Stepbrother With Benefits 15 (Third Season) (7 page)

"Fine," I say.  "Yeah, maybe she might like it, but you need to make sure beforehand.  Also, you shouldn't date a girl like that, Caleb.  She'd eat you alive."

"I... I could be dominant!" Caleb says.  It's kind of cute.

"Sure, kid, whatever you say."

"Really, though, maybe I could be?  You're still going to help with the—"

My door opens abruptly, and some insane chick just waltzes right the fuck in.  It's Scarlet, by the way.  Just in case you weren't sure of which insane chick I was talking about.  It's always going to be Scarlet.

"Help with what?" Scarlet asks.

"N-nothing!" Caleb stammers.

"Oh, is that the website?" she asks, looking at my laptop.

She just skips right on over and checks it out for herself.

"Oooh, that's kinky," she says, reading the text message screenshot.  "Way to go, Ashley!"

"Caleb, are you going to figure out how we find this hosting service or whatever you were talking about?" I ask him, trying my best to ignore Scarlet.  Not that ignoring her ever did me any good in the past, but maybe it'll work now.

"Yeah, uh... you just have to..."

I'm not paying attention.  I have a wireless mouse to go along with my laptop, but I was using the mousepad on my laptop before.  This is unfortunate.

Scarlet takes my mouse in hand, and scrolls up to the top of the website.  Ashley's naked selfie is in view again, taking up basically the entire screen.  I don't realize this at first, but when I see Caleb open-mouthed staring over my shoulder, uh... yeah, what else would he be staring at?

Scarlet looks, too.  Not quite staring, I guess, but she seems appreciative.  What the fuck?

"Ashley took this photo on her own?" Scarlet asks.  "I really like the lighting.  The angle is excellent, too.  She did a great job.  It's very artistic.  It's got a nice amateur feel to it, though.  A little gritty and raw.  I think that's a nice quality.  A lot of photographers try to make their pictures as crisp and clear as possible, but I find they end up looking unrealistic.  This picture doesn't just have a great attractiveness to it, but it's got that gritty and realistic feel that adds something even more profound.  I'm impressed."

"She's fucking naked, Scarlet," I say.  "Stop staring."

"I'm admiring art, Ethan," Scarlet says, sassing me.  "Fuck you."

"Yeah," Caleb says.  "Me, too!  I'm admiring art.  Really hot naked art."

"Caleb," Scarlet says, glaring at him.  "If you ever look at this picture again, we can't be friends anymore."

"What do you mean?" he asks, confused, with some sad as fuck puppy dog look in his eyes.

"I can see it in your eyes," she says to him.  "I can see it, Caleb."

"See what?" I ask.  Because... yeah... I don't know if I see it.  What am I supposed to be seeing?

Scarlet glares at me now, too.  What the fuck bullshit is this?

"I can't believe you were showing this to Caleb," she says to me.

"He wanted to see it!  He was practically begging me to show him."

"I did not!" Caleb says.  "I was trying to help."

"What's that, then?" Scarlet asks, looking down.

"I swear to fucking god, Caleb, if you have an erection..."

"I don't!  What the heck, I swear, I..."

Scarlet just reaches out and cups Caleb's crotch in his hands. 
Uh... whoa...

"If you didn't have one before, you're about to have one soon," I say, smirking.  "Can you two go back to Caleb's room and do that?"

Scarlet blushes and pulls her hand away.  Yeah, the girl who just grabbed a guy's crotch to check if he had a hard-on is blushing.  Well then...

"I just don't like the way you were looking at Ashley's picture," Scarlet murmurs.

"Sorry," Caleb mumbles.  "I didn't mean to."

"What the fuck?" I say.  Seriously, I have no fucking clue.

Also, the picture is still front and center on my laptop.  Let's just fix that, shall we?  I scroll down fast, all the way to the bottom.  Footers or whatever the fuck.  Caleb mumbles and says something or other to Scarlet, then they both come over to help.  I think that's what's going on.  I don't know if these two can help me or if they just need to go somewhere private and fuck the shit out of each other.

I know Caleb needs to get laid.  I thought Scarlet was fine on that front, but maybe she needs some cock right about now, too.  It happens.

