What was the matter with me?

“I know…” I shrugged hesitantly. “It’s just…You had a life here without me and I know you’ve shared everything with me—”

“Everything.”

“Still…” What was I even saying anymore? I shook my head. “Forget about it. I’m just being stupid.”

The phone continued to ring and to my irritation Jesse still did not answer.

Then it hit me. It was as if Pandora’s box was opened. Finally understanding my trepidations, I jammed a forkful of bacon into my mouth, chewing loudly to drown out the cell phone’s noise. Swallowing once, I cocked my head to the side and threw him a meaningful look. “Honestly, I guess I’m a bit scared that there are still some things we don’t know about each other. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really excited about living with you, it’s just…”

“There’s still a part of you that doesn’t trust me, isn’t there?” he asked blandly.

I took a deep breath. “It’s not that I don’t trust you…”

“What?”

I licked my lips, tasting the salty grease of the bacon. Suddenly feeling parched, I reached out and poured myself a glass of water.

“Rocky,” he called out in a low tone. “What’s wrong?”

“Excitement…gulp…doesn’t even begin to describe…gulp…how I feel about being here…”

“But?”

“But like I said on the ride over here, this is make or break time. Moving in makes you discover things about one another and—”

“There’s nothing to discover,” he cut me off. “We know each other, Rocky. Like really know each other. I know we’ve had our share of bullshit in the past, but I thought we’d moved past that. What’s left to find out?”

My eyes darted around his apartment—a place I’d only visited a handful of times, but was suddenly my new home. It was odd to think that just the day before I was bursting at the seams, ready to walk to Charleston if I needed to, yet here I was, a ball of nervous energy.

How could my moods swing that quickly?

Jesse sighed and rubbed his hands over his face, tightening his lips. The ringing of his cell phone had stopped, but I couldn’t help but feel the ghost of its vibrations against my skin.

“Rocky…” He took a deep breath and stared intently at me. His eyes were so sincere that they almost vibrated energy. “I’m not going to leave you again.”

“What?” I asked in confusion.

“That’s why you’re nervous, isn’t it? I know…I know that six months is a bit too quick to move in together, but we’re in this for the long haul—I’m in this for the long haul. I’m sure that fear of me taking off is bothering you, but I thought we’d moved past that.”

“No, that’s not it…”

My voice trailed off. Was that what was bothering me?

I shook my head and sighed. “It’s something else. It may sound stupid, but I feel like there’s a cloud above me and at any moment it’ll break. Like I’m scared that if I’m too happy then it only leaves room for shit to hit the fan.”

His jaw dropped. “Okay, who are you and what have you done with my girlfriend?”

“I’m serious!” I yelped. “I can’t explain it, but I just feel an ominous presence…almost as if we’re about to face something big and it can—”

“Make or break us,” he finished for me.

“Yeah…”

A smile teased his face. “Ominous presence, huh? I swear to you that my apartment is not haunted.”

I shot him an unamused look. “Jesse…”

Ring. Ring. Ring.

“Well, there it goes again,” I muttered, blowing air between my lips.

“You know what, I’ll answer it.” Jesse rolled his eyes, standing abruptly. “If it’ll make you feel better I’ll show you that there’s nothing ‘ominous’ about living here. I’m not hiding anything from you.”

“I didn’t say you were,” I reminded him. “I just—”

“Hello?” he answered the phone loudly.

I snorted. “Okay, then.”

I picked at my food, but couldn’t help but listen in on a conversation with someone Jesse obviously knew. Feeling like a jealous girlfriend, I tried to distract myself. It definitely did not work.

“Why do you think I’d care?” he grunted, his eyebrows furrowing in disgust. “He is not my brother.”

My eyes widened in surprise. What the hell? Since when did Jesse have a brother?

“No! I won’t let him stay with me. You have a bigger place than I do…Rocky just got here. Why do you think—” As if remembering me for the first time, Jesse glanced over at me sheepishly. I lifted my eyebrows in both curiosity and confusion.

Jesse gulped and continued. “I won’t let him stay with us. I don’t care if Teresa wants to kick him out, that’s her own deal…then check him into rehab!”

There was no use trying to eat anymore. I pushed away my plate and sighed. If this wasn’t the ominous sign I was wary of, then I didn’t know what was anymore.

My boyfriend’s eyes darkened. His muscular shoulders slumped over while his biceps twitched rapidly. I eyed his hand, which was clenched so tightly around his phone that the knuckles began to turn white.

“Fine, we’ll check on him while you two are gone…I don’t care that he’s staying at your place without supervision, he’s older than me!”

Okay, that was definitely a surprise.

Jesse took one final breath and muttered, “You owe me, Dad,” before hanging up the phone.

A blanket of awkward silence covered the entire room. After a few moments I cooed, “So…You have a brother.”

“No. I have a jerk that by law is called my stepbrother,” he snapped in reply. Inhaling loudly, he rubbed at his forehead and shook his head in exasperation. “I’ve gone four years without having to speak to him, and of course the first day you’re here he shows up, completely hammered, at Dad’s house.”

Remembering his conversation, I asked, “So why do you have to check on him?”

He looked at me and answered simply, “Because apparently my life sucks.”

***

So much for a fun first day together. After an awkward breakfast, Jesse and I found ourselves en route to the “new” Tyler house. Though he begged me not to go, there was no way I’d allow him to face whatever monsters he had alone. As we navigated through a bunch of backroads, Jesse gave me what I could only call the Cliff Notes version of his infamous stepbrother, Jason.

“Jason’s a jerk, plain and simple. He tried to drug me—”

“What?” I exclaimed in shock. “Why didn’t your dad do anything about it?”

“I couldn’t prove it.” He shrugged his shoulders as if it were nothing but a minute worry.

“Jesse—”

“Forget I mentioned it.” He waved me off.

How the hell was I going to do that?

“Anyway, I did my best to avoid him, which wasn’t hard to do since he spent most of his time up north. I guess he graduated from college and had a great job up there.”

“So what happened?”

“Apparently the shit hit the fan—or rather his bad personality and karma caught up with him. He lost everything and when I say everything, I mean everything—fiancée, job, house, car. Now he’s in a deep pit of despair and obviously on a quest to drag everyone down with him.”

“Okay, so I still don’t know what this has to do with you,” I interjected.

He sighed, gripping the steering wheel tightly. “His mom tried to get him help for his addictions and I guess he sobered up for a while.”

“Until all this bad stuff happened to him,” I assumed.

He nodded. “So when he showed up on her doorstep lit like a candle, she didn’t want to deal with it anymore. She told him he couldn’t stay there, but seeing as he had no place to go…”

“He’s not living with us, is he?” I cried out in shock. Moving in with Jesse was already a big step enough as it was. I couldn’t imagine having to get used to living with two males.

“No, of course not.”

I sighed with relief.

“But I promised Dad I’d check up on him today. Apparently Teresa couldn’t deal with it and walked out of the house last night. Dad’s following her up to her parents’ house in Virginia, but he doesn’t trust that Jason won’t trash the place while they’re gone.”