Bittersweet Wreckage Read online

  “We were there, in the back. I saw you, your sister, and mom. Someone said she was his wife. First, we thought maybe he’d divorced your mom before he’d met mine, but you looked too young for the timeline. Anyway, we were freaked out because we didn’t know who’d arranged his funeral.”

  “Was it then you realized he led a double life?”

  “Pretty much. Then CPS came and gave us the four-one-one about you guys.”

  “Jade didn’t come to the wake.”

  “We’d just attended a joint memorial for them in Santa Cruz. Jade couldn’t handle another wake so her boyfriend picked her up from the funeral.”

  “Why did you come?”

  “I was mystified, trying to figure him out. Mostly, I was mystified by you.” Jesse eased back to lie flat on the rug.

  I held up my hand, preventing him from skipping down Forbidden Lane. “Must’ve been horrible for you. Two funerals in a row.”

  “We were wrecked.”

  We lay in silence, sniffling our mutual sorrow in companionable commiseration. The TV shimmered starlight and space around the dark room, and I wanted to jet off on the spaceship Serenity, far from this travesty.

  “Want to go swimming?” Jesse broke the flickering, blue-light silence. Our own blue-light special. “Will your mom care?”

  “Mom and I used to swim at night when Dad was gone, or I guess at your house.”

  “Or on the boat with Mom. They took it out a lot when Jade and I were busy.” Jesse snagged his guitar off the couch, his hand brushing my leg, leaving tingles skittering up my thigh. Jerking my leg to the side, I shivered from emotions too twisted to define. He didn’t notice the red tide sweeping up my neck, threatening to roast me into a crispy critter.

  He followed me up the curved staircase to our bedrooms. “I can’t believe you guys live in this joint.” His voice held no jealousy or anger.

  “It’s your house now too.”

  “Feels more like a museum. I mean, the guest room’s a five-star hotel suite.”

  “My mom’s good at interior decorating. That’s one thing Dad let her have her way with. It benefited his status.”

  “Trophy home?”

  “Exactly. How’d you know?” I stopped him at the landing.

  “Wild guess.” Grinning, he spread his right arm to take in the whole house.

  My breath caught at the gorgeous smile erasing his sadness, giving him a handsome, wild look, the kind googly-eyed, gaga girls tripped over. Any other girl. He was the fruit rolling down my forbidden dead-end lane, the new bane of my existence. Nix that. Jade was my bane. Regardless, I bet he wowed the crowds with his charming smile, strumming his guitar from the stage. Jealousy became a new emotion my body tentatively began to host.

  “Check this out. Will your mom let me hang posters on the walls?”

  I followed him into the guest suite. His electric guitar and amp drew my attention to the far corner in the sitting area. Open boxes littered the floor. Clothes, a laptop, and posters were strewn all over the luxurious comforter of geometric squares in blues and grays on the queen-sized bed in the room beyond the French doors. He pointed to framed and autographed posters of Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold, Seether, and other rock bands.

  “Wow. Those are awesome. I love these bands.”

  “You do?” Incredulity widened his eyes.

  “Sure. Can’t a girl love hard rock too?” I snickered, defraying my nervousness from being in his bedroom, seeing his belongings scattered all over Mom’s beautiful decor. The room had only ever hosted corporate dignitaries to impress.

  My sight skipped to the framed photos sitting on the whitewashed dresser in a haphazard display. I studied them, and then picked one up of a young man dressed in army fatigues standing in the desert, a rifle slung over his shoulder. He was maybe in his mid-twenties, with Jesse’s height and the same angular cheekbones, but he was more muscular and his skin looked weathered by the sun.

  “Do you have an older brother?”

  “No. Why?” Behind me, Jesse’s hand alighted on mine on the edge of the frame, covering my bewilderment. Weird jitters kicking in, I slipped my hand out from beneath his.

  “Who’s in this picture? He resembles you.”

  “That’s… my dad.”

  My lungs quit pumping for a second. “Your dad?” I faced him. He stood so close, my breasts feathered his arm. Mortified, I inched backward, the edge of the dresser denting my butt.

