Page 39 of The Stepbrother 2: Noah

I spun around to stare at Maine. She knew she was in trouble. "If my nephew is in this house, bitch, I'm on your ass this morning."

She sucked her teeth. "Do you have to be this gay, this early?"

I scoffed. "Bitch, I'm not gay. I'm bisexual. And you didn't answer my question. Where is my nephew while you have some random person laying up in your living room with their ass out?"

"He's with Scarlett and Troy."

I gasped. "Since when do you call Mommy Scarlett?"

She rolled her eyes. "That ain't my momma." She walked past me, heading for the kitchen.

I wasn’t even going to try and make sense out of her sudden animosity against the woman who raised her and our sister. She needed counseling or a fucking exorcist. I followed behind her into the kitchen, raising my hand to cover my nose. There were moldy dishes in the sink, and the smell coming from the refrigerator was rank.

"What is going on, Maine? Why are you suddenly living like this, acting like this?"

"Because I'm fucking tired," she snapped, raising the bottle of water she pulled from the refrigerator and taking a long swallow. We both took a seat at the kitchen island; it was the only clean space in the industrial-sized kitchen.

I wanted to laugh. "Tired of what?" She didn't have a job, she spent our parents' money however she wanted, and she could have easily hired a cleaning service for this mess. DJ was either in daycare, with a nanny, or with Mommy and Troy. What was so tiring about her life?"

"Every fucking thing. There are too many fucking expectations. Too much to do, too much of everything."

I sighed. I kind of understood what she was saying, and I wanted to sympathize. We were kids of famous people, always in the spotlight and being scrutinized. I was planning tours for my parents, Scarlett had inherited her godfather's multimillion-dollar empire before she was barely twenty-one and had no problems making her new life work for her. Our names stayed in the blogs, on TikTok, and Instagram. Then there was Maine. She was barely mentioned anymore. When we were younger, she was the young, blond-haired, thin, beautiful blue-eyed socialite mentioned every day. I think her issues had more to do with the lack of attention than anything else.

I was going to go easy on her. "How can I help? Should I start by calling you a cleaning person and getting your mother a hotel?" I asked sincerely.

She cut her eyes at me. "She needs a few months. Your house has been empty for months."

She was right. I never stayed home, at least not in the duplex I shared with her. I rented a loft in downtown Orlando, where there were a bit more people my speed, but that was beside the point. I chuckled. "Keyword, my house. You can't just welcome people into it. What happens when Mommy and Daddy find out?"

She glared at me across the island for a few seconds. "I don't care."

I pulled out my phone and flashed it. "Then you won't care if I call them and tell them she's here."

She pushed long blonde strands of hair behind her ear. "If you want me to tell them that you've let Uncle Vance bend you over for the past five years, nightly," she threatened.

I grabbed for my imaginary pearls. "Bitch, first of all, I don't do the bending—" I started, but she cut me off.

"Or how about I tell Creed that your little cancer scare was bullshit, and you used her money to send your old lover's adopted daughter back to some province in China to have your child without him knowing?"

I gritted my teeth. She had me between a rock and a hard place. I had been involved with my parents' ex-bandmate since the summer I graduated. We clicked. I love how he called me "Papi" when he came. It was so messy and fucking beautiful.

What he didn't know is that I'd been fucking his adopted daughter, Ana, since I was fourteen and she was nineteen. She got pregnant, but it ended up not being by me, though she threatened to tell the news and my parents it was. It would have been a clusterfuck. It was easier to help her just leave the States like she wanted than to explain to everyone. It wasn’t as messy as it sounded. When you grow up with famous parents, there's a small circle of people you deal with. Shit happens. My parents didn’t know I was bisexual or that I was fucking Vince, who happened to be married. I didn’t need the drama.

But I didn’t really care if they found out. What would they do, ground me? It was Creed I was worried about. If she found out what I really used her money for, she would probably hit mewith her car. Creed had an epic anger issue, as evidenced by her recent blow-up at the family. I needed to pay her back her money before she found out what it was used for and that I had lied. I was pretending to be madder than I was at her so I wouldn’t have to be around her when she was home. She made me feel guilty. The smirk that curved Maine’s lips let me know she knew she had me boxed in.

“Fuck you, Maine.” I pushed away from the counter.

“Don’t come looking for me for help when your no-account mammy fucks you over and nobody else wants you around. You know that bitch don’t have any bugs but the ones in her pussy and probably got evicted. I don’t care where you send her, but get her out of my house before the month is over.” I stood, smoothing my hand over my Nike tech, before leaving her kitchen. On the way out I stopped and leaned down into her guest's ear, and as loud as I could without risking blowing out his eardrum, I yelled, “Get your lazy ass up!” Then I walked out, slamming the door behind me.

I was incensed. Maine and I had been close, but too close, it seems, because now she knew too much of my business.

After getting into my truck, I dialed Vince. He answered on the first ring. “I can’t talk right now,” he whispered, a sign he was with his husband.

I smoothed my hands over my waves and sighed into the phone before pulling it away and pressing the end button. Maine wouldn’t have Vince to hold over my head for too much longer. Getting involved with a married man was stupid. I wasn’t under the illusion that he’d leave his husband when I started the affair with him, but he started making promises, and like a dummy, I listened and started expecting things. But I was kind of over it. I didn’t really see spending the rest of my life with a man anyway.

Backing out of mine and Maine’s shared driveway, I looked back at the house in time to see Tiffany peeking from behind my curtains. I turned north, headed back to Orlando instead of south to my parents' house. I’d be back in a few months, but not too soon. I wanted no part in the blow-up that was about to happen. I hoped whatever Maine was doing with her momma didn’t end up with her out on the street too, because there was one thing for certain and two things for sure. If Tiffany was involved, it had something to do with Troy and Scarlett. And Troy and Scarlett weren’t going to be torn apart by anything and damn sure not by anybody. They were for life, and they would steamroll anybody in their way.

Maine-

---