STEPBROTHER Love 1 (4 page)

Chapter 7

Joshua

I hadn’t wanted to go to the goddamn party.

I hadn’t wanted to go anywhere near my ex-stepmother and sister.

All I wanted to do was sleep in, go work-out and play some pickup games at the Y.

That’s how I wanted to spend my summer vacation.

But Princess Cali was graduating, and dad wanted us both to be there.

I’d argued that it was enough
I’d
picked out Cali’s present.  Couldn’t he handle delivering it by himself?  But he insisted, acting like I should be happy about taking a two hour road trip to see someone I hadn’t laid eyes on in two years.

There had been a reason I hadn’t seen Cali in two years, and though dad didn’t know what that reason was, and would never know—
not while I had breath in my body
—it was a
good
reason.

That day, the way Cali had looked with the sun on her face and the wind messing up her honey blonde hair, and that silly, excited expression on her face…

That
beautiful
face.

Shit…

Until that moment I’d never thought of her that way.

Sure, she was cute, but she was two years younger than me,
and
my stepsister.

But then she’d bit her lip, those big blue eyes looking at me… looking at me with this unfathomable need.

My mind and body just reacted to it. 

I’d never felt that way before.

Sure, I’d been out with and
had
my fair share of the girls at my high school, but what zinged through my body that day in the driveway of our house was beyond anything I’d felt before, or since.  And that was even before the kiss.

The kiss…

That hot, sweet, fucking mind-blowing kiss…

And that’s exactly what it had done.  It blew my fucking mind.

My body went hot and hard, from zero to 60 in three seconds flat.

But that was all it had been. 

Just.

One.

Kiss.

Because the next instant mom and dad rolled into the driveway, fighting like cats and dogs, and our little family imploded.

How could one kiss fuck everything up so royally?

And now dad wanted to drag me to Cali’s graduation party.

Just fucking dandy!

The flask had been a last second thing.  I’d had it for over two years.  My buddy Jessie had given it to me, and the vodka he’d liberated from his father’s stores, as my graduation present.

So it was fitting that I took it to deal with having to go to Cali’s graduation party.

And damned if part of me wasn’t just dying to see her again.

I felt it getting stronger and stronger as the big day came closer.  By the time we started driving there I was on the verge of hyperventilating like some goddamn fainting starlet from a freaking chick flick.

I snuck a few drinks from the flask when dad stopped to fill the gas tank (and to freshen up in the restroom.  His hair was neater and he smelled more strongly of his aftershave.  He might have even brushed his teeth.)

Then I gulped down four or five mouthfuls as I trailed him to the Winters girls’ front door.

I followed dad into the party, and about fell over when I got a look at Cali.  Two years had made her so much more than just beautiful.  She was stunning.  The way her long, shiny blonde hair bounced as she ran up to hug dad.  The way her perfect skin glowed.

She smelled like strawberries—no surprise there, she fucking loved them. 

She looked so damn happy as she hugged the shit out of dad.  They looked so right together.  He loved her like he loved me, which should have put my nose out of joint and all, and at first it did.  But then I got to know the little goody two shoes. 

But I acted like a pig and a jerk and an asshole towards her anyways.

I was a guy, after all.

I watched the disappointed look on her face when he gave her the envelope full of money.  That’s what made Cali so damn special.  Teenagers were
supposed
to be shallow and materialistic, but not Cali.  Her disappointment was that dad might not have known her well enough to pick out her present.

And then dad played his ace in the hole.

He pulled out the other envelope, the one with the plane ticket and the ticket for the basketball camp.

I’d been on my iPhone for hours tracking down how to get a ticket for that damn camp.  I knew she loved the NBA, and Kobe and all those guys.  But she never missed a WNBA game, and Tamika was the player she most idolized. 

Hell yes
… the way her eyes ignited and her face bloomed with a fierce, joyous smile.

More hugging, more of Cali being Cali.

Made something in me start to burn.  Made it start to pace like a fucking caged tiger, hungry and impatient, and so goddamned obsessed.

Yes, that was the fucking word for it… obsessed.

I was obsessed with my stepsister.

With Cali.

Cali… of the long blonde hair and big blue eyes, and that bright, happy smile.

And when she needed her glasses to read… how freaking sexy was that?

Nerd sexy.

I shook my head, trying to push all those dangerous thoughts out of my head.

That’s when I heard my name.

Dad was telling her I’d picked out her present.

I know he was just trying to give me credit, but why did it feel like he was throwing me under the bus?

“I guess he couldn’t come,” Cali said, looking strange, like she was relieved that I wasn’t here.

But I was.

“Don’t worry, princess,” I said, edging out from behind dad so she’d notice me.  “I wouldn’t miss your little party for the world.”  I walked toward her, our shoulders brushing as I passed her by.  “Dad made me come.”

The instant I said it I regretted it.

The look on her face, how her happy just evaporated into thin air.

I fucking hated myself, right there and then.

So I kept on walking right on past her, headed into the party, hoping to find something—
anything
—to take my mind off of what I’d just did, and her, and how freaking possessive I was suddenly feeling about her.

