Stepbrother With Benefits 13 (Third Season) (4 page)

"Thank you," my stepmom says, smiling.  "You're really nice to her, Ethan.  I appreciate it.  I want you to know that.  Your father and I have been talking about you two lately, and we think both of you have changed.  In a good way," she adds with a wink, "don't worry."

"Nah," I say.  "I don't think that's true."

She keeps smiling, though.  I don't think she believes me.  I guess I don't know if I believe myself, either.

"It is," she says.  "This is cute, too!  Technology these days, huh?  I was a little worried about what would happen when you two were apart for the school year, but you're both smart and if you put in the effort, I think you'll be fine.  It's not hard work if it's something you love and you're doing it for someone you love, right?"

I grin.  "Yeah, that makes sense.  I do love her, too," I say.  "I just... I don't know, I want you to know that.  I'm not just saying it or anything."

"I know," my stepmom says.  "I can tell.  I have my ways."

And that's that.  We just talk now, about school and how I'm going to get back.  My dad's actually going with me this time.  Last year we kind of did our own thing, or me and my dad did.  Ashley's mom went with her to school, but I went on my own.

It's not like it's a lot of work, and all I had to bring was my clothes, but it's cool to have my dad with me.  I wouldn't have ever thought we'd want to do something like this together before now, but both of us have changed a little this summer.  It's nice.

"Now, remember," my stepmom says.  "No flirting with the cheerleaders.  You can look, but you can't touch.  Also don't look too much, either.  You don't want to give any girls the wrong idea.  You're taken, young man!"

I laugh.  "Yeah, I get it.  I won't even look.  How's that sound?"

"I'll tell you a secret, but don't tell Ashley I told you, alright?"

"Sure," I say.  "I promise."

"A little jealousy in a relationship isn't the worst thing ever.  It can be good sometimes, actually.  So if you look a little every once in awhile, don't worry.  I'm not saying to stare or anything.  It's just hard to start a relationship, and it's even harder to stay in one."

She pauses to let that sink in.  And, uh... I guess I don't really get what she's saying?

"Some people get complacent, thinking that once they've got a girlfriend or boyfriend they don't have to do the work anymore," she explains.  "If Ashley gets a little jealous sometimes, well... she'll do her best to keep you.  And the same goes for you.  If you ever see her looking at another boy, remember what I just said.  Don't think that just because she's with you now that you don't have to do anything else.  You need to make her feel special for forever, Ethan.  And she should do the same for you, too."

"Forever?" I ask, pretending to be shocked.  "Kind of a long time, isn't it?"

"Nope!" she says, almost the same way Ashley would say it.  It makes me smile.  "Forever.  I'm already planning out everything, so don't disappoint me now.  I even have baby name recommendations, but I'll keep those a secret for a little while.  No need to rush that one."

"Oh, Ashley didn't tell you yet?" I ask.  "I really thought she would have..."

Ashley's mom stares at me, confused at first.  Then her eyes widen.  Her mouth opens.  She looks ready to scream, but she's holding back.  "Ethan, are you—"

I laugh.  Yeah, she's not happy with me right now.  She slaps my shoulder and glares at me, trying to be angry, but also trying not to smile.  The smile wins out eventually, though.

"I can't believe you," she says.  "It's not like I want Ashley to be pregnant, but you can't joke around about things like that!"

"Sorry!" I say.  "Maybe I wasn't joking?"

"Really, were you joking or not?  You need to tell me.  I need to know if I should talk to Ashley about baby name recommendations yet."

"Yeah, sure, go ahead and do that, but I'm pretty sure she's not pregnant, so she might think you're crazy."

"Ugh.  I thought you were my favorite stepson, but now I'm having a change of heart."

"What?  No way.  Who's going to replace me as favorite?"

"Hero," she says, far too quickly as if she's thought about this before.

"Cool," I mutter.  "The dog.  Wow."

"I don't want to, um... pry... but have you two had that talk at all?"

"Uh... about Hero?"  I'm so confused right now.

"No, um... babies...?"

"Yeah... no.  No babies.  Not for awhile.  Once college is done, we'll figure it out, I guess.  As long as, uh... you know..."

