Forbidden Prescription 3: MFM Ménage Stepbrother Medical Romance (Forbidden Medicine) Page 18

  He saw me and blinked the sleep from his eyes. “Emma?”

  His memory was better than mine. I dried my hair with another towel and tossed it aside, heading for the closet to get some clean clothes.

  “She’s gone. I woke up and she wasn’t here.”

  I looked at him in time to catch his frown. “She actually walked out on us?”

  I sighed, pulling on some pants and turning to face him. “Are you really surprised? Yeah, she was into what we did last night, but she was nervous about it, to begin with. And she was worried about people finding out, she probably doesn’t want it to get back to her mom.”

  “Yeah… I remember Mrs. Davis used to be pretty strict. I doubt dad would approve, either.” He paused, laughed. “Well, if it was one of us with twins, he’d secretly approve, though he wouldn’t say it out loud because he’s supposed to be a responsible parent.”

  I rolled my eyes. I didn’t know if that was true, but I wouldn’t put it past the old man.

  “Go get a shower and get dressed. I’ll call for breakfast. Unless you’d rather go eat out?”

  “Nah, just order something.” He slipped out of the bed, unselfconscious about being naked, headed for the bathroom. “So long as I get coffee, I won’t care so long as the food is edible.”

  As he went for his shower, I reached for the hotel phone and made the call downstairs. He took a while. He was coming out when the food arrived at the door. I left him to get dressed as I went to get the food and tip the staff member that brought it up.

  Five minutes later, he was sitting on the couch, pouring himself a cup of steaming, black coffee, and sitting back with it held in both hands, eyes closed as he breathed in the aroma and sighed in contentment.

  I laughed.

  “Fuck you.” He removed one hand from the cup to give me the finger, and then took a sip of his hot coffee

  “Whatever, princess. Just hurry up, okay? We’re going to see dad.”

  He groaned. “Do we have to? Didn’t we see him yesterday?”

  I raised an eyebrow at that, but he didn’t see. “Yes, we were with dad yesterday. But then someone decided he was bored and we had to leave.”

  “I doubt the bastard is lonely without us. He probably invited his friends over for a drinking party after the little kids left.”

  “Maybe, but we’re still going. Dad called us back, remember? I doubt it was just so we could catch up, and we didn’t even get to do that yesterday. He’ll probably tell us today since you insisted on telling him we’re leaving tomorrow.”

  He sighed, his expression disgruntled. “Fine, then. Just let me finish my coffee first.”

  He took his sweet time finishing his coffee and then poured some more for himself once his first cup was gone. He even had a couple of the muffins I had brought up with it. I started without him, but I was done a lot faster. I didn’t know if he was doing it to be considerate of dad, because it was still kind of early, or if he just wanted to put it off.

  While I waited, I went around packing our stuff. Even if we weren’t going to leave early, I didn’t want to end up in the same room, not if Emma wasn’t going to be there. I’d keep thinking about what we did instead of sleeping. Carl didn’t look surprised when I moved to the front room with our bags.

  Finally, he was done with breakfast. He grabbed his bag, and I took mine, and we left with our keycards. We stopped by the desk in the lobby to hand over the key cards and pay for our stay, then left.

  “What do you think dad would want?”

  I glanced at Carl. He wasn’t really asking, we’d both guessed, he probably just wanted to know what I was thinking.

  “Here’s an idea. Why don’t we get there and ask him?”

  He grumbled but dropped it. “It better be good, making us come out here and stay for days.”

  I rolled my eyes. “We haven’t been in town long enough for you to start getting grouchy over it, idiot. It hasn’t even been a week.”

  “Yeah, well, this town is boring. It’s why we left, remember?” He paused, grinned a little. “Well, except for Emma. I still can’t believe we actually did that last night.”

