Blindsided - A Stepbrother Romance Novel (13 page)

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Samantha said, “But what now?”

“They’re just getting my blood sugar stabilized right now and then they’ll let me go home. I start chemo next week, but that will all be outpatient too.”

“And when do you die?”

“Aaron!” Sam couldn’t believe her brother just said that. Luke didn’t seem fazed by it however. He looked at Aaron and softly said, “Honestly Aaron, even with chemotherapy they’re only giving me about six months.”

Sam clutched tighter to the railing on the bed. The room was suddenly spinning and she felt like she was going to throw up. How much more was she supposed to take? How much more fucked up could her life be? She looked at her brother. He had tears in his eyes and she could see him trying to fight them back. He’d already grown close to Luke and now he was going to be taken away like every other good thing in their life. Sam hated it, but she’d survive it the way she did everything else. She wasn’t so sure about her brother. She let her eyes flit over to Conrad’s face. He was staring at Luke in disbelief. She didn’t know their story, but she could see the bond between them in both of their eyes.

“What do you need?” Samantha asked him, “When you go home…what can we do for you?”

Luke lifted a shaky hand up off the bed and covered one of Sam’s with it. “I don’t need anything honey. My treatments will be four days on and three days off for the next few months. I’ll go to the infusion center and get my medication and I’ll go home. I don’t plan on changing my routine other than that. You and I will still get the Mustang done and I’ll keep going to work…I want to try and keep things as normal as possible.”

“Except for that part where you die?”

“Aaron! Stop it!”

“It’s okay,” Luke smiled gently as his daughter and then looked back over at Aaron. “He’s understandably upset.”

Before any of them could say anything else two nurses came in and one of them said, “We’re going to take him to get a CT scan. You can wait in the waiting room and one of us will let you know when he’s back.”

Samantha squeezed Luke’s hand. Conrad reached over and tentatively rested his hand on the older man’s shoulder. Aaron was already halfway out the door. Samantha went after him. When they got out into the long hallway that led to the waiting room she said, “Aaron, stop, please.” He stopped walking but didn’t look at her. Sam walked around in front of him and forced him to meet her eyes. “Hey, I understand why you’re upset, but I’m sure you acting like you’re angry with Luke is not going to help him.”

“I’m not acting,” he said. “He’s as bad as the rest of them.”

“Because he has cancer?” Samantha saw Conrad slip past them out of the corner of her eye. She still had to deal with that. Putting her focus back on her brother she said, “How is that his fault?”

“He knew before he came and got us. He should have told us then. He shouldn’t have brought us here without at least giving us the option of whether or not we wanted to watch him die.”

“Okay, he should have told us…but Aaron think about how hard that would have been for him. Our mother just died. Your father was in prison. They were about to stick you in foster care. There was just so much going on that I can appreciate how he might have thought one more thing would have been just too much.”

“Whatever, I need some air.”

“Aaron don’t take off…” He kept walking toward the exit. She debated whether or not she should follow him, but decided maybe he just needed a minute alone to absorb it all. She went out into the waiting room instead where she saw Conrad sitting and staring at the wall. She went over and sat down next to him. It took him a few seconds before he finally turned to look at her. “So, step-brother huh?”

His lips twitched, but his eyes remained sad. “How fucked is this?”

Samantha nodded. “I can’t argue with you there. So what’s the story, with you and Luke and your mother?”

He looked away again and she thought he wasn’t going to tell her. Finally he took in a long, slow breath and looked back at her face. “Mom and Luke were married for three years. I was already grown so I never lived with them. Luke and I got along okay, but we weren’t really close at first. My mother and I had problems and I just did my best to stay away at first. Luke would call me and invite me over for dinner or whatever…it was obvious that he was trying to get us to reconcile, but I appreciated his efforts. My mom seemed like she was coming around, so I’d go over once or twice a week. Luke and I started talking about cars and racing and eventually he started helping me with my car and I’d go over and help him with the ones he was restoring. We’ve spent a lot of time together over the past year. He’s a great guy and I consider myself luck you have him in my life. I didn’t know he had a kid…” Conrad must have been able to read Samantha’s eyes because he almost immediately said, “I’m sorry. That sounds bad. I’m sure he would have told me if I would have asked, but I never did.”

