Pulse: A Stepbrother Romance by D.G. Whiskey

away since I’d gotten home from work and started up the laptop to work on the music. Not for the first time, I wished I could make my living this way.
    And not have to go into that dark hole of a building and waste eight hours every day for the rest of my life.
    Maybe if I only saw the crew for a few hours a week then they wouldn’t piss me off so much. They’d noticed how often I’d been skipping out on them, and they didn’t like it.
    Derek’s words twisted in my mind, providing a dark contrast to the music playing in my ears.
    Don’t you dare forget who your friends are. We’ve been through hell and back together. We stick together, and we live together, and we die together. If you aren’t our friend, then you’re our enemy, and you don’t want to be our enemy.
    For a man who lived in a sea of gray, Derek had a black and white view of the world.
    My phone rang, the latest completed track competing with the unfinished one. I muted the laptop before I answered.
    “Hi, Mom.”
    “Hey, sweetie. How are you?”
    I smiled. Somehow, although everyone else saw the tattoos and the rough crowd and the dead-end job, I would always be her sweetie.
    “I’m fine, Mom. As much as I ever am. How are you? I hope this marriage is already going better than the last one.”
    “Now, Christian, don’t go talking about your father that way. He blessed me with you boys, so I don’t regret him in the slightest.”
    I rolled my eyes. We both knew how useless dad had been, especially toward the end when he’d given up on everything. I never wanted to become like that, but part of me wondered if I hadn’t already taken the first few steps down that dark and twisted road.
    “Sure. Whatever. How’s Jerry?”
    “Jerry’s just perfect,” she sighed. “I can’t believe how lucky I am to be with a man like that.”
    “So you like him better than Dad.” I couldn’t resist the poke.
    “Christian! Neither man is better than the other, they’re just… different.” I wished I could have seen the look on her face as she tried to be polite to Dad’s memory.
    “Different by how much better Jerry is,” I muttered under my breath. “And to what do I owe your call?”
    She clucked. “Does a mother need an excuse to call her oldest son and see how he’s doing?”
    “I suppose not,” I said, still wary. “But that doesn’t mean you have nothing else to say.”
    “I wanted to make sure you and Leah were getting along okay, there in the city. I worry about you, Christian. I’m glad you have someone else there for support.”
    “That’s touching, Mom,” I said. “I’ve been living here for almost ten years now, you know. With no problems. And my own set of friends. I’m not exactly struggling for a lifeline.”
    Except that I need a change, and Leah is my best shot for making that change. And I might have driven her away.
    “Yes, well, I wanted you to know that it makes me happy to think of you two spending time together. You were so cute when you talked with her at the wedding.”
    “What? What are you talking about?”
    “Oh, come on, Christian. She’s a very attractive young woman, and you two are adults. I’m just saying it wouldn’t be the worst thing if…”
    “Mom!” I sputtered. How did this even come up? “Are you seriously trying to play matchmaker between your son and your stepdaughter?”
    I stared into my phone and pinched myself, making sure I was awake.
    “Well, it sounds kind of wrong when you put it that way, doesn’t it? It was just a thought, dear. I won’t speak of it again.”
    I crossed the room and flung myself onto the couch, staring up at the ceiling. I couldn’t tell her she wasn’t far off the mark. Could I?
    “Leah is pretty cool,” I admitted. “She’s passionate about her acting. I’ve never met anyone who was that committed to anything. You hear she got a role in a play?”
    “She got it? Jerry mentioned she had an audition and that’s why she spent so little time with