Stepbrother Games

by Jessie Valentine

  My body that was so paralyzed before somehow springs into action now, putting distance between Zane and me. I feel my face start to heat up even more. I must be as red as a tomato now. Zane smirks from my bed, clearly thinking the entire situation is amusing.

  A smile creeps into my mom’s eyes. I can tell she’s happy to see the two of us together. She was always bothering me on the low to spend more time with him, to get to know him. She wanted us be one big happy family, and it bothered her that I barely spoke to him around the house. I think it bothered her the person I had turned into after my dad died in general. She often told me that she was worried about me, that I never laughed, that I never looked happy. She had mentioned seeing a therapist on more than one occasion, but there was no way I was doing that. Sitting in some room with someone I didn’t even know while they asked me questions and tried to tell me how I was feeling or what I was dealing with? That sounded awful, no thanks.

  So, anyway, when my mom wasn’t on me about going to see a shrink, she was on me about getting to know Zane and his dad better. She wanted us all to be one big happy family, which I had no interest in. The only person I wanted involved in our big happy family was my dad. Besides, it’s not like I can tell her that Zane makes me tongue tied whenever he’s around. Plus, it’s not like Zane made any effort to talk to me before his stupid little bet.

  “What’s up, guys?” my mom says now with a huge grin plastered across her face. Her perfect white teeth make me cringe. Sometimes I wondered now she could be my mom. We looked nothing alike. She had long blonde hair, blue eyes, and perfect tan skin. She had the body of a model; tall and skinny. I often caught men looking at her when we were out, even in places as simple as the grocery store. It was an idea that was foreign to me because guys never wasted their time looking at me.

  I hadn’t gotten her blonde hair or slender figure. Instead, my hair was brown and limp. My body was thicker in the hips, chest, and butt. It made me incredibly uncomfortable, and I spent a decent amount of time figuring out the best ways to cover my body up. Usually wearing baggy shirts and pants. It was so strange to me how some girls in my school could wear the things they did. How they could be that comfortable in their own skin. My complexion was pale, unlike hers, too. She had given me her eyes, though. They were my favorite feature; a dark blue that reminded me of the ocean. The real ocean that you would see on vacations, a clear white or light blue that seemed to sparkle a little bit up close. Of course, they were always covered with glasses so it’s not like anyone could see them; but still. I knew they were there, even if no one else did.

  Zane leans back on my bed, getting more comfortable. I roll my eyes at him, but he just smiles in return. “I was just asking Kayla if she could help me study for this huge math test I have coming up. I could really use the help.”

  Oh, come on, he was using the whole I need help with my homework excuse? Like anyone was really going to fall for that. It didn’t even make any sense; he was a year ahead of me. Why would he need my help in math? I mean, yeah I was in an advanced math class that they offered to students who were further along than others, but Zane didn’t know that.

  Plus, if anyone needed help in school, it wasn’t Zane. He pretended to be all hard and too cool for school but I had seen tests and papers he had gotten back around the house. The lowest score I had ever seen was a 93%. He could play the whole dumb card all he wanted but I suspected he needed help in school just as much as I did, as in not at all.

  My mom had to know that. I’m sure she has seen multiple school papers of Zane’s. He was so ridiculous, what did he think we were, stupid or something?

  “Of course she will help you!” my mother says, beaming from ear to ear.

  “WHAT?” I practically scream, even startling myself a little bit by how loud I was.

  My mother turns her attention toward me, a smile still on her face, but she’s definitely scowling at me with her eyes. “Of course you will help him! Math is so easy for you, Kayla. Why wouldn’t you help him?”

  She’s looking at me like something is wrong with me, like she can’t understand how I could possibly not want to help him study for his test. Why wouldn’t I want to help him? Um, hello, maybe because he was a douche-bag who had a bet going on with his friends that he could sleep with me by the end of the month? But it’s not like I can tell her that, it’s humiliating. And telling her that would involve me explaining how I knew that, and that was one secret I planned on taking to the grave with me.

