Page 21 of My Fault

“It wasn’t the best night I’ve ever had,” I answered.

She came over to kiss me on the cheek.

“Did you have fun with Nick and his friends?” she asked hopefully.

Oh, Mom, you can’t even imagine. You have no idea who your new stepson is.

“Speak of the devil,” William said behind my back, getting up from the table just as Nick entered.

“What’s up, guys?” he said on his way to the fridge.

“Did you have fun last night?” my mother asked him. “How was the movie?”

Movie?

I started to ask, “What?,” but Nick slammed the refrigerator shut and turned around with an icy stare.

“It was great, right, Noah?”

I realized there I had him. If I told the truth, who knew what his father would say. I could even go to the police and turn him in for offering alcohol to a minor—me—for letting someone drug me, and obviously for leaving me out in the middle of the road.

I couldn’t have enjoyed it more as I let him know with my gaze that I had no idea what we were talking about.

“I can’t really remember,” I answered my mother, watching him turn tense. “Was itSleeping with the EnemyorTraffic?” I was going to enjoy seeing him in that situation, but he just laughed it off, wiping the smile off my face.

“I think you meanCruel Intentions,” he responded, surprising me by naming one of my favorite movies. Ironic, when you considered that the two main characters were a stepbrother and stepsister who hated each other…

Sensing something was up, my mother asked, “What are you two talking about?”

“Nothing,” we said in unison, and that bothered me even more.

For a moment, we were in a standoff: I was trying to intimidate him; he was trying to let me know he was having fun.

“You gonna move or what?” I asked, trying to get to the refrigerator.

“Look, Freckles, you and I need to work some things out if we’re going to live under the same roof.”

“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “How about when you come in, I’ll go out, and when I see you, I’ll ignore you, and when you talk, I’ll pretend I can’t hear you?” I cursed the moment I’d met him.

“Sorry, I got hung up on the in-and-out part,” he said—the pervert—grinning and making me blush.

Dammit.

“You’re gross,” I said and tried to push him aside until he finally yielded and I could grab the orange juice.

My mother had walked off with a cup of coffee in one hand and a newspaper in the other. I knew what she wanted: she wanted for me to get along with Nicholas, for us to become friends and for a miracle to happen so I’d love him like the brother I’d never had.

Ridiculous.

I sat down on one of the benches next to the island and poured the juice into a crystal glass. Nicholas was wearing track pants and a tank top. His arms were shapely, and after seeing him punch two guys in ten minutes, I knew I should stay away from him. Who knew what he was capable of?

When he turned around with his coffee, I saw it: the tattoo. He had the same one I had on my neck. The same knot, that symbol that meant so much to me. That monster had an identical knot on his arm.

I felt a sharp pain in my chest as he came over and sat down in front of me, watching me until he noticed what I was looking at. Then he took a sip of his coffee, put his cup on the table, and leaned over.

“I was surprised, too,” he said.

I felt uncomfortable, exposed.