As long as we make it that long.  I know everyone's really excited about this, and to be honest with you I'm pretty fucking excited, too, but it's still difficult to think that maybe I'm dating the girl I want to be with for the rest of my life.  I love it, and I love Ashley, and if I had to make the choice right now, I'd just say fuck it and run off to Vegas or whatever the fuck, but...

It's just a big decision, isn't it?  I can count the number of big decisions I've made in my life on one hand, and on that one hand I would probably only need one or two fingers.  College is one, I guess?  Even then, it wasn't that big a deal.  When I was figuring out where I wanted to go, I just looked at the places that I could play football at, and then looked at the ones that had a decent curriculum and a decent party life.

Yeah, colleges don't exactly want you to go there because they're known for having great parties, but I'm pretty sure we all know that some do and some are more serious.

Obviously Ashley went to a serious school.  They don't even have much going on in the way of sports, and the courses and degree programs are top notch.  Pretty sure I wouldn't even last a day there.  She makes it seem like it's the easiest thing in the world, though.

"I think that's a good idea," my stepmom says, pulling me back.  "No babies, not for awhile, and you two can have fun and enjoy yourselves.  You have the whole rest of your lives ahead of you.  Babies are a lot of work, too.  Probably even more work than football practice."  She says that last one with a wink.

"What?  No way.  Football practice is rough.  You sure about that?"

Ashley's mom laughs and rolls her eyes at me.  This is fun.  Just hanging out, talking about relationships and school and all sorts of things.  It's normal, and I feel like I could use a little normal in my life.

Because, yeah... once I go back to school, pretty sure my life's going to be anything but normal.  It's too much to explain right now, but you'll understand what I mean soon enough.

While walking downstairs, I realize something that I probably should have realized earlier...

This all could have been avoided if I'd just tipped my laptop screen down.  That's kind of how they work, isn't it?  I was in such a frantic rush to close out the webchat window that I didn't realize I could have just closed the computer itself.  Even if it happened to stay on and my mom could still see, she wouldn't see much of anything considering the webcam in the laptop would have been facing
nothing
.

Yup...

Well, it's done now, and she already knows, and now I'm just marching downstairs, annoyed.  I guess I'm not annoyed that Ethan's talking to my mom, because I sort of understand, but I just don't like getting caught at things like that.  It's embarrassing, for one.

And, um... I don't know.  I want it both ways, and I'm not sure if that's even possible anymore.  I want to be the good girl, the girl who doesn't do stuff like that, at least as far as everyone else is concerned, and then with Ethan, er... I want to be a very bad girl, who does a lot of things that the Good Girl me really shouldn't be doing.

Is that possible?  I have no idea.  I don't think it is.  As far as my mom's concerned, I'm probably way past that.

She doesn't get upset at me about it.  In fact, she's mostly been supportive.  Not about sex, because that's kind of weird.  I mean, she's not unsupportive about sex, but I try to keep our conversations away from that, or just more general.

I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who feels awkward about all of this.  My mom takes it in stride and is open-minded about everything.

Actually, that's not true.  Ethan's dad doesn't really talk with us about it, either.  I don't think he's upset about it, and he's been supportive in his own way, it's just not something that he's willing to be that open about.  I hope that makes sense.  He really is nice and I'm glad he understands.

In fact, you know what?  I'm going to go talk to him right now!  A regular talk, not anything strange.  Not like what my mom and Ethan must be talking about.  Ew.  Weird.

I find him in the kitchen.  He's sorting through things in the fridge and organizing a bunch of food on the counter.  I walk up to him and watch for a second.  When he sees me there, he looks over and smiles.

"Hey, kiddo," he says.  "Did you see your mom?  She was looking for you."

"Um... yup," I say.  It's true, even if I don't think my mom expected to find me the way she did.

"Great.  Did she tell you what our plan was?"

"No?"

"Ah, I get to be the one to tell you, then," he says with a grin.  "Since it's you and Ethan's last night home, and your mom tells me that you two have been dating for almost two months exactly, we thought we'd plan a special dinner with all of us.  What do you think?"

"Like an anniversary dinner?" I ask, lifting one brow.

"Yeah, like an anniversary dinner," my stepdad says.  "And a going away dinner, too.  Kind of like two celebrations in one.  This summer's been a little crazy, but we're going to miss you two, and we thought it'd be nice to spend the night together one last time.  Until the holidays and next summer, at least."