  What else could I do? I was helpless.

  “I don’t know… I have my own math test this week and…” I trail off, hoping that my mom will take the hint and have my back thinking that my studies were more important than Zane’s, or anyone else’s.

  “Don’t you have Mr. White?” Zane offers up helpfully. “I thought you guys just had a test a few days ago.”

  I grit my teeth. How the hell did Zane know what math class I was in? He smiles up and me from my bed all happy with himself.

  “Of course she’s going to help you. Right, Kayla?” my mom says, looking at me with intense blue eyes.

  “I guess,” I say helplessly.

  “Great!” my mom says. “Zane, your father is looking for you. Something about you forgetting to take the trash out this morning.”

  Zane sighs and hopes off my bed. “I better go, but tomorrow? After school?”

  “What about it?” I ask, choosing to be a brat.

  He laughs. “We can study.”

  “Okay.”

  “Cool.” He grins and heads out of my room without another word.

  My mom gives me a harsh look that lets me know I better really be there and shuts the door behind her as she follows Zane out.

  Great. I sigh and crawl into my bed, turning the lights off, and trying to make myself fall asleep so I don’t have to worry about this whole situation anymore tonight.

  After hours of tossing and turning, I finally do.

  Chapter 4

  Someone shaking me roughly from side to side wakes me up in the middle of the night. I sit up quickly, startled, and push who ever it is off of me. Zane fumbles back a little bit, and I can see him rubbing his hand across his chest where I pushed him.

  “Hey!” he says, but I hear a hint of amusement in his tone.

  “What are you doing?” I hiss, glancing at the clock on my night side table. 3:02 A.M. What the hell was wrong with him? It wasn’t even normal to be up at this hour of the night. Especially when I had to be up for school in three hours.

  “Trying to not get pushed for no reason,” he says. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to sleep!”

  “I can’t sleep,” he informs me like it’s my problem. “Let’s make food.”

  “Are you crazy? It’s 3 in the morning! No one’s making food! Go back to bed!” It kind of shocks me that I’m able to actually get full sentences out around him, but I think it’s the fact that I’m still half asleep that makes me forget about all my nerves.

  “But I can’t sleep! Come on. I make the best pancakes, like, ever.”

  “We aren’t making pancakes in the middle of the night. Go back to bed. You can make them in the morning.” I turn my back on him, pulling the covers tighter around my body, and hoping that he will take the hint.

  He doesn’t, a few seconds later I feel him poking my back. “Wake up!”

  “No!” I’m still whispering, but trying to sound like more of a bitch.

  “Please,” he tries.

  I ignore him.

  He keeps poking me for a few more seconds.

  I close my eyes tight, thinking he will go away if I pretend I’m falling back asleep.

  “Okay, well, maybe I’ll be able to sleep if I have someone next to me.” I feel him start to pull the covers on my bed back. “I’ll just climb in bed with you and-“

  “Okay! Okay! I’m up!” I shoot up, pushing him out of my bed, and climbing out after him quickly before he gets any more ideas abou
t getting into my bed with me.

  He grins, happy that he got his way. He grabs my hand and starts to pull me after him out of the room and down the hall toward the stairs. I barely have time to grab my glasses off my dresser before he yanks me past them, but I just make it. He motions for me to be quiet so we don’t wake up our parents. My body starts to heat up at his touch, and I try to pull my hand back but it’s no use, he has too good of a grip on me.

  It feels weird to me, walking down the stairs after him, holding his hand. It’s something that’s almost intimate, something I never thought I’d be doing with Zane in a million years, but I was. Even if it wasn’t for the purest of reasons, I was still doing it.

  He finally loosens his grip on my hand a little and when we reach the kitchen I snatch it away. Almost like he has a contagious sickness I don’t want to catch, or something.

  If he notices he doesn’t show it. Instead abandoning me to start digging through the pantry for pancake ingredients. I sigh; I can’t believe I was already getting myself in sketchy situations with him. He was good; I would give him that. He clearly knew how uncomfortable the thought of him crawling into bed with me would make me. That was why he had done it; to get his way.

