Hours later, I am crammed into the backseat of Mom’s Range Rover. We’re heading to Culver City to watch their Fourth of July fireworks display, but I am in no mood to celebrate the occasion. And it gets worse: Eden is pressed up against me. I can’t bring myself to look at her. Not after what happened on Saturday. I stare out of the window instead, ignoring the feeling of her arm against mine, trying to tune out her touch. I think she is trying to ignore me too. Even before we got in the car, we pivoted around one another and kept our heads down. “I didn’t know you wore Converse,” I hear her quietly note halfway through the drive. Mom and Dave are talking up front, but neither of us is partaking in that conversation. I’m surprised to even hear Eden speak.
I angle my head away from the window and glance sideways at her, meeting her warm, curious gaze. She looks nice today, but I guess she always does. My eyes fall to her lips for only a split second, and I have to swallow the lump in my throat in order to force out a quick, “Yeah.”
I turn back to the window, and I don’t even know why, but my pulse has sped up. I try to focus on slowing it back down again, but it’s hard. I keep thinking about her, about the way she looked at me on Saturday night, about the way her mouth felt, about the way she tasted, about her hands on my body. I even close my eyes, squeezing them tightly shut and fighting to force her out of my mind, but it’s impossible, especially when her skin is already touching mine.
I don’t even like Culver City, but I am so relieved when we finally pull up into the local high school’s parking lot. The fireworks display is being held here. Santa Monica hasn’t hosted its own display in years. Apparently, it’s too dangerous to set them off by the pier or some other bullshit like that. It means that every July Fourth, we have to head somewhere else. This year, we are here in Culver City, and we are definitely not the only people with this idea. There are crowds of people flooding through the parking lot, and as soon as Mom has put the car in park, my seatbelt is off and I am almost throwing myself out of the vehicle. Being around Eden is too unbearable, and I think it will continue to be awkward until we actually talk about what went down between us over the weekend. That’s why I walk slightly ahead of the “family” as we follow the crowds across the campus. The fireworks, I think, are being held out beyond the football field, and access is only available by following a series of confusing signs through the school building.
“If any of your friends are here, you can go find them,” Mom says, glancing between Eden and me. Jamie and Chase aren’t old enough todisappear on their own yet. “We’ll call you at the end if we can’t find you again, okay?”
“And behave yourself,” Dave adds in quickly, fixing me with a stern look as though it’s evenpossiblefor me to somehow create trouble among this crowd. It’s just a damn fireworks display. How much damage is he expecting me to do?
“Yeah, yeah, we will,” I say, shrugging them off. With the go-ahead to leave, I don’t waste anymore time. I don’t even know if any of my friends are here—Tiffani definitely isn’t, thankfully—but it doesn’t matter. I refuse to be seen hanging out with my brothers on July Fourth, so I push my way into the crowd, trying my hardest to disappear out of sight. I don’t mind being on my own. Sometimes, I prefer it.
When I get back outside into the cool, fresh air, I am reminded of why I hate the Fourth of July so much. The music, the marching band, the voices. There are thousands of people here, crammed in across the football field and piled up in the stands, illuminated by the floodlights as the sky darkens. All I can smell is the grease from the food trucks.Gross. People are brushing against my shoulders as they push past me, but I don’t even know where to go, so I just remain in place.
Until, out of the corner of my eye, I spot Eden. She is frozen in place exactly like I am, only a few feet ahead of me, lost among the crowd. Her gaze is wide as she analyzes the scene in front of her, and she has the same look of frustration as I do. It’s too busy here, and she looks almost worried. I should talk to her. I’m alone. She’s alone. Now is the perfect time to just get it over with. If I don’t talk to her about that kiss right now, then I most likely never will. It’s nerve-wracking, but I take a deep breath and filter my way through the crowd toward her. “I didn’t think you were the type to go off on your own,” I say gently as I reach her. I have to raise my voice slightly over the noise around us. Edenglances over at me, and she looks so out of place and so uncomfortable that it’s almost cute. “We can talk now.”
“Now?” Eden says, surprised. Her eyes flicker around the crowd again, at the commotion out on the field.
“I didn’t mean right here,” I say. The conversation we are about to have is definitely not one that can be done in public. We need to be alone; we need privacy. “Come on.” I’m about to reach for her elbow to pull her along with me to someplace quieter, but I refrain from touching her and keep my head down instead. I’m not sure how she feels about that kiss yet, so until I find out, it’s best not to make any moves on her. But it’s tough not to.
I turn back toward the school building and push against the flow of people, edging my way through the crowd. All the while, I am praying that Eden is following me. The worst case scenario would be if she couldn’t care less, but I think I can sense her behind me, so I’m reassured that she cares enough about that kiss to want to talk to me about it.