"There," Caleb says, pointing.  "He didn't remove it.  I probably could have found it by doing a WHOIS search online, but this is easier.  I can file a complaint a little easier this way."

"Who is search what?" I ask.

"It's... nevermind," Caleb says.  "It's just a way to find out who owns a website or who is hosting it."

"So you're saying you didn't actually have to look at the website to complain and get it taken down?"

"I mean, technically... no," Caleb says.  "It's just easier sometimes, I swear!  I wasn't doing anything weird!"

"Just staring at pictures of my naked girlfriend and my stepsister."

"It's the same person, Mr. Moneybags," Scarlet points out.

"Fuck off, Scarlet."

––––––––

M
y mom, Jacky, and I do our nails together.  It ends up being a little more trouble than its worth.  They always make it seem so easy online, don't they?  I mean, really, even though we follow the instructions we found on Pinterest exactly, I'm not sure our nails look the same.

They look pretty good, don't get me wrong, but...

"What's that one supposed to be again?" my mom asks me, pointing to my index finger on my left hand.

"It's a shooting star," I say.

It's just that one finger on each hand that's different.  The rest are a dark blue background with little sparkles of stars dabbed on here and there.  I was supposed to add glitter to the center before they dried, to make it even more sparkly, but we didn't have any.

"Oh," my mom says, sounding kind of weird.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask her.  "What did you think it was?"

"Oh, it's nothing," she says, dismissive, but the way she says it makes me think it's definitely not nothing.  She looks like she's about to laugh, too.

Ugh!  Really, Mom?

"You know what it looks like?" Jacky says, then without waiting for anyone to respond, she adds, "It's kind of like when you find bird poop on your windshield.  It's that same color white, and it's even smeared sort of the same way as when that happens."

My mom starts to crack up, even though she's trying to hide it, too.  I glare at her, but she just shrugs it off.

"I wasn't going to say anything," my mom says.

"I don't even understand either of you," I say.  "Why would there be bird poop randomly in the night sky?  The rest of my nails are definitely a starry night sky."

"Or a snowy day," my mom says quickly.

Jacky shrugs.  "Bird poop on a snowy day?"

They both start cracking up and laughing.  Well, their nails aren't any better!  Actually, my mom's look really nice, but she cheated and just went with some simple stripe patterns.  It's not like it's hard to make stripes, now is it?  So, yes, that's cheating.

Mine would look better with glitter, too.  They'd have the appropriate sparkle, and then this would never have happened, because honestly what kind of bird poop sparkles?  None that I've ever heard of.

"You're both dumb," I say.  "We need to get glitter next time."

"They look nice, though," my mom says.  "I'm sure everyone will love them.  I like them, too, but I'm a little strange sometimes."

"You can't just say you're strange to get out of this," I say.  "You said my shooting star looked like bird poop, Mom."

"Well... technically Jacky said that," my mom counters.

"Hey!" Jacky says.  "I was just trying to help."

"You're both dumb," I repeat.

It's fine, though.  Kind of fine, I guess.  I'm not going to worry about it.  Actually, I'm going to do the opposite of worry about it.  I grab my phone and take a picture of my nails, then text it to Ethan.

What do you think?

He texts back after a few seconds, but it's just...

Cute

That's it?  Just cute?  Um...

I don't know why, but I feel weird now.  Kind of worried, actually.  Maybe I shouldn't be.  It's not like this is a big deal.  I texted him a picture of my nails, and he said they looked cute.  That should be good enough.  Right?

Well...

"I'm just going to go for a quick walk," I say.

My mom and Jacky look up from browsing more nail polish designs on Pinterest.

"Is everything alright?" my mom asks.

"I was just kidding before," Jacky says.  "I really do like your nails.  They came out way better than mine."

"No, um... it's not that," I say.  "Nothing's wrong, I just... I kind of want to talk to Ethan for a second.  It's late, but I want to say goodnight before we go to sleep."

"Alright, honey," my mom says, smiling.  "Say hi to Ethan for me."

"Yeah, I should call my dad, too," Jacky says.  "He'll want to know everything is going well."

