Hawk: A Stepbrother Romance Part 1

Hawk.

by Abigail Graham.

Hawk.

Now.

I can see her, standing in the woods. The light is fading as the sun heads for night and it throws golden rays between the trees and dapples the ground with long shadows. Alex stands with one foot up on a rock, her scuffed hiking boot claiming her territory as she surveys the hillside spreading out in front of us. In mid-summer, her skin is a golden honey color from tanning, except for hints of ghostly pale tan-lines around the bottoms of her Daisy Dukes and her arms where her t-s.h.i.+rt sleeves ride up. Her thick honey brown hair hangs loose to the shoulders and she looks back at me and smiles. I never knew her to wear makeup or need it, or wear any scent besides deodorant.

She stinks, she's been sweating like a pig for hours while we hike the trail through the game lands. I've never smelled anything sweeter.

Then my eyes open and I'm back on the bus.

Four years.

Sometimes I feel like I've been alive forever, like it's been so long since I left home that my bones have turned to stone. I don't feel like I'm twenty-two years old. More like twenty-two going on fifty. Sitting at the back of the bus, watching the world slide by. It's like I've been asleep, trapped in a nightmare and now I'm waking up, but the dream still has its hooks in me, pulling me back under into the dark place just over my shoulder. Here I sit on a stinking seat, a duffel bag containing all my worldly goods at my feet. A man on a mission.

The bus rumbles to a stop, pitching me forward in my seat. The brakes chuff and the door opens. I'm the only one to rise and descend the steps. I take three strides onto the sidewalk and the doors snap shut behind me and the great beast rolls off with a snort of black smoke and a belch of sulfur stink. How's my driving? Call this number. The bus rolls away and leaves me standing as a stranger in a strange land. I know where I am, I've stood in this spot before, but everything is different and everything is the same.

Up ahead there's a motel that was always there. Everybody used to call it the Jack Shack; it was Jack's Motor Lodge and now Jack must have sold it or he's dead, because it's a chain now. Next to that is a gas station that didn't used to be there and across the street is a Wal-Mart and a shopping center I don't recognize. In the distance I see two red lights blinking in sequence. That would be the new bridge, built to replace the one that collapsed when I was sixteen. Every time they light up they bruise the cloud cover, turning the gray a hazy red.

It's going to storm tonight and it's going to be a bad one.

The motel office is plain, smells vaguely of cleaning chemicals and the clerk is behind a panel of grimy bulletproof gla.s.s. Tobacco smoke slithers on the inside, leaving pale brown trails. The clerk stubs a cigarette out as I walk inside and shuffles up to the counter, waving away the smoke as if I'm not going to notice. I don't make any comment about that.

"Need a room?" he says.

I nod and he furrows big beetley eyebrows and slides a form through an opening in the gla.s.s. I fill out the form quickly. Forty-six bucks a night feels like a rip-off for this place. He wants to run my credit card for damages, and stares at me the whole time. I know why.

I'm six foot one and I weigh two hundred and forty pounds, all muscle. He can't see all of it because I'm wearing a s.h.i.+rt, but I have tattoos covering most of my upper body. Chains and th.o.r.n.y vines weave around the arm and the V-neck of my s.h.i.+rt exposes the eye of the hawk spreading its wings across my chest. His eyes focus for an instant on the outline of my dog tags under my s.h.i.+rt and he relaxes, but not completely. After the credit card machine makes a little noise, he folds copies of the papers and hands them to me with a key on a plastic fob.

Good, now I have a place to sleep while I make plans to kill my father.

I step out, twirling the key. The first peal of distant thunder rumbles as I walk along under the overhang to Room 26. The door sticks a little and the inside smells like moth b.a.l.l.s. The air conditioner rattles like a rock crusher and after half a minute it doesn't feel cold on my hands.

There's a bed and a toilet. It'll do.

I drop my bag on one bed -for some reason, they gave me two twins- and head to shower off the grime of travel. I don't have much to my name, just a few changes of clothes and a second, worn pair of boots. I banked as much of my pay as I can, lived like a monk. No booze, no bars, no strip clubs, no wh.o.r.es. Eat, sleep, do my duty. Every day unless they forced me to go on leave.

