Stepbrother With Benefits 17 (Third Season) (16 page)

"She was protecting me," I add, because this really should be added. "Girls in class kept trying to flirt with me, and guys were trying to be dicks and get me to screw off in class with them, so Brittany helped me pay attention and take notes and stuff. Who the fuck knew you could learn so much in class?"

"I want to meet her," Ashley says, firm. "She sounds nice, though."

"She said she'd help you with cheerleading stuff if you're still interested," I say. "I almost forgot about that, but... yeah... just for fun, if you want. Could be cool?"

This works. She's sold. I have won her over to my side. I know Little Miss Perfect over here may not seem like the kind of girl who would be into something like cheerleading, but, uh... yeah, she is. I wish the stupid as fuck girls in high school hadn't been bitches to her about it and didn't run her off the team. It would have been cool having her on the field with me during games or whatever.

Uh... I mean, we weren't even dating, and I don't know how that would have ever worked out, but it's just something I think about sometimes. Even if she doesn't go to the same school as me now, she can still be a cheerleader if she wants. Just for fun on her own, nothing serious.

"I'm going to the bathroom quick," Scarlet says. "Ashley, want to come? I can help you with your makeup again if you and Ethan are going to, um... you know... after the movie."

"Wait, what? Again?"

"Oh, um... Scarlet was the one who helped me with my makeup before I went to your room earlier," Ashley says.

"Mhm! How'd you like her breasts?" Scarlet asks, no filter whatsoever. "They looked huge, right?"

"I have no fucking clue how those two things are related," I say.

"Contouring, Ethan? Don't you know anything? I used makeup to accentuate the natural curves of Ashley's chest so that it looked like her breasts were bigger than they really are. It's the first time I've ever done something like that, but I think it turned out really well."

"We watched a YouTube video," Ashley says. "I was going to try it on my own, but it was a lot easier with Scarlet."

Is this what girls do? Just put makeup on each other's breasts or whatever the fuck? I'm so confused right now.

I mean, they did look pretty fucking amazing, though. Don't get me wrong, I like Ashley's breasts as they are, but... holy fuck, they looked nice earlier. I don't want her to feel obligated to do it all the time, but I'm not going to complain if she wants to do it every now and then.

"Did you know this was a thing?" I ask Caleb. "Contouring breasts to make them look bigger?"

Caleb shrugs. "They made me leave the room. I had no idea."

"I mean, I guess it's cool, but it's kind of weird if it's makeup, don't you think? What happens if they get wet? Just fucking... walking in the rain or whatever the fuck and your breasts start melting?"

"You boys have fun talking about breasts," Ashley says, standing up quick and stepping away from me. "We're going to the bathroom."

"Alright, cool," I say. She leaves with Scarlet and I turn to Caleb. "Real talk, Caleb. What kinds of breasts are you into? What size do you like?"

"Huh?"

"Probably smaller ones, right? Like Scarlet's? It's cool, man. She's short, so she doesn't need a lot."

"Ethan, seriously, why are we talking about this?"

"Yeah, it's cool. We can talk about something else," I say.

"Thanks," he says.

"How about sex positions? Like, if you had to pick the one position you'd really like to do with Scarlet, what would it be? Regular missionary, or doggy-style, or something else?"

"Why did you say 'with Scarlet'?" he asks. "Couldn't it just be in general?"

"Dude, I'm not trying to pressure you into anything here, but once the movie's over and we head back to our rooms, I'm pretty fucking sure you could have sex with her if you want. I just want you to be prepared. Do you need a condom? Oh, wait. Fuck. I, uh... I don't have any, because... yeah, you know. I can get you one, though. I can call someone and find one. Maybe I should get you two just in case? No offense, but you probably won't last long the first time, but if you just shrug it off and eat her out or something while you're waiting to get it back up, you should be good to go the second time."

"Ethan, I don't need a condom," Caleb says, blushing and looking away from me. "I don't need two condoms, either!" he adds. "I'm fine. We're fine. It's... just, no, alright?"

"It's cool," I say. "Just trying to help out."

"Thanks, uh... I appreciate it?"

We're quiet after that. Sort of. I mean, we're eating food. If the girls are going to go to the bathroom and do girl chat or whatever the fuck, I'm not going to stop eating. Do you know how much food we got? I'm hungry.

Eventually Scarlet and Ashley come back. Everything sort of goes back to normal after that. It's good. The night is going well. I didn't expect any of this to happen when I woke up this morning, but it's pretty fucking amazing now that it's happening.

I try to forget that it's just for tonight, though. Extenuating circumstances or something. We can't do this every day. We can't even do this most days. There's school, class, we're going to be hundreds of miles away from each other...

Yeah, we'll see each other on the weekend, but after tonight I'm not sure if that's going to be enough for me. I had two months of summer vacation with this girl, and just a few days back at college without her has made me realize that I'm not sure I can go two days being away from her.

I have no fucking clue how I feel about that. I'll figure it out later.

The movie ends, and the food is gone. We clean up and head back to our rooms. Caleb and Scarlet go to Caleb's room, because they're fucking weird and I have no fucking clue how that even happened. Ashley and I start to walk past them and head back to my room, but...

