Page 2 of Clandestine

“Whatever you say,brat.” Oh Jesus. Colby teases me effortlessly, and fuck, if my idiot brain doesn’t actually kind of like it. The hindsight is immediate.

He agrees to text me all the details as soon as we get off the phone, and I agree to start packing before we say our goodbyes.

As I wait for the details, I walk around the small space I inhabit and remember the girl I was when first signed the lease here. She was confused and needed to get away from the very same boys who I’m agreeing to spend an entire week with. I’m older now, I know. I should be able to come to terms with the fact that the feelings I have, especially the ones I feel for my asshole stepbrother are wrong. After ten years of fighting said feelings, this week will be able to tell me one thing. If I’m fucking certifiable, or if I’ve moved past my childish and unreasonable desires.

TWO

COLBY

This isn’t going to end well. If it wasn’t so last minute, I never would’ve called her, at least that’s what I tell myself. Having a stepsister who happens to be a makeup artist and a social media nut should be a blessing in my case, but I can give you a million reasons why it’s not, and a million reasons why I should’ve let anyone else take the job.

Starting with the fact that if our parents weren’t married, she would be mine.

Not mine, as in my sister by marriage, mine as inmine. I’m twenty-six years old, and to this day, not a single girl has made me feel half the shit that my stepsister has. Granted, she has an advantage against all the others in knowing more about me than anyone else. Sometimes, I think even more than Jackson. But Hale is different.

In another life, maybe I would’ve given Jackson my blessing, and at least they could’ve been happy, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to watch the dude I grew up with make the girl of my dreams happier than I was given the chance to.

Yes, telling myself this does help me sleep better at night. The truth is, I’d probably share her with him in a heartbeat. There’s no part of me that doesn’t believe that’s how it should be—the three of us. But any possibility of that happening went down the drain after signing a six-figure record deal, and doubling it in the first year. I couldn’t afford to be caught looking at my stepsister the way I know I do. I had to push her away the same way she did us, to diminish the idea of the three of us in any capacity.

There was no way of knowing that Jackson and I would ever make it out of my dad’s garage. Fuck, all I wanted was to take my two best friends up with me when we finally did. But pushing Hale away forced her to make a choice.

When I put the ink to the page, signing the record deal of a lifetime at only twenty years old, Hale got an apartment not long after. She still came around for a while, but we’ve barely seen her for the last three years. I’ve only been graced with her presence at a handful of family dinners that my dad requested I attend, and Jackson too, of course. He became like the second son my dad never wanted, but loved anyway.

I won’t lie, it fucks with my head, knowing she’s never even been to one of our shows. She was supposed to be here with us the whole damn time. She earned it. She never complained when we played way too loud, and she sat with us day in and day out while Jackson taught himself the right chords. When I sang off-key, she was still there on the old garage couch, happy as ever. Music may have never been her thing, but she loved it becauseweloved it. Pushing her away ruined everything for the three of us. Not just the three of us, actually, but with Jackson and I, too.

We stopped sharing things in life like we used to and stopped spending as much time together. Shows have started to feel like a task rather than our passion. It’s as if when we realized we wouldn’t be sharing her, everything else fell to the wayside. No matter how hard we’ve tried to uphold our oncestrong connection, Hale had become the glue that was holding us together.

Our usual makeup artist calling out sick right before a huge stop on our tour was like the perfect excuse to bring her back into our lives. When it fell right into my lap, I didn’t waste a second to dial her up.

This is our chance. Our chance to be the three musketeers again. Our chance to be who we once were and have Hale back in our lives in a way that involves her passion, too. Even if I can’t have her the way I want, maybe I can finally give my blessing to Jackson or some shit. Fuck, maybe I’m okay with having some of her, even if it means she belongs to my best friend, and not me.

And that’s the point, I guess. I refuse to waste another second not being together. Hale belongs to Neon Cherry, and I refuse to pretend otherwise for a moment longer.

It’s this thought that I’m lost in when Jackson speaks up. After waiting an hour by the pool for our perpetually late girl, she’s finally here.

“Hi, angel,” Jackson says as he makes his way to her. She doesn’t waste a second jumping into his ink-soaked arms, being spun in circles effortlessly. Our girl, who now has more curves than ever on her gorgeous body, wraps herself around him like a damn koala, her shoulder-length brown hair and matching brown eyes catching every ray of the sunset light.

She looks so delicate in comparison to us now. The skin that’s visible is still unmarked with her own tattoos, though her beautiful sun-kissed complexion still shimmers with the glittery body oil she has always used.

“Hi, Jaxie,” she says through smiling clenched teeth, holding on to him like she’ll fall into space if she doesn’t. When he releases Hale, I make my way to her and wrap my arms around her shoulders, setting my chin atop her head and inhaling heronce familiar sickeningly sweet vanilla and citrus scent. The sugary orange smell could only suit her.

“Hey, brat.”

She returns the hug, and I can hear the way she takes in my smell too. Holding her shouldn’t feel so right, and having her head nuzzled beneath my chin shouldn’t feel like home,but it does. Her voice is small, like she’s holding back so many things she wants to say. I know the feeling.

“Hey.”

As she pulls free from my grasp, not a second is wasted before Jackson begins running his loud ass mouth.

“What the hell are we waiting for? You kept us waiting long enough; we’re gonna be late!” He waves his arm in a circle, commanding us to head back through the house and onto the bus.

“Will one of you get my bags out of my car? I need to use the restroom before we leave.”

“Yeah–”

“Of course–”

Jackson and I speak in unison, and we both watch her walk through the sliding glass door. Something is unspoken when we look at each other, and unspoken it will remain.

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