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  As I pulled up to the gate, I hesitated. What if they’ve changed the code? It never occurred to me that it would be anything else.

  I punched in the numbers – my birthday – and the gate electronically whipped into gear, sliding open on its arc. With a quiet chuckle, I revved my engine and peeled through the entrance and up the drive towards the house.

  It was all coming back now, all the old sights revisited. The trees that lined the long driveway up, the very smell of the place. It brought back a flood of memories as I meandered up towards my past, contained within that ridiculous house.

  After another minute of driving, the trees cleared, and the entire house came into view. The landing was here, along with the carport.

  All exactly as I left it, I observed.

  I entered the carport and parked between the vehicles. There were three of them now – hard to say what belonged to whom. My parents weren’t the type to go overboard with cars. They had always settled on one apiece, at least when I was still around. If that was still the case, then one of these in all likelihood belonged to Saffron – which meant that she was home.

  Removing my motorcycle helmet, I slowly, steadily walked towards the huge front doors. It was only when I reached it that I realized that I still had the thing tucked under my arm. It’s not like me to be this absentminded, I chided myself.

  But I had a lot on my mind.

  The door was unlocked, and I let myself in. I could hear voices nearby – from the kitchen, by the sound of it. There was Ellen, with that unmistakable cheer, but another voice…unmistakably her. Older now, more mature, but still recognizable as my little Saffie.

  I took a brief sigh. The entire drive back, I’d ignored something in the back of my head. It was only now that I was here that I could finally deal with the fact that there was another reason entirely for my departure. While I was gone, it plagued my mind in various levels of self-destructive torture. Some days had been easier than others, but I’d been able to block it out during my focus on the road.

  It wasn’t just my need to prove to myself that I was a man. That I could handle a life stripped of luxury. That I could carve out my own place in the world, independent of anyone or anything else. I could have probably done that on my own, here, and been a much better son to my parents.

  It was arguably a far more important reason altogether.

  It was that stupid girl.

  I couldn’t bear the thought of someone hurting her…

  It’s been five years, I thought to myself as I stepped into the kitchen, seeing the two of them for the first time since I was eighteen. I summoned up every drop of strength I had and forced a grin across my face. If five years away didn’t cure my stupid infatuation, then I really am doomed.

  (Return to Table of Contents)

  Chapter 3 – Saffron

  Pennsylvania, Present Day

  Just laying my eyes on Sawyer was enough to bring back every furious emotion I’d bottled up for the last several years. The tremendous jackass that he was, my stepbrother acted as if he hadn’t walked out on us all that time ago.

  The way the atmosphere had changed, it was as if Sawyer had only really been living around the corner, maybe a few towns over. Every few weeks, he’d zip by on his motorcycle and share some coffee with Mom, or update me on his latest sexual conquest. I’d call him a manwhore pig and he’d call me naïve and a tease.

  Of course, that’s not really happened.

  My stepbrother had scampered off in the middle of the night five long years ago. A hasty note had been left on his bed for our parents, explaining some brief, bullshit little teenage rebellion. He’d left his phone, his laptop, and no contact information.

  Nothing for me. Not one word. Not one whisper.

  I’d been devastated.

  Betrayed.

  He was the second man I’d trusted who had walked out on me, after my own father. I could only guess how our parents had taken it – they were beside themselves for the first few days, but surprisingly seemed okay enough afterwards. At least, while I was around, at any rate. I mean, what other explanation could there be?

  Obviously, they were just good at hiding their worry.

  And now the jackass was standing in my kitchen again after all these years, and he was acting as if nothing had changed. Like he’d popped out the door for a moment, stepped back in, and the entire world had aged five years in the meantime.

  Gone out for cigarettes. What do you mean, ‘five years?’

  “Honey? Is something the matter?”

  Mom was looking at me with mild concern, while Sawyer was leaning against the counter by the stove, a Heineken against his lips.

  I snapped back down to reality. “Mom, you…you can’t be serious. He abandoned us. You can’t seriously expect me to spend my entire summer with him?”

  She pursed her lips for a moment. “Saffron, dear, maybe this is a good time for you two to catch up. I thought you would have been thrilled to see your stepbrother again, after all this time…”

  “Not like this,” I told her, letting myself down from the barstool.

  My eyes angrily turned to my stepbrother, who was gazing faintly in my direction – with the world’s most innocent look plastered across his face.

  “It’s been years since I’ve seen you,” I told him furiously. “Since any of us have seen you. You just come strolling back in like nothing’s changed? No. You don’t get to pretend that and make me go along with it.”

  He took a deep swig of the bottle, maintaining eye contract with me. Mom’s overly cheerful eyes saddened a little, and a frown started to form along the edges.