  I was surprised he would talk about it. While I’d had one-night stands, it wasn’t really my scene, so I didn’t do it often. Carl was the opposite, with more one-night stands than dates. Sometimes, it stretched to more than a night, but I knew he was more comfortable with casual. So, it wasn’t just me that wanted to see Emma again.

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “Last night was amazing.”

  We didn’t talk more about it, keeping silent the home way back, each lost in his own thoughts.

  When we got home, I knocked on the door, then reached for the handle and twisted it. The door opened.

  “I keep telling him to lock the fucking door. What if he gets robbed, or something?”

  “Dude,” Carl laughed, adding in an eye roll. “Who in this town is going to rob anybody.”

  “A bunch of idiotic kids doing it on a dare or some other stupid kiddy shit. You remember what high school was like, right?”

  “As much as I appreciate you worrying about my health, I don’t really have anything of much value to steal in this house.”

  Dad walked out of the kitchen, scaring us both. It was maybe ten in the morning, but I didn’t expect to find him up before noon on a Saturday.

  And yeah, it was true he didn’t have much of value. The house looked pretty much like it did when we were little kids, he hadn’t bought anything in nearly two decades. When Carl asked why not, when we started sending him cash, he’s said something about wasting money on new stuff when the old worked just fine.

  But then where was all the money going, then?

  Dad eyed our bags, raised an eyebrow, but didn’t question it.

  “Why don’t you two put your bags down and come into the kitchen? I still can’t cook, but I’ve got plenty of frozen stuff. It would take maybe a minute to put something in the oven.”

  I let my bag fall just a few feet from the front door. Dad kept our old room for us. If we were going to stay, we’d take our bags upstairs later.

  “Thanks, but we already ate.”

  Carl walked past me, following dad into the kitchen. “Speak for yourself. I could eat more.”

  I was alone for a moment before I followed them slowly. I sat at the breakfast bar as Dad got the frozen food from the fridge and Carl poured himself some more coffee. He grimaced when he took a sip. He always took his coffee black, but whatever Dad put in his own, it was always stronger than anything we could buy somewhere else. He just took another sip, the taste growing on his tongue.

  Dad nuked some sausages, bacon, and pancakes in the microwave, then set everything on the counter top and they both sat down. Even though I wasn’t hungry, I grabbed a fork and stabbed a sausage, bringing it to my mouth and taking a bite. It didn’t taste half bad.

  A pancake, that tasted awfully good, and two sausages later, I put the fork down as the other two continued to eat.

  “So, Dad. What’s up?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You called us home, remember? What happened?”

  Carl finished his food, poured himself some more coffee and turned his attention to Dad. Who, pretty much like my brother earlier, took his time eating, putting off answering. Usually, I was good at being patient with my dad, but I was starting to feel a little irritated. Finally, he finished his food, and threw away the packages, putting the dirty dishes in the sink.

  “When’s your next race?”

  “We don’t have anything for a while. But we’re comfortable, taking it easy in the meantime. Why?”

  “Just wanted to know if you still have some cash you could spare to help your old man.”

  I frowned at him. “Dad, we sent you more than enough money less than a month ago. You can’t have gone through it that fast.”

  What the hell was he doing with it, anyway? Carl and I were racers, but I did a lot of investing on the side. I talked to bot
h my brother and my dad into doing it, too. Neither one was into it, but I could talk Carl into it easier than I could my dad. If the stubborn bastard had listened to me ages ago, he wouldn’t need to keep bothering us.

  I didn’t say any of that, though, because I knew it would just earn me a smack in the head.

  “How much do you need?”

  He gave the amount, and my eyebrows jumped up. We’d been sending him money for a while, but it wasn’t until some months ago when he started asking for more. We gave it to him, anyway. We weren’t exactly rich, but we weren’t hurting for money either. Still, all the money we’d been sending was a lot, and we were doing it two, three times a month now.

  “Why do you need that much money?”

  He frowned back at me. “All you need to know is I need the money. Will you help me with it, or not?”

  He might as well have demanded we hand it over.

