I had already answered about a million questions about my stepbrother tonight. I had no desire to answer any more of them. "Yeah. Can we talk about something else, though?"
"Sorry," Dennis said. "It’s just he was sort of a legend for us, and he’s the only billionaire I know."
"He’s not a billionaire yet. At least not in liquid assets," I pointed out, though any sane valuation of his company put him at well over the billionaire mark.
Dennis laughed. "He’s close enough for me. Is he here?"
"Who, James? Here at the Statesman you mean? No."
"Good," he said, his eye scanning the room. "You know, I had a little bit of a crush on you when you were a freshman, but I didn’t have the balls to ask you out."
I blushed and smiled. "Well you should have just said something. I would have said yes."
"That’s not why I didn’t ask," he said, laughing. "Your brother made it clear to all of us just what would happen if we tried anything with you. You were off limits. Especially after what he did to that Tim Volker kid."
"He didn’t do anything to Tim Volker," I said, remembering that day.
I was a freshman at my locker and Tim, who was a creep with a date rapist reputation even in high school, had stopped me and asked me out. I was too nervous to say no and tried to talk my way around him, but whenever I tried to leave he blocked me from going, or grabbed my arm and pushed me back against my locker.
Then out of nowhere James was there, like a guardian angel answering my prayers. He slammed Tim back against the wall of lockers and just stared him down until Tim raised his hands, apologized, and walked away.
Tim never spoke to me again after that.
It was one of the few truly nice things James ever did. And in typical James fashion, when I went to thank him for it later, he acted like a jerk. He said he had no idea what I was talking about and told me to stop stalking him around school. His friends were all around, and their laughs had followed me all the way down the hall as I ran away.
"He just threw Tim against the lockers," I said with a shrug. “It was nothing.”
Dennis shook his head. "No. Like a week later he literally beat him bloody at a party. Don’t you remember he had stitches over his eyebrow for like a month?"
I didn’t, but then I had barely seen Tim again after that day at the lockers. "I didn’t know that."
"Yeah, well. Needless to say no one was eager to see if Tim was a special case or a warning to the rest of us."
I realized more than ever how much I didn’t understand my stepbrother. He was a jerk, but then, out of nowhere, he could transform into a knight in shining armor and ride in to save the day.
It was like the day he left for college. I had gone to his room to confront him, to try to make him realize how he had ruined my life. I walked into his room, ready to bitch him out. Without letting me say anything, he grabbed me, hugged me, and told me that he "wasn’t into tearful goodbyes"—a line that to this day I have trouble believing actually came out of that cruel, smirking mouth.
"Allie?" Dennis said. "You all right?"
"Sorry," I said, returning to planet earth. "I think I just need to get some air."
"Do you want to have a smoke?"
"Sure. But shouldn’t we wait for Tessa?"
Dennis smiled. "She’ll find us."
I let him walk me outside, stopping to grab my coat on the way. It was freezing, and I could see my breath make a blue cloud under the parking lot lights. I stopped when he walked off into the cars. "Where are you going?" I called out.
"I left my smokes in my car. Come on, we can smoke there so we don’t freeze."
I pursed my lips. It seemed obvious enough what he was trying and I wasn’t adverse to the idea of feeling his full lips on mine. But something bothered me and I hesitated.
"Or I can go grab them and we can smoke out here," he offered lamely.
"No, lets go to your car."
But once I got sat down in the passenger seat, Dennis made it clear he had no intentions of lighting up. His hand knocked my coat open and reached for my bare thigh, sliding up under my skirt before I could even yell at him to stop. "Hey!"