  My disgruntled stare fell back on her. “You know, it’s bad enough that Dad and you are taking Paris away from me, but this? This is too much for me to process.”

  “Saffron… Your father and I need some time alone… If you’d just…”

  “You’re going to Paris? And you’re leaving her here?” Sawyer set the half-full beer bottle down on the countertop. He crossed his arms and leant back. “Nobody told me that. No wonder Saffie’s pissed…I’d probably be, too. That’s pretty low.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him.

  He did the same. But with the motion, he lifted the corner of his mouth into that trademark smirk of his. My brother had a private weapon: the Panty Dropper, he and his friends called it. According to them, it was the half-grin that landed him half his high school one-night-stands…of which there were many… I remembered every single one.

  He used to tease me with it sometimes. It had made living with my cocky asshole of a stepbrother uncomfortable in ways that it really shouldn’t have.

  “Now, don’t you get in on this too,” Mom chided him. “Saffron has a point, you know. Your father and I have been worried sick about you for years. None of us have seen you since you turned eighteen.”

  Sawyer opened his mouth, but swallowed his words. After a moment, he was swallowing his beer again, too.

  “Now, if it’s any consolation,” Mom went on, turning to me, “I did try to talk your father out of it. I knew it would upset you, honey, and that’s the last thing I want to do…”

  “Well, great way of showing it,” I grumbled. “Picking my dream for your anniversary vacation, forcing me out of the house, then making me stay all summer with the ‘Brother of the Year’ World Champion, Five Years Running…”

  “That’s enough,” I heard a thick, oaky voice command.

  We all recognized it immediately.

  Chet.

  My stepfather was standing in the doorway to the side, his thick arms crossed. Dressed in casual comfort and a hoodie, he was just as imposing man as the day I’d met him – at several inches over six feet. Freshly shaven, he had kept the thick, bushy moustache that he’d grown since Sawyer left – which accented the firm irritation on his face.

  “Both of you,” Chet continued. “After all this time, I manage to get the two of you in the same room again, and it’s back to bickering a
s usual…”

  The room went quiet, and even my mother hesitated, turning from Sawyer to me. She looked like she wanted to say something. Before she could, my stepfather immediately strolled into the kitchen with a large grin on his face. His arms wrapped around Sawyer in a bear hug, peeling him from his relaxed lean against the counter.

  His words were quiet, almost choked.

  “Welcome home, son.”

  My stepbrother stiffened instantly, but gradually relaxed into the embrace. Within seconds, they were hugging each other long long-lost family, which…technically, they qualified a little.

  “It’s great to have you back,” our father continued, pulling free to hold Sawyer at arm’s length. They studied each other’s eyes, face, and build for a moment. “Healthy and all! Strong, too!” My stepdad squeezed Sawyer’s arm. “You must be in incredible shape…”

  “Yeah, well,” Sawyer remarked with a slight grin, “let’s just say I’ve been taking care of myself. You’re not looking too bad yourself, old man.”

  He chuckled in response. “Well, I’ve been trying to hit the gym when I can find the spare time…”

  They pulled away from each other, and while Chet grabbed another beer from the fridge, the years were clearly sliding off of them. My mother had stepped over, standing close to me, and we watched the two of them making up for lost time.

  I had to admit…as furious as I was at Sawyer, it was endearing to see him reunited with his father after all this time. I still needed to find out the real story – why Sawyer left in the first place – but for now…I could stand to watch them defrost in each other’s presence.

  While they started swapping small talk and vague life updates, I found my thoughts drifting towards the change in my stepfather’s disposition.

  He had become, in a word, gruff. His son disappearing from his life hadn’t helped. The worst part was that he still smiled and laughed along with the rest of us – but it was clear to anyone who knew him well that his heart wasn’t into it.

  As the months became years, and Sawyer failed to show up on our doorstep again, his penchant for keeping up the act whittled away. I couldn’t think of the last time I had seen him smile, or even offer the faintest chuckle to a joke.

  With that said, his business associates never seemed to notice – but he became a completely different person around them. The few times they had been around, he effortlessly slipped back into his persona of being a jovial, confident man – making them roar with laughter at every turn.

  My mother and I saw the real him.

  He was a man weakened by grief.

  But that had all changed with Sawyer’s return.

  My thoughts were conflicted on this. True, seeing my stepbrother again had brought him straight back to who he was before. But I couldn’t overlook the fact that it was Sawyer’s fault that our father had been so depressed for the last few years. On top of that, I still had my personal reasons for being furious with him – and as much as seeing them together warmed my heart, I could look in his eyes and see the truth.

  Sawyer was still the monumental ass he had always been. His blind arrogance was just as strong as ever.