“Maybe not,” she said. “Luke and I haven’t exactly been close.”

“It’s just really strange that he never mentioned having two kids.”

“Two? Oh, Aaron’s not his. Aaron’s father is the abusive ass I told you about. Maybe having a daughter he never saw was hard for Luke to talk about. Three years ago was just about the time I saw him last. I said some pretty horrible things to him then. Maybe his plan was to tell me he was getting married then, but I wasn’t willing to listen to anything he had to say.”

“It sucks, all of it.”

“Yeah, I have to agree with that.”

Conrad stayed at the hospital until they discharged Luke and drove them all home. Aaron didn’t take off like Sam was worried he would, but he didn’t talk to anyone the entire way home and went straight to his room when they got there. Samantha seemed like she had way too much nervous energy and didn’t know what to do with it. It was late, but she was fussing over Luke trying to feed him and forcing him to drink water. It was strange for Conrad to watch. He didn’t know her well, but what he knew so far didn’t make him think she was the motherly type. It was a contrast with the wild speed-loving girl he’d made love to earlier and it tugged at his heart. Luke seemed embarrassed by the attention, but Sam wouldn’t leave him alone until she had him tucked into bed. Then as Conrad sat on the couch and waited to talk to her, she went in and practically dragged her brother out of the bedroom and made him eat dinner. When she asked Conrad if he wanted to eat too, he was almost afraid to say no.

After Aaron choked down a plate full of food and went back to his room, Sam started washing dishes, like she was angry at them. “Samantha, sit down for a minute.”

“I don’t want to leave all of this for the morning. If Luke gets up before me he’ll wash them and he needs to take it easy.”

“Okay, but they can wait for a minute. You need to sit down.”

She startled him by throwing a plastic cup against the wall. “You don’t know what I fucking need!”

This was the girl Conrad expected. In a calm, neutral voice he said, “You’re right, I don’t. But you’ve been spinning like a top since we got home from the hospital. You can’t take care of everyone else if you don’t take care of yourself.”

“I’m fine. You can go.”

“Samantha…”

“I don’t have the energy for anything else tonight Conrad.”

He sighed and nodded. On his way out the door he asked Sam to call him if Luke needed anything or she needed any help. She said that she would, but somehow he didn’t believe her. She seemed to be making it her mission to do this all herself.

Casey was sitting in the middle of Conrad and Shawn’s living room when Conrad got home, applying a bag of frozen peas to a fresh cut above Beau’s eye. Conrad was dead tired and even if he put that aside there was the fact that his step-father who he cared about a lot was likely dying and he’d recently had sex with his step-sister. This shit, he didn’t need.

“You went home when you left here?” Beau didn’t even glance in Conrad’s direction so he went on, “You know if you’re going to keep crashing on my fucking couch every time you get your ass kicked…until the next fucking time you decide to go home, the least you could fucking do is show me some god damned respect when you’re here.”

“Conrad…” Casey started.

“No Casey, stop talking for him. He can talk for his fucking self!”

Beau looked up at him then and what Conrad saw in his friend’s eyes made him forget for a minute that he was sick and tired of the bullshit that went on with his crew on a continuous basis. “It wasn’t my dad, but I’m sorry. I’ll get out of here and I won’t be back.” He stood up and Casey glared at Conrad.

With a heavy sigh Conrad said, “No Beau, wait. I’m sorry.” He dragged his hand through his hair. “I had a really shitty night, okay. I didn’t mean to take it out on you. You know you can stay here whenever you need to.” Beau gave him a little nod, still not looking at him in the eyes. Conrad knew that he had no idea what it was like to grow up the way that Beau had, but that didn’t stop him from being annoyed as hell by the way Beau allowed himself to be pushed around and never fought back no matter what. He was still headed for the door. “Where are you going? I said you could stay.”

