All Chapters of In Love and Hate With My Stepbrothers: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

“Thank you, miss. We’ll take the rooms,” I answer for everyone, making three people growl behind me. “Aiden and I can share a bed. And the girls can share the other bed, right? It’s just a couple days.” Dean curses me out for calling him a girl and throws a weak punch to my back. Lily murmurs that it’s okay. “I don’t like this, but it’s not like it matters,” Aiden growls, so angry. Poor thing. My father takes a worried breath and steps closer to put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, man… I’ll make it up to you later,” he promises, “You can choose the destination for the winter break. You can choose anywhere you want. Is that fair?” “Okay… in that case, I want to stay in Altamira all winter,” Aiden says immediately, demolishing my good mood, “I want all of us to stay in Altamira together.” “No,” I say, frowning, “We always go somewhere for the holidays.” “Not this year,” he says, all smiles now. He’s happy to go against me, “We’ll stay home, in the warm winter of Altamira. Tak

***** PRESENT ***** { Aiden } My second favorite city in the whole world is London. It's different enough from Altamira that it gives me a break when I need it the most, like right now. I need a break from my real life. I need to pretend I don't have a million responsibilities for a while. Lying to my stupid family is not hard, so I made up that meeting in Taiwan and no one doubted it because, who besides me ever goes out of the country for these meetings? No one, just me. Me, me, me. It's always me. I'm fucking sick of it. I really just needed a week away from everyone. Away from Altamira. Away from Lily. And most importantly, away from Damon. At this point, things are different and 'good' with my brother. Dad doesn't worry as much about him because it's not as dangerous to have him wandering the streets on his own -supposedly- and I guess it's true. He's been a good boy ever since he got too carried away and almost kills that girl. Thank god for that. But if I wer

“Are you going to mention Aiden?” My mom asks, sounding hopeful. I shake my head. She rolls her eyes but doesn’t push me to do it, “All of this sounds like the perfect idea. You have green light to proceed. Just make sure to keep your name in the dark; don’t let anyone know you’re behind this. Let’s keep it secret.” “Yeah, I know,” I nod, “My friend… he’s a really good guy, mom. He says he can take the fallout if necessary, to keep us out of trouble.” My mom raises her eyebrows with interest. “Well, I like him already. You have to introduce him to me someday,” she says. I nod, but I don’t tell her that he’s going to live with me because I know it’s insane. Although… her eyes look insane right now so I don’t think she would even care, “Well, I need to get back out there. Knowing that Damon is going to sink soon has improved my mood. I know Harry is going to hate when everyone finds out the truth about the monster he created. This will absolutely destroy him. Then I can proceed to

I stare into space for a few minutes, considering what I might have done to make Aiden treat me this way. And to get a girlfriend.Maybe seeing me made him realize I'm not all that. Maybe he completely got over me when he saw the mess I've become. I can't blame him. Besides, I don't even care, right? I got over Aiden a long time ago.Right?"Hey, where did Aiden go?" Dean asks, suddenly appearing in the water. His sudden presence makes me shriek in fright, "Where is everyone?""He went to see his girlfriend," I snap, emphasizing the word. Dean frowns in confusion. "Did you know this? Did you know he has a girlfriend?""No, what the hell?" he asks. "Do you think it's a Taiwanese girl?""Maybe. Are they pretty?""Most likely. Aiden probably fell in love with her while he was working over there. Maybe she’s an interpreter," he murmurs, and yes, that makes sense. Dean gets out of the pool and sits beside me, splashing me with water, "Man, this sucks for me. Mom and dad are super in love,

{ Aiden } Being in a trial relationship with Madison only makes it clear that I'm not ready for a real relationship yet. I'm not emotionally involved or mentally present when I'm with her and I’m not vulnerable enough to form a true bond. I can be myself with her, but to a certain extent. I've never been able to be fully myself with anyone except Lily. And I didn't even try; she just brought it out of me. For fuck’s sake, I hate that everything comes back to her, all the time. I haven't seen her in almost three weeks and I plan to keep it that way. I've done everything possible to avoid my entire family as much as possible and for the first time in my life, I'm realizing that I'm not really a robot without feelings who just works, processes data, solves problems and gets things done for others. It turns out I like enjoying life too. And even fucking up sometimes… it hasn’t happened yet, but maybe I will do something wrong just to see how it makes me feel. I like going o