Inside the school, I have no choice but to ignore all of the “NO ENTRY” signs taped to the walls of the hallways that are shut off to the public. I need to talk to Eden, and it definitely can’t wait. I need a classroom or something. Somewhere that’s quiet and still, somewhere away from these Fourth of July celebrations. So, despite the signs, I head on down the first hallway I come across. I can hear Eden’s footsteps behind me, but she doesn’t say anything. Maybe she didn’t notice. It’s a long hallway, and I walk all the way to the end of it, and suddenly we are in tense silence. Very faintly, I can hear the music from outside, but it feels so distant. It’s dark up here, and I stare at the wall for a minute, trying to gather my thoughts.
Slowly, I turn around to face Eden. She is looking at me with thosewide, anxious hazel eyes of hers, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone look so terrified. God, how do I even begin? A lump forms in my throat, and I decide that there is no good in tiptoeing around the subject. I have to just say it: “What the hell happened on Saturday?”
“I don’t know,” Eden splutters quickly. Maybe she’s been as desperate to talk about this as I have, because all at once, she begins to babble a string of words even faster than she did on Saturday night. “I’m sorry. You were just—you were annoying me and I didn’t want you to buy more drugs and I just—I just did it. I didn’t mean to.” She pauses to take a breath, and she needs it. Her voice is husky and ragged, and none of her words sound right. “I’m sorry, okay? It’s really weird and it’s making me feel sick, and we just need to pretend it didn’t happen.”
Pretend it didn’t happen? Ouch. I should have known it was only a mistake. I should have known a girl like Eden wouldn’t be even remotely interested in a guy like me, and not just because we’re step-siblings. Her apology stings. “I wish I could say the same about me,” I say, stuffing my hands into my pockets.
“What?”
“I kissed you back,” I remind her. I kissed her back because I never knew how much I had wanted to. I kissed her back because I couldn’t get enough of it, of her. I kissed her back because Ilikeher. She may have kissed me by mistake, but on my end, I kissed her entirely on purpose. “I’m not going to apologize for that.”
Eden is staring at me with her lips parted. “Why?”
I take a moment to take in her expression as confusion captures her nervous gaze. In this light, with the final hue of the sunset shining in through the windows and hitting her face at just the right angle, she looks so pure. Do I tell her why? I don’t have anything to lose. She should know, because if I don’t tell her, then perhaps I will regret itlater. I may not get the chance to tell her again. “Because I knew exactly what I was doing,” I finally say.
“Why did you do it?” she asks quietly through bated breath, but her voice is almost a squeak. She is on edge. I can tell by the way she isn’t breathing, or blinking.
“Because I’ve wanted to do it so fucking badly.” I spit the words out almost as fast as I can so that I don’t have the chance to overthink them. I turn away from her and press my hand to the wall for support, exhaling. It’s true. I did want to kiss her; I just didn’t realize it until her lips were pressed to mine. That’s why I felt so weird whenever I caught myself studying her features for too long. It’s why I’ve been curious about her.
“You’ve wanted to?” Eden repeats, her voice echoing down the still hallway. It feels like we are so far away from everything else that is going on around us. “What the hell are you saying?”
“You want the honest truth? I’m saying I’m fucking attracted to you, alright, Eden?” I spin around to face her again, to read her expression as her eyes widen, and I am getting so heated over the situation that I can’t help but feel angry at her. “And I know I shouldn’t be, because you’re my damn stepsister, but I just can’t help it. It’s stupid as hell, and I know you don’t feel the same way, because you’re fucking apologizing for Saturday.” Why did it have to be a mistake? It’sstillstinging, and I really wish it wouldn’t hurt as much. Hell, Tyler Bruce doesn’t know the meaning of rejection. But I guess that right now, I am just me. AndIcare. “I really wish you hadn’t said sorry for it,” I say quietly, not quite meeting her eyes, “because apologizing means regretting.”
Eden is quiet. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I’m not sure if I even want to know. If she didn’t like me before, then she probably thinks even less of me now. Now I’m the creepy older stepbrotherwho is attracted to her, and she’ll probably never talk to me again. “I thought you hated me,” she says after a while. It’s not exactly what I was expecting.
“I hate a lot of people, but you’re not one of them,” I reassure her. Tyler Bruce did a good job of being an asshole, then. “I hate the fact that you turn me on. Like, a lot.”
“Stop,” Eden says. She shakes her head, closing her eyes for a second, and she even moves away from me. She is several feet away, but I wish she was closer. “You’re my stepbrother. You can’t say that.”
“Who makes up these bullshit rules, huh?” I glance out of the window, at the crowds across from the football field below, and everyone there is as much a stranger to me as Eden is. I look back at her as the frustration of the situation sets in, and she is still staring at me in fear. “Three weeks ago I didn’t even know who you were. I don’t see you as a sister, okay? You’re just some girl I’ve met. How the hell is it fair to label us as siblings?”
“You have a girlfriend,” she whispers. She takes even more steps away from me, her face paling. She looks as though she really is going to be sick. “Tiffani’s your girlfriend.”
“But I don’t want her to be!” I don’t mean to yell at her, but she just doesn’t get it. I have nochoicebut to be with Tiffani, especially at this current moment in time. I’m not mad at Eden. I’m mad at Tiffani, at myself, at this situation. “I don’t want to be with Tiffani, okay? Don’t you get that? She’s just another distraction.”
