My Stepbrother Is My Secret novel · Chapter 26 of 32

Chapter 26: Ruben and Mateo

Mateo woke up the second I said his name.

"Your father," he said, before I'd told him anything.

"He's making menudo. He wants you. Alone."

He sat up and rubbed his face.

He didn't look scared.

He looked grim and resolute.

"Okay," he said.

He got dressed in his tuxedo pants and a gray T-shirt from the bottom of a drawer.

He combed his hair with his fingers.

Then he went down the hall to the kitchen and I heard my father say, "Sit," and a chair scrape.

The kitchen door shut.

I stood in the hallway in his tuxedo shirt.

Then I went out the east arcade door, barefoot, into the courtyard.

The flagstones were cool in December.

The motion light didn't come on in daylight.

I sat on the edge of the dry fountain where my father sat every night, with my back to the kitchen.

The kitchen window was open a crack.

It always was, for the menudo steam.

I didn't try to hear.

I heard anyway.

"I'm going to be honest with you," my father said. "Because she told me you're honest."

"Yes, sir."

"I don't like it."

A pause.

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