“Thanks,” Beau said. “Things should be quieted down at home now. I think I’ll go sleep in my own bed.”

“Beau.” He stopped at the sound of Casey’s voice. The two of them had always had a special relationship. Casey lives with her father and her step-mother who she hates. She’s never been physically abused, but the step-mother gives it to her good verbally. Conrad always assumed that she had a soft-spot for Beau because of that. He has also always suspected Beau has stronger feelings for Casey than he would ever admit. Beau’s not exactly popular with the ladies. He’s not a bad looking guy when his face isn’t all bruised and busted up…but that’s most of the time. He’s also about forty pounds too light for his six foot three frame. On top of all of that he’s so shy Conrad actually finds it painful to watch him try and talk to anyone other than his close friends. Beau turned toward her and she tossed him the peas. “Keep this on that cut or it will swell.”

He gave her a little crooked smile. “Thanks Case.”

“Thank you, Beau. I’m sorry about…all of that.” He nodded at her and then looked at Conrad. He looked like there was something he wanted to say, but he decided against it and went ahead on out the door.

Once he was gone Casey unleashed her fury and Conrad didn’t know what hit him. “What the fuck, Conrad? It’s not bad enough that he goes through the shit that he does at home, but he comes here and you give him shit too? Do you even care to know what happened to him tonight? Did you even give him another thought when he walked out the door earlier?”

“No Casey actually I didn’t. But that’s because I had a pile of my own shit to deal with. I’m not his fucking daddy. He needs to learn how to take care of himself.”

“Robert hit me.”

“What?” Conrad thought he’d heard her wrong. That came out of the blue.

“It was last Sunday. We were at his place and we had been drinking all day. We started making out and my phone rang. It was Beau’s ringtone and with Beau you just never know what’s going to be going on so I told him I had to answer it. Beau had himself locked in the basement because the old man was tearing the place up. He parked his truck so that neither Beau nor his mother could get the cars out of the driveway. He just wanted me to come and get him before his father started beating the shit out of him. Robert told me no. He said some stupid shit about Beau being in love with me and then flat out accused me of fucking him. I grabbed my keys and tried to walk out. I was shocked when he grabbed my hair and pulled me back in the door. He started wailing on me, right in the ribs. I waited until he passed out and I went to get Beau. He was torn up so I didn’t say anything to him about it then.”

“That mother-fucker, what are you still doing with him Casey?”

“He felt really bad the next day. He didn’t even remember most of it. He was so drunk…”

“Do you hear yourself? You’re making excuses for an abuser.”

She waved her hand at Conrad and said, “I learned my lesson, okay? It’s always about the hard way with me. When we left here we dropped off Stew and I asked Robert to go by the park. I had a feeling that’s where Beau would be. He took me there but when I saw Beau sitting on his bench on the other side of the park and started to get out of the car, he grabbed me by my hair and said, ‘Are you sure you’re not screwing this guy?’ I didn’t want to fight and he was hurting me, so I tried to explain to him how Beau and I are just really close because of our home situations. He was yanking back on my head so hard that my shirt rode up on my sides. Beau saw us I guess and he ran up and started yelling at him, asking him what the fuck he was doing. Robert got out and he pushed Beau in the chest and told him to mind his own business. For a second, I thought Beau was going to walk away, but then he turned around and punched Robert in the face and said, ‘That’s for the bruises she has on her ribs you mother fucker.’ ” Casey’s eyes were huge as she was telling the story. Conrad could tell that she was shocked. Beau never fought back. He was one of the quietest, most passive people Conrad had ever met and it was another reason they all hated so badly what his father did to him at home. “Robert stumbled back when he got hit and that was when Beau said, ‘Come on Case, let’s get out of here.’ Robert jumped him from behind and took him down. That’s how Beau got the cut on his eye. Conrad while they were on the ground, Beau flipped him over and beat the literal shit out of him. I had to pull him off…I think he might have killed him if I didn’t.”