Sexy Stepbrothers (9 page)

“Umm,” I uttered out, “I-I don’t know. I haven’t had the chance to talk to him yet. I’m just now seeing him for the first--"

“Of course you don’t know. But that doesn’t matter. Make sure everyone else knows he’s mine,” Hannah said, pointing a finger at me, “no one else. Got it?”

“S-sure.”

I watched her walk to the small group gathered around Andrew. It didn’t take long for her high-pitched voice to be the only voice I heard. Soon after, she turned around, pointed at me before she burst out laughing.

She had done what she always did, and that shouldn’t have surprised me. However, seeing Andrew join in on the laughing struck me like a dagger to my heart. The gut-wrenching disappointment of seeing him laugh with her broke my being like nothing I had ever experienced before.

I knew she had a habit of making fun of me, but why did he have to join in on it?

Hannah stopped pointing at me, but they kept laughing. The hole my mind built beneath my legs had never felt so deep. I wanted to jump in it and never be found again. I was so afraid to move my legs, I was afraid I would fall, even when jumping to an imaginary hole.

But what good would that do? Why had I entertained the idea that something would happen? It was a childish dream, nothing else and I should have known better. Given the bulk of my previous experiences with, why did I think this would have somehow gone any different?

That’s right Jessica, there wasn’t any reason other than your stupid fantasies.

I wanted to burst out crying right then and there. But I managed to gather myself enough to at least get them away from my sight. I walked to the kitchen, and while I no longer saw them, Hannah’s laughter was still unmistakable.

I bet she was doing everything in her power to get she wanted: curling her hair between her fingers, biting her lip and stealing glances at his strong chest muscles wherever she could. Andrew would eventually get caught in her trap, I knew it. That was her style, after all.

I was the uglier friend next to her stunning beauty, like the previous times. I was still puzzled why I had thought this would have gone differently. Perhaps I thought him being abroad for so long would have changed the boy I grew up with. But that didn’t seem to have happened, at least if one were to make any assumptions about him laughing at me with Hannah.

Did I think it would have gone differently because Andrew was my stepbrother? But why would that make a difference? If anything, that should have been the final lock on anything ever happening between us.

And now I couldn’t get away from what was unfolding in front of me: I was stuck until Hannah wanted leave. In hindsight, going to the party together seemed like the worst idea ever. Now I was paying for the consequences.

You had been blinded by you thought was going to happen, weren’t you? Perhaps next time you’ll know not to have such silly dreams.

Well, at least I could go to the study and read my books until she was ready to leave. Yeah, that sounded like an awesome idea.

While my heart was still in my stomach from what had just happened, I took my dishes from the table and walked to the kitchen.

“Nice welcome party, isn’t it?”

That deep voice sent shivers down my legs. It could only belong to one person.

“W-well I don’t really…” I said as tried to lay the dishes down to the sink, but the sudden sound of his voice right next to me made me drop some of the dishes.

“You are still clumsy, aren’t you sis?”

I blushed. “You just surprised me, that’s all. We haven’t spoken in years, you know.”

I tried grabbing the dishes from Andrew’s hands, but the brief moment when our hands touched made my heart skip a beat and I almost dropped the dishes.

“Again, sis?” He chuckled.

Everyone always looked tall standing right next to me, but my stepbrother was something else entirely. I firmly believed that I could hide between his broad shoulders and I could have snuggled against him for the rest of my life without a worry in the world.

His blue eyes never stopped sparkling, and his playful nature inside them had to have been evident to everyone. I couldn’t imagine I was the only one who could get lost in those beautiful eyes. Seeing Hannah acting the way she did, I now knew I wasn’t.

As if his blue eyes weren’t inviting enough already, my stepbrother had the nerve to have blond hair to accentuate them even further. That was just too much for me.

He was way too handsome for me and it wasn’t just the physical aspect that made him a complete package: It was his free-spirited nature that had gotten me to fall for him years ago, when we were growing up together.

I had seen pictures of him from his journeys: climbing on the Himalayas, surfing in Australia, hiking in South America. He was still the same explorer I had known all those years ago. Only this time, the tree in our backyard was no longer high enough for him. I doubted if any obstacle was ever too high for him to overcome.

There were a few times I remembered when had touched me. Helping me climb the tree, or getting me inside our tree house, I had come to known that his touch was nothing like I had ever felt before. It was so gentle and precise at the same time. I often wondered if he realized what his touch made me feel. He would move his hands with such determination and experience, it almost made me believe there was something between us.

But there wasn’t. There couldn’t be. Society wouldn’t allow such relationships. I should have known better. It was stupid of me to think about he had feelings for me.

I had thought about those moments when he had been gone all these years. I would fantasize about being with him, even though it was forbidden.

“Umm. What were you saying?” I was so deep in my thoughts I had completely lost my chain of thought. Just seeing him there, mere feet away, short circuited my brain.

“Never mind,” he said, placing his dishes in the sink, “but what about that Hannah girl. You two know each other, right?”

Of course he would want to speak about her. ARGH!

“Yeah, we’re roommates in college,” I said while sighing.

“That’s what I thought. She has quite the way of handling herself, doesn’t she?”

If you mean that she likes pushing her big tits right in front of your face then yes! “Uhm. You could say that, yeah.”

“I know we haven’t had the chance to speak yet sis, but my buddies wanted to throw this party and I couldn’t really say no to it. You understand that, right?”

I froze for a moment when I realized he was standing right in front of me, almost too close for what would be considered proper by other people. A hint of his pleasurable smell made its way to my nose; overriding any thoughts I had and flooding my memories of our time playing in the tree house. In my mind, I pictured his blue eyes inviting me to come closer to him, to let him hug his stepsister passionately.

