Page 8 of Stepping Up

4

CARLY

“Jodie, Carly, little miss Ella,” Dwight’s jovial voice broke the silence. “I’d like to introduce my oldest son, Logan.”

He introduced the Big Boss of my place of work to me, and I stood there, agape and seriously considering running for the hills. This had to be some kind of sick joke, right?

Logan looked casual, dressed in a tight black T-shirt that showed off his thick, sculpted arms and a pair of jeans he’d never be caught dead in at Forge. He was all suits, all the time when he was in business mode, and while that had its own sexy-polished appeal, this look was mouth-watering.

And I’d just learned that he was my new fucking stepbrother.

“Good to see you, Carly.” Logan’s cool, deep voice crossed the room to me. And wouldn’t you know it, he even sounded like he was telling the truth. I couldn’t exactly return the sentiment.

“Well, my goodness! Do you two know each other?” my mom exclaimed, looking between the two of us in thrilled surprise. I grimaced as Logan gave her a polite response.

“Yes, Ms. Sanders?—”

“Oh, it’s Mrs. McDonald now,” Mom laughed, “or it will be when I get around to the name change. But you can just call me Jodie, unless you wanna call me Mom!”

If my impressionable daughter weren’t standing there watching me, I would have rolled my eyes at that.

“Jodie,” Logan amended, and I respected it. “Your daughter and I work together. I’m actually the co-owner of Forge.”

“Oh, how funny! What a small world, right, Carly?”

“Entirely too small,” I grumbled without meaning to.

In my defense, I’d never been very good with change, and this was another huge, world-shattering change to grapple with on top of the whole stepdad thing. How was I supposed to react to seeing my strict, prickly, annoyingly attractive boss at family dinners?

“Carly’s just kidding,” my mom hurried to peace keep. She shot daggers at me with her eyes, though. “We’re so happy to have you and your sons over for dinner, Dwight.”

Wait. She said sons. As in plural. Suddenly, the mental image of a whole harem of men flooding into my home made me feel a little queasy, Mom’s pot roast be damned. I started to open my mouth with no idea what I actually planned to say, but Mom ushered all of us into the dining room and we started to take our seats.

“It smells delicious, Jodie,” Dwight gushed at his new wife, and despite my persisting distaste for all of this, I did think it was a little cute how Mom preened under his gaze.

“Thanks, honey,” Mom said. She took her seat next to the head of the table, leaving that esteemed spot for Dwight. Ella was seated across from her Grammy, and I sat beside her, figuring I’d be on calmer ground there. That left Logan sitting next to my mom, and maybe I got a little bit of sick satisfaction out of it—like her having to sit beside such an unpleasant man was her punishment for injecting all of this chaos into my life. Still, she turned into my favorite version of her, the doting grandmother, as she told our guests, “My granddaughter helped a lot, too.”

“And I set the table,” my little girl piped up, her voice a little quieter than usual because she was sometimes shy around strangers. Strange men, especially—the girl had grown up in a house of only women, so she didn’t know what to make of these large, hairy beasts in her house. Me neither, baby girl, I thought wryly.

Logan opened his mouth as if to say something, but before I could assume the worst, there was another knock at the door. Mom hurried to let in our next guess, and I could have fallen out of my chair when he strode into the room.

“Sorry I’m late,” Nate announced to us all, “but I brought presents!”

He lifted a bottle of wine in one hand and a bottle of sparkling grape juice in the other.

“Oh, how thoughtful,” Mom gushed as I sat there with my jaw hanging open. Mom played hostess with the mostest, taking the nice wine bottle from his hands and humming at it as if she knew anything about wine. As if she’d known him his whole life, she pulled my tall friend into a warm hug and said, “You must be Nate.”

“And you must be Jodie, our new stepmom who Dad’s head-over-heels for,” he replied charmingly as he returned her hug. “And who’s this?” he asked, his eyes falling on Ella as he came closer to the table, blinding us with the full wattage of his bright, slightly-cheeky smile. Those sharp canines could do some damage, and now was not the time to be thinking about that because Nate was meeting my mother and my daughter. As I settled into the reality of yet another shock, staring at Nate like I’d never seen him before while he explained that he didn’t want to bring a hostess gift for my mom without remembering Ella, too, he didn’t seem to notice me yet. He was perfectly relaxed, his usual carefree self, but then his sweeping gaze fell on me.

“Holy sh—crap,” Nate hurried to correct himself, shooting a quick, nervous glance Ella’s way. He let out a startled laugh, staring at me incredulously. “No way. Carly’s our new stepsister?”

Somehow, Nate’s presence was a relief and a surprise in equal measure. He made any room a little brighter, and it was nice to have an adult ally in this room. But when he turned to commiserate with Logan, who looked even less excited than I was, it finally clicked that not only was he now related to me by marriage, but this meant the two of them were brothers. This realization put a little bit of context into their relationship that would have made sense if they didn’t look and act completely unrelated. They had a closeness that did feel like family, especially with the strange dissonance of it all to me from the outside.

So much for Nate being my ally.

“You—you two are brothers?” I sputtered out stupidly. Logan watched me with cool scrutiny, while Nate just laughed.

“Well, yeah, but not like you think,” he said, which only muddied the situation further in my overtired brain. Luckily, Dwight stepped in to explain.

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