CHAPTER 6 - DINNER WITH MY NEW STEPBROTHER
1527 Words
I had asked the universe for one thing. One single, solitary thing: please let Maddox be a common last name.
The universe said no.
The universe said absolutely not, and also, here's a restaurant table where you'll be sitting three feet from the man who made you c*m in a bar bathroom while your mother passes the bread basket.
The restaurant was Italian. White tablecloths. Candles. The kind of place my mom picked when she wanted to impress Richard, which was always, because my mother had been glowing like a woman reborn ever since she started dating him and I didn't have the heart to ruin it.
I was seated between Miles and my mother. Across from Richard – tall, silver-templed, the kind of handsome that came with money and good genetics. He was warm in a practiced way. Polished.
And next to Richard, directly across from me, was his son.
Rhys Maddox. Number seventeen. Scar through the eyebrow. Grey eyes that hadn't left my face since I walked in and realized that God had a sense of humor and it was cruel.
He looked different in civilian clothes. Black shirt, sleeves pushed to his elbows, tattoos on full display – the date on his wrist, the constellation on his forearm, the handwriting that curled toward his elbow. His knuckles were still bruised. His hair was pushed back. He looked like he'd walked out of a cologne ad that had been banned for being too suggestive.
His foot found mine under the table within the first thirty seconds.
I moved my foot. He followed. Pressed the side of his shoe against mine – not playing footsie, not being cute. Just there. A point of contact that said I know exactly what I did to you and I'm going to sit here and eat pasta with your mother while you think about it.
"It's so wonderful that you kids already know each other from school!" Mom beamed across the table, completely oblivious to the fact that her daughter was having a cardiovascular event over the antipasti. "Rhys, Naomi says the whole campus is buzzing about your first game."
"Is that right." His eyes flicked to mine. "Didn't realize she was paying attention."
"Four goals," Miles said, mouth full of bread. My thirteen-year-old brother had been vibrating since we arrived – a real hockey player at dinner, an actual Thornfield Wolf sitting across from him. "Dude. Four goals in your first game. That's insane."
"Miles, don't talk with your mouth full," Mom said.
"It was a good game," Rhys said. To Miles. But his foot pressed harder against mine.
"We've met," he added, glancing at My mom. Casual. Easy. The way you'd mention running into someone at the grocery store, not the way you'd reference a bar bathroom and a bite mark and the sound a girl makes when she cums so hard she forgets her own name.
"We've met" – and the way he said it made my face burn from my jaw to my hairline.
Dinner was forty-five minutes of exquisite torture. Richard talked about his business. Mom talked about the engagement timeline – casual mentions of when we're all one family that made my stomach flip for entirely new reasons. Miles asked Rhys about hockey with the unfiltered worship of a thirteen-year-old boy who'd finally found something more interesting than his phone. Rhys answered every question with patience I hadn't expected – real patience, not performed.
And the entire time, his foot stayed against mine. His eyes found me every few minutes. Not staring – glancing. Quick, deliberate looks that landed like fingertips on bare skin.
I excused myself after the main course.
"Just grabbing extra napkins," I said, standing too fast, nearly knocking my water glass over. Mom waved me toward the back. The restaurant had a service area near the kitchen – a narrow hallway with supply shelves and a staff bathroom. Quiet. Private.
I leaned against the counter and pressed my hands over my face.
His foot under the table. His eyes across the candles. "We've met." My mother wants to marry his father. He is going to be my stepbrother.
I heard him before I saw him. Thirty seconds. He'd waited exactly thirty seconds.
"You left the table in a hurry."
I dropped my hands. He was in the doorway. Filling it. The hallway was narrow enough that he didn't need to step forward to feel close – the space did the work for him.
"Go back to dinner, Rhys."
"So you do know my name." He stepped in. Let the door close behind him. "I was starting to think you'd forgotten everything about me."
"We need to pretend nothing happened."
"Nothing happened?" One more step. "Nothing? Because I can still feel you on my fingers three days later and you want to call that nothing?"
"Your dad is dating my mom."
"I'm aware."
"You're going to be my stepbrother."
"Sounds like a problem." Another step. I was against the counter now. His hands landed on either side of me – not touching, just trapping. Boxing me in. His face was inches from mine and I could smell him – soap and something darker underneath, something my body recognized on a cellular level. "But you and I both know you've been wet since you sat down across from me."
"I have not–"
"Your breathing changed when my foot touched yours. Your pupils are blown right now. And you keep biting that lip like you're trying to hold something in." His mouth dropped to my ear. "You don't have to hold it in with me."
His hand slid down. Under the hem of my skirt. Up my thigh. Slow – agonizingly slow – like he was giving me time to stop him, knowing I wouldn't.
His fingers found the edge of my underwear. Pushed the fabric aside. And when he touched me – when his fingertip dragged through the slick heat that proved every word he'd just said right – he exhaled against my neck like he was the one coming undone.
"There it is." Barely a whisper. "Soaked. At dinner. With both our parents ten feet away." His thumb found my c**t and pressed. Slow circles. Deliberate. Devastating. "What would your mom think?"
I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper. My hand grabbed his wrist – not to pull him away, to hold him there. He took that as permission. Two fingers slid inside me and I choked on a sound that wanted to be a scream.
"Quiet," he murmured against my ear. His fingers curled. Found the spot. "Unless you want mom to come check on the napkins."
I was shaking. Both hands on the counter behind me, knuckles white, legs barely holding. He worked me with a precision that made my head spin – slow when I needed fast, fast when I was close, pulling back just enough to keep me teetering on the edge.
"Rhys – please–"
"Please what? Use your words."
"Please let me–"
"Naomi? Everything okay in there?"
Mom's voice. From the dining room. Ten feet and one door away.
Rhys pulled his hand away. I nearly collapsed.
He looked at his fingers – slick, glistening – and his expression was something between devastation and triumph. Then he leaned in and kissed my neck. Once. Right over the fading bite mark. Soft. A promise and a threat in the same breath.
"To be continued," he said.
He straightened his shirt and walked back to the dining room like nothing had happened.
I gripped the counter and tried to remember how to be a person.
***
Monday morning. I had a plan. The plan was simple: avoid Rhys Maddox completely, permanently, and with extreme prejudice.
The plan lasted until second period.
I was already seated in English Lit – front row, left side, my usual spot – when he walked in. Late. Unhurried. Every head in the room turning to track him because that was just what happened when Rhys Maddox entered a space.
He scanned the room. Dozens of open seats. Back rows, middle rows, empty desks everywhere.
He walked directly to the seat next to mine. Caleb's seat. The one Caleb had sat in all semester. The one with Caleb's jacket still hanging on the back of the chair.
Rhys picked up the jacket. Hung it on the empty desk behind him. Sat down.
Didn't look at me. Didn't need to. I could feel his presence like a sunburn.
The door opened eight minutes into the lecture. Caleb walked in – late, coffee in hand, the easy confidence of a man who'd never been told no by an institution in his life.
He stopped at his row. Looked at his seat. Looked at Rhys.
"You're in my seat."
Rhys didn't look up from the notebook he wasn't writing in.
"And?"
The entire class went still. Thirty people holding their breath. The professor's mouth opened and closed. Caleb's face darkened – that slow, dangerous shift from golden boy to something uglier underneath.
My heart dropped through the floor.
Again.
- Writer