  I shared a look with Carl. Yeah, we’d both had enough. Dad was okay, but… he was growing annoying in his old age.

  We raced motorbikes for a living. It was okay, but it didn’t exactly pay the big bucks, not when you counted in earnings per year—which, I did. So, if he was thinking we were just going to support him now that we were living out on our own, he was sorely mistaken. If he wasn’t even going to tell us what the money was for, he was on his own.

  “It would take a while to clear out the funds.”

  I didn’t want to keep taking from our bank account. It was all the money we lived on, and though it was considerable, we would need it in the case of an emergency. I had a few stocks I could liquefy, but I didn’t like doing it just to hand the cash over.

  “If you can wait, I can maybe have it for you in a couple days, five days tops.”

  “Nah, it’ll be fine.” He grinned. “Will you boys be sticking around town?”

  Carl and I shared another look, and we rose at the same time.

  “Actually, dad,” Carl said, slowly. “Something came up and we need to go back. Something to do with our schedule. We left the hotel so we could leave early. We just stopped by to know what you wanted, and say goodbye.”

  “Huh,” he was frowning again. “That’s too bad. I was hoping you’d stick around longer.”

  I shrugged. “Sorry, dad.”

  He waved it away. “Don’t worry about it. It’s work, you can’t exactly help it. Just don’t forget to keep in touch, all right? Maybe you can stay a while next time.”

  Neither of us said anything to that.

  “I’ll call to give you the details when we have a race next. Or email.”

  “That’d be great. You boys take care, now. I know you gotta drive fast, but try not to wreck and break anything, yeah?”

  “Sure, dad. We’ll see you around.”

  We grabbed our bags on the way outside. I wondered what we were gonna do. We didn’t have a permanent place we lived, work pretty much took us all over the place, so we usually just stored the stuff somewhere when we didn’t need it.

  “Let’s go to Emma’s place.”

  The words were too sudden, breaking me out of my thoughts. It took me a moment to register. Then I scowled at my brother.

  “Don’t you think we’d just cause her trouble?”

  I wanted to go, I’d been thinking of it, but he didn’t know she was having as hard a time of it as we were with our dad. Probably worse for her.

  “What, with her mom? We could just mention we saw her or heard she was in town and wanted to say hi because we haven’t seen her in so long.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s not like we’re going to tell her we spent the night with her daughter.”

  That would not go over well.

  “Even if we’re not, we have a reputation here, and yours is worse than mine. Yeah, it’s one from our high school days, but that sort of thing never dies. Not to mention, it’s gotten worse. A lot of people would assume just because of our occupation.”

  “Whatever. We just play it like it’s a random visit on our way out of town because we haven’t seen anyone else from our high school days around. It should be an excuse she’d buy.”

  I still wasn’t sure, but I kept my mouth shut and let Carl drag me over. It wasn’t so far from our home, just a couple of blocks over, around a corner. I would have been surprised Carl knew where she lived, but Mrs. Davis was pretty involved in town matters. Besides, I knew where she lived, too.

  We dropped our bags beside the front steps, and I let Carl go up them and knock on the door, giving three sharp raps. We didn’t have to wait long. Sharon Davis opened the door, dressed casually with her hair held up.

  She frowned at both of us when she saw us, but the look was more confused than unwelcoming.

  “Carl and Abe Thomas. I didn’t hear you boys were in town.”

  Carl, ever the charmer, smiled disarmingly. “We got here early yesterday to see our dad. But something’s come up so we’ll be leaving a little early.”

  She looked around, saw our bags, and her frown cleared almost entirely.

  “Oh, I see.” She eyed us curiously. “What can I help you boys with? I doubt you came by just to see me.”

  “Mrs. Davis, we thought we saw Emma last night, she was out on the street going somewhere. We thought we’d stop by and say hi before we left town.”

  The frown was back. “You boys remember my Emma?”

