Never

by Lulu Pratt

  “So, because you weren’t patient enough to wait for me to be ready, you had to punish your sister?”

  “She hooked up with my ex-boyfriend,” Lara says.

  “Ex-boyfriend,” I say. “We were broken up. It was years ago. There has to be a statute of limitations on these things.”

  “That doesn’t make it okay,” Lara insists.

  “Why not? I mean, there wasn’t anything between us anymore. You were the one who’d ended things between us.”

  Lara opens her mouth to speak and then closes it, and I see her take a deep breath again, she’s obviously trying to keep herself under control.

  “There are certain things you don’t do. You don’t date your ex’s family members, and you don’t date your sister’s ex. It’s an unwritten law,” she insists.

  “So that’s why you had to punish her for the rest of her life?”

  Lara sighs. “I wasn’t punishing her. I just couldn’t stand to be around the two of you. Imagine being stabbed in the back, and then having to basically have the knife taken out and stabbed back into you every holiday.” She wipes her face with her paper towel and chews on the crust of the pizza in her hand thoughtfully.

  “I’m sorry we hurt you,” I say, and I mean it.

  “I’m sorry I never really reconciled with Alexis,” Lara says quietly. She looks at me. “I’m sorry she died with me still pretty much hating her.”

  “I don’t get why you hate her and me, but I guess… I guess I have to accept that it’s just how you feel.” We’re both silent for a few minutes, eating our pizzas.

  “I should probably just sign the paperwork and get home,” Lara tells me, and I have to agree that’s probably for the best.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ethan

  After Riley’s asleep for the night, I have a load of energy. Telling Lara the truth about what happened felt good.

  My parents were surprised when I told them that I was seeing Alexis. I decided to wait a few weeks to tell them that she was pregnant, but they were happy for me.

  They never asked if the pregnancy was planned or how long I had been with Alexis. Although we were close, how exactly do you tell your parents that you had a one-night stand with your ex’s sister and she got pregnant that same night?

  I feel good for the first time since Alexis died and I instantly feel guilty. I decide to flip on the TV and relax before going to bed.

  I sit there for a few minutes and zone out a little.

  As I’m sitting around, trying to figure out what to do with myself, the memories flicker through my mind without any way for me to stop them. All I can think about is the time, somewhere a few weeks before we broke up, when Lara and I had sex. It had been during spring break, when we were both eighteen, and our parents had agreed to let us spend the weekend that break started at a cabin close to the beach.

  I remember seeing Lara with the towel draped around her naked body, fresh from the cabin’s shower, after we got back from the beach for the day. The way she’d let it just fall down onto the floor as she came into the bedroom, and looked so shy at the same time, in spite of the fact that we’d already had sex a few times that weekend. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t seen her naked before.

  I know that there has to be something completely and totally wrong with me to be remembering Lara as a barely adult teenager, naked, when my wife is so recently dead, but I can’t help myself. I get out of the living room and decide that I should take a shower.

  I grab a towel out of the linen closet and step into the bathroom. I put the baby monitor on the counter and start stripping off my clothes, determined to just get in, get cleaned, and then, somehow, find something to do with myself.

  I turn on the water and only barely remember to wait for it to heat up before I step over the lip of the tub and under the flow of the water. I groan, it feels even better than I thought it would, and I just stand there a few moments, letting the water pour over me.

  But then once again I’m thinking of Lara at the cabin. I groan again, but this time it’s because the thought of Lara naked is enough to send a jolt of heat straight to my groin, making my cock start to stiffen.

  I know it’s wrong.

  I shouldn’t even feel capable of being turned on by anything right now. I should be so depressed that even the thought of being with anyone turns my stomach. But all I can think about right now is how good it would feel to be with Lara again. It’s easy, beyond easy, to remember what it was like with her before all our fighting broke us up.

  And then I’m fully hard, my cock throbbing, and the water running over my skin does nothing to help. That weekend we spent in the cabin by the beach, we spent almost as much time exploring all the ways our eighteen-year-old brains could come up with for having sex as we did doing anything else. That weekend is spinning through my brain, and there’s no way I’m going to not be able to take care of it.

  I start stroking myself slowly, at first telling myself that it’s just an extension of soaping up my body, but I know better. Instead of mourning Alexis I’m fantasizing about her sister. I lean against the wall. My knees feel weak, like all the blood is pooling between my hips and making it impossible for the rest of me to even function. It’s fucked up, but I can’t help what my brain is doing.

  I stop thinking about what she was like when we were both teenagers, and it’s like the image of her in her towel is seared into my brain. I think about what it would be like to go to her, to tell her how fucked up I feel about everything that’s happened. I close my eyes and imagine catching the tail of the towel she’d had draped around her, and using that to pull her to me.

  In my mind, teenage Lara is now adult Lara. She looks at me with a confused expression on her face and she’d ask me what the hell I’m thinking. I imagine kissing her. “I just need to feel like it’s possible that I’ll feel good again.” It’s the truth, but something about the way I say it in my mind doesn’t seem right, but my brain isn’t getting enough blood flow for me to argue with myself.

