Burned: A Stepbrother Romance Read Online Free PDF Page A

problem’s bigger than I imagined—five figures big.
    I’m sitting next to Brock on the granny flat sofa playing a video game about witches and dragons. Dragons that are witches? Witch-dragons? I really don’t know. Even when we were kids I was never good at this stuff.
    “You still suck,” he suggests, loping my head off with a battleaxe.
    “I don’t have time to sit around playing this crap.”
    “Could have fooled me.”
    I punch the buttons until my character’s holding the closest thing I can find to a knife. I use it to stab Brock’s repeatedly in the head, not that it seems to do the faintest amount of damage. Yeah, try that in real life. “When’s the club getting together again?”
    “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you enjoyed our little cruise the other night.”
    “Well, I was expecting actual racing. That is what street racers do, isn’t it?”
    “Ah, you want the real fast and furious, right? Danger to manifold and all that? Nos on tap 24/7? It doesn’t exist.”
    “No?”
    “Well…”
    “Show me.”
    “Give me one good reason.”
    “Hey, after that little peepshow this morning, I think you owe me .”
    He moves his legs together on the couch. “That was quite a spectacle, I must say.”
    “You didn’t enjoy it even in the slightest?”
    “Oh, I enjoyed it just fine.”
    “Then pay for it and show me the real deal. No more deserted carparks and dodgy kebabs.”
    “Alright. We leave at midnight.”
    “What a shocker.”
    *
    “Maddy.”
    I open my eyes and search through the darkness. It’s Brock, a firm hand on my shoulder trying to wake me up.
    I sit up, still on the couch and still in my uniform. I must have fallen asleep.
    “You coming?” he says.
    I rub the sleep from my eyes, yawning so wide I’m sure he can see what I had for breakfast. “Uh, yeah, sure.”
    “Might I suggest not wearing your police uniform to an illegal drag-racing meet?”
    I nod, groggy. “Good thinking.”
    I’m surprised to find a different car parked on the driveway outside. “What’s this?”
    “Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R V-Spec II.”
    “No, I mean where’s your Camaro?”
    “The boys are doing some work on it. Hernandez let me borrow his puppy tonight. Besides, these Japanese imports tend to blend in better where we’re going. Not enough low-down torque for my liking, mind you.”
    I walk around to the driver’s side trying to lay the cool on real thick. “I’ll give you talk.”
    The door swings up like a scissor with a psht of air.
    “You sure your name’s not Paul Walker?” I tease.
    Brock smiles, that wide, all-open grin I’ve been thinking about more and more over the last few days. “Just get in and shut up.”
    “I bet that’s what you tell all the girls.”
    I’m surprised at the speed by which Hernandez’s car takes off. Something whistles away under the hood and then releases a sort of cough. “Is everything alright with this car? Sounds unhealthy.”
    Brock shifts back a gear, the revs jumping and the whistling growing so loud someone could be boiling a kettle under there for all I know.
    “The engine’s turbocharged,” he tells me. “The whistling sound is the turbocharger spooling up and coming onto boost.”
    “And the cough-fart thing?”
    “The blow-off valve.”
    I crack up. “You serious? Don’t tell me that’s a real part.”
    He looks almost offended. “Of course.”
    “For letting off steam?”
    “Excess pressure,” he corrects. “It’s not ‘steam.’ This isn’t a locomotive we’re taking across the Wild West.”
    “Right, right.”
    I’m killing myself inside knowing this is getting to him. “What’s the appeal? Aren’t all cars the same?” A classic troll, but it has to be done.
    His head slams forward and his forehead hits the horn, a sharp beep! following. “Oh, you better be trolling me. Otherwise I’m just going to leave you here in Stabville to find your own way around.”
    “Don’t be such an ass. I’m just