A Promise to my Stepbrother
Anne Burroughs
Contents
Copyright
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Part 2
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part 3
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Part 4
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part 5
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Part 6
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Max & Katie’s Story Continues…
Copyright © 2016 by Anne Burroughs
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Published by Black Velvet Press
Part I
1
Katie
The sun was going down, so the light was dim when I first kissed my stepbrother Max—not just kissed him but really kissed him. We were both thirteen years old, and what was icky and gross a year before had somehow become something that our friends were bragging about at school. Kissing a boy meant you were cool.
I had to admit that my feelings toward Max were changing, too. As we hit puberty, my best friend in the whole world became more than that, and I had trouble making sense of my emotions and feelings. In the space of a year we went from strangers to best friends to siblings to… what?
We were in our secret place, a large bush with thick leaves at the edge of the small park near the woods behind our house. We discovered it one Saturday while hiding from Billy Orton, the local bully. It was shaped like a dome, and that’s what we called it—the Dome. When Max and I crawled in under the canopy of green, we were hidden from the world. We cut out some of the interior branches, so while it looked like thick vegetation on the outside, it actually had room for Max and I to stretch out and relax without being poked by branches.
We spent countless hours in our hideout, sometimes reading, sometimes playing card games, but most of the time we just talked. We talked about everything. Sports, TV, movies, and even the bigger things like religion and love. Ever since we met each other two years before, we were inseparable.
Neither of us had siblings, and we didn’t know what it was like to be a brother or sister. So when my mom married Bruce, and they both started introducing us as brother and sister we loved it. Max was not only my best friend, he was my brother. It was a connection that was deeper than friendship.
Our trust was total, and as we faced challenges in school, at home, or with friends we would retreat to our secret place and talk about it. I loved Max, and I knew he loved me. It wasn’t until we kissed, however, that I became confused about what love means. It scared me.
“So McKayla was describing kissing Wade. She said it was nice.” I looked at Max. The moment I said the words I knew that I wanted to kiss him the way that McKayla said she kissed Wade. Max was so cute, and I knew I could trust him with my curiosity. But while I was telling myself that it was just curiosity the stirrings of something else made my stomach flutter.
“She’s just saying that to sound cool.”
“No she’s not. You’ve seen them. They definitely kiss all the time.”
“Not the kissing, the nice part. Do you really think it’s nice?” Max stared at me through the deepening shadows of the branches and leaves. He was always analytical, questioning everything.
“I don’t know. It seems like it would be… soft.” By now I was staring at Max’s face and lips. All I wanted to do at that point was kiss them. It actually seemed like it would be nice.
He looked down. “Should we try it?” My heart leapt, but I was suddenly so nervous that my hands were shaking. I dropped them between my legs.
“Well, it would be good to at least know what it feels like.”
“For science!” Max looked up, smiling broadly. He then added, “We can’t tell Mom or Dad!”
“Of course not. Are you crazy? Besides, I bet it’s kind of gross,” I said, lowering expectations even as I could barely move out of anticipation. Why did I want to kiss him so badly? We were already the bestest of friends.
“Probably.” He shuffled a little closer to me. “So we may as well get this over with.” Despite his openness to us kissing I was nervous that he didn’t feel the same way about it as I did. He wasn’t shaking that I could tell, and he didn’t seem too enthusiastic about it. Maybe he wasn’t feeling what I was feeling? And with that thought I was suddenly worried that kissing him was a bad idea. What if it made things uncomfortable for us? He mentioned Mom and Dad. Was he worried about that? What if it changed our wonderful relationship?
He leaned forward with the precision of a Mythbusters experiment. He took my arms in his hands for support, which despite my nervousness made me tingle with excitement, and then leaned toward my face. It was so sudden I couldn’t stop him.
Our lips met, and all my senses except touch disappeared. I could feel his soft lips against mine, and it was like time had stopped. I pressed forward and felt him open his lips slightly and then close them. It was amazing. Was that instinct? How did he know to do that? I did the same thing to him, and I felt his hand on my cheek.
I was warm all over and feelings that I had saved for special moments when alone suddenly surged forward. This felt a little too good, and that thought made me think of Max. He was not brash and carefree like me. He was the type to have immediate regrets. I had seen it again and again. He would say, What did I do? I’m your brother. That wasn’t right.
Max opened his mouth slightly, and I felt his tongue touch my lips. I pulled away, my fear defeating my desire. I wanted to French kiss him, but I was afraid of how he would react. I was panting, but I didn’t know whether it was because I was out of breath or because my body was overheating. I slid my hair behind my ears and looked over at Max. He looked devastated.
“What’s wrong?” He asked.