  I start working myself harder, remembering the way Lara had felt when we’d still been together, before we’d broken up. Surely, she’s been with some other guys in the meantime, so she’s probably more experienced, not that she needed any more skills. I’m shaking, teasing the tip of my cock with my thumb while I use my other hand to cup my balls, rub them a little bit. I imagine Lara giving into me, looking at me with those bright eyes that tell me I’m not fooling anyone, but saying that if it’ll help, she’ll show me what she’s learned since we’ve been apart.

  She sinks down onto her knees in my mind and takes me in her hand, and I’m imagining her stroking me, her cupping my balls, giving them a little, careful squeeze, before she takes the tip of my cock into her mouth and starts to suck. I’ve lost the point of taking a shower completely, and unless Riley wakes up crying or the water somehow cuts out, I don’t think I stand a chance of stopping until I get off. I imagine Lara taking more and more of me into her mouth, looking up at me from on her knees, starting to get into it herself.

  I imagine her moaning around my cock, and if there wasn’t a wall for me to lean against I might end up falling on my ass. The thought of Lara working me with her mouth and hands, doing it eagerly, and what that would look like is almost enough to make me come instantly. I both do and don’t want to keep going. It feels good, like jerking off always does, but I know I should just take care of business and have done with it. I think of what it would be like to carefully push her away and then lift her back onto her feet, to push her down onto the bed and start touching her myself, rubbing her.

  I think about Lara moaning and writhing underneath me, think about what it would be like to get her just as hot as I am and then finally, finally, feel what it’s like to slowly slide into her one more time. In my mind she’s soaking wet and hot and just as tight as ever, wrapping around my cock like a glove, moaning as she takes every inch.

  Before I know it, I’m right on the edge of clima
x, working my erection with my hand and a little more soap to keep things slippery, and I sink down onto my knees, groaning again and again as I imagine coming inside of Lara. One shock of pleasure after another wash through me and I’m not even thinking about the fact that I’m in the bathroom jerking myself off, thinking of my sister-in-law. After a few minutes I come back to myself, still panting a little bit from the force of my climax, my cock finally softening.

  At least there’s no evidence to get rid of, I think as I slowly get back onto my feet to finish my shower. The water pouring from overhead has washed any traces of what I’ve done down the drain.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lara

  I’ve finally managed to get Riley to go to sleep by the time Ethan comes over to pick her up. It’s not the best timing, but considering how incredibly stressful the day has been, I care less about messing up her sleep schedule than I do about her getting some sleep.

  I’d managed to leave a note on the door for Ethan in the midst of trying to deal with Riley as she screamed and wailed and cried from the discomfort of teething, telling him not to knock, just to come straight in, because I was trying to keep Riley asleep. Thank God, he stops to read the note and manages to step into my apartment as silently as possible, and Riley only stirs a little bit before curling up tighter in her playpen and falling back into a deep sleep.

  “Tough day, Lara?”

  I nod, sitting down at the kitchen table. Ethan smiles wryly at me.

  “I remember Alexis saying teething was the worst,” he says.

  “If I’d had any idea how bad it could get…” I shake my head. But no matter how miserable dealing with Riley while she’s teething is, I have to admit that overall I wouldn’t trade taking care of her for anything else in the world. It’s been five months since we’ve started the system of taking care of her on different days, and every day that I see Riley just seems to make me love her more, even if she’s completely and totally exhausting.

  “Alexis said that a few times, too,” Ethan tells me with a quiet chuckle. “The first time Riley kept her up all night, the next morning she told me it was my fault completely.”

  I snort at that. It’s easy to imagine my sister irritably telling her husband that it’s his fault she had to stay up all night with the baby, not because of any kind of neglect on his part, but because he got her pregnant in the first place.

  “I’m sorry I don’t have dinner ready,” I say.

  Ethan shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it,” he says.

  “I’m going to be up all night making up work I missed,” I say, and close my eyes. “I’d better put the coffee on.”

  “Let me do it, and I’ll order you something to eat. How about that?”

  I’m shocked at how sweet Ethan is being. Ever since we had our argument about things between me and him, him and Alexis, and me and Alexis, it’s been a little strained. But I have to admit that I’m sort of relieved we had the talk anyway.

  “That would be amazing,” I say, scrubbing at my face with my fingertips. “God, I just hope Riley stays asleep for you. She’s been a little monster all day.”

  “Yeah, the first time she went through teething, it was miserable,” Ethan says.

  “I bet,” I say, shaking my head again. I open my eyes and see him tapping through his phone, looking up something.

  “Order whatever you want, I already put in your address,” he says, handing the phone to me. He’s pulled up GrubHub, and I look through the different restaurants that are in my area. I decide after a few minutes to order myself some Indian food.

  “Do you want to eat with me? It’ll save you some time tonight after you get home,” I point out. Ethan considers for a moment and takes his phone back, adding his own wants to the order.

  I look it over. It’s practically a feast, and thinking of it, my mouth waters. I add a mango lassi and submit the order, handing the phone back to Ethan.

  “The first time Riley went through teething, she ran a fever for two days straight and I’m pretty sure Alexis didn’t sleep the whole time,” Ethan says. He shakes his head and stands up.

