Crash: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance by Sophie Sawyer Read Free Book Online

recognized him, but couldn’t quite place the face. Then I looked to the other side of the bed. A pair of pale eyes met mine, and I recognized him. Sort of.
     
    “Luke?”
     
    His face brightened, and he leaned forward and took my hand.
     
    “I’m here,” he said.
     
    This was… he was my…
     
    “You’re my boyfriend, right?” I asked him.
     
    His mouth fell open, and his brows knitted. He looked at my mother, and then back at me. An awkward silence fell over the room, and he dropped my hand.
     
    “What?” I asked, looking to my mother for answers.
     
    “Katherine, do you have any idea how long you’ve been in a coma?” Mom asked delicately.
     
    “A coma? Me?”
     
    What the hell?
     
    “Do you remember the car accident?” she asked. I nodded, and she continued, “You got hurt pretty badly. You’ve been in a coma for quite a while.”
     
    “Quite a while,” I parroted her. “How long is that?” Mom said nothing, so I said, “Mom? How long?”
     
    “Almost eight months,” she finally said.
     
    “ Eight months? ” I shrieked. “What about Berkeley?”
     
    “Berkeley can wait,” Mom said. “You’re lucky to be alive!”
     
    The weight of that sinking in nearly dragged me back under. If I had been standing, I would have soon been lying unconscious on the floor.
     
    “I almost died? Like… for real?”
     
    Mom nodded, her face ashen.
     
    “And… this is… my…”
     
    I nodded at the pale-eyed guy.
     
    “Stepbrother, Kat,” Mom said softly. “Luke is soon to be your stepbrother.”
     
    Ka-Thump.
     
    That was the sound of me hitting the floor in my brain. Stepbrother. My heart had skipped at beat at the sight of him. So much so that I was certain he was my boyfriend even after hearing my mother tell me he was Steve’s son. My brain just couldn’t process it at the time. Hearing that he was about to be my stepbrother was a sudden rush of confusion that my brain just couldn’t deal with.
     
    “And that makes you…” I looked at the man standing behind my mother.
     
    “Steve,” he answered. “Soon to be your stepfather, if you’ll have me.”
     
    “Right,” I muttered, nodding absently. “Steve and… Luke.”
     
    The heat of embarrassment crept out from under my flimsy hospital gown and up my neck, warming my cheeks. I’d actually called my soon-to-be stepbrother my boyfriend. He must think I’m a real idiot.
     
     
     

Chapter Eight
     
    Luke

    She’d said I was her boyfriend. My heart actually did a little thumpy thing when she said it. I felt like some schoolboy with his first crush, only my body responded significantly differently.
     
    I chastised myself intensely for the twitch in my pants as the poor girl lay there just waking up from an eight-month coma. What kind of dirty perv was I to get a stiffy over my soon-to-be stepsister after her brush with death?
     
    Dad and Lucy had gone off to find Katherine’s doctor, and she and I were sitting there in awkward silence. She was staring at the ceiling, and I was picking at a hangnail or something.
     
    Could things get any more awkward?
     
    “Where’s the nurse?” she asked, staring out the door.
     
    “Why do you need a nurse?” I asked, pushing to my feet, concerned she might be in pain.
     
    “I just do,” she said “Can you call one?”
     
    “Are you alright?” I asked. “In pain?”
     
    “No, I… I have to pee ,” she hissed like a frantic cat.
     
    “Oh,” I muttered, my cheeks flaming. “Oh, I get it. Sorry.”
     
    I pressed the nurse call button on the side of her bed and waited. Finally a nurse answered, “Yes?”
     
    “We’re in room 206. Katherine… needs a nurse,” I said.
     
    “Alright, I’ll send her in,” came the response.
     
    A few minutes later, a guy who looked like he permanently belonged on a beach in Malibu entered the room wearing blue scrubs printed with green palm fronds. He approached Katherine’s bed.
     
    “What can I do for you?”