Kissing Me Harder, Stepbrother novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Sunday Dinner

Lennon admits he knew who she was, their parents throw a surprise family dinner, and the night ends with Sasha posting the kiss as a stepsibling scandal.

I didn't shake his hand.

I stared at it.

Then I stared at the red hair, the ink, the open shirt, and the mouth I'd been kissing two minutes ago.

"No," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"My mom married a lifeguard."

"Retired lifeguard captain. That's my dad."

"She said his son was in Australia."

"I was. I got back the week after the wedding."

Down on the sand, Dallas was laughing at something Sasha said.

The sound carried all the way up the stairs.

"Get in," Lennon said. "You can yell at me while I drive."

I got in.

The convertible's seats were cracked leather, hot from the sun.

He pulled out onto the Pacific Coast Highway with the top down, and I yelled at him.

"You knew."

"Since day two."

"Day two! You let me kiss you!"

"You were very professional about it."

"I was not professional about it, and you know it."

He kept his eyes on the road. The corner of his mouth moved.

"Your mom texted me your picture on day two," he said. "Said, that's Gigi, go say hi. I went to say hi. Dallas stopped me at the cooler."

"What did he say?"

"Said the talent doesn't talk to the stunt guys. Said if I went near your trailer, I was off the job."

"And you needed the job."

"I needed the job."

"He hasn't paid anybody in two weeks."

"I noticed that about day four."

The wind pulled at my grandmother's scarf. I held it down with one hand.

"Then today, before the take," Lennon said, "he walked me down to the water. Put his arm around me. Said, make it look real, your stepsister won't mind."

I felt sick.

"He knew before you did," I said slowly. "He was at the wedding. He was my date."

"Yeah."

"He heard about you there. The stuntman son."

"He hired me off a call sheet three weeks later. I thought I got lucky."

I pressed my hands against my eyes.

"I'm going to kill him."

"Can I drive the car for that?"

That made me laugh, which made me angrier.

My phone buzzed.

Mom. "Dinner at Captain's!! 6:30!! Both of you!! Surprise!!"

"It's not a surprise if she tells us," Lennon said.

"Everything my mother does is a surprise. That's her whole personality."

Captain's house was small, blue and two blocks from the Seal Beach pier.

It had a lemon tree, a rescue board on the garage wall, and my mother on the porch in a leopard smock, waving both arms.

"You met!" she shouted. "Look at you! In the same car!"

"We met," I said.

"Isn't he handsome? I told you he was handsome."

"Mom."

Captain came out wiping his hands on a dish towel.

He was fifty-eight, brown as a saddle, with a white mustache and forearms.

He hugged me.

Then he looked at his son's open shirt and his son's red mouth and said nothing at all.

Dinner was fish tacos on the back patio under string lights.

Captain told the story of the time he pulled a sea lion out of a rip because it was scared of a dog.

"It bit me," he said. "Then it followed me home."

"It did not follow you home," Mom said.

"It followed me to the parking lot. That's practically home."

Mom laughed so hard she had to put her taco down.

I'd never heard her laugh like that with my dad.

Under the table, Lennon's knee was against mine.

It had been there since the salsa.

I didn't move mine away.

He didn't move his.

When Mom went in for the flan, his phone lit up beside his plate.

He looked at it for a long time.

Then he slid it toward me, low, under the edge of the table.

"Read me that?" he said quietly. "Sun's in my eyes."

The sun had gone down twenty minutes ago.

I read it to him anyway, under my breath.

It was from a stunt coordinator. Two days of falling down stairs in Burbank next month.

"Tell him yes?" I asked.

"Tell him yes."

I typed it and slid the phone back.

His fingers touched mine on the table, under the tablecloth, and stayed.

Captain was watching us over his beer.

I took my hand back.

Lennon put his hand flat on my knee instead.

I kicked his ankle.

He didn't move the hand.

Mom came out carrying the flan like a birthday cake.

"So," she said, sitting down. "Tell me everything about the show. When do I get to see my baby on the TV?"

"It's a phone, Mom."

"When do I get to see my baby on the phone?"

I opened my mouth to tell her I'd been fired.

My phone buzzed against the table.

Then it buzzed again.

Then it didn't stop.

Lennon's phone started too.

Then Mom's, inside her smock pocket, playing the salon's ringtone.

I turned mine over.

Forty notifications. All tags.

Sasha had posted the kiss.

It was a short, brutal clip. My fists in his shirt. His hand in my hair.

Over it, in pink letters:

"When your stepbrother kisses you harder than your ex."

Under it she'd tagged my name, Lennon's name, and the salon.

Cheryl's on Main, Seal Beach.

My mother's business, with my mother's face on the logo.

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