Read Online Stepbrother Backstage (The Hawthorne Brothers Book 3) by Colleen Masters - Free Book Online

to jump into the
familial fray. But he just stares straight ahead, looking bored as hell. Is he
so used to his dad and brothers being at each others’ throats that the tension
doesn’t even register with him anymore? Damn. This must have been one hell of a
family to grow up in, if that’s the case. Maybe he’s just learned to stay as
far out of the way as possible around the older Hawthorne men.
    The guys help themselves to the bountiful offerings my
mother’s whipped up, saying next to nothing as they heap food onto their
plates. A thick, palpable silence falls over the table, punctuated only by the
clattering of silverware. Maddie and Sophie each look beside themselves as they
stare at their plates, neither taking a bite of food. Do they just feel
awkward, sitting at this table of strapping blokes, or what? Did I miss
something, here?
    “So nice to have everyone here at last,” Robin says happily,
cutting through the silence. “Have all you kids gotten to know each other by
now?”
    My mind reels back to the heated moment Finn and I shared
upstairs earlier today. The way my core pulsed with want of him as he leaned in
to kiss me. I suppose that you could call that “getting to know each other”.
That and the whole obsessively-stalking-on-the-internet thing.
    “More or less,” Cash mumbles, driving his fork into a
roasted potato. 
    “Glad you kids are all acquainted,” John replies, looking
around at us all.
    If by “acquainted" you mean painfully awkward around
each other, I think to myself, scanning the drawn faces of my sisters and
the Hawthorne boys.
    “Your dad is a man of few words,” Mom laughs, smiling over
at John, “Are all you boy’s strong and silent types as well?”
    “ I don’ t know if I ’ d
put it that way,” Luke shrugs his broad shoulders, “We all have more than our
fair share of differences.”
    “Sounds like my girls, too,” Mom nods, “Annabel takes after
me, with her photography and all. Maddie ’ s our little
working girl over in Seattle. And Sophia ’ s studying drama
and dance at Sheridan University.”
    “Yeah, I know,” Luke says shortly.
    “You know what, dear?” Mom asks.
    “Luke here is a Sheridan boy too,” John says of his middle
son, “Finished undergrad just last year, and he ’ s already
back there now for his business degree. They can ’ t get rid
of him!”
    Sophie and Luke go to the same school? That must mean
they’ve met before tonight. But then why is she acting like a crazy person and
refusing to look at him?
    “Yep. Luke ’s our college boy, ” Cash
says smugly, “The only college boy among the Hawthornes, actually.”
    Huh. Guess that means Finn didn’t do the college thing,
either. That’s one thing we have in common, at least. That and coming from
completely batshit families, that is.
    “I would have been more than happy to send you to college
too,” John says to Cash, “You know that full well.”
    “If I hadn ’ t been wasting my time
fighting a war and all?” Cash spits at his father. They look ready to luge
across the table and fight each other.
    “You ’ re in the military?” I cut in,
trying like hell to defuse the situation.
    “He was,” Finn mutters from beside me. It’s the first word
he’s said all evening.
    I glance over at him, hoping that he’ll say more. But no
such luck. The Hawthorne men retreat into silence, shoveling food into their
mouths as another painful silence rolls in over the dinner table.
    “So, you and Sophie are at the same school?” Maddie finally
says to Luke. “I ’ m sure undergrads and graduate students
don ’ t see much of each other, though.”
    “Oh, I think Sophie and I have seen each other around school
once or twice,” Luke replies casually.
    Sophie’s eyes bug out of her head as she looks frantically
at Luke. Aha . Maybe there’s a bit more to the story of her and Luke than
they’re letting on? That would explain the weirdness.
    “Sophie, you didn ’ t tell me you