  “Didn’t your mom tell you?” He picked up the photo. I shook my head, waiting to hear words to untangle the knots in my head. “My real dad. He died in the Middle East right after I was born.”

  “She didn’t tell me.” I touched my dragon, praying to the dragon lord that he told the truth. It explained the kiss. It explained the feelings I had for him. Draw up the commitment papers if he ended up my blood brother.

  His face screwed up. “You thought we were related?”

  “You kept calling my dad, Dad. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Oh, shit.” He backed up and sagged onto the bed. “Whoa, dude. That’s weird. I felt vibes between us. Not brother-sister vibes though.”

  “You kissed me knowing the truth?”

  “Yes.” His full lips kicked up at the corners. “I kissed you because I had to. You needed me to kiss you.”

  Resting against the dresser, I wiped the sweat off my upper lip, unable to explain the vibes I really experienced without embarrassing myself into the deepest, darkest space portal. “What’s the deal, with you?”

  His phone beeped an incoming text and he ignored it. “My mom met Leo not long after my real dad died. They dated and split up, but my mom was pregnant with Jade and didn’t tell him. Leo didn’t want kids of his own. Now I understand why. Three years later, he learned about Jade and returned. Then he adopted me.”

  “Officially adopted?” My heart tumbled. So he was my brother, just not blood related. It explained a lot. It explained nothing. He was still forbidden… living in my house, in the room down the hall from mine.

  “Yeah. We kept my real dad’s name, since Mom and your dad weren’t married.” He pulled a wrinkled pair of checkered swim trunks out of his suitcase.

  My nerves tripped out, a totally different nervousness now. Like the prickling nerves I suffered meeting Will earlier, only ten times worse. “Meet you at the pool.” I dashed out of the room, kicking aside my newfound knowledge and the ramifications.

  I found my modest one-piece bathing suit front and center in my dresser, the suit I wore around Dad or he’d go off the deep end. The idea that Jesse and I weren’t blood related made life weirder in a different way. I didn’t want to compound it by wearing less clothing. Was he still forbidden fruit? Did it even matter if he didn’t like me as more than a half-sister? I keep hitting the escape button, but I’m still here.

  Wearing my terry cover-up, I met Jesse in the hallway. Bare-chested, he only wore his long swim trunks. His vine tattoo wound around his biceps and chest, leaves, guitars, and music notes dripping off the ivy. I gulped, unable to tear my sight off the ink decorating his lanky, yet solid, torso.

  He traced a vine up his arm, chipping away at the icicles plaguing me.

  “What’s the significance of the vine?” I fought to keep my hands at my sides and not touch every inch of his tattoos. A new war I’d stumbled upon. Days ago, there wasn’t one boy in sight. Now I lived in the same house with my pseudo-brother. Flowers in the Attic anyone?

  “Dad, your dad, gave my mom an English ivy. It grew crazy in the backyard. I kinda felt out of control when I started the tattoo. Every time my control slipped, I’d add to it.” He traced his finger over a guitar dangling from the vine on his upper arm.

  We hopped down the stairs. “Out of control?” I repeated, my mind still playing in Antarctica. Dad had given Mom the same ivy plant once. It represented a family tradition, stemming from the time my great-great-grandparents had named my great-grandmother Ivy. Mom let the ivy die off bit by bit until she had n
othing left to transplant in San Jose. A small slash of resentment cut across the barren tundra inside me.

  “You know, teenage stuff, girls, and school.” He shut the door behind him. “Towels?”

  He held the French doors open for me to pass through. I flicked on the patio lights and he flicked them off. Playing it rough?

  “Towels pushed you out of control?” I teased. He flicked his finger at my shoulder. “In the pool house.”

  “With the cabana boys?” Again, his phone beeped another incoming text and he ignored it. It rang and he turned his phone off.

  “Aren’t you going to answer your adoring fans?”

  “They can wait. You’re more important tonight.”

  His words thawed the boundaries of my barrenness. “The pool house is hidden off to the side.” Landscape lights rendered shadows on the bushes and trees along the walls of the house, undulating from the wispy breeze in the balmy night. I walked to the replica Mediterranean house with a full kitchen, living space, bathroom, bedroom, and a workout room housing a treadmill, weights, and other machines my body hid from, and a combination ping pong–pool table. I turned the pool lights on the random color setting. “Towels are in the bathroom.”