That’s when some girl named Casey or Stacey came over to me and started talking.  Her big brown eyes drank me in, and though I wasn’t following a word she said, I could just imagine her thick, pink lipstick smeared lips sucking on my cock.

Oh yeah…

I took another gulp of vodka and offered the flask to her.  She took a sip, and coughed, making her generous chest jiggle in her tight little sweater.

Yes, I was going to enjoy the rest of this party.

I remember making out with Casey/Stacey.  I remember pulling her along behind me as I looked for somewhere to fuck her.  And I remember somehow getting turned around and then stumbling into the kitchen, finding Cali staring at some closed door.

And I thought I was having a hard time with direction.

Then I saw the panties in her hands.

They weren’t hers.  They were those sexy French cut numbers Cali’s mom Suzy always wore—straight off the butt of some Victoria’s secret model.

And then Cali’s startled, blank stare made sense, because then I heard her mother do her “orgasm” giggle.

When Cali and Suzy used to live with us, my bedroom shared a wall with the two lovebirds.  I was treated to her O giggles, her breathless “yes, yes, yes” squeals, and to my dad’s “I’m gonna come” grunts.

I couldn’t fucking believe it!

Couldn’t leave dad alone for a minute, could I?

I went to the closed door, cracking my neck, flexing my hands, making a show of it… and then opened it.

There was my dad with his ass bared, humping Suzy like a freaking dog in heat.

They didn’t even notice me, Cali, or what’s-her-name watching them fucking.

Freaking animals…

I closed the door.

What’s-her-face kept asking if she’d really just seen two people having sex.

I was glad I didn’t find somewhere to screw her.  If she didn’t know sex when she saw it, she was probably a lousy lay.

I corrected Stacey/Casey, since she also didn’t know the difference between a kitchen and a pantry.

The pantry door swung open and Suzy and dad stood there, looking flushed and sweaty and disheveled.  Suzy was trying to pull down her dress.

I looked at Cali and said, in my most confidential tone, “Better luck the second time around, right?” And I walked out of the kitchen.

I had to get the fuck out of there, away from what’s-her-face, mom and dad, and especially Cali.

I took another slug from my flask and looked out the front window.  There were strangers all around me.  Cali’s family, Cali’s friends—not a soul I knew in the least.

How had we all lived together for two years and not one of these people, Cali and Suzy’s family, had shown up?

I caught a glimpse of Cali as she slipped out a door.

Another side door.

Just like the side door that led to our driveway.

The hoop, of course, was still up.  And though dad and I played a couple games a month, I didn’t go out there and just shoot some balls like I used to.  I used to live out on the court. Now most of the B-ball I play is on my college court… and I was never alone.  Someone else was always there too, practicing, trying to one up the other guy.

I closed my eyes and shook off everything that had just played out in my head. 

It was crazy.

I turned and walked further into the house.  I stayed away from the kitchen, just in case dad and Suzy might be performing an encore.

I slipped through the other guests, down past the living room and down a hallway.  About halfway down the corridor I saw that a door was ajar, a wide crack betraying a view of the room inside.

I recognize Cali’s ginormous sleigh bed, the light, birds’ eye wood, the freaking king sized mattress.  I mean, really, all that bed for Little Miss Tightly -Wound. 

What the fuck?

Before I knew what I was doing I’d stepped into her room, and was running a hand over the smooth, cool wood of the sleigh bed.  The bedspread was silver and white striped silk.  More elegant than I’d thought she’d go for.

As I looked around the room I realized the walls were wallpapered to match the bedspread exactly.

I remembered her room being more disorganized, more teenage girl—more alive.  With clothes strewn here and there, and make-up on the counter tops, and stuffed animals everywhere.

The silky bedspread called to me.

I sat down on it for only a second, or that’s what I thought.  I felt myself fall into the softness that was Cali’s bed.

I don’t even remember closing my eyes.  But when I opened them the room was bathed in a different, amber light.

Time had passed.  How long had I been laying there?

I pulled myself up off the bed and felt the room spin.

Whoa… head rush.

I saw the alarm clock next to the bed.  Four o’clock.

Shit, I’d been lying there for two freaking hours!

I stood up and walked a couple steps before my legs turned to Jell-O, catching myself on the sleigh bed before I took a header into the carpeting.  I spied the open closet door and a familiar sight greeted me. 

I pulled open the closet door and reached in, pulling out the
Train like a Girl
t-shirt.  It was warm in my hands, and soft… and as I brought it up to my face and inhaled, it smelled like Cali.

How I remember her smell.

Shiiit…

I set the shirt on her bed and stared at it there for a minute.

I could see her wearing it that day in the driveway, the way the sun glowed off her skin.

The sun right then, spilling through the bedroom window was so like that day.

The smell of her skin…

The taste of her lips…

And then all hell broke loose.

Our family fell apart, and our parents had never known about the kiss.

Were they getting a second chance?

Suzy and dad looked really happy earlier.

Could they just get over their differences?

And here I was lurking around Cali’s bedroom, pawing through Cali’s things, a freaking pervert.

If I did ANYTHING about how I felt about her, then even worse things would happen.

Worse than the divorce?

Was there anything worse than a divorce?

I thought about my mom when she died.

I was twelve.