"Are you really going to go to class tomorrow?" Scarlet asks. "We need to figure out how this is going to work."

"Oh, right," I say. I reach into my pocket and take out my phone. "Hold on a second."

I call my dad. He answers after a couple rings. He sounds, uh... breathy? Is that even a word? He's breathing hard and he says hello, but there's something strange about the way he says it.

Then I realize why. In the background, I hear Ashley's mom shouting, "Tell Ethan you're busy!"

"He never calls!" my dad says in protest. "I'll get to you later, you minx. Just... oh no, don't do that!"

"Yeah, uh... hey..." I say.

"Hey, Ethan," my dad says. "What's going on? Is everything alright?"

"Yeah," I say. "Sorry to interrupt you when you're having sex with Ashley's mom, but--"

"What!" Ashley says, practically screaming in my ear.

"You're on speakerphone, by the way," my dad says.

"Ashley, forget Ethan said that!" my stepmom says. "I deny everything!"

"Your mom says to forget you heard that," I tell Ashley. "She doesn't want you to know they're having sex."

"But, really," her mom says. "I know you and my daughter had sex in the house over the summer, and I didn't make a big fuss over it, so I don't think this is that big a deal. We're all adults, aren't we?"

I don't have to tell Ashley what her mom is saying this time because she's huddled close to me with her ear next to my phone.

"Mom!" Ashley says. "Stop. Please?"

"It's true, honey," her mom says, defiant.

"What are you calling about again?" my dad asks, trying to change the subject. "It's nice to hear from you, Ethan. I just... wait, why is Ashley with you?"

"Whoops," my stepmom says.

"Uh... that's not important," I say quick. "Yeah, so... Dad, do you think we could use the company jet tomorrow? You said to call you if I wanted to set up a flight plan, so..."

"You and Ashley?" he asks. "Sure, that's fine."

"Yeah, and Scarlet and Caleb," I say.

"I'll let them know you're going to schedule it. You know who to call, right?"

"Yeah, I can handle it."

"Alright. Great. Listen, Ethan... I'm glad to hear from you, but you called at a kind of bad time. Can we talk later?"

"A lot later, please!" Ashley's mom shouts out.

I laugh. Ashley does not laugh. I laugh even more because she's not laughing.

"Sure," I say. "Thanks, Dad. I really appreciate it."

"Any time," my dad says. "Talk to you later. You two have fun this weekend."

We hang up. Scarlet and Caleb stare at me.

"What?" I say to them. "What's with the faces? Why are you staring at me?"

"You just called your dad to ask if we could all take his private company jet tomorrow," Caleb says.

"To Ashley's school?" Scarlet asks. "Is that right?"

"Uh, yeah? The airport by her school, at least. Like I said before, I'm not skipping class. I'm being responsible here. So you're just going to have to shut up and fly on the plane with me. It'll be faster than carpooling."

"Do they have snacks?" Ashley asks. "On the plane, I mean."

"What the fuck? Have you never been on it? It's great. Yeah, I can get snacks. We can get whatever we want. It's my dad's plane. I don't think there's enough time to hire a personal chef for the flight, but maybe we can do that next time."

They all look at me like I'm crazy. I'm not crazy. Do you know how amazing it is to be served a full meal made by a high class chef on an airplane? Pretty fucking amazing.

"Let's go, Caleb," Scarlet says, grabbing his hand in hers. "I can't talk to Ethan anymore. I hate him."

"Me too," Caleb says, escaping with Scarlet into his room.

"It's fine," Ashley says to me. "I love you."

"Thanks," I say, smiling. "I love you, too, Princess."

"I'm worried about tomorrow, though," she says. "With... with Jake, and... ugh. Tonight's been so nice, Ethan, but it was irresponsible, wasn't it? It didn't help anything. The website is still up, and Jake's still an asshole. I skipped class! I can't believe I did that. And--"

I kiss her. She doesn't stop talking right away, and she's mumbling into my lips, but I keep kissing her and eventually she gives in. She kisses me back, and as soon as she does, I pick her up, just sweep her off her fucking feet, and carry her to my room. While kissing her. I'm multi-tasking here. This is serious.

We get in my dorm room, close the door, turn on the lights, and...

"Can we cuddle?" she asks me, her eyes happy and wide, smiling at me. "I really want to cuddle with you. Can we just lay in your bed and snuggle and cuddle."

"Whoa shit, you want to snuggle
and
cuddle? That's a lot to ask, Princess."

"Please?" she says, batting her eyelashes at me.

Yeah, uh... I'm done. She wins. It's over.

"Yeah," I say, kissing her one more time before letting her down. "Pajamas and cuddling?"

"Yes!" she says, skipping over to her backpack, excited as fuck. "And snuggling. Don't forget."

"Nah, I won't forget," I say.

We change into our pajamas and turn off the lights, get into my bed, and we snuggle and cuddle the fuck out of each other. We can worry about tomorrow when it's tomorrow. Maybe my dad was right, too. Maybe I just need to be here for Ashley and help her. I mean, yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm going to kick Jake's ass when I see him, too, but...

