Page 3 of Broken Pieces

He smiles at me and I stand there dumbly staring back at him, my mouth hanging open like a damn fish.

He’s being nice to me.

Why is he being nice?

The last stepbrother I had was a complete jerk. He stole my stuff all the time and made me the butt of every joke at school. Lucky for me, Mom messed that relationship up somehow and we moved here.

“Um, sure, not like I have anything else to do now,” I say pointedly to Maddox.

Shrugging his shoulders, he starts walking away. “I’ll get the booze and ice cream.”

“Mad, you’re not getting our new sister drunk. Dad will kill us.”

Sister.

That word sends my brain to a screeching halt.

I’ve been ogling the pair of them, when they’re so far out of reach they may as well be in a different universe.

They’re my newbrothersand my brain would do well to remember that.

Maddox spins on his heel and walks backwards as he talks to us. “Correction. He’ll killme.You can do no wrong, brother. What about you? Will Charity kill you, if you have a little bit to drink with us?”

I cringe as he uses my mom’s first name. She really likes to live up to its meaning, making sure everyone sees both her and I as a charity case.

“I doubt my mom has even noticed I’m not there.”

Maddox raises an eyebrow at me, but doesn’t say anything more. I expected another snarky remark, but he gives me a small smile as if he understands exactly what I mean.

We start heading through the ballroom, because of course this house has a freaking ballroom.

Mom really landed on her feet this time, marrying a big shot lawyer. Hopefully she doesn’t mess it up, like she did with all the others.

My life has been a constant revolving door of different stepdads and houses to live in, ever since my real dad left when I was six.

Rather than get a job and make a home for the pair of us, my mom decided that men owed her something and has been using them to keep a roof over our heads instead.

I’d say,yay for feminism, if she wasn’t just the worst.

As we pass through the crowd of people in suits and fancy cocktail dresses, there’s a sudden chorus of people counting down. When they reach one, I look up and realize Mom’s thrown her bouquet and it’s coming straight towards my face.

Before I can even blink, it comes to a stop just an inch from my nose as Max catches it mid flight. He passes it to me and there’s an eruption of cheers as everyone smiles at us.

Max soaks up the applause like he’s used to it, but I on the other hand want to curl up into the tiniest ball and roll right out of here.

I can feel how red my cheeks are and I know that if I looked down, I'd see it spreading down to my chest. I hate that my body does that when I'm flustered.

I give Max’s arm a tug. “Please can we get out of here, before Mom drags me up there and starts giving a speech about how it was fate or some crap that you caught that.”

With a laugh, Max leans in and says, “Maybe it was.”

Oh God.

Is he flirting with me?

My heart is beating so hard it's going to burst out of my chest in a minute.

I must be crazy to think that he was.