Page 79 of Stepbrother Dearest

I sat on my bed and put my head in my hands. This, whatever this was, needed to end now.

The confession about what had happened to him made my heart ache. I’d been damn lucky to never find myself in that position, but I’d witnessed the aftermath of what victims went through in both my professional and personal lives.

Now all his rules and struggles made sense, and the fact that he trusted me at all was a mind-fuck.

I’d spent the last sixteen years with a picture of who Graham was in my head. He was the golden child. The superstar athlete, the successful entrepreneur, handsome fuckboy.

How much of that was true, and how much had been shit talk from Russ? Had I spent the last sixteen years hating him because of his dad’s lies?

I knew he’d been a champion swimmer. My mom had shown me articles about his wins like a proud parent while Russ used them to berate me because I hadn’t started working out until nursing school.

Everything I’d learned about Graham since I walked into his ER treatment room told me he was struggling. So why had my mom and Russ lied to me for so many years?

Sighing, I dug my phone out of my pocket and typed Graham’s name and the name of the fancy private school he and Eli had gone to into Google.

My throat tightened at the first hit. “Star Swimmer Arrested.”

“The fuck?” I clicked on the link and skimmed it.

According to the article, Graham had been arrested seven years ago. It didn’t say for what, just that he’d been released and no charges had been laid.

A memory rushed back to me. Around the time the article had been published, Graham had shown up at my mom and Russ’s house unannounced and looking like he’d just come off a weeklong bender. He wanted to talk to his dad, but I was the only one home. He asked me to tell Russ to contact him. Then he’d left.

I passed the message on, and that was the last time I saw Graham until that night a few weeks ago.

I exited out of the page and scanned the rest of the search hits. None had swim stats dated after his arrest.

What had he done? Or had he even done anything? He would have been fifteen when this happened. Why was his name in the papers? He’d been a minor. The article stated that he’d been arrested alongside another student, but only Graham was named.

Russ hadn’t said anything about him not swimming anymore. He’d spent years boasting about his son the superstar athlete, and based on his prior stats, Graham absolutely had been a superstar. But why had Russ kept up the façade, and why hadn’t anyone told me about any of this?

Tossing my phone on my bed, I rubbed one hand over my eyes. Why did I even care? Graham and I were nothing to each other. Our parents might be married, but we’d never been a part of each other’s lives.

Russ was a deadbeat and never bothered to hide it. He’d spent years unemployed or only doing cash jobs while my mother worked herself to the bone to support us, just so he wouldn’t have to pay child support.

He’d also changed his phone number and moved us from one shit-tastic place to another on a yearly basis to avoid being tracked down. As far as I knew, he hadn’t seen Eli since he left, and he’d only invited Graham to visit three times in the years I lived with him. And those nights had been painfully awkward.

Russ had spent the entire time boasting about how good he was doing and how he was a changed man and things would be different moving forward. He and Mom fussed over Graham and gushed about how amazing it was to have the whole family together, conveniently omitting Eli’s existence, and talking up Graham’s swimming and telling him how proud they were of him.

He’d been fourteen the last time he’d come over, before whatever the fuck had gone down and ended his swim career. Was that why Russ finally abandoned him? Or had Graham had enough and gone no-contact like his brother?

Whatever. I scooped up my phone and stood. It didn’t matter why Graham was the way he was. His life circumstances had nothing to do with me.

He was right. This…thing between us was just fucking. And it wasn’t like I didn’t do casual. With my schedule and chaotic work life, I didn’t have a lot of mental energy left over.

I’d also never fucked anyone I disliked before. Was that why I suddenly wanted to understand him? Was my natural curiosity trying to connect the dots and make sense of the attraction between us?

I needed to stop thinking about him. Fuck.

Pissed at myself, I pulled up my text thread with Sloane.

Caleb: what’re you up to?

She read the text before my screen went dark.

Sloane: got a hot threesome planned

A photo of a bottle of wine and tub of ice cream appeared in the thread.

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