Stuck On My Stepbrother Read Free Page A

inexperienced that it makes me and Patrick seem like geniuses.’
    I was starting to feel really uncomfortable. Fuck fuck fuck, I couldn’t believe that Jen was talking about me like this. What was her problem? And how horrifying that my own stepbrother was in the room, watching me squirm like this. He was probably loving it. He used to love calling me a jerk when he was a teenager. I bet this was his dream come true.
    ‘And,’ she continued, ‘we’re really looking forward still to her first sale. We’re all sure it’s going to be a big one.’
    What the fuck? That liar! I’d already made sales! I wanted to scream.
    Then, she said: ‘Anyway, I heard that she’s not going to pass her probationary period, so we won’t have to put up with her for much longer.’
    I didn’t know what to do. I looked around, my face starting to prickle with the hot terror of shame. I felt anger and shame bubbling up inside me. Then, feeling like a child, a pathetic child, I started to cry. As I tried desperately not to make any noise, and with tears stinging my cheeks, I walked off the stage. The room was quiet.
    As I walked back to my table, I saw him, looking right at me. Adam Cooper. His eyes were hard slits, and he was scowling. I knew it. My stepbrother hated me.

CHAPTER FOUR
Letting Off Steam

    Why on earth would you hold an awards ceremony on a weeknight ? A Wednesday night, at that!
    I wasn’t in a fit state to move the next morning, let alone go to work. I didn’t even think I’d had that much to drink… A couple of glasses of wine over the dinner, then a champagne for the toast. I only had a glass or two of champagne after that, too… It seemed like the polite thing to do. Paul, the fat man who ran Newsbiz, kept refilling our glasses and literally patting us on the back – so hard I almost spat out my drink. I swore there’d be a red handprint on my back this morning. But when I got up to pee, I checked myself in the bathroom mirror, and there was nothing there.
    I surveyed myself in the mirror for any other damage last night had done. My pale green eyes had dark rings under them, exhausted from only four hours’ sleep. My skin looked a shade lighter, which made my freckles stand out even more than usual, and my brown hair, which I’d spent an hour curling last night, hung down in greasy ropes around my shoulders.
    I only had twenty minutes to get ready for work, but I was going to need a shower. Fast. There was no way I could go in like this.
    The sound of the shower tap turning on was a relief to my hungover ears. I stood shivering in my en-suite, waiting for the water to get hot. Thank goodness I had my own bathroom. That was something. At least a little privacy on that front. I was totally embarrassed last night though, to have had my mom pick me up at the end of the night. My mom! Twenty-one years old, and my mom acts as my chauffeur. I couldn’t wait to save up enough money to get a place of my own. Unfortunately, I’d done the sums, and with the job I had now, it’d be a year and a half before I could pay off my overdraft and save up enough for a deposit. And that was just to rent somewhere. Ah well, for now, it was the small mercies. And right now, I was glad of my own shower.
    The bathroom mirror began to steam up, a thick mist forming over my tired reflection, and I climbed into the shower, wincing at first at the heat, a little hotter than I was expecting. It stung my chest where it pelted down on me, and for a moment I almost enjoyed the sensation, but soon, I began to feel like it might take off a layer of my overly sensitive skin, so I switched down the temperature and set about cleaning off the remnants of last night.
    It felt good to get rid of the debris of the awards ceremony. As I scrubbed off each layer of grime, memories from last night flooded back to me. The image of my mom, waving me over in the parking lot at two a.m. Sitting in the back seat of the car, in the position I’d always sat