Change of Heart

  Because they knew that every time I teased and every time I made fun, it wasn’t malicious. I loved the family that had taken me in. I’d kill for them. And every time someone looked at our family, with slender me and curvy Kate, and blond Henry, and identical Hispanic Alex and Abraham, and dark-skinned Trevor, I made a joke of it.

  Because it didn’t matter to me. I wasn’t making fun of them—I was making fun of the world. The society we lived in. The people who stared. The people who cared how much we weighed and how successful the logging company was. The ones who asked questions with their noses turned up.

  If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me what nationality I was, I’d buy a fucking Dutch Bros. coffee trailer just so they could make me an iced Caramelizer whenever I wanted without having to wait in line. Actually, you fucking busybody, I have no idea what nationality I am because I have no idea who my father was. None. My mom was fucking so many men that she had no idea, either. For all I knew, I may have been filling out forms wrong that asked if I was Native American for my entire life.

  I inhaled deeply through my nose.

  I was hard to take. I knew that. But I’d never felt judged by these people. They’d never taken me at face value—they’d always read between the lines. They’d heard what I meant, not what I said.

  But all of a sudden, after fourteen years, I didn’t feel safe in the Evans house. I felt like I was coming out of my skin. Like they hated me. Like they didn’t understand me. Like I didn’t belong.

  I lifted a shaking hand to my spoon and stirred my chili, trying to control my breathing as the voices droned on around me. I needed to leave. I needed to get away from them. But I was afraid of calling attention to myself by getting up from the table.

  What if Dan yelled at me again?

  I was twenty-nine years old and afraid of getting scolded like a child. I clenched the hand on my lap into a fist and shuddered.

  “We gotta head out, Mom,” Bram said as I continued to stir my food.

  “We?”

  “Yeah, I told Ani I’d take her to Jay’s bar.” I jerked in surprise as I heard Bram say my name, but I didn’t lift my head.

  “But, you just—”

  “We’ll see you later.” He was quiet for a second, and I could picture him kissing the side of his mom’s head the way he always did. “Thanks for dinner.”

  I sat frozen as he came around the table, but climbed to my feet when his hand reached out. I gripped it as he pulled me out of the room while I successfully avoided everyone’s eyes.

  “Shit!” Dan roared in the kitchen as we were walking out the front door.

  I couldn’t stop the sob that bubbled out of my mouth, and I instantly slapped my hand over it.

  “Hey,” Bram said quietly.

  “It’s fine. Fun dinner, huh?” I said jokingly, taking a couple steps toward my car without looking at him. “I figure it’s a success if I can piss off the guy with the lobotomy. I mean, really. That’s skill.”

  “Ani,” Bram cut in warningly.

  “Just another day of being me—pissing off war veterans and their children. It’s a gift.”

  “Anita,” Bram called.

  “What?” I snapped back, raising my eyes to meet his.

  “Where are you going?”

  I looked at my car, then back to Bram. “Uh, home?”

  “You don’t want to go to Jay’s?” he asked gruffly.

  “Wait, that was a real thing? I thought you were just getting me out of there—thanks for that by the way—”

  “Do you want to go or not?” he asked in irritation.

  I looked at my car again, then back at Bram.

  “Sure, okay,” I finally answered.

  “Then get in the fucking truck.”

  I scowled, then stomped past him.

  “You have to bring me back to get my car tomorrow. I’m sure as shit not coming back here tonight,” I ordered, moving around the hood of the truck.

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.” I turned on my heel and ran back to my car to grab my purse as Bram grumbled behind me, climbing into the truck and honking the horn as he started it.

  What a fucking gentleman.

  Chapter 5

  Bram

  I’d never been so pissed at my dad in my entire life.

  When we’d moved in with Dan and Liz when we were kids, I was weary. That was probably the best word. Alex and I had been moved from home to home, never staying anywhere for long since we’d gone into the system at age seven. I’d known even then that our moves were my fault.