I want to protect Ashley, also. I want to make sure she never has to deal with anything like this ever again.

E
ating
dinner in the cafeteria with Scarlet is mostly completely normal. It's also mostly completely awkward. How can it be both? I'm not sure, but it is.

We got our food and went to sit down. It's a little later in the evening, so there's not as many people here. Most people who are coming in now to get their dinner are taking it back to their rooms, I think. I don't know. They're taking it somewhere, alright?

Not me, and not Scarlet. Oh, no, we're sitting on one of the benches along the cafeteria wall near the big windows looking outside. This is how we usually eat. I mean, it's how we've eaten a million times before, but for whatever reason it's different now.

Well, yeah, of course it's different, I tell myself. I just had my cock inside her. We were basically having sex.

Which was a complete accident! I wasn't trying to take advantage of her or anything. I know Scarlet would never think that. She seemed pretty excited and happy about the way things were going, too. She said she was about to cum, so that's good, right?

I don't know. I don't want to read too much into it. I
can't
read too much into it! It's probably just for her art project and nothing else. That's what she said, isn't it? We were supposed to be practicing, except things got a little heated, and my underwear shifted to the side, and then hers did, too, and...

Yeah...

Look, I know this sounds stupid, but I've never really had a girlfriend before. I've gone on dates with girls, and I guess I've gone on a couple dates with the same girl a couple times, but I don't think that counts. I've never really wanted a girlfriend, either.

That's not true. I've kind of wanted to date Scarlet for awhile now. I think you might already know this, but I'm also pretty sure she doesn't. I don't think it's because she's clueless. I think it's because our relationship is a little...

It's strange, alright? It's strange because it's always been strange, and since it's always been that way I don't know how to make it not strange anymore.

You should probably realize it's been strange for awhile now considering I was the first person Scarlet came to about her ex tape art project idea, and I was the person she wanted to star in it along with her.

Does the ex tape sound like a porno to anyone else besides me? It really does, right? I'm not going crazy here, am I?

The thing is... I guess it's weird for her to just come out and ask me that, but it's
not
weird, too. There's some things you don't know about us, and I'm sorry but I don't want to tell you about them right now. You'd probably think they're even weirder, and I wouldn't disagree with you.

"Hey," Scarlet says. "Caleb, why aren't you eating?"

"Oh, huh, what?" I look over at her and she's just kind of giving me this look like I'm sick or something. I don't think I'm sick. Am I sick? Oh no...

"Can I try some of yours?" she asks. "What is that? The chicken thing?"

She pokes it with her fork. I cut off a piece and push it over for her. She stabs it and looks at it for a second before taking a slow, tentative bite.

"It's chicken Kiev," I tell her. "It's good, right?"

"Tastes like garlic bread," she says, after chewing slowly and swallowing. "Chicken and garlic bread."

I roll my eyes at her. She tosses me this indignant, headstrong look.

"What? It does!"

"Yeah, I guess so," I say. "It's got melted garlic butter and herbs on the inside, then it's breaded on the outside, so it makes sense."

"See?" she says, tossing her chin up like she's proud of herself.

It's cute. I kind of want to kiss her chin. Or her cheek. Or her lips...

Yeah, uh... I'm not going to do that. I don't do it. As if everything wasn't awkward enough between us already after what happened a little while ago, that'd make it even more awkward.

Did I mention we're sitting right next to each other? We're sitting on a padded bench against the wall, and there's a table in front of us, but there's chairs on the rest of the sides of the table, too. She could sit opposite me, or in one of the chairs. Or I could have. But, nope, we're sitting right next to each other on the bench.

Scarlet scoots closer to me and puts her chin on my shoulder, staring at my plate.

"Why aren't you eating, though?" she asks.

"Sorry," I say. "I was just thinking."

"Think and eat," she says. "You have to keep your strength up."

I cut off a bite of my chicken and chew it while she watches. She looks satisfied at that and goes back to her own plate. Then she starts staring at mine again.

"Hey, can I have some of your mashed potatoes?" she asks.

I separate half of them and move them closer to her. She scoots even closer to me and eats them like that, just picking them off my plate, bringing them to her lips, chewing, swallowing...

I'm taller than Scarlet. Uh... by a lot. She's kind of short. I like it, though. I don't know why. I just feel like maybe I can protect her sometimes, you know? From something. Probably from a lot of things. I've always wanted to protect her, and I have, at least as much as I can.

I don't know if you know Scarlet well, but she's kind of... rough around the edges. If you asked anyone but me, they'd probably say she doesn't need anyone to protect her. That's probably true for the most part, but everyone needs to be protected from something. Scarlet needs protection from things that you might not see or know about. Maybe she doesn't need physical protection, but there's more to everyone than just physicality.

Sometimes you just need a friend, right?

Yeah, except I'm pretty sure friends don't usually have sex with each other.

Scarlet happily eats her dinner, oblivious. I think she's oblivious, at least. Honestly, I can't tell. I never know what she's thinking. I've known her since we were babies. I literally can't remember meeting her, that's how long ago it was. She's just... she's always been there, and I've always been there.

I still have no idea what she's thinking. She's a complete mystery.