Ethan
I'm home. It's almost night time. The sun'll be setting soon. I pull into the garage and park the car, then turn it off and sit there.
Yeah, I have to go back inside, don't I? Fuck.
She's home. All the cars are here. Where else would she be? Maybe she took a walk? Maybe she's upstairs in her room, or in the living room watching TV, and I can sneak back in, go to my room, shut the door, and stay there.
Except for dinner. I can probably get out of one dinner, but then there's breakfast tomorrow. Lunch. Another dinner. There's an entire fucking summer's worth of meals and I can't skip every single one. I can't stay in my room for two months, and I can't stay out of the house for two months, either.
Basically, I'm fucked. I'm going to see Ashley one way or another, whether I want to or not, and I'm pretty much completely fucked.
Yeah, well, what can you do? I have no fucking clue. Let me know if you figure it out.
I get out of the car and head inside. My dad's hovering by the door. That's what he does when he's waiting for me to come back. He has something to say to me. I don't want to play this game, but I guess I have to. I don't even try to avoid him and get right to it.
"Hey," I say. "What's up?"
"You alright?" he asks. "I tried calling your cellphone."
I reach for my pocket to check, and... "Shit, I forgot it upstairs. Sorry."
"Wow," he says, grinning. "You forgot your phone? I didn't think anyone could live without their phones nowadays."
I grin, too, because it's kind of true. "Yeah. I had a lot on my mind. I guess I didn't notice."
"I'm sorry about earlier," my dad says. "It's been a few years, but I know you're still getting used to all of this. I am, too."
"It's cool," I say.
"I was thinking," he says, "if you're up for it, why don't we go camping soon. I can't this week, but how about next week? We can head out for a week or two. Three? Play it by ear. Like we used to, you know?"
"I'm not sure Ashley and her mom are the camping types," I say. "It's a cool idea otherwise, though."
"I meant just us," my dad says, smiling. "You and me. They can handle things here, right? We could have fun out there on our own. Be real wilderness men."
"You're just going to bring your laptop and an inflatable mattress, aren't you?" I ask, chuckling. "Not sure if that counts as being wilderness men, Dad."
"Nah," he says. "We can do it the real way. Just us, hiking in the woods. Up a mountain? Whatever you want. We don't even have to stay at a regular campground. We can take a journey through the woods and see how it goes."
It sounds fun. It sounds like something we would have done years ago. Years and years ago, before he put all of himself into his work. I know why he did it, but it's still hard to forgive him sometimes.
I'm also not sure it's something I want to do now, either. For some fucked up reason, I kind of think it'd be fun to bring Ashley and her mom camping with us. I get it. I get that this is stupid as fuck, especially considering the circumstances, but whatever. I don't care.
"I don't know," I tell him. "It sounds fun, but..." Yeah, how the fuck am I supposed to explain this to him? "I think it'd be cool to ask Ashley and her mom to come, too. I know you thought it'd be nice to go with just us, but maybe I should try to get along with them more."
Yeah, maybe I should try to stop fantasizing about burying my cock in my stepsister's pussy, too. Not sure that's ever going to happen. Not sure if I can ever just...
Just be friends with her? Fuck. Life is difficult. It really fucking sucks sometimes.
My dad lifts his brow, curious and confused. Yeah, I get it. He has a right to be.
"I think I was a dick earlier," I tell him. "I still don't want to study with her, but maybe we can hang out. I know you want me to do good in school, but I'm not her, you know? I don't know how to fucking... get good grades. I don't even understand how she does it."
My dad shrugs. "You could start by swearing less," he says with a grin.
"Yeah, shit. Sorry," I say. I don't realize until afterwards that I just swore again.
My dad laughs. "Ethan, don't ever feel like you have to be like Ashley. She's your sister now, but I hope you don't think that means you have to compete with her for anything. You're both different people, and unfortunately sometimes that means your personalities are going to clash. It also means that sometimes you can show each other something that the other would never have experienced otherwise. There's a good side and a bad side to everything."
I don't know what the good side to this is. I can see exactly what the bad side is, though.
That's me. I'm the bad boy. She's the good girl. My dad's right about that, at least.
What do bad boys do? They fuck everything up. They get into trouble. They do things they know they're not supposed to do...
They...
Holy fucking shit. I've had an epiphany. Yeah, that's right. I'm a genius. Or an idiot. One of those. I don't fucking know. I feel like I've figured something important out, though. Maybe it's dumb. Yeah, it's probably dumb. It's cool, though. I feel better already.