Waiting, biding my time.

Showered up and changed into my other set of clothes, I jaywalk across the highway to the strip mall and head into the Wal-Mart, find the cheapest clothes that will fit, some packaged food and other random sundries, endure the stares of the checkout girl and head back over to the motel. I sit on a folding metal chair and twirl my keys as my new wardrobe turns in the was.h.i.+ng machine.

My legs quiver, and my hands keep making fists. It takes every ounce of concentration I have not to just get up and head into town now. I have to see her. I have to make sure she's okay.

Who the f.u.c.k am I kidding? There's no way she's okay.

While I was in the service, my father got married, and along with that comes two new stepsisters.

The oldest, Alexis, is a lot more to me than a stepsister. Was. Is. I don't know. I haven't heard her voice or spoken to her since I left, abruptly. One day I was there and that night I was on my way to Philadelphia with enough cash in my pocket to hole up at the YMCA until it was time for me to s.h.i.+p out to basic training. I had a choice so I picked the Navy. I liked boats.

I was never even on a f.u.c.king s.h.i.+p.

I don't want to think about where I've been, only where I'm going.

For four years I was basically off the grid. No social media of any kind, I didn't even email. Just an angry loner, but everybody loves a corpsman so no one cared. Doc is everybody's best friend, except when I was giving out vaccinations. The dryer runs and bugs swarm around a dying yellow light. It smells like ozone now. The storm is getting closer. The laundry is under an overhang in a gap between two halves of the motel. When I walk out, I feel the first soft touches of rain on my head, run my fingers over my hair.

I can grow it back out again, I guess. At least for now. Alex always liked to play with my hair. It was a s.h.a.ggy mop, I only cut it when I was made to, maybe twice a year.

Back in the room, I fold everything, lay out clothes for tomorrow on the other bed and rip the cheap polyester comforter back on mine. The air conditioner still sounds like someone dumped a bucket of gravel inside, but it's gone cold enough to make the room bearable. It'll be a hot one tomorrow if this storm breaks overnight. If not it'll be rainy and everyone's Fourth of July will be ruined.

Of course it doesn't matter. I'm here to rain on their parade either way.

I smile to myself a little at that one. Alex would laugh at it, even if it is unbearably cheesy.

A reality show drones on the television and rain starts drumming on the metal sh.e.l.l of the air conditioner. I see a flash but don't hear the thunder.

It feels like a minute has pa.s.sed when a thunderclap wakes me. It rattles the windows and shakes the floor. It must be close, maybe even struck something in town. Another flash and I can't count one before thunder hammers the windows and rattles the door. h.e.l.l of a storm. I've slept through worse.

Then it's morning, and the storm has pa.s.sed. The window is still streaky but sunlight cuts through, slicing a bright hot line down the middle of the room until I throw the curtains open all the way. Paradise Falls has a certain feel after a summer storm, the air looks heavy. It's going to be a hot one today. I can taste it.

Before I leave, I make sure my duffel is packed and ready to be grabbed at a moment's notice.

Then I start walking.

It's a long walk to town from out here. Like most small to mid sized towns out here, there's an older core of hundred year old houses and shops and a second town that springs up, all sprawl and shopping centers. All of that is confined over here, to the west of town across the river. The bridge connects the two halves, old and new. There's broad walking paths on either side, and as I walk across, a few cars zip by, throwing blasts of hot air at their pa.s.sing. Over the river, the humidity is unbearable. The river is running high from the rain and mists rise up to swallow the bridge before falling back down, carried by the wind.

Alex used to run with me from one side to the other. On the right days when the wind would blow just right we'd both end up soaked on the other side, the sticky humid summer air leaving all the sweat slick on our bodies. Alex would stop at the end and lean on her knees, panting, then stand up, laugh, and bolt for the other side, leaving me to catch up. She could outrun the devil, run faster than anyone I've ever known.

By the time I reach the far side, I'm sweating through my s.h.i.+rt, but I don't really care. Everyone else will be sweltering in this heat, too. In the distance I hear music and the faint sounds of a crowd. Over the rooftops I can see hints of a carnival; the top of a Ferris Wheel, the end of the big swinging pirate s.h.i.+p popping up over the roof line here, then there as it swings almost vertical before falling back. The carnival comes to the grounds of the Lutheran church every year for the Fourth of July.