“I’m just glad we had the chance to at least see each other.”

I was lying, but there was no point in damaging our relationship for something that wouldn’t happen.

“You know,” he said, “perhaps we will have a chance to talk once the guests leave my house. Does that sound good for you, sis?”

My lips curled in as I tried my best not to embrace him in a hug and to tell him what I felt, what I had been keeping locked inside me all the years he had been gone. I bit my teeth against my lips, trying to force the thought of jumping in his arms away from my mind.

“Yeah, that sounds nice,” I said, “go be with your friends. They are dying to hear more stories of your adventures.”

I was tempted to grab him by his toned arm, despite what I just told myself not to do. Touching my stepbrother’s muscular arm wouldn’t make things any easier for me.

“You are right,” he said to me smiling, “we will have all the time in the world to talk about things.” A smile of genuine warmth flashed over his face, and he placed his hand on my shoulder.

The heat from his hand immediately transferred to my petite shoulder, nursing my body from the pain of seeing him laugh with Hannah had caused me just minutes before. His touch helped bring me back some life with his energy.

I had to do something before things got out of control inside my head. “Yeah, we’ll do that,” I said, suggesting with my hand towards his guests.

I saw his friends talking around the dinner table. Well, most of the talking seemed to be done by Hannah, who had her eyes on Andrew as soon as she noticed we were coming to them.

I knew there was no point in having false hope. I’d be best off succumbing to the hard, cold truth of losing Andrew to Hannah.

I walked behind Andrew, stealing a few glances towards his firm buttocks before I realized what I was doing. My lips curved inward from letting myself go there and I hoped no one noticed.

My brown hair swung from side to side in its ponytail as we walked. I had the strangest sensation that it was odd for me to walk behind him, as he was usually the one who somehow always ended up walking behind me. A sensation of déjà-vu intruded into my thoughts: I knew I had done this before, insisting on walking behind him before so that I could check him out, but when was it? Had it been five years ago in high school? When he had left? For the life of me, I couldn’t put my finger around when and why it had happened.

As we grew closer to the dinner table, Hannah faced us. I could see the frown on her face as she saw me with Andrew. In her mind, I should have known not to interfere with her plans to get him. Talking to him alone took time away from her talking to him.

If you thought Andrew being my stepbrother meant that I was allowed to talk to him whenever I wanted, you clearly didn’t know Hannah.

Andrew and I sat down, and the conversation that had been mulling quieted down at the same time.

“You’ve already told us a few stories, Andrew,” Hannah said, “and I especially liked the one you told me privately. But that’s just between us, so how ‘bout you tell something less private for the rest of us?” She kept staring at him, clearly not caring if everyone else thought she was being too forward with her advances. She squeezed her arms around her boobs, giving him all the reason to look at her curvy figures.

Somehow I knew there hadn’t been much of ‘private story’ Andrew had told her. She just wanted everyone else think she was somehow special in Andrew’s eyes. But looking at Andrew, I saw the discomfort in his eyes when.

Seeing her snubbed like that, I smiled so wide, I had to cover my mouth with my hands. Take that you…skank! Yeah, I can talk however I like inside my head, yeah!

“Well, you haven’t spoken about the reason why you decided to come home now, after all these years of being away,” Hannah said.

“Yeah, I’ve been curious about that. Why did you come back?” I added, which got an angry look from Hannah.

Hannah raised her voice to drown mine. “I’m dying to know about it!”

Andrew took a long pause. “Are you sure you want to hear about this? It might not be the right time for this story.”

“Your stories are always so interesting. Of course I wanna hear about it,” Hannah said.

“Okay then. As some of you know already, I was at the Himalayas when I decided to come home.” Andrew rubbed his cheek, clearly thinking about something that had had a deep impact on his life. “I’ve wanted to climb Mount Everest ever since me and Jessica started climbing the tree in our back yard and six years ago. On my travels, I met a nice Canadian fellow named Nathan back in Byron Bay who had the same dream.”

The broad smile on Andrew’s face when he said that brought joy into my heart: he cared deeply about Nathan.

“We shared the same passions and ended up climbing and trekking together non-stop for the next few years. Traveling so close to each other with your best friend for years meant there weren’t any secrets between us. And it made me like him even more. He didn’t judge my mistakes.” The smile on Andrew grew wider as he talked about his travels with Nathan.

“We traveled around the world with Nathan for years before he didn’t have a choice but to head home. We had gotten very close in our travels and kept in touch with each other. A few years ago, he emailed me about climbing the Everest and he even asked me to join him. At the time I had a broken leg and I had to use a crutch to get around, so it didn’t end up happening. I was jealous of not being able to go with him, but I had a few friends who had climbed it before, so I got him in touch with them.”

He stopped his story to look at me. There was a hint of something in his blue eyes before he continued.

“I heard from him later on that he had a failed at reaching the summit, but that he had spent time in the death zone and that he was hooked. At that point it was obvious that he had the summit fever everyone keeps talking about. We spoke on the phone multiple times afterward as I wanted to know every detail of what it was really like.”

Andrew crossed his arms and his voice lowered noticeably. “Few months after that, it happened what always does: as we no longer traveled together, we eventually lost touch… but the excitement of climbing the Everest hadn’t disappeared from my life. If anything, it was stronger than ever before. So, I was in China when the climbing season had just begun and I convinced my buddies to take a trip to the Himalayas. I knew I wasn’t actually going to climb the Everest that time, because on top of other hurdles, trying to buy myself a spot at one of the climbing crews without any money on me was not going to happen. But it was something I had wanted to do for so long, you know? If only to smell the cool mountain air and place a prayer flag for luck.” He took in a deep breath, as if he was remembering what it had really smelled like.