  “Man, this place is off the hook.” Jesse wandered the rooms.

  “Since you’re in the guest room, I guess this is the guesthouse now.” I’d taken all we had for granted until I’d seen how much it cost for upkeep. Having witnessed Jesse and Jade’s modest home, our lifestyle became an embarrassment of riches. “Do you resent living here now? I mean, it’s different.”

  “Who wouldn’t mind living here?” He unsnapped his leather wristband and set it on the table. I read the tooled inscription on the inside. “Good luck, rock star. Love, Dad.”

  Shaken and stirred, I replied, “I don’t mean—”

  He slipped a finger over my mouth. “I know what you meant.” He removed his finger and handed me a beach towel.

  My lips burned from his touch. I wanted to lick his taste, feel it in my mouth, and savor him. Deep end, open up wide, Insane Ivy’s bringing nutjob cookies.

  Jesse crashed onto the leather couch and buried his face in his hands. “I miss my mom, Dad. I miss our house, our life, my friends, everything.” His shoulders shuddered and he was lost in a world of emotional upheaval.

  Welcome to awkward. Unsure what to do, I sat beside him on the couch and gave him a few moments to compose himself. I never believed I did sympathy well, but he calmed from my presence. I wanted to caress away his sadness, lick it up, and spit it in Dad’s urn. Still had those nutjob cookies in hand.

  He wiped his eyes on the beach towel. “I don’t mind being here. Plus, I want to know the real Leo Lynwood, the good, bad, and ugly. I want to make sense out of everything he did.” Emotions in check, he turned to me. “Jade needs a mother, and she needs a sister too.”

  I uttered a pig-in-a-trough sound between a snort and laugh. Jade needed a knock upside the head more than she needed a mother and sister. We were worlds apart on the sister spectrum.

  Jesse bumped his arm against mine. “She’ll come ’round.”

  “Will I live to see Around?” I flicked my finger at his arm.

  “I’ll protect you, Vine.” His hand alighted on my thigh, his long, slender fingers dark against my lighter tan, warm against my sudden chill. “I like being here because I want to know you too.”

  “Why? You said we’re not related,” my idiot five-year-old self, lacking a filter, piped up. I wanted to touch him with an intensity that startled me.

  “I’m glad,” he whispered, his head listing sideways to touch mine, leaving me reeling, unable to move or breathe for the longest time.

  “Me too,” I said, shivering from the cool air filtering the uncomfortable truths released into the winds of change.

  Chapter 14

  Last night was bizarre and amazing rolled into one. Jesse and I had floated on our backs in the dark pool, and he told me about his mother, a hardworking, loving woman who’d do anything for her kids. Except press her baby daddy for answers and truth. I’d viewed pictures of her in his room, tall and willowy, dark-haired and beautiful. She had a natural happy smile, dark exotic eyes, wearing loose comfortable clothes. Whereas pictures of my mother always captured her pinched face, bland and fake in her perfect designer clothing. Jillian Jerome was the polar opposite of my mother, and had been a marketing professor at a Santa Cruz college. Her one blinder was Leo Lynwood, whom she’d met at a marketing convention where she was presenting over sixteen years ago.

  “Didn’t your mother wonder where he lived?” I had asked, floating at a wide distance from him in the pool, still nervous to be too near him.

  Jesse had paddled his floater closer to me. “When he was in town, he either stayed with us or lived on his sailboat and supposedly in corporate housing when he traveled.”

  That night had etched itself on my mind to stow away forever. But walking into the kitchen to get breakfast, I stumbled into a disaster zone, and teetered to a hard stop.

  Jade had arisen earlier in the morning and sneaked her boyfriend downstairs. I’d heard them talking and watching TV in her room after Jesse and I returned from swimming, but I’d zipped it, not knowing how to handle the situation. Mom wasn’t up to dealing with boyfriend sleepovers yet. She barely handled her own sleeping over.