  Alex was cute. He was funny. He got along with everyone and was perpetually happy.

  I was the problem. I was the one who had an attitude and didn’t seem to connect with anyone. Who brooded and sat silently in the corner of the room during Christmas and birthday parties.

  If it hadn’t been for me, Alex probably would have been adopted right away when our mom died. Fortunately for me, the state hadn’t been comfortable separating a pair of identical twins, because if they were, I would’ve never seen my brother again.

  So yeah, I’d been angry, pretty much all the time. Angry with our mom, and the foster care system, and the world in general, but since we’d moved in with Dan and Liz, I’d never been seriously angry at either of them.

  I’d chafed at their restrictions as a teenager, but the love behind the rules hadn’t let me stay mad for long. I’d been irritated as fuck when Dan didn’t want to hand over the company to me—even though he’d been talking about it for years—but I’d understood it.

  But watching him yell at Ani that night had busted something loose in my chest, and I’d wanted to reach across the table and knock him out of his fucking chair.

  That shit scared me. I’d learned to hold my temper within two years of coming to live at the Evans house—and in thirty seconds all that self-control had completely evaporated and I’d wanted to hurt him.

  I glanced over at Ani. She was sitting with her head tilted back, her eyes steady on the road in front of us. She hadn’t said a word since we’d pulled out of my parents’ driveway.

  The fucked-up thing about the whole situation was that I’d started it at the kitchen table. Shit was getting worse and worse between Ani and me, and everyone was noticing. We weren’t arguing. We weren’t even looking at each other.

  So when she’d made that crack about Shane playing in the sand, I jumped on it. It had given me a reason to snap back at her the way I usually did. It worked.

  What she’d said was irritating as hell, but I’d known that Ani wasn’t implying that Shane’s job was unimportant—hell, we all knew that—but I’d just needed the excuse to get her going.

  I hadn’t anticipated her trying to leave or my dad losing his shit. But I should have seen it coming. I knew how Dad felt about the military—especially his sensitivity to deployments and discussions about going overseas. He’d been a Marine in Vietnam. But I’d been so glad to finally get her bitching at me that I hadn’t stopped while I was ahead.

  When she’d dropped back down in her seat, and her chest rose and fell frantically as she stared at her lap, I wanted to pick her up and drag her out of there. It hadn’t gone the way I’d planned.

  I think I might have hurt her—or at least opened her up to be hurt—and that had never been my intention.

  Fuck.

  “You wanna grab something to eat?” I asked as we drove through town. “You didn’t eat.”

  “Not hungry,” she said back quietly. “Thanks though.”

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Forget about it, okay?” she said, turning to look at me. “It wasn’t a big deal. I just don’t like to be yelled at.”

  “I yell at you all the time,” I argued, for no reason except to make sure she kept talking, if only to contradict me.

  “Yeah—but it’s different with you.”

  “Oh, yeah? Why is that?” I asked as I changed lanes so I could go over a bridge that would bring
us downtown.

  “Because I’m usually yelling back,” she replied with a snort.

  “True.”

  “Can we just drop it?” she asked tiredly. “I just want to go, get a beer, and watch you sing. You’re singing, right?”

  “Yep.” I cursed as a bicyclist cut in front of me with no sense of self-preservation whatsoever.

  “Jesus, does that guy have a death wish?” Ani asked, rolling down her window to yell at the bicyclist stopped at the light in front of us. “Hey, jackass! Watch where the fuck you’re going!”

  I laughed as the bicyclist flipped her off, and locked the doors quickly as she tried to climb out of the truck.

  “Just stay inside, psycho.”

  “That dick just flipped me off!”

  “Yeah, after you called him a jackass.”

  “I could take him.”

  “You probably could,” I agreed as we watched the spandex-wearing bicyclist take off at the green light, “but he’s got about fifty pounds on you, and you’d never catch him on foot.”

  “Chase him in the truck?” she asked seriously.

  “Nah, don’t want to be late. Jay likes me to kick off the open-mike night.”