  “She’s only a year younger than us. We saw her around, but she didn’t really have a lot of friends. No one else from high school is around for the weekend, and we haven’t seen her since her high school graduation.”

  She eyed us both a little suspiciously and then shrugged her shoulders. “I’m afraid you boys are a little too late. If you saw her last night, she was probably going to a friend’s house. She left earlier this morning.”

  Fuck.

  She’d clearly said she was around for the weekend, though. What happened to make want to leave so quickly? Another argument with her mom, maybe?

  “I appreciate you boys stopping by to pay my daughter a visit, but you might have to try next time.”

  Only, I didn’t think there would be a next time. Emma had mentioned coming home every couple of months. But not only would it seem like stalker behavior if we came back after two months asking after her, after how she talked about her relationship with her mom, I doubted she’d be coming back.

  “Do you know where we could find her?”

  Her eyes narrowed at Carl’s tenacity, but she sighed and didn’t argue. “She works at Central General Hospital as an intern, in the city, but I don’t know where she lives. If you want to get in touch with her, that’s where you start.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  She just gave them both a narrow-eyed look. “You boys take care, now.”

  It was practically an echo of our dad just moments ago. Then she went back inside and closed the door behind her.

  Carl walked down the steps and grabbed his bag. I took mine and followed him.

  “Well, there you have it. She’s not even in town. Probably left when we woke up.”

  “Let’s go pay her a visit.”

  “What?” I gave him an incredulous look that he didn’t see because he wasn’t looking. But he looked determined in a way I hadn’t seen in a while when he wasn’t getting on a bike, about to go on a race.

  “She isn’t here, we haven’t seen her. We met her mom. “

  “We don’t even know where she is.”

  “She works at Central General. It’s only a few hours away. It makes sense she would go into the city, anyway. There’s only one hospital here and it isn’t that big. A girl like Emma probably wouldn’t settle for that.”

  “What, so now you’re an expert?”

  “No. But I watched her back in high school, and you watched her about as much, if not more, than me. You know I’m right.”

  Yeah. I kinda did. She deserved more, and she must have known that. So, I did something that was more like my brother than me.

  I made
an impulsive decision.

  “Sure, let’s go. If we go now, we might make it there before traffic, find a place to stay before it’s dark. We’d probably have to wait till Monday, though.”

  “Why say that?”

  “If she was coming down for the weekend, it makes sense that she has the time off, right? She’ll probably report back on Monday.”

  He frowned because he honestly hadn’t thought of it. I rolled my eyes at him, but he didn’t see it.

  “Whatever. We’ll deal with that when it comes to it. We should take the car and go find her.”

  Usually, I was the voice of reason. And I should have spoken up, said we couldn’t. Because technically, we were supposed to be resting before our next championship race in a few weeks’ time. But I met my brother’s eyes and agreed with him completely because we both had something dirtier in mind.

  Resting up could be interpreted in so many ways.

  Chapter Twelve

  Emma

  Saturday night and I was in my home instead of at my mom’s. Well, I said home even though it was a tiny apartment that couldn’t fit me and a pet, but I’d found the place while still in college and never moved. It was just as well because it was close to the hospital.

  My phone rang, and for a moment, my heart leaped in my chest. Until I remembered that there was no way they had my phone number. They didn’t ask for it, and I didn’t give it to them. I cursed myself for a moment, for not giving into my idea to leave my number in one, or even both, of their phones.

  Then I sighed, disappointment following quickly behind my waning excitement as I went to grab my phone. I was supposed to be making dinner, but I didn’t feel like anything, and my groceries were very low, anyway. I had a few cups of yogurt, so I could probably just have that. I had to remember to go shopping for real food, though. I’d end up starving and it would just leave me more depressed.

  I grabbed a small cup of yogurt from my fridge as I rushed to my phone. I saw the name on the screen before I answered, and though I wasn’t quite as excited as before when I thought it was the twins calling, I was still happy.