“This— This is just a bit too much.” He lowered his head, and I could see that I had betrayed him. Me, his best friend. The one whom he could trust with every secret. I was even the wild one. All that, and I couldn’t trust him to see what a French kiss was like. I felt miserable.
“Okay,” he replied, his voice almost a whisper.
I grabbed his arm. “Look, Max. I’m just kind of thinking a French kiss is maybe going too fast.” That made him look even more depressed. “Hey!” I said brightly. He looked up at me. “We wanted to see what kissing was like, right?” He nodded. “We did that.” I looked him in the eyes. “And I loved it!” He smiled a bit. “So how about this: If we get to be seniors in high school, and we still haven’t French kissed someone, we’ll French kiss each other.” Max looked at me but didn’t say anything. “For science!” I added.
He smiled. “You promise?”
“I promise.” I slid my forefinger across my chest, crossing m
y heart. “If we are both seniors and haven’t had some slut or douchebag stick their tongue in our mouths, we’ll teach each other this French kissing thing.”
“You make it sound kind of dirty.”
I gave him my best “are you kidding” look. “Two words: McKayla and Wade.”
“Good point!” He laughed.
We spent the rest of the night talking about our slutty and douchebaggy classmates. But even as we made fun of our classmates who were caught French kissing or feeling up our other classmates, I couldn’t stop thinking of Max. Thinking of his kiss still made me tingle. When did he become so cute? And he was tall, too. When did that happen?
In the end, as the days faded into the past, I was glad that we stopped when we did. The more I thought about that night, the more I realized that Max’s disappointment was over the failed experiment and not any kind of desire to kiss me. He thought of us as brother and sister, after all. I had nothing to compare him with, but I just knew he was a fantastic kisser. In fact, I started to think of him in ways that I shouldn’t have.
The fact that we were brother and sister made me feel guilty, as my soft lips kiss clearly wasn’t the same as his Mythbusters kiss. Max had the strength of character to be above the base thoughts that filled my mind about him. In the end, I doubted he saw me as anything more than his best friend, and I would never do anything to threaten that, because he was also my best friend.
So I kissed pillows and called them Max. It was the best I could hope for.
2
Max
Katie and I were closer than any brother or sister by blood could possibly be. When we first met there was the barest moment of awkwardness, but then we realized that we both loved the show Dexter (which neither of us were supposed to be allowed to watch), so we retreated to my dad’s media room and talked for hours. Sure, it started with Dexter, but then we talked about school and life and before we knew it, Katie’s mom had come up to get her, and I felt a sadness, like a part of me that I never knew existed was being taken away. And that was only our first day together.
I’ll never forget our first Summer. Everything we did we did together. We went to movies and spent hours discussing them. We played sports together. We were constantly playing practical jokes on each other. She was funny, devious, smart, amazing, crazy, and my best friend.
We were going through puberty, so it was natural that we just asked each other questions. I asked her about her period, and she asked me about how weird it must feel to walk around with a penis, and then I would say the same thing about breasts, and as time went on we asked more and more personal questions.
Not because we were trying to shock each other, but because we were curious and want to learn, and we trusted each other. Who else was I going to ask about breasts? Katie’s mom? Can you say yuck? Look it up on the Internet? Sure, but that’s not the same as hearing it directly from someone who has them.
The thing is we didn’t even realize we were moving into dangerous ground until it was almost too late. We asked, and we answered. It was unemotional. At least I thought it was until the one day we kissed.
It built up slowly and then suddenly we crossed the line. It was like when we first visited our boat house in the summer. Every time it would be as hot as an oven on the inside, and dad would turn the air conditioning up to max. Katie and I would be in shorts and t-shirts, sweating in the heat, trying to ignore it by watching TV or talking or playing a game. And then, with no warning, I’d shiver and suddenly realize it was ice cold inside. The gradual became the sudden.
For a year, Katie and I became closer and closer, and then we decided to see what it was like to kiss. It was a practical, normal question that we trusted each other to answer. So we kissed. I leaned in, and as our lips touched, I shivered and became aware that without my realizing it the temperature had changed.
I was nervous and felt my stomach flutter. Suddenly my clinical analysis of what a kiss felt like turned into wanting nothing more than to keep feeling Katie’s lips against mine. I didn’t know what to do. We now knew what a kiss was like, but this was so much more, and I didn’t want it to stop.
I realized I was at a point-of-no-return, and it scared me. She was my sister. My best friend. I shouldn’t have been thinking that way. I didn’t know how I missed that I was feeling that way. It shouldn’t have seemed so natural to me. It was wrong.
But it wasn’t wrong. I knew that.
