Page 51 of Discord
At the harsh reminder, I bobbed my head and threw open the car door. I entered through the front door and hid in my room for the remainder of the evening.
Mia
Summer had fizzledout and fall had set in with all its glory. The humidity hadn’t faltered, though. I was barely wearing a stitch of clothing, hair tossed up in a messy bun, yet it had no effect on cooling me down.
Sweat trickled down my two-piece fuchsia swimsuit, leaving random wet spots behind. I’d stayed indoors to avoid the heat, though I had a clear visual of the outdoor pool in Brandon’s beach house. Slivers of light reflected across the clear water. Brandon appeared otherworldly as he stood next to it.
Every so often, Brandon’s gaze slid up my legs, lingering over my mouth and warming me from the inside out. It burnt hotter than the summer sun.
Marble slate eyes. Broad shoulders. Polished hair. He wore white cargo shorts and a white button-down shirt. The fabric was breathable and lightweight and didn’t look right against his tattoos. All the same, like everything else in this world, his body was entitled to the shirt. The material was made for him.
Too bad the same didn’t apply to me.
When Brandon first proposed a trip to the Hamptons, I thought it was the adrenaline from sex. But yesterday, he informed me we’d be leaving for his beach house first thing in the morning. I stopped fighting him at every turn and assented. My agreeable nature lasted until arriving at the Hamptons earlier today.
“Whose car is that?” I asked when Brandon pulled into the driveway.
“Carmen’s.”
I froze. “I didn’t know you were on speaking terms with your stepmom. What happened?”
Brandon parked his car. “Something about family coming first.”
Flabbergasted by his words, I didn’t speak for several moments before a perturbing thought sparked my insides. “Wait! If she’s here… How’re you going to explain my presence?”
“She doesn’t know who you are.” Brandon blew off my concerns, rounding the car to open the passenger side door for me.
His explanation did nothing to soothe my nerves. If Carmen was married to Brandon’s dad, she knew the same people as my family. This was a terrible idea.
Before I could badger him for blindsiding me, one more car in the driveway caught my attention. From what I knew, Brandon’s half-brother wasn’t old enough to drive.
“Is someone else here, too?”
Brandon didn’t respond, grabbing my bag from the backseat and striding past the front door of the large beach home. I rushed after him. My eardrums filled with soft music as soon as I entered the palace-like home. We stood inside a chic room decorated in multitudes of blues and whites. The sliding double doors of the living room opened to a backyard with a swimming pool.
I couldn’t marvel over the beautiful interiors, distracted by the small group gathered outside. They turned toward us, and a few waved to acknowledge our arrival. A woman, approximately Brandon’s age, stood with a young boy. Presumably, she was Brandon’s stepmother, but I couldn’t make anyone else out from a distance.
Trepidation coiled my insides. “Are you insane?” I hissed. “There is a houseful of people here. What the hell is this?”
Brandon took a deep breath. “A few people wanted to come over for a barbeque and visit the beach. It’s no big deal.”
Except, it was a huge deal. If one of them knew Milo or Raven, the word would spread like wildfire. I promised Raven that it was over with Brandon. What the hell was he thinking?
I swallowed. “We should leave.”
“Mia, no one here talks to Milo or Raven. They won’t find out.”
He couldn’t guarantee such a thing. “This isn’t a good idea.”
“If I didn’t think it was a good idea, I wouldn’t have brought you here.”
That was a terrible rationale. I sighed, attempting a different angle. “The deal was to continue having sex. You never told me anything about meeting your family and friends.”
Brandon glanced at me, eyes dark. He dropped my bag on the counter and roamed the kitchen, making more noise than necessary in the way he slammed the cabinets and took out a glass to make himself a drink.
“First of all, the deal is whatever the fuck I want it to be.” His voice held a threatening clench. “Secondly, Carmen’s here because we compromised on splitting the beach house. It’s the last weekend of summer vacation for David, and he wanted to spend it at the beach. And my friends are here because they wanted to get away from the city. No one here has communication with your family. But if you can’t handle being around a few people without reading too much into it or developing some sort of fatal attraction toward me, that’s your fucking problem.”
That had snapped my mouth shut.
