A Very Dirty Christmas Read online

  "Crap." I pick up Brady in my arms. "Brade-man, I was just swimming underwater! Surprise!" Then he starts giggling.

  Hendrix already has his back toward me as he pulls himself out of the water to get towels. Part of me wants to explain my awkwardness, confront him about that night and get it out in the open. But the other part of me, the more reasonable side, reminds myself that as comfortable as it was this afternoon hanging out with him and Brady, that Hendrix is not my friend. He's on my parents' payroll, and he's pushing their agenda – and the studio's agenda.

  After Brady is fed dinner and bathed and curled up on the sofa in the living room, passed out before we even had a chance to watch the cartoon I'd bought, Hendrix sits on the loveseat across from the exhausted toddler and I. "You're good with him," he says.

  I shrug. "I would hope so. He's my only nephew."

  The silence between Hendrix and I, with nothing else to distract us, is practically deafening. Hendrix clears his throat and gives me a serious look, his brow wrinkled. "I don't know why you -- "

  As soon as he starts to speak, the knock on the door interrupts him, and I open it for Grace, the whole time wondering what Hendrix was going to say. "And?" I ask. "How was it?"

  "It was amazing!" she says. "I think they liked me. The photographer seemed happy, and said I was easy to work with and -- "

  "You look so great. I love the hair and the make-up and -- "

  "Tell me this is what it feels like when they do your hair and makeup and everything for your concerts and your events," she says. Her face is radiant, and she looks ecstatic.

  "Well -- " I start to say that it's really not, but then I stop. "It is," I lie. It felt that way in the beginning, but not anymore. Now it's just part of the routine, a burden more than anything, having to play a role. But I don't tell Grace that. Why ruin the magic? She's happy. And beautiful. "You should go surprise Roger."

  Grace smiles, but there's no joy behind her eyes. "I think I will," she says, glancing at her watch. "If he's home, I mean. He's working late a lot."

  "Roger is a corporate litigator," I tell Hendrix.

  "That's about the last thing you expected, I'm sure," Grace says, laughing. "Me and a freaking lawyer."

  Hendrix shrugs. "People change," he says. The words are directed at Grace, but Hendrix never takes his eyes off me.

  People change. I'm not sure if Hendrix is trying to convince me or himself.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HENDRIX

  SIX YEARS, FOUR MONTHS AGO

  "You're getting better," Addison says. She pulls herself out of the pool in one swift movement, her hands on the concrete edge, ignoring the steps that are less than three feet away, the same way she always does. I don't know why she doesn't get out of the pool like a normal person, other than the fact that nothing Addy does is normal. She's one of those people who looks normal on the outside, but turns out to have all these little quirks and things. Like the way she counts when she's nervous.

  I don't know if it's weird that I notice this stuff about her. No one else seems to. Of course, no one really seems to give much of a shit about what she does, other than if she's showing up at the studio or going on tour.

  That's my biggest problem. I notice way too much about Addison Stone. Like the fact that her eyes look so damn blue when she wears this one-piece navy swimsuit and matching swim cap, goggles perched on top of her head. It should be the most unattractive look ever. Except that it's not. The water runs down the sides of her face, and over her shoulders, and...holy shit...her breasts. Her nipples are hard through the fabric of her swimsuit, and I'm afraid to look down because my cock has got to be tenting the fabric of my trunks right now.

  "Dude," she says. "What, are you stoned?"

  "Huh? No. What?" I sound like a total idiot. "What were you saying?"

  "I said, will you hand me the towel?"

  "Oh." I reach down and grab the towel beside me and toss it to her, then turn away, adjusting the obvious bulge in my trunks. Fuck. I'm having a hard time -- pun intended -- hiding my response to her and I hope she hasn't noticed. I walk away, toweling off to conceal my erection, my back facing her, and try instead to focus on the most un-sexually attractive things I can think of. It barely helps.

  "You're getting better," she says. "Maybe you can go be a SEAL or something."

  "Fuck." I practically spit out the word. "Wouldn't that be a trip. The Colonel's head would explode."

  "Why?" she asks. I glance over my shoulder at her, and she's pulling the swim cap off her head and shaking out her hair. Damn it. She looks like an actress in one of those movies, when the girl shakes out her hair in slow motion as some slow porno-music plays on the soundtrack, hair tumbling down in waves, and I look away again.

  I can't keep coming out here like this, hanging out with her, talking to her like we're friends. Not with the way I'm starting to like her. And definitely not with the way I'm looking at her. "The Colonel is Army all the way," I say. "He considers every other branch inferior. Don't you know? He'd love it if I went into the Army."

  "Is that what you want to do?"

  I turn around, making sure to hide my junk with the towel. I'm still so damn hard I can barely think, and Addison wants to have a conversation about my life and my damn future. "What, you're going to ask what I want to do?"

  She looks taken aback. "What else would I ask?"

  "I don't know," I say. "No one else seems to give a shit. Are you doing what you want to do?"

  Addison laughs. "I'm fifteen," she says. "I'm a star."

  "That's not really an answer," I say.

  She just shrugs. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

  "I don't know. You're not that great at answering questions."

  "It's not related," she says. "I need a favor, since I'm helping you."

  I cock my head to the side. "You're helping me?"

  "I'm teaching you to swim, jerk-face."

  "Jerk-face?" I ask. "How old are you, twelve? Go on, I want to hear what kind of favor Addison Stone needs from me."

  "I need you to teach me how to drive."

  "You don't know how to drive yet?" I ask. "You're sixteen in...how long?"

  "Four months," she says. "I was on tour, and my mom has been..." Her voice trails off.

  "Preoccupied with my dad," I say, sighing.

  "You don't have to," she says, obviously misinterpreting my sigh as reluctance. I guess it wouldn't really be a misinterpretation. I don't want to spend any more time alone with Addison than I have to. I keep coming down to the pool at night, even though I know it's playing with fire. Addison is getting under my skin. It's Addison I talk to about things, down here at the pool. It's Addison I look forward to seeing every night like clockwork, and Addison I'm ditching dates for, just so I can continue our swim lessons. Addison is the one I've talked to about my mom's death, about what a douchebag my father is. It's Addison I want to talk to all the time.

  And that's a fucking problem.

  I need to get her out of my head. There are a hundred different girls I can go screw, girls that don't live in the same house with me. Girls who aren't my stepsister. And I've been fucking them. It's just that it's Addison's face I see when I'm in their beds. And it's Addison's name that's on my lips.

  "It's fine," I lie. I should tell her no.

  "Don't do it if you don't want to."

  "I said it's fine. We'll start this weekend. But if you fuck up my car, driving it like shit, you're going to buy me a new one."

  A grin spreads across Addison's face and she holds out her hand for me to shake. "Okay. Deal."

  * * *

  PRESENT DAY

  I strip off my shirt as I come in the apartment, careful to close the door quietly behind me. It's five in the morning, and I'm feeling energetic, despite my best efforts to wear the hell out of myself. Too damn energetic. I'm edgy and irritable as a result of being in close quarters with Addison. Last night, hanging out with her in the pool sent memories of all the nigh