swallows and clears his throat, then walks toward me in a steady, controlled stride, a walk that’s totally different than the way he entered the restaurant.

  “Hey, Josie,” he says.

  “Hey,” I say, and a smile washes over my face, one that I can’t control-- just like before, just like when we were teenagers. I hurry to wipe it away, flushing. “Sorry to bug you. I just—”

  “It’s not a problem,” he says. “I didn’t know you were in New York.”

  “I just got here,” I explain.

  “A man took her purse,” the restaurant owner says, appearing over Xander’s shoulder suddenly. “She is okay, though, but she is not good to walk home by herself.”

  “You got mugged?” Xander says, whipping his head back to me, eyes wide. “Did you call the police?”

  “She said not to,” the restaurant owner answers for me with a full-bodied shrug.

  “Are you alright? Really?” Xander asks, and begins to look over me more intently, like he’s searching for a broken bone or missing hand or knife wound. Almost as soon as he starts scanning me, he stops, looks away, then meets my eyes again.

  “I’m okay. It was just kinda of a crappy welcome to New York.”

  “Right,” Xander says, exhaling. He turns back to the restaurant owner. “Thanks so much for helping my stepsister out.” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a wallet, then fishes a bill from it. It’s a hundred dollars, and my eyes widen. It’s not that it’s an insane amount of money, but it’s a hundred dollars more than Xander left home with— and a hundred dollars more than I expected him to tip someone for taking care of me.

  The restaurant owner, however, looks almost offended. He waves the money away. “Come here, bring your friends. Tell them we are good people. I don’t help people for their money.”

  Xander’s face softens— well, it softens a little. “I will. I have good friends. They’ll be sure to stop by.”

  “Thank you. Thank you so much,” I say, standing. The restaurant owner nods at me, smiles, then goes back behind the counter by his son, who is preoccupied chopping onions. Without looking back at me, Xander nods toward the door and I follow him outside to a black car he arrived in, which is waiting for him. He opens the door closest to us, and I keep moving forward, expecting him to slide in first. Instead, I realize he’s holding the door for me.

  I’ve been hit full on by the scent of Xander’s cologne or deodorant or soap or something. Oddly enough, there’s a familiar scent to him, though it’s buried underneath a more powerful, masculine scent that he definitely didn’t have when we were living together. I negotiate around him and climb into the cab, which smells like cigarettes and cleaner. The driver doesn’t even look up at me, so I pretend to be engrossed in the TV screen on the passenger seat-back while I wait for Xander to climb in on the opposite side of the car.

  “Where’s your hotel?” Xander asks as he gets in.

  “I’m not in a hotel.”

  “AirBnb?”

  “I’m in a dorm. I transferred here.”

  Xander looks like I’ve just announced that I’m donating my kidney to a dictator.

  “A dorm. You’re going to school here.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You live here. In New York. Since when?” he asks. His voice is laced with doubt, like he thinks I might be lying to him.

  “Since today. Since about four hours ago, I guess.”

  His lips part, and I notice a scar by his jaw that wasn’t there last time I saw him. It’s thin and narrow, and I find myself wanting to ask about it. Wanting to find out how he got it— the story behind it, the story I don’t know because…well. Because I don’t know Xander. Not really. I’ve never known Xander, even when we were living in the same house. I always idolized him, his badass attitude, the way he didn’t care what our parents thought, but he more or less always ignored me. Makes sense, I guess— who wants to hang around with your kid stepsister?

  “What about your mom and my dad?” he asks. “Do they know you called me?”

  “No. I don’t want to…well. I don’t want to worry them,” I say. I don’t want to talk to them is more like it, but that seems like a lot to unload on Xander at the moment.

  “It would worry them,” Xander replies, and looks out his window, very intentionally looking in the complete opposite direction
of my face. “They always worried about you. Even my dad acted like you were some glass figure he’d inherited..”

  I press my lips together. He’s not wrong— our parents did always worry over me more. But then again, Xander spent most of our years together forcing our parents not to worry about him. Forcing them to give up on him.

  “Sorry I didn’t call you before now. I should have let you know I was moving here, I guess,” I say quietly.

  “Why would you?” he answers with a shrug, finally looking back in my direction. “We haven’t talked in years.”

  I take a breath. As relieved as I was to see Xander, as heartwarming as it was to have him so immediately come to help me, I’m suddenly reverting to the role of kid sister, embarrassed to be annoying her older stepbrother.

  Xander must have seen my face fall, because he sighs. “This is really unexpected. Seeing you just makes me think about…you know. My dad, your mom, leaving home, all that shit. It’s like you’re a visitor from another planet.”

  “Same,” I answer. “You look good, Xander.”

  I mean it as a kind, easy compliment, but I’m instantly flushing because my voice went a little…rough. A little too complimentary for a stepsister. Xander does look good. Really, really good. Even though I’m trying to avoid staring, I notice the way his shoulders are broader than before. The way he sits up straight, the way his hands have become large and strong. His nice leather shoes, the sharp lines of a recent haircut. I always thought Xander was handsome, but now, he’s…well. He’s hot.

  And he’s my stepbrother, so I should stop thinking that immediately, I remind myself. Thank god the taxi is dark— otherwise he’d see the fact that my face is turning neon red.