And that's that.  I take my phone and walk out into the hall.  No one's in the halls, but I can hear people further down in the common room.  It's quiet for now.  The first few days are always kind of quiet at night before people get into a groove of who's who and what's going on where.  Some floors in the dorms attract more excitement than others, while other floors are more quiet and good for studying.  There's no actual rules as to which ends up being which, but people gravitate towards different ones depending on who's living on which floor.

I veer away from the common room and go towards the public kitchen area.  No one's there right now, so I decide to use it.  It's mine, now!  Sort of, I guess.

I sit down on one of the small chairs by a circle table next to a counter filled with different cooking devices.  There's a toaster, microwave, toaster oven, coffee pot, and even a panini grill.  Behind me in the small room is an oven and a fridge.

I put my phone on the table and stare at it, wondering if I should really call Ethan or not.  I kind of want to, but I don't know what the proper relationship etiquette is there.  This is all so strange and new to me.  During the summer it was easier, because we were just never alone for that long.  I mean, yes, we weren't constantly together, but we went to sleep together, we woke up together, we planned our days together.  Sometimes I went and did things with my mom, or a couple of times I hung out with Julia.  Ethan spent some time with some of his friends, too.

We never spent time together with our friends, because we didn't know how to explain our relationship to them.  It was just easier to stay apart, I guess.  It's not like we were apart for that long, though.

We've been apart for the entire day now.  I left early this morning, but it feels like it's been a lot longer than that.  I just...

I pick up my phone and dial his number.  It starts to ring.  I wait, and it rings again.  By the third ring, I think about hanging up, but shortly after, Ethan picks up.

"Hey," he says.  "What's up?"

He sounds kind of terse, like he's busy?  I don't know...

"Sorry," I say.  "Are you busy?"

"Huh?" he asks.

"I don't know," I say, mumbling.  "You sounded like you were busy when I called.  We don't have to talk or anything.  I just missed you a little bit."

"Just a little bit?" he asks, a grin in his voice.

"Shut up," I say.  "I missed you a lot but I don't know if you miss me as much as I miss you and I don't want to be clingy!"

"Tell me how you really feel, Princess," he says, laughing.

"I feel bad," I say, annoyed.  "I don't like this.  I want to be with you.  Right now.  I don't want to be here."

"Yeah..." he says, trailing off for a second.  "I know the feeling.  Fuck.  There's so much shit going on that I'd forgotten about.  I want to forget about it again.  I want to be with you, too."

"Why did you sound, um... busy, I guess?  You sounded like I was interrupting you before.  Is everything alright?"

"Nah, I'm not busy.  Just walking around.  Kind of pissed, actually.  Not at you, just everything else."

This is strange and new.  My ears perk up and I start listening more.  I like when Ethan talks about himself and how he's feeling.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I ask.

"I don't know," he says.  "It's complicated."

I nod into the phone, for all the good it does me.  We're both quiet for a few seconds after that, but it seems like the silence drags on longer than that.

"Can I talk to you about something?" he asks.  "I mean, really talk to you, but it's weird.  I don't want you to get upset or worried or anything."

"When you say that, it makes me worried," I say, laughing.  "Should I be?"

"Nah, not really, it's just..."

Nothing.  It's quiet again.

"Is it important?" I ask him.

"Yeah, kind of," he says.

"Alright, I want to know.  You can talk to me about anything, Ethan.  You know that, right?  You've made me feel like I can talk to you about anything for the past couple months, and I want you to know that you can talk to me about anything, too."

"Thanks, Princess," he says.  His voice sounds happy.  Not giddy or excited, but just very content.

"You're welcome," I say, smiling, then joking, I add, "Now tell me what it is!  The suspense is killing me."

"Oh, fuck, I don't want you to die or anything," he says, snickering.

He's procrastinating now.  It takes a few more seconds, but finally he says more.

"You know about, uh... fuck... the shit I did in the past?" he says, kind of a question but not really.  "Girls and whatever the fuck.  It's all over now, but..."

I don't know how I feel about this.  "But what?" I ask.

"I thought it'd be different when I came back," he says.  "I'm with you, and I want to be with you.  I thought there'd be some magical fucking barrier surrounding me or something that told girls I was off limits, but there's not."

"Those two girls from before, right?" I say.  "That's not your fault, Ethan.  I mean, I didn't exactly appreciate them being there, but you told them we're dating and it's not your fault that they snuck into your room."