Alex is sitting at one of the picnic tables eating a funnel cake, frosting and powdered sugar smeared all over her face as she tries to lick her fingers clean and make sit worse. When I laugh at her, she grabs a great steaming hot chunk of the funnel cake and rams it in my mouth, sneering at me. I end up eating it out of her hand and licking her fingers clean. It only makes them stickier.

Closer, now. I can see the sawhorses and Paradise Falls cops standing around in their goofy dress uniforms, sweating like pigs. They pay me no mind as I walk past, into the crowd.

Commerce Street, the main road through Paradise Falls, runs from one end of town to the other where it stops in a cul-de-sac surrounded by the old city hall and munic.i.p.al buildings. Shops used to line both sides of the street. When I left, two-thirds of those were closed and now it looks worse. Bunting and posters cover the empty black windows, like a poor attempt at covering for missing teeth. Most of the town must be here, mingling. With the road closed off, they stand and mill around right in the middle of the street. Kids are getting their faces painted, cotton candy bobs in a dozen hands all around me.

All around are signs touting that this has all been paid for by Friends of Thomas Richardson.

That'd be my father.

Curious, I walk further up, glancing at all the signs. Friends?

That sounds like a political campaign, doesn't it?

Then I stop, freeze, and stare. There's a pair of hot dog carts on the sidewalk, the chrome s.h.i.+ning in the brilliant, cloudless sunlight. Atop each cart is a sign advertising FREE HOT DOGS with a smaller Provided by Richardson for Mayor underneath, and two girls, one manning each of the carts. It takes me a moment of dull staring to recognize Alexis.

She looks just like she did the day I left. Deep tan, honey brown hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, her sharp brown eyes quick and perceptive, focused on the teenage boy taking a hot dog from her hands. Alexis is wearing a Richardson for Mayor T-s.h.i.+rt, big white block letters on blue stretched across her chest. She's filled out a little, I can see now. Broader hips, fuller chest, but her arms are still corded with smooth, feminine muscle, her shoulders still powerful. Her expression sets something off. So flat and lifeless, like a mask, but her eyes are still oh so sharp.

The cart next to her has to be manned by Alexis' sister, May. The last time I saw her, she was twelve years old, now she has to be what, sixteen? The spitting image of her sister, a couple of inches shorter and a little thinner, she's handing out the free hot dogs too.

I came here knowing at some point I would see Alexis. Talk to her, hear her voice, look on her face again. I've been trying to plan what I could say, how I could say it. I know she's not going to be happy to see me after four years without a word, and I don't know what they told her about where I went or what happened to me. I don't know anything about what's happened to her while I was gone except that she's not supposed to be here. She had a full-ride scholars.h.i.+p to the University of Delaware to study biology; she wanted to be a marine biologist. I know her plans didn't involve handing out hot dogs to get my father elected mayor. Alexis can't stand him, and the feeling was always mutual.

What the f.u.c.k is going on here?

I slip into the line and start inching my way towards the hot dog cart. Alexis glances my way once or twice but her eyes slide over me. She keeps looking around, like she's expecting to see someone.

Cold fear punches into my gut and tightens into a fist. Maybe she is looking for someone. A boyfriend. Maybe she moved on, let me go, forgot about me. I should turn back. I should do what I came here to do and leave her out of it.

I can't now, though. I have to find out why she'd be helping my father, what the h.e.l.l she'd be doing here, doing this. It's weird that May is here, too. Both of them, serving hot dogs.

Two more people, then it's my turn. One.

I step up to the cart, and Alexis mechanically slaps a hot dog into a bun with a pair of tongs and halfway holds it out to me, only to stop and stare, her eyes going wide as her gaze moves up my chest and settles on my face. Her hand trembles.

"Make me one with everything."

Alexis herself taught me that one. She loved dumb cheeseball jokes like that.

What did the Zen master say to the hot dog man?