"I think you're right," I tell my dad. "I should go apologize to her, huh?"
"It'd be nice," he says. "She's upstairs. Her and her mom went shopping, but they just came back. We're making dinner right now. It'll be ready in about thirty minutes. You want to let Ashley know? I'll call you when it's ready."
"Yeah, sounds good," I say.
My dad puts a hand on my shoulder, strong and steady. We're not good at this. We don't deal with emotions well. There's too many of them. That shit's confusing as fuck. Oh well, who cares?
I hug him. Whatever. He hugs me, too. It's real fucking manly.
We let go of each other and he heads back to the kitchen with Ashley's mom. I've got a date with destiny or some shit like that. I've remembered something important just now, and I've got to deal with it. This can't wait.
I go upstairs, kick off my shoes in my room, and my socks, too, then head to Ashley's room. Her door is open. I walk right in, don't even knock, don't even say anything. She's standing with her back to me, poking through a bag of clothes she must have just bought today. Didn't she just buy new clothes the other day with that friend of hers? Julia or whatever?
Now she's got more. And... huh. She's holding up a pair of cute as fuck panties, twirling them this way and that in her hands, stretching them out and looking at them from every angle. Shit, I'd love to see those on her. They're lacy and light blue, boy short styled, and I'm pretty sure her ass would look amazing in them.
I close the door behind me, not even trying to hide the fact that I'm there anymore. She jumps, startled, and turns towards me. I grin at her, then click the lock on her door, trapping us in her room.
"What are you doing?" she asks me, eyes narrowed.
"I went to the beach today," I tell her. "You know what happened when I was there?"
"Um... no..."
"I was driving around," I say. "I was pissed off. I wanted to do something stupid. I saw these two girls, and they were looking at me. Real DTF, giggling and shit."
"DTF?" she asks.
"Down to fuck," I say.
"Ethan," she says. "Please, stop. I don't want to hear this. I don't want to hear about your... your conquests, or whatever you want to call them."
"Listen," I say. "First off, fuck you, Princess. You know why? Because nothing happened. I was going to. I was going to screw shit up bad and make you hate me, because I wanted to forget everything and it's probably better if you really fucking hate me. I didn't, though. I said hi to them and then I kept driving. That's all I've done all day is drive. That's it."
"I don't know why you're telling me this," she says.
"There's a reason," I say. "I'm telling you this because even though shit's kind of fucked up right now, we had rules, and I wanted to stick to them. Rule number... whatever the hell it was. What rule are we dealing with here?"
She knows. I know she knows.
"Rule number ten," she whispers to me. "You can't sleep with other girls while we're..." She pauses. "But we're not now. I don't know what you're trying to say."
"We're not?" I ask her. "You sure about that, Princess? I think you're forgetting the most important fucking rule, don't you?"
She scrunches up her nose and looks at me, trying to figure out what I mean.
"Rule number one," I tell her. "This is only going to last a week. Guess what? The week isn't over yet. Not by a fucking longshot, Princess. I didn't realize it until I got home, but that's what's been screwing with me this entire time. I almost forgot the rules, but I'm glad I remembered."
"A week!" she says, glaring at me. "It was a week because that's how long our parents were going to be away. I think it's kind of over now, Ethan. They're back already."
"Fuck you," I say. "Yeah, for real, just fuck you, Princess. A week is a fucking week. If you want to stop, then you're going to have to use rule number three. I remember that one, at least."
"I can change my mind whenever I want," she says.
"Yeah," I say. "You can. Do it. I dare you. I'll leave right now if you do. We can end this on our own terms, Princess. It's your decision."
"I don't think it's that easy," she says. "Ethan, I..."
"Fucking do it!" I growl at her. "Say it's over! Tell me you're done and you don't want to do this anymore."
Her bottom lip trembles and she starts to shake. It hurts to watch her. I don't want to yell at her like this, but I just need to make her understand. I think that's what we're both missing here. Closure. She can end it. If she wants to end it, she can end it. And then it's done. That's our choice. It's not done because we have to stop because our parents came home. It's done because she wants it to be done. That's the rule. It's our rule.
"What if I don't want to say it?" she asks, whispering, nervous.
"You remember what rule number two is?" I ask her
She smiles softly and nods.
"Come here, Princess. Right fucking now. Get the hell over here."