So I trusted my feelings, and I trusted Katie, and I gave in. I touched her face to let her know that this wasn’t an experiment any more, and then I decided to kiss her deeply, with the passion that I saw in the porn videos I snuck glances at while I had my online time alone.
Katie pulled back, and as I opened my eyes I realized what a horrific mistake I had made. She didn’t feel the same way. I had betrayed her. I was her brother, and I did something gross. She said we were going too fast, but I knew what she meant. I went down a forbidden path.
But then she surprised me.
She made a promise that if we hadn’t French kissed each other by the time we were eighteen, we would French kiss then. I knew it was a stupid promise meant to make me feel better. Eighteen was like ages away, and she still seemed horrified at me. But she was my best friend, and I trusted her. The fact that she didn’t say to me that going further than a kiss wasn’t out-of-bounds left me with a little bit of hope. It was all I had, and I clung to it.
3
Katie
It was Saturday, and I was having lunch with my mom. Max and dad were out getting some swimming stuff. We were laughing and chatting, and I felt it was time to raise some important questions with her since we were alone and having a real connection. “So, Mom, I have some questions.”
“Fire away. Hopefully, I have the answers.”
I took a long drink of orange juice and then blurted out, “Do you think Dad is angry that I call Bruce ‘Dad?’” When Mom and Bruce got married, the unilateral decision from the both of them was that we would be “a family,” and that meant calling ourselves mom, dad, brother, and sister. It was easy—meaningful, actually—to call Max my brother. We both seemed to love that extra connection. But the parent thing was more difficult for me. Max didn’t have a problem calling my mom “Mom,” as his mother had abandoned him and his Dad and wasn’t in the picture. But my Dad still saw me once a month or so, and I had a pretty good relationship with him.
Mom placed her sandwich down and looked at me, concern and love in her eyes. “Does he seem angry?”
“No! I mean he knows, and he hasn’t said anything, but he just keeps getting more and more distant. I used to see him a couple times a month, and now it’s every month, and—” The conversation was not going the way I wanted it to, and I started to cry. “I’m sorry.” I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand, while my mom pushed her chair back and rushed over to sit next to me.
She put her arms around me and said, “He loves you, dear. He does. He just… needs to find himself.”
I felt like an idiot. I liked my dad, but I didn’t think just asking about him getting more distant would be so difficult. Maybe it affected me more than I thought. “I guess I was worried that he felt like he was being pushed aside, and so he was giving up on me.”
“Katie, you dad will never give up on you. He loves you.”
I took another breath and decided to turn the conversation into a better place. “I like calling Bruce ‘Dad.’ He is really like that to me, and I guess that’s what’s so confusing. He’s my ‘dad’”—I made air quotes with my fingers—“but he’s not really my dad.”
“Look, honey, Bruce loves you very much. We are a family that’s been tossed together for all the best reasons—love.” She sat back and turned her chair to face me, taking my hands in hers. “You love Max, right?”
The question made my breath catch in my chest. I didn’t know how to answer. Max was my best friend. We spent practically every moment together. We still talked about practically everyt
hing. The one thing we didn’t talk about was love. I knew I loved him, and I knew he loved me, but what kind of love? I was confused, and that was one of the things I wanted to ask my mom about, but her springing the question on me made me confused and defensive. “Yeah. I love Max. He’s my best friend.” The words came out in a stammer.
“He’s your brother,” Mom corrected. “And Bruce is your father and my husband. I love Bruce, and I know you love Bruce. Isn’t it the most beautiful thing? We are mother, father, brother, sister.” She leaned back and smiled. “So don’t ever worry about calling Bruce ‘Dad.’ He is your dad.”
At that moment I knew, with absolute certainty, that I couldn’t ask my mom about dating Max or kissing Max or treating him as anything other than a brother. She saw us as a family brought together in love, and that was the most beautiful thing in the world. The idea of Max and I actually being in love would destroy that. Would destroy her.
The thing was I couldn’t disagree with her, and that’s what scared me. I didn’t want our wonderful family to be destroyed. I loved her, Dad, and Max. That I was confused about Max was just something I would need to deal with. I had hoped to talk to Mom about it, but now I knew I was on my own.
“Did you have another question, dear?”
“No,” I replied quickly. “I’m good.”
4
Max
I got suspended in school for punching Jack Colby when he said that Mom was a MILF and asked if I’d seen her naked yet. Lisa was the only real mom I’d ever known, and that’s how I saw her—Mom. Of course everyone knew that she was my stepmom, and that led to all kinds of assumptions that weren’t true. Punching Jack kind of drew a line that clarified things for a lot of people.
A Promise to my Stepbrother Page 1