Her mouth falls open, and she pulls the hot dog back. A red flush spreads on her face, and her mouth pinches shut, her expression hardening from slack boredom to anger. Very slowly, she lays a thin strip of mustard on the hot dog, then a thin strip of ketchup, and then a wide layer of relish down the middle, then onions. It looks like a TV hot dog, an advertis.e.m.e.nt. She holds it in her hands reverently.

"Here you go, Hawk."

Then she mashes it into my chest with both hands and grinds the heels of her hands into the mess, smearing it all over my s.h.i.+rt, turns, and bolts.

I blink a few times and look over at Alex's sister.

"Well?" May says. "Go after her."

The hot dog plops to the ground as I skirt around the cart and run after Alexis.

I can see her ponytail swaying in the air as she darts and weaves between people. I'm not so nimble, I almost knock someone over as I close in on her. She spares me a brief glance and leans into it.

She can still run like the devil.

Then she veers off, turning quickly down an alley, moving so fast I stumble and have to stop and change direction to catch up to her.

She's waiting for me, facing me. I skid to a stop on my newly bought sneakers and Alexis rises to her tip-toes, grabs my head in her hands, and kisses me. Hard.

Her lips are soft and warm, and just to kiss her is like swallowing a spoonful of warm honey. I almost pull her against me but I don't want hot dog fixin's all over her s.h.i.+rt, so I settle for holding her by the hips instead.

She breaks from the kiss and pulls back, an unreadable look on her face, somewhere between regret, nostalgia, and anger.

Then she c.o.c.ks her arm and punches me in the face.

Hard.

Alexis.

Now.

I turn and duck into the alley. I have to get off the street. I know he's right behind me, and he'll be on me any second. He's so big. Hawk was always a big lummox but he's huge now, a real man monster, and those tattoos! What the h.e.l.l happened to him? Where did he go? The questions make my eyes burn as I catch my breath and he rounds the corner, comes at me with a big green, yellow and red stain on his s.h.i.+rt from the hot dog. I don't even know why I did that, it just sort of happened. He made that stupid hot dog joke (that I taught him) and then I was shoving it into his s.h.i.+rt and running.

He moves down the alley, draws closer to me. I stand my ground, but my knees shake.

It's him, it's him, it's him.

I dreamed of this for four years. When I was in deep, dark places I prayed, pleaded, begged for him to walk back into my life, pick me up and save me. Now he's here and he smells like pickle relish and he's real, he's standing right in front of me. Instinct takes over before I really think and my lips are on his, his skin under my palms. I almost throw myself at him, but pull back at the last second before I smear condiments all over my chest. His hands fall on my hips, his grip tight, his thumbs pressing slow circles into my sides. When he kisses me, something inside me twists up into a tight ball and my heart flutters.

I never kissed him before.

He never gave me a chance.

That's the other side of the coin, the other end of the equation. I pull back with a sharp breath, c.o.c.k back and crack him right in the face. I think it hurt my hand more than it hurt him, even if he staggers and clutches his jaw while he stares at me. I shake out my hand, trying to stop my knuckles from throbbing, and keep shaking until my fingers feel loose. Then I fold my arms over my chest to stop from rubbing my hand, trying to make it stop stinging. I feel like I just punched a sandbag with a brick in it.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?"

"I live here."

I'm not sure if he's just dazed or that was his trademark charming wit. I scowl at him.

"Four years, Hawk. Four. Years. Where've you been?"

"I joined the Navy."

I blink a few times. "What?"

"You know, the Navy? Boats, uniforms, anchors aweigh my boy?"

"What the h.e.l.l for?"

He shrugs. "My options were limited. Alex-"

"Don't you 'Alex' me," I shout, then lower my voice.

G.o.d, I don't know who might be listening.

"Hawk, four years. Not a word. No text messages, no post cards, nothing. You fell off the face of the planet after-"

After what? What am I going to say? What actual obligation did he have to stay? At any point were we more than just friends?

It's not a question I want to answer, because I've been pining for him all this time. Look at him now, muscled like a Greek G.o.d, and good Lord those tattoos are hot. I feel a weird urge to lick his arms and see what they taste like. There's more under his s.h.i.+rt- I can see a bird or something where the relish juice soaked through. Knowing him, it's probably a hawk. He starts towards me and I take a step back.