Stepbrother HOT! (The Stepbrother Romance Series - Book #3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

tried taking away his privileges, but he
just got worse.” Mom shrugged.
    “He’s definitely got your spirit then, doesn’t he?”
Bob shook his head.
    “I at least had some sense when I was his age,” Bob
said, rolling his eyes. “He wasn’t content to just be a pest. He started
drinking. He went out to parties, you know—and I caught him swiping bottles of
my gin, my whiskey.” Bob shook his head. “He was getting drunk at school!”
    “Ah but kids do that,” Mom tried to laugh it off. My
heart started pounding in my chest. I knew this was going bad. I thought of how
Jaxon was in the frat; sure he drank, but he wasn’t the kind of person to go to
class drunk. He partied when it was time to party and worked when it was time
to work. He had tutored me in bio! He wasn’t some loser.
    “Well, then he started going in a downward spiral. I
couldn’t check it. He was going out all nights of the week. Jaxon—he got caught
stealing from some store, some cheap liquor store in the bad part of town. He
landed himself in juvenile detention three times in one year.” That was way
more serious than I expected. Jaxon in Juvy ? That made no sense. I shook my head.
    “I don’t believe it,” I said, in spite of wanting to
stay silent. Bob nodded, filling his cup with more wine.
    “Believe it, Mia—your brother used to be a total
loser. He got caught stealing a car once! He took the neighbor’s Mercedes out
on a joyride while skipping school. So of course he got himself caught and was
hauled before the judge on truancy as well as theft.” Bob shook his head.
    It was insane. Jaxon, stealing a
car? Cutting classes, getting drunk , going to
juvenile detention? It didn’t add up. Sure Jaxon partied hard, and he belonged
to the frat that had a reputation for the wildest pranks and the craziest
adventures. I knew all the guys in the frat. They weren’t bad—but they were
definitely rambunctious. I couldn’t picture Jaxon stealing things or going to
school drunk, or ending up in court because he’d stolen a car. It was a totally
different kind of thing.
    I didn’t look at Jaxon; I couldn’t look at him. I
knew it was horrible enough for him. He had to be getting upset. The night
before, he had nearly gotten into a fight with his father for hinting at his
misdeeds. If even half of what Bob was saying was true, Jaxon probably wanted
to move on, to forget it—how would it help him if his dad kept bringing it up?
    My mom laughed and I looked at her; she took a sip
of her wine but I could tell she was just as uncomfortable as I was. I saw her
glance at Jaxon and then she put her wineglass down. “Well, you know, Bob, kids
are all crazy when they’re teenagers,” she said, putting her hand on his knee
to make him stop before he interrupted her. “I mean, Mia was pretty wild
herself. I remember,” Mom laughed again. “How old were you, Mia? I think 14 or
was it 15? Anyway…” I groaned. I knew the story that Mom was going to tell. I
hoped against hope that it would at least take some of the pressure off of
Jaxon—maybe distract Bob for a while.
    “Mom, that story is so dumb,” I said, playing along.
I didn’t dare look at Jaxon, but I could see him out of the corner of my eye;
he was getting tenser and tenser, looking like he was about to blow. “I just
did stupid kid things.”
    “Oh yeah, stupid kid things—like the time you tried
to skip classes by telling the nurse you had a fever and you put the
thermometer in your thermos. That’s just stupid kid stuff. The really good one
though was totally out of left field.” I rolled my eyes, pretending to be put
off by my mom’s story. It was dumb, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as any of the things that Bob had said Jaxon had done . But
maybe it would help.
    “Mom no one wants to hear it,” I looked at her. She
knew I was playing along with her—in spite of how mad at me she must have been,
I could see she was a little relieved that I was still able to read