  I bit my lip angrily, watching them drink beer together and laugh. My mother’s hand clasped onto my shoulder, giving me a tight squeeze.

  “I know you two had your differences,” she whispered to me, “and that you’re still angry about your brother leaving. Isn’t it worth it, just for this?”

  I honestly didn’t have an answer.

  Instead, I decided that enough was enough. As I pushed away from the counter and turned my back on their stupid little family reunion, the others diverted their attention towards me. He abandoned us. I don’t CARE that he’s back, and he’s safe…he gets to pull that shit and then get a nice, warm homecoming? No. Fuck that.

  “Saffron–” Mom called out for me.

  Her concern meant nothing to me. I stormed around the corner and out of sight, disappearing down the hall and up the stairs. Another turn, another corridor, and the door to my bedroom appeared on the right.

  I could hear that nobody was coming for me, and that was fine by me. In our old apartment, I could have walked fifteen feet and slammed the door to my bedroom, but in this stupid oversized house I had to go through multiple hallways and ascend a flight of stairs first.

  It’s a good thing I didn’t have a flair for the dramatic.

  It’d be hard to get an audience in a place like this.

  Once I’d thrown it closed and locked it, I slumped backwards against the door and down to the floor. It had been hard to hold it all back while my family surrounded me – in my private room, however, I was free to let it every last conflicting emotion come crashing out in a complete mess.

  Sawyer Samuels.

  My relationship with him had been complicated. Very complicated. From the day I met him, he was a complete jackass to me, just shy of belittling me at every last fucking turn. I never knew what his problem with me was, but he seemed to get his rocks off on antagonizing me in these small, subtle mind games. I hated it. I hated him.

  Except…neither of those were true.

  I enjoyed it. It was like we were playing this constant game with one another. I was always on the defensive, and he was always on the attack, but something about the game just kept me playing.

  It was true that he was a complete asshole to me. I couldn’t stand how fucking cocky he was, with his attractive build that I saw way too often when he’d wander around the house shirtless. Then there was that stupid little smirk he had used on me all the time. He was so confidant, so self-assured, and he had never turned down an opportunity to pick at me.

  But I…I loved it.

  It was stupid and I knew it. I don’t know why I let him get away with it – it’s not like I couldn’t stand my ground against him. But for some reason… I reveled in his antagonistic attention. I didn’t let him walk all over me by any means, and I’d challenge him if he got out of line, but something about the weird, stupid stepsibling tension between us enticed me.

  Was that why? I dwelled on the thought, thinking back to all those memories. Did I just want his attention?

  I was a good girl. Good girls don’t crush on their stepbrothers. But there was an undeniable attraction to him, and I’d never been willing to fully admit it to myself. I could talk about it objectively now, keeping the thoughts compartmentalized. I could think of it like it was someone else, with that kind of detachment, but that’s not quite accurate enough.

  It was as if reminiscing on something that was irrevocable fact within a dream, but flawed fiction in reality.

  The complexity of how I felt towards Sawyer…it defied logic. I had dated boys. I’d even dated some decent boys, highly attractive boys that treated me with complete respect. But the boys I’d dated, even the pricks among them, just never compelled me the way that he did. There was no balance between the two – always either one or the other. This boyfriend would put me on a pedestal and treat me like a princess; that boyfriend would consider me a conquest trophy at best, or just make-out material at worst.

  Sawyer challenged me. Continuously. At the same time I knew that, when it really came down to it, he was on my side.

  He had always supported me against our parents when they were being unreasonable. Every time that Mom or Chet had made some heavy-handed, unreasonable request of me – or the countless times I was accused of sneaking boys home (I never did, although everyone knew that Sawyer snuck girls in and out non-stop), he was right there to have my back. As much as I hated to admit it, he was in my corner as soon as he heard about Paris, which meant that that part of him hadn’t changed either.

  I sighed heavily, glancing up at the mural of the stars across my ceiling. Seeing him again after all these years…I had expected that when – if – I laid eyes on the bastard, I’d want to throttle him for becoming such a large part of my life and then doing what every important man did to me: they always just walked away.
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  But the truth dawned on me, finally: I had to actively try to hate him, even with his stupid smirk and his entire abandonment thing. All those confusing teenage feelings came rushing back. I’d always attributed it to stupid hormones and puberty, but goddamn, that wasn’t it.

  Sawyer had been handsome before.

  Now, he was stupidly attractive.

  I wasn’t sure how I could much I could bear a summer alone with the cocky, sculpted jackass now. It had been easy to let the past be the past and just forget the whole mess, but then he had to come back and make life a living hell again. Now, I was going to have to figure my feelings out while trapped with the guy. And there was no way I was going to let him have that kind of power over me, not after he’d betrayed me before.