"I think that sounds really nice," I say, smiling.

After he puts down the steak tips he's unpacking from the fridge, I sneak over for a hug.  He seems a little surprised at first, but then he hugs me back.  We just stand like that for a second.

"Thank you for everything," I tell him.  "This summer has been really nice for me, too.  Ethan's not the most talkative when it comes to this sort of thing, but I know he feels the same way."

"You know, if you told me everything would turn out like this a year ago, I would have thought you were crazy," he says.  "Now, though?  It's nice.  It's really nice, Ashley.  I just hope you two know what you're getting into, alright?  Relationships can be hard, and yours might be even harder than that sometimes.  Your mom and I are here for you if you need anything, though.  Just ask, alright?"

"Alright," I say, smiling.

He squeezes me tight one last time, then lets me go.  "You want to help me make dinner?  I was thinking kebabs on the grill.  We can hang out by the pool and watch the sunset together, then find a movie on Netflix.  Unless you and Ethan have other plans?"

I think if you ask Ethan, he's always got
"other plans"
with me, but... he's going to have to wait, because we're not just boyfriend and girlfriend.  We're a family, too, you know?

I'm not sure about his
"other plans"
either... I need my sleep!  I mean, really, I don't mind staying up a little late, but Ethan is difficult to say no to sometimes.  Mostly because I don't actually want to say no, and then we'll end up keeping each other awake until four in the morning, and I'll get no sleep, and...

Is that really so bad?  It's our last night together for awhile, so... maybe...

It's only for a week, Ashley.  We'll be able to see each other again on the weekend, and then the weekend after that.

It's only for a week, over and over again.

The first time Ethan and I told each other that, it didn't seem like such a long time.  It seemed easier, like it would be over before we knew it, and then our lives would go back to normal.

Now, though, um...

It seems like a long time.  The week hasn't even started yet, and we're still together, but I feel like it's going to take forever.

"Your father and I have a surprise for you two," Ashley's mom says.

"Oh, yeah?" I ask.

We were heading downstairs when she stopped me.  Hero goes on ahead, and I can't really blame him.  I can smell some delicious as fuck meat from all the way up here, and I'd love to go check it out, too.  Dogs are lucky like that.  Maybe Hero's even luckier, but how should I know?  If we hadn't found him in the woods when we were camping, what would he be eating tonight?  Rabbit or something, I guess.

He's wild, or feral, or whatever you call it.  He doesn't really act like it, though.  That's how I feel sometimes.  I haven't exactly been a model son in the past, and I've been more than a little wild, but I want to be, uh... civilized?  I don't really know about that one, actually.

I want people to take me seriously, not just think I'm some fuck up who sleeps around and can't commit to anything.  Who knows how this'll work?  Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age.  My birthday is soon.  Holy fuck, I'll be nineteen...

Yeah, it's all downhill from here.  Shit.

"We were thinking..." Ashley's mom says, grinning.  "Me and your father thought it'd be fun to have a family going away celebration along with..."

She just stops.  Doesn't say more.  And the grin on her face gets wider.  This is big, I guess.  Fuck, I can't stand this.  I'm so bad at surprises, you don't even know.  I was the kid who unwrapped all his Christmas presents as soon as they showed up under the tree, then tried to wrap them back up so my dad wouldn't notice, except, yeah, that never really worked.

He kept saying he'd stop buying me presents if I kept it up.  He never actually stopped, but he tried to hide them and pretend he didn't get me any.  Except I always found where he hid them, even when he kept them at his office one year thinking I'd never find them there.  Yeah, uh... that one was pretty obvious, Dad.  Sorry to burst your bubble.

"Are you going to guess?" my stepmom asks.

Fuck, I'm supposed to guess?  "Uh... going away celebration and... strippers?"

Motherfucker, why did I say that?  I don't know!  I really have no idea!  It's just the first thing that popped into my mind.  When you celebrate stuff, I feel like strippers are the perfect accoutrement.  See? 
Accoutrement
.  That means they're fancy strippers.  These are high class, perfect quality ladies, who you can bring to your million dollar home and treat with respect.