“He’s my brother!”
“Stepbrother,” she corrected this time, a smirk on her face. “You two aren’t actually related. He doesn’t even have the same last name!”
“But it’s still weird,” I said, trying to wave the subject away. “And my mom would flip if she found out I had the hots for Richard…”
“But you do have the hots for him! You have the hots for Dick!”
“Oh God… Don’t call him that!” I replied, blushing hard.
“Everybody calls him that, and not just because of his attitude either. I know you’ve heard the rumors,” Becky said, holding her hands apart as if she were telling me about a big fish she’d caught.
“It gets bigger every time you do that,” I laughed.
“Cynthia said it’s pierced,” Becky replied with a crooked smile.
“Cynthia’s been reading too many naughty books. Does every stepbrother need to have a pierced penis?”
“Hey, the least you could do is find out if the rumors are true. It’s not like you two are going to see each other again. He’s going to Yale and you’re staying local at UCLA. I mean, really, what’s the harm in it?”
“It’s weird, Becky!” I insisted, glancing around to make sure no one was listening. “And besides, Richard hates me. We’ve never gotten along ever since his dad moved in. He’s the stepbrother from hell.”
“Yeah, he is kind of a dick, isn’t he?”
“Stop it!” I said, hitting Becky on the arm.
“Fine, but seriously, I think he likes you.
“Absolutely not!” I said, shaking my head. “It’s just my stupid crush, Becky. And once I’m at UCLA, I can spend my time doing more productive things like actually getting my degree and…”
“Then your masters and then your doctorate,” she finished for me. “I know, you tell me that all the time. So sue me for wanting my best friend to have a good time, especially at her own party.”
“It’s our party,” I said, giving her a much warmer smile this time.
“Yeah,” she said, sighing wistfully.
I rolled my eyes. “What is it now?”
“Here we are, talking about all your success with the opposite sex,” she said, looking around at the other guests. “And here I am without ever even being kissed once in my life.”
“You’ve been kissed! What about Tom—”
“No,” she interrupted. “Never speak of that again. Nothing about what he did to me was a kiss. I still have nightmares about what that mouth did to my face.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, much to Becky’s chagrin. Becky had always been a completely hopeless romantic, desperate to find someone who would sweep her off her feet and take her to some far off fairytale castle. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that things like that never happened in real life.
“Regardless,” I said, “I hereby promise that you, Becky Janine Sanders, will be kissed before the night is over.”
“You really think that can happen?” she asked me, her eyes going a little wider.
I nodded, giving her another smile before we turned toward the crowd of partiers.
“I do,” I said. “There are plenty of guys here who would die to get some alone time with you, Becky. We can find you someone to kiss before the party is over. I swear on our friendship that I’ll get you kissed tonight.”
“That’s a promise you’d better not break to me, Jess,” she said, an enormous smile lighting up her face as we looked over the crowd of mingling men and women.
“Anyone you’re interested in?” I asked, searching for a suitable guy with at least some knowledge of when to bathe. It might have sounded catty, but when it comes to the intellectual community at a high school, hygiene and social graces usually didn’t come along with genius level IQs. Becky’s options were fairly slim, though judging by the smell, thankfully most of our guests had at least taken the time to put on deodorant tonight.
“Anyone with a pulse, at this point,” she said with a sigh. Becky’s standards for men were fairly high, but her social standing as one of the “nerds” limited her dating options to our own “class” of students. It was one of the reasons I was so ready for college. A fresh start. No preconceptions. No cliques. Or at least I hoped there wouldn’t be…
“Well, don’t worry, we’ll find someone,” I said, gently squeezing her arm to comfort her. “Like I said, there are plenty of men here who would jump at the chance to kiss you.”
An abrupt silence fell over the crowd of guests, the kind you’d expect to hear in a forest when a tiger was on the prowl. I could feel the tension manifest in the air before I ever looked to see why the room had become so hushed. Everyone’s eyes were suddenly cast back toward the front door, their gazes holding the wild glint you’d see in a panicked animal. My stomach clenched.
Did
someone come to complain about the party? My parents will kill me if they find
out where I am tonight…
“Is something going on? Why’d everyone stop talking?” I asked Becky, who’d also noticed the eerie quiet that pervaded the house, save for the uncomfortable shuffling of some of our guests.
“I don’t know,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder, frowning, her brow furrowed in concern. “You don’t think the cops got called because of…”
Becky’s words faded as she turned to look at what had caused the commotion—or lack thereof. Her eyes went wide and her jaw sagged at what she’d seen. She fell into the same stunned silence as the rest of the guest, swallowing nervously.
Fearing the worst I turned, searching for whatever could have caused such a widespread reaction from so many people at once. At first I didn’t see what everyone was staring at, just the usual crowd of people who’d been in front of the door when Becky and I had passed by it only a few moments ago, but they too were staring, taking more than a few steps back from whatever or whoever had caught their attention. It wasn’t until the crowd parted like the Red Sea that I spotted just what had turned my party as silent as a funeral.
Standing in the doorway was an all-too familiar figure, his lean, muscular body filling out his tight t-shirt just enough to leave little of his physique beneath it to the imagination. His gorgeous, short blond hair was combed back from a face that God himself must have taken his sweet time carving from that smooth, flawless skin. I licked my lips, my mouth suddenly dry as a boneyard. My heart hammered in my chest and my palms became sweaty, and before I even realized it, I had fallen silent just like the rest of the people around me. I couldn’t believe who I was seeing.
“Jess,” Becky whispered. “What is your stepbrother doing here?”
I swallowed hard, trying to find the words to express my own astonishment.
“I don’t know, Becky… He wasn’t supposed to know about the party—I made sure he didn’t know. That was the whole reason we didn’t have it at my house!”
“Well it looks like he found out about it somehow,” she said as we watched that cocky grin form on Richard’s face. Just seeing that damn smile made my cheeks burn—with anger or infatuation, I couldn’t tell which, though one might certainly have led to the other.
“He ruins everything,” I muttered, clenching my fists, summoning up as much anger as I could in hopes of overpowering my almost constant desire to throw myself into against his body.
My party was ruined.
The Dick had arrived.
Chapter 2
Richard
I’d never seen so many sweet little nerds in one place. It was a world of difference from the sea of jocks and cheerleaders I had been swimming in only half an hour before. This would be fun.