Free Stepbrother Romance: My Alpha Cowboy Stepbrother (Stepbrother Romance, Taboo, Forbidden, Stepsister, New Adult, Western Romance, Cowboy Romance) by Celia Styles

to the “thing” on Saturday.  Despite the gorgeous weather, I spent the better part of the morning curled up under the sheets, trying to talk myself out of it, out of seeing Stella again, ever—after all, it wasn’t like that was the only coffee shop in town, and I was pretty sure I could do some street art to make the rent in between.  Better to start over new, than to be blackmailed into a relationship I didn’t really know if I wanted. 
    Except that I really liked Stella, and we really did click.  And as I remembered the hand squeezes that lingered just a little too long, the way she touched my face, the slyly suggestive gestures she always made when saying “good-bye” in the shop, I realized that would miss them, even more than I missed having my own studio to paint in.  I would sob like baby if I cut her out of my life. 
    In the end I flipped a coin:  heads I would go, tails I would stay.  It was heads. I put on a tank top, denim jacket, a peasant skirt, and a pair of cowboy boots.  It was totally mismatched in a fortunately-cute way, but I couldn’t afford to be overly picky because I hadn’t done laundry all week.
    I went to the Art Museum, high-fived Rocky Balboa, and walked into one of the biggest Pride parties I’d ever seen.  The historic boathouses on Boathouse Row were festooned with rainbow streamers and balloons, and people wearing nothing but body-paint and glitter were sprawled all over the grassy banks of the Schuylkill. 
    “There you are,” Stella said.  I jumped.  I hadn’t seen her come up to me. 
    “What is this?” I asked.  “I thought Gay Pride was on South Street.”
    “It usually is,” Stella said.  “But two days ago a giant sinkhole opened up right in the middle of the parade route.  The universities let the Gay Pride people do it here.”
    She led me to a towel, where she’d left her bag to stake it.  “C’mon, sit down,” she said.  “I promise, I don’t bite.”
    I followed her, smoothing down the billowy skirt as it ballooned around me on my way down.  Stella put her sunglasses on and stretched out.  “The weather is fantastic,” she said. 
    Is this how it all begins? I wondered.  An innocent comment on the weather—
    A topless lesbian couple walked by.  I blinked, amazed that they could do this here. 
    “Hey babe, what’s on your mind?” Stella asked.  She followed my eyes and laughed.  “Yeah, they’re hard-core.  You get used to it.  And penis puppets.”
    “A what—never mind….”  As an elephant and Darth Vader walked by.
    Stella took my hand, and gave it a squeeze.  “If you ever want to leave, just let me know.  We don’t have to be here.”
    “No,” I breathed.  “I want to be here.  It makes me feel—safer, somehow.”  For all the weirdness and nudity that was around us, it wasn’t a threatening space, and the vibe, unlike last week at the bar, was entirely ‘You do your thing, we’ll do ours.’
    “Good,” Stella said.  “I know it’s not everybody’s scene—but I figured that, if you saw a whole bunch of lesbians making out, you’d realize that it’s okay to have urges and desires, too.”
    “I know that,” I said.  “I read Our Bodies , too.”
    “Yeah, but it’s one thing to know it here,” she said, tapping my forehead, “and another to know it—there,” she said, pointing to my chest.   “You’re still nervous.”
    “I know,” I said.  “I just—I don’t want to lose you.  You’re the first person I’ve met who’s genuinely liked me and wants me and I really like you I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do—” my rambling got cut off when Stella laughed. 
    “You don’t need to do anything,” she said.  “Just be .”
    Be Easton .  And Easton was ready to fuck in the grass.  But Evelyn wasn’t quite so sure. 
    Stella had taken my hand again, and now she was kneading the fleshy part of my thumb with hers, tracing gentle but firm circles in her