Carl

Scott was acting strange and it didn’t take long for me to find out why. He was looking at me with anger in his eyes and of course my mind went to what I’d done to his sister a couple of days before. Nothing was said for several days, so I thought I was safe, but I guess I wasn’t.

“Talked to Jake the other day.”

“Oh yea?” That sinking feeling was in my stomach and I tried to swallow it down a couple of times, but it kept getting stuck in my throat.

“Yeah, he had some interesting things to say.”

“I bet.”

“About you.”

“Yea?”

I wasn’t going to cop to anything. I wanted to know what had been said before I figured out how I was going to approach it.

“Yeah he said that you left with my sister from the bar the other night.”

“I did, took her back to Lily’s place because she’d had too much to drink and Jake was trying to get with her. I didn’t think you would want that and I didn’t want her driving the way she was.”

“So she was drunk when you kissed her?”

That stopped me in my tracks and I didn’t look over at my friend. That probably signaled my guilt more than anything else did. Fuck, how did he know about that? I’d been so careful to make sure my truck was gone soon after I got there. I hadn’t expected that kiss in the parking lot though. It was the kiss that was seen. Only the kiss I hoped.

I tried to calm myself down because it mattered what I said now. He knew, I knew that and I could have killed Jake, but it was out and there was nothing that I could do about it now. My mind was racing, but no solutions were coming to me. I was still hoping that he only thought it was just a kiss. I was sure that he would have been swinging already if he knew what I had done to his hot little sister.

“She wasn’t that drunk.”

“So you kissed her?”

He was seething and I could see his fists balling up. I pulled over to the side of the road because this conversation needed my full attention and Scott was liable to start something while I was driving. I knew this could happen of course. I knew that I shouldn’t have taken her home, but I couldn’t stand the idea of her with Jake. The thought of his hands on her had been too much for me to deal with. Even if I had to walk away after that one night and I wasn’t going to be able to be with her again.

“It wasn’t like that.”

“What was it like then?”

“It was all innocent. She kissed me a little while we were in the parking lot. You know she had a crush on me and I think the liquor brought it out of her but it was no big deal.”

Scott didn’t know if he believed me or not. I know that he wanted to and he had this hopeful look on his face that was still clouded with suspicions, but he didn’t want to think that I could do that to him. I wish it was true, but Melanie had been too much of a temptation to ignore. I’d tried. I really had but the universe found some perverse pleasure in pushing us back together and messing with my head.

“So you’re trying to tell me that nothing happened?”

Scott was still mad, but there was hope. He wanted to believe that I hadn’t touched his sister and I wish to hell that I would be able to tell him that it was all lies that Jake had said. That he was just trying to start shit between us because I shooed him away from his sister.

We hadn’t done what his mind was thinking about, but what we did do was just as bad. I wasn’t stupid, I knew that much. But at the end of the day, I had to tell him something and I wasn’t going to lie to him.

“I wouldn’t say nothing happened, but not what you are thinking we did.”

“Did you fuck my sister? Just tell me the truth. No bullshit Carl.”

It was crude how it was said and I don’t know why I was suddenly offended by it. We hadn’t fucked. I wanted to, but we hadn’t. When I told him that we hadn’t, he seemed to relax a little bit.

“So what did you do, kiss a little more or something like that?”

“Something like that.”

He gave me a look and my head was turned but I could feel the burn of his look on my face. I wasn’t getting into what we did, but I was going to let him know that it was something. I felt guilt about it at the same time I wanted to do it all over again, more this time.

“Why Melanie?”

I couldn’t tell him that she had begged me for it and teased me for weeks until I finally gave in. I couldn’t tell him that she was too damn hot to ignore. There were many reasons why I found myself drawn to her and one of those came from Scott himself. He made her off limits, which made her that much sweeter. All combined it was far more than I was able to deny myself. I just wanted her too bad. It was just that simple.

“I don’t know Scott. It just happened. It wasn’t planned.” And that was the truth. When I saw her at the airport for the first time, I had no idea that it was going to be like this. I went to the bar with some sort of plan in my mind, I was invited of course, but I couldn’t say for sure that I hadn’t planned it to end somehow like that. 

“You know that I don’t want you with my sister.”

“I know. You made yourself quite clear about that.”

“Well I mean it. You’re too much of a player for my sister. I don’t want her getting hurt. You hurt everyone that you date and I don’t want Melanie to be one of them.”

I took offense to what he said because I didn’t think it was true. While it was true that I bounced around a lot, it wasn’t true about the rest of it. I didn’t hurt them all because I didn’t let it get to that level. Once I knew that they felt more than they should, I left the situation behind. It was just that simple.

“You make it sound bad.”

“It is and I don’t think you know it. You are going to crush Bianca. That girl loves you and you’re going around kissing my sister?”

He had a point and I got back on the road. I didn’t think I was going to catch a right while I was driving now at least, but I wasn’t going to take it out of the realm of possibility. Scott was very unpredictable and about the last person I wanted to get into a fight with.

I sighed loudly and told him again that it wasn’t like that. “Besides, Bianca and I are just having fun.”

He shook his head and told me that I should let her know that. I didn’t really think about it much. Bianca was never one to put a lot on me. She didn’t expect much from me at all and that’s what I liked most about her. Could he be right when he said that she loves me? She can’t, right?

Now I was questioning everything and we rode in silence to the lumber store to pick up some drywall that we’d ordered. His dad wanted to remodel the bedroom and while he couldn’t help, he’d drawn up some plans. It was what Scott’s mom always wanted and it was something that he wanted done. That’s what we had been doing for the last couple of months and I knew why, Scott knew why as well but we didn’t talk about it. We were finishing off his honey-do bucket list and we were starting to wind down and we were both waiting for something else to keep us busy like it was going to keep Ted alive a little longer.

When we got there, Scott was almost back to normal and I was thankful that he’d taken what I said and went with it. He most likely didn’t want to believe that I had done him wrong, just the same as I wouldn’t want to believe it about him. I had a couple of sisters that didn’t live around here, but if they did, I don’t know how I would have dealt with Scott getting with one of them. He was a good boyfriend compared to me though. That much I knew for sure and even though he was a better guy to date, that didn’t mean that I wanted him dating one of them. That’s why I was going to make sure that nothing else happened. I had drawn a line and I wasn’t going to cross it, no matter how much I’d thought about it since I’d taken her home that night.

The dry wall was ready for us and we took it back to his parent’s house. I saw the car she’d been driving in the parking lot when we got back and I tried not to make any visible reaction to it. It would be the first time I’d seen her since I'd taken liberties with her and pleasured her. I hadn’t seen her since then and damn she looked good. I couldn’t look long because I was carrying things in and Scott was right behind me. Our eyes met for a moment and I could feel a spark between us. There was always that spark.

Their dad was up and out of bed. He was leaning on everything as he walked, refusing to use the walker because he didn’t want to admit he was that weak, but everyone around him could see it. It looked like he could barely stand up, but no one offered to help him. He was a proud man and I wasn’t going to take that away from him.

He didn’t help with the lifting or carrying, but he was there to supervise and I was thankful that I got to keep my mind busy for a while that wasn’t about Melanie. She came in a couple of times to give us drinks and I made it a point to not look at her. The last time she came in I heard her huff under her breath and I knew that it was bothering her, but after the conversation I’d had with her brother, I figured that it was the best way to go about it. I’d made myself clear. It was a one-time thing.

“Carl, can you come help me with something in the kitchen real quick?”

I froze and looked up to Scott, offering him up instead, stating that I was to busy. I was prepared to walk away from her, only as long as that meant I didn’t have to be around her to want more. That was the only way that it was going to work.