Stepbrother Billionaire(9)
Author: Colleen Masters

“Do you just go out of your way to antagonize people?” I ask, stepping onto the sidewalk.

“I don’t mean to antagonize them. Most people just happen to be assholes. I just treat them the way they deserve.” he shrugs, tossing his smoke into the gutter. I follow suit, relishing my final drag. It’s been over a year since I’ve had a cigarette. Damn, do I miss them sometimes.

“What a charming attitude,” I say, rolling my eyes.

“Thanks Sis,” Emerson winks, holding the door open for me like a real gentleman. Or so I think, until he lets it fall in my face at the last possible second.

Yeah. Maybe all this lovey-dovey nonsense is just in my head after all.

We walk across the crowded dining car, over to a red vinyl booth in the back corner. One of the regular waitresses, a woman in her forties with heavy blue eye shadow and a perm, plunks a couple of menus down onto the table. We don’t even have to look at them, of course. We’ve both lived in this town long enough to know exactly what we want. It’s said that you can tell a lot about a person by their usual Crystal Dawn order.

“What’re you having?” I ask Emerson with a playfully grave tone.

He wiggles his eyebrows conspiratorially, perfectly aware of the weight of the question.

“Bacon burger. Medium rare. Chipotle mayo.”

“Of course you’re a raging carnivore,” I groan, shaking my head.

“Well, what are you getting?” he shoots back.

“Broccoli and cheese soup in a bread bowl,” I smile.

“Wait,” he replies, laying his hands on the table. “You’re not…a vegetarian, are you?”

“I sure am,” I reply with a chipper smile.

“Of fucking course,” he grumbles, looking downright appalled.

“You know factory farming is destroying our planet, right?” I tease him, putting on my best goodie-two-shoes voice.

“You know that tofu is a sin against humanity, right?” he shoots back.

That one takes me by surprise, drawing a real laugh out of me for once. “To be perfectly honest, I didn’t start being a vegetarian for the environment’s sake,” I tell him. “I wish I was that noble. But the real reason is way stupider.”

“Well. Why did you start?” he asks, halfway interested. That’s still halfway more than usual, at least.

“When I was eight, my dad let me watch Jurassic Park with him,” I reply. “You know that scene where the goat gets eaten by the T-Rex, and its leg flies up and sticks to the window?”

“Yeah, obviously,” Emerson replies. “Shit was groady.”

“Yep. That’s what did it,” I admit. “I haven’t eaten meat since watching that movie. My mom was so pissed at my dad for turning me off chicken nuggets, I don’t think she spoke to him for days. They kept waiting for me to grow out of it, but I never did. And so, here we are.”

“That’s hilarious,” Emerson says, smiling genuinely for perhaps the first time I’ve known him. It’s not like his usual, sarcastic grin. It’s something warmer, more honest. And it just about does me in.

Luckily, the waitress comes back for our orders right at that moment, so I don’t end up throwing myself at him right then and there. We lapse into silence again as we wait for our food to arrive. He agreed to talk to me about what’s been going on between us, since the night of the party. But now that the moment has arrived, I can’t think of how to begin.

“So. Are you and Courtney a thing or what?” I blurt out.

Smooth, Abby, I grumble internally.

“Courtney? Nah,” Emerson shrugs, “A little too high maintenance for me. And crazy as shit, too. Plus she’s always got show tunes on…Who listens to show tunes for fun?”

“I’m sure she’s…nice. When you get to know her,” I reply. The last thing I want to do is go shitting on other girls just because they happen to have sucked face with Emerson. If I did that, just about every pretty girl in our school would be on my shit list. Girl on girl hate is something I try and avoid altogether, if I can help it.

“I’m not really that interested in ‘nice’, is the thing,” Emerson scoffs, picking at a bit of loose paint on the table.

“What…are you interested in?” I ask, my voice going soft on me.

Emerson lifts his eyes to mine, the gold specks reflecting in the dying spring light outside the diner window. I swallow hard, waiting for him to go on.

“I’m interested in someone who can teach me things. Show me things,” he says.

I’m totally taken aback by his direct answer. “Oh?” I say meekly.

“I could hang out with hot girls who don’t give a damn about me as a person, or look for someone who seems interested in something other than my fantastic body,” he continues, “I’m gonna go with the latter.”

Of course, he can’t let a serious phrase go by without turning into a joke. Is that a defense mechanism or what?

“Have you ever met someone like that?” I dare to ask him, “Someone you could be interested in for more than a weekend?”

He lets me writhe under his gaze, taking his sweet time to formulate an answer to my question. I can feel my cheeks growing hotter by the second before he finally says one word:

“Maybe.”

The rest of the restaurant seems to fall away around us as Emerson trains his eyes on me. I have to choose my response very, very carefully here. This one little moment could be a turning point. A transformation. With my heart in my throat, I let my hand rest on the table, only a couple of inches away from his. Those mere inches of space spark with electricity, searing my already frayed nerves. I wish I could tell him that I want the same thing from a relationship—to be with someone who challenges me, like he does. Someone who’s not interested in being nice or normal, like he is. Someone who could show me a life I’d never be able to dream up on my own.

Like he very well could.

“Emerson,” I say softly, letting my hand drift slowly toward his, “I—”

The front door of the diner flies open, slamming against the wall with a loud clatter. Emerson turns to look over his shoulder at the sound, and just like that, the spell is broken. Shit. I glance up, annoyed, to see who’s disrupted our near-perfect moment. But when I recognize the group that’s just sauntered inside, I feel myself going numb.

“Goddamn it,” I whisper, “Not now.” I quickly hiding my hands under the table, not wanting Emerson to see how they’ve begun to shake. I pretend to be very interested in something out the window as I hear the boisterous voices of three guys from my school fill the enclosed space, one of whom I’m very intimately, and very unfortunately, acquainted with.