  Apparently, Jade and her mysterious boyfriend had helped themselves to breakfast. Eggs and milk cartons warmed on the counter. Dirty, congealing frying pans covered the six-burner stove. Bacon grease and scrambled egg bits spattered the counters and even the backsplash. They’d made orange juice, coffee, toast, and more, all littering the counters, stove, and sink. I stepped on a piece of egg and shook the gross blob off my foot. I detested eggs.

  “Disgusting pigs.”

  “Who made this mess?” Mom’s pitch elevated behind me, hysterical at first, until realization set in. We lived After Dad now. No more tirades from the walking asshole.

  I spun around. “Jade. Obviously she’s missing cleaning skills in her repertoire of Goth talents.”

  “Was she feeding an army?” Mom picked up a burnt, crusted frying pan and stuck it under the faucet to soak in the sink.

  “Jesse, I guess.” Why did I cover for her? Hoping to gain points to lessen her voodoo hoodoo bitchiness?

  “Can you clean this up, please? I need to meet the lawyer about the will.” She rummaged in her purse on the table.

  “Why should I clean up?” I stamped my bare foot on a crunchy piece of toast, decimating it into crumbs. I grabbed the coffee-sopped dishtowel off the counter and wiped my foot. “Dad’s maid escaped. The slaves were emancipated.”

  Jesse wandered in, his hair damp from his shower and slicked straight back. “Jade didn’t clean her mess?” His mouth compressed in a thin line. “I’ll do it.”

  Resignation joined the warmth trickling into my awakening southern parts, the same sensations I’d experienced as we talked and existed in each other’s parallel universes until early morning. “I’ll help.”

  “Alice, I’ll talk to her.” He practically flung the milk jug inside the fridge with a clunk against the dwindling Craptastic Casseroles. Mom avoided looking at him, her discomfort no doubt stemming from him being the adopted child of her dead husband rather than a strange boy living in her house.

  “See you in a couple hours. Then we need to go over finances. All four of us.” Mom breezed out, pretty and summery in her clingy mauve dress. Was she going on a date with the mysterious N, or meeting some stodgy old lawyer?

  Bitter envy overcame me as I realized she’d vowed to straighten up her act for the Jeromes. Why not for me?

  Jesse started scrubbing the crud off the pans in the sink and my envy took a hike. His lightly muscled arms competed for my attention. A man had never scrubbed dishes in this house. It was a phenomenon worth watching.

  “Her boyfriend slept over.” I dumped silverware in the dishwasher. “Did your mother allow—”r />
  “Hell no.” Jesse slapped a plastic measuring cup in the top rack of the dishwasher. “It’s Ax. He lives in Santa Cruz. His parents let him do whatever and sleep wherever he wants.”

  “Ax? As in a guitar? Does he play in your band?”

  “Thank God, no. The dude’s a walking disaster.”

  “Talking about me?” Jade strutted into the kitchen, all smug in the one black outfit she wore repeatedly. Did she buy in bulk? She thrust two empty mugs at Jesse.

  “Do you possess any other clothes?” I asked. “You can borrow some of mine if you need, or Kristen’s. She’s more your height.” I took a spin at some bitchassness.

  “Possess?” she mimicked. “Screw that pink princess shit.”

  “Jade, you know Ax can’t sleep over. And you have to clean up your mess.” Jesse’s scolding didn’t make a dent in her stony face or rigid stance.

  “You’re not my father. I can do anything I want.”

  “Not here. My mom’s not dumb. She’ll set down rules.”

  “You’ll have to obey them.” Jaw clenched, Jesse towered over Jade.

  Jade slashed her middle finger across her neck, and then stomped out in her scruffy combat boots. I suspected her finger dance meant “screw off and die.”

  Jesse followed, then stopped in the dining area. “She’s acting out. She’ll settle down.”

  “Let’s just finish. I want to go through Dad’s office box. You wanted to see his office here, right?” I bit the inside of my cheek, eager for his yes to trip out his mouth, wanting to spend more time near him. Also wanting to hide in my bedroom to avoid him, Jade, and the ruins of my life. My wits might as well belong to Rex for all the control I held over them.