  The coffee maker beeps and I jump up, afraid that Riley’s going to awaken, but she just continues sleeping, under the combined efforts of her own exhaustion and baby Tylenol.

  “Sorry, I’ve been trying to get her to get at least a little sleep all day,” I say, sitting back down. Ethan nods his understanding and gets to work pouring me a cup of coffee.

  “At least she’s almost done,” he points out, and mentally I count how many teeth Riley has and how many more she should have coming in. They can’t all be this terrible, can they?

  “Thank God adult teeth aren’t like this,” I say, accepting the coffee from him. “Help yourself, too,” I add.

  “Thanks,” Ethan says, getting another mug down for himself. For a few minutes we sit there in silence drinking coffee, and as my brain decompresses a bit from the stresses of the day, I think about what Ethan said about Alexis, and I think about our discussion from before.

  “I’ve been thinking,” I say quietly.

  Ethan raises an eyebrow at that. “You can think while Riley’s carrying on?”

  I smile wryly. “I mean, in general. I guess… it has to be really hard for you, especially hard. With Alexis… dead.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Ethan says. “I haven’t really let myself think about it as much as maybe I should.”

  “Why not?”

  Ethan shrugs. “It just… I feel like if I let myself really think about it, then I’ll just get overwhelmed and bogged down by it. What good does that do anyone, especially Riley?”

  I lick my lips, thinking for a few moments, and take another sip of my coffee. “It’s got to get lonely, though,” I say quietly.

  “Lonely?” Ethan raises an eyebrow again and I feel the blood rushing into my cheeks a little bit.

  “Well, I mean, I’m lonely and I’m not even used to having a spouse,” I point out.

  “You’re lonely? I never would have guessed,” Ethan says.

  I laugh, as quietly as I can, remembering that Riley is asleep just in the next room.

  “I haven’t been with anyone in… probably a year or more,” I tell him. Ethan’s eyes go wide.

  “You haven’t even kissed anyone?”

  I shake my head.

  “You and Alexis hooking up like you did kind of…” I stop myself. “That, and I’ve been so focused on my career that I just haven’t even really wanted to date. And you kind of need to at least go on a date to kiss someone.”

  “There’s Tinder, you know,” Ethan says, his voice dry as a bone.

  “I’m not into that,” I say quickly. I look Ethan over for a few moments. Is he on Tinder? The idea of Ethan getting nearly anonymous sex hookups on his phone is sickening to me, even more than it was for him to have been involved with my sister, somehow.

  “That makes sense, but it’s not like it would be difficult for you to find someone, if you were really looking,” Ethan says.

  “I don’t know,” I say, but my cheeks burn with a blush.

  “You’re still beautiful,” Ethan tells me. “Even more beautiful than ever.”

  He holds my gaze for a long moment and I can feel my heart beating faster in my chest. I feel the way I used to feel in the days before Ethan and I started dating properly, that giddy, fluttery feeling that I used to love so much.

  “Shut up,” I say, but I can’t quite meet his gaze.

  Ethan moves, and I don’t stop him, and somehow he’s lifting me out of my seat, and tilting my face up to his, and then we’re kissing. I know it’s wrong, and in the back of my mind, I think that I should make him stop, or at least make myself stop, but I start responding to him almost before I can fully form the thought, before I can control myself.

  The kiss deepens, and I feel Ethan’s hands on me. For a few seconds, it’s like cheap time travel, I can remember all too well how it was with Ethan before things went b
ad between us, before I broke us up. I reach up and wrap my arms around Ethan’s shoulders, and press my body against his. I tremble in Ethan’s grip, and before I know what’s happening, he pushes me against the counter, and the heat of his body sinking into mine feels so good, feels so right and perfect, that I almost can’t stand it.

  I pull back all at once as it hits me that what we’re doing isn’t good, or right, or perfect. It’s wrong, and bad, and absolutely flawed. Why am I letting my brother-in-law kiss me like this? With his hands slipping up under my shirt, barely skimming at my breasts? Even more to the point, why should it feel like ripping fishing hooks out of my skin to break away from him? It nearly kills me to make myself stop, even though I know it’s wrong to be kissing a man who only months before I’d sworn I’d never willingly have anything to do with again. A man who was married to my sister, who would still be married to her if she hadn’t died.

  “We can’t do this,” I say quietly.

  “Do what?” Ethan looks down at me, holding onto my gaze, and it’s so hard not to give into the obvious heat in his eyes. I can almost feel him wanting me, and some part of me desperately wants him, in spite of knowing that I shouldn’t have anything to do with him and in spite of how much I’ve spent the last two years hating the man.

  “We can’t get physical,” I tell him.

  Ethan frowned in confusion at my point.

  “Why not?”

  I glance in the direction of the living room, where Riley is, thankfully, still asleep.

  “We have to think about Riley. We can’t keep clear-headed about each other, and make good decisions about Riley, if we make things complicated between us.” I push him away from me gently, and Ethan steps back. Thank God, we got this out of the way before the food got here, I think, only belatedly realizing that the delivery guy should be at my door at any minute.