  “Fine,” she pouted, and suddenly the night was looking up.

  It was looking up until we parked across from Jay’s bar and Ani immediately started fucking stripping.

  “What the hell?” I blurted, my voice coming out a lot higher than it had been since I was fourteen.

  “What?” she asked in confusion, pushing her jeans down her thighs and off her feet.

  “Put your damn pants back on,” I ordered, turning the truck off.

  “No way. I’m not wearing those in there.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “Because they’re my at-home jeans. They’re ratty, and they sag at my ass.”

  I stared as she flipped down the visor and slid a tongue ring in expertly, then delicately pulled the septum ring down and out of her nostrils.

  “You’re not going in there without pants,” I argued as she turned her head to smile at me.

  “Sure I am.” She jumped out of the truck before I could stop her.

  “Anita!” I yelled, making her grin as I rounded the hood.

  “You’re yelling,” she said.

  “Sorry.” I grimaced.

  Ani laughed, and then adjusted her shirt.

  Jesus. It was a tank top, but she’d pulled it down to just under her ass cheeks, the lace at the bottom giving just a couple inches more length.

  “See—it’s a dress.”

  “It’s not a fucking dress.” I swallowed hard as she adjusted the thin straps at her shoulders.

  “Sure it is. Let’s go.”

  I followed her across the street, trying not to stare at her small but perfectly rounded ass as it moved underneath the thin material.

  “Are you even wearing underwear?” I asked, glaring at the idiots smoking by the door.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” she teased as she entered the dark bar.

  Jesus.

  “Can I get a Hefeweizen?” Ani asked as she stepped up onto the bar’s foot rail and leaned up against the counter, making her shirt rise up the backs of her thighs. I stepped quickly behind her so she wouldn’t flash the bar, and she instantly leaned back against me, her elevated height making her ass nestle right into my crotch.

  “Fuck,” I hissed, my hand coming up to grip her hip.

  Ani’s smiling face turned toward me. “Actually, make that two.”

  “I’m going to fucking kill you if I have to get on that stage with my dick hard,” I warned, pulling her tighter against me.

  “Then you should probably back up,” she retorted, standing up straight so her back was pressed up against my chest and her weight was resting against me.

  It would be so easy to run my hand around her front and slide my fingers into her cunt without anyone knowing. The way we were pressed against the crowded bartop hid her from just below her ribs, and the tank top was so high on her thighs I wouldn’t even have to move it.

  “Two Hefs,” the bartender announced, smiling at me.

  “Thanks, Rach,” I replied, pulled out of my fantasy. I pulled a twenty out of my pocket and set it on the bar.

  As soon as the bartender had moved away, Ani spun around so she was facing me, leaning back on her elbows and making it infinitely harder not to fuck her right there in the bar.

  It was getting ridiculous. I didn’t know where the hell it was coming from, but the sudden attraction was almost overwhelming. I’d always thought Ani was pretty—she was pretty by anybody’s standards. Her features were small, and she had pouty lips and clear blue eyes, and even though she was tiny, she was rounded in all the right places. But I hadn’t wanted to fuck her until that stupid fucking kiss almost a month ago when I’d been trying to protect the bruised ego of a drunk girl.

  Apparently, I’d opened Pandora’s box. And by the way her eyes were dilating as she stared at my mouth, I’d opened it for both of us.

  Jay started his usual spiel about only singing covers and I cleared my throat, making Ani’s gaze meet mine.

  “I should get up there,” I said roughly. How the fuck I was going to walk with the hard-on from hell tenting my jeans, I had no idea.

  “Yeah.”

  “Stop with the fuck-me eyes.”

  “You really want me to stop?” she asked quietly, leaning forward a little.

  I cleared my throat again, my hand tightening at her hip. “Fuck no.”

  Her lips tilted up in a smile, and she leaned forward even farther, taking my bottom lip into her mouth and sucking on it gently. The tide broke.

  I slid my leg between hers and leaned down farther so I could slide my tongue into her mouth as her hands came up to rest against my jaw.

  I didn’t understand what the fuck was happening, but I hadn’t lied. I didn’t want her to stop looking at me like she was. I didn’t want her to stop kissing me or driving me fucking insane with her tight little body.

  I knew I was fucked, but in a crowded bar in Portland, an hour from our homes and almost completely anonymous, I just wanted to keep kissing her and feeling her little tits pressed up against my chest.

  “Abraham, come on, man!” Jay’s annoyed voice broke through the fog of lust in my head.

  “Shit,” I complained, pulling away.

  “Go,” she said back, pushing at my chest.

  I glanced down her body while Jay gave me more shit from up on the stage. “Stay right here, all right?”

  “Where would I go?”

  “I don’t fucking know, but I don’t want anyone messing with you.”

  “Bram,” she said in annoyance, rolling her eyes.

  “You’re in nothing but a tank top, and I’m already on the fucking edge after that shit tonight,” I warned, taking a step back.

  “That shit tonight?” she growled back, stepping down from the foot rail.

  “You think I didn’t see your face when Dad—”

  “Bram—let’s go!” Jay yelled into the mike, making it squeal.

  “Fuck. Stay here,” I ordered, turning around to make my way through the crowd.

  I was anxious as fuck to leave her to cross the bar, but I’d promised Jay I’d open up for him. Usually people weren’t in a hurry to sign up at open-mike night. They came wanting to get up onstage, but it took a bit for them to gather up the balls to do it. That’s where I came in. I’d been playing in Jay’s bar for the past couple of years, and I was pretty comfortable up there. I made it look easy. Simple. I wasn’t great, but I wasn’t bad, either. By the time I was done with one or two songs, people had usually filled in the open spots on the sign-up sheet.

  “Hello, patrons of Jay’s,” I said, leaning into the mike as I took Jay’s guitar from him and set the strap over my shoulder. “How drunk are you?”

  The crowd cheered, and I smiled, looking over to Ani.

  She was sitting at a bar st
ool with her legs crossed, her ass almost hanging out of her tank top as she sipped from her beer, her eyes on me. Her lips were turned up around the rim of her glass, and I couldn’t help but smile back.

  What the fuck was she doing to me?

  * * *

  “You did so good tonight,” Ani said sleepily from the passenger seat later that night.

  “Thanks,” I said quietly as we finally pulled into the little subdivision I lived in.

  My town house wasn’t much, but I owned it outright, and the homeowners’ association took care of the yard and shit so I didn’t have to. When I’d started looking for a place a couple years before, all I’d found were three- and four-bedroom houses in our little town. Homes for families. I didn’t really want or need that much space. So when they’d started building town houses on the edge of the city limits, I’d jumped on one. My house was a place I crashed—nothing more, nothing less—and I didn’t want the hassle of trying to keep up with the yard and maintenance and shit.

  “You’re not dropping me at home?” Ani asked, a small smirk on her lips as I pulled into my one-car garage.

  “Just noticed that, huh?” I joked, shutting off the truck and pressing the garage door remote on my visor. I’d passed the turnoff to her place more than a mile back.

  “I’m not very observant,” Ani mocked, jumping from the truck to the cement floor.

  As I rounded the truck, she stepped in front of me, reaching for the door to the house. She probably would have made it, too.

  But she hadn’t put her pants on when we’d climbed back into the truck, and as she’d sat in the cab, the bottom of her tank top had ridden higher and higher. By the time she reached the doorway to my house, the bottoms of her ass cheeks were peeking out of the lace along the bottom edge of her shirt.

  By the sway in her hips, she knew it.

  “You like teasing me?” I murmured in her ear as I wrapped my arm tightly around the front of her body, stopping her in the open door.

  “You like it,” she replied with a small laugh, arching her back.

  “Floor, wall, kitchen table, or bed?” I asked, pushing her ahead of me into the dark house without letting go of her.