  I cross my arms self-consciously over my chest; I wasn’t even wearing a bra. I never did when I slept; not to mention it was freezing in the kitchen. Part of me wanted to run back up to my room and get a sweat shirt but I didn’t trust Zane to not follow me. I sit down on one of the stools that surround our large island in the middle of the kitchen, careful to keep my arms covering my braless breasts. I couldn’t believe I was in the kitchen in the middle of the night making pancakes with Zane Williams without a bra on. I could just die.

  He emerges from the pantry with a bunch of stuff in his hands. Pancake mix, mixing bowls, a bunch of utensils, and some random ingredients I’m pretty sure belong nowhere inside a patch of pancakes.

  He looks surprised when he sees me sitting down. “Oh, you aren’t going to help?”

  “No way, you’re the one who wanted breakfast in the middle of the night. Plus, I can’t wait to try the amazing pancakes you make. Remember?” I smile sweetly at him, even shocking myself at how brave I’m being around him.

  “Of course I remember. You’re going to love them.” He sets all the stuff he got out of the pantry on the counter with a huge bang. We both jump a little bit at the contact, and Zane looks back at me with a guilty look on his face.

  “You have nothing to worry about,” I reassure him. “My mom’s a deep sleeper, not much wakes her up.”

  “Oh,” he says. “That’s the only reason I was worried, my dad has always been the same exact way. I used to bring people over the house all the time late night and he would never wake up, no matter how loud we were.”

  He looks at me expectantly, like maybe I’m going to offer up some story along the same lines, and we could bond over getting one over on our parents. But I just look at him blankly; I don’t have any stories like that. I didn’t have the type of friends who would ever think to sneak inside my house in the middle of the night when my parents were home. And even if I did, I wasn’t the type to sneak anyone inside while my mom was asleep. Why would I do that when I could just wait until the morning when my mom woke up? Made no sense.

  Unless…

  He must have been talking about girls. He would sneak girls inside his house in the middle of the night so he could hook up with him while his dad was asleep. I feel my cheeks start to get hot like they usually do when I’m around him. I definitely didn’t have any stories like that.

  I study him now as he looks at all the things he has spread out on the counter. He looks confused, and a little overwhelmed. He decides to abandon the stuff for the time being and heads over to the cupboard pulling a small frying pan down and setting it on the stove. He flicks the stove on high then looks around, like he’s unsure of what to do now.

  “Why are you turning the stove on already?” I ask him.

  He looks back at me, startled, like he’s just now remembered that I’m in the room with him. “Is that wrong?”

  I sigh. “Zane, do you not know how to make pancakes?”

  “Of course I know how to make pancakes!” Zane says, but he’s not meeting my eyes. “Would I get you out of bed with the promise of great pancakes if I didn’t even know how to make them?”

  I sigh. “You don’t know how to make pancakes, do you?”

  He looks away guiltily. “Well, not exactly…”

  I laugh in spite of myself. “Then why did you say you did?”

  “Because,” he smirks, “I wanted you wake up and I know pancakes are your favorite breakfast food.”

  “No, they aren’t.”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “How would you know?” I ask, challenging him.

  “Because, the day after the wedding, we were all having our first official family breakfast together and your mom was making a big deal about how it had to be perfect, and you were mumbling about how there was no pancakes. You were, like, so, annoyed about it.”

  Wow, I couldn’t believe he remembered that. Pancakes were my favorite breakfast food, but it was mostly because my dad and me would wake up early every Sunday morning and make them together. It was a whole process we went through together, something special that we just shared between the two of us. We would eat the first batch together and then bring the second batch to my mom in bed. Then we would come back downstairs with her and make a third batch for us to eat, the whole time claiming we hadn’t eaten any yet, no matter how many times my mom said she smelled pancakes on our breath.

  “I can’t believe you remember that,” I tell him now.

  “Of course I remember. You were being such a little baby about it.”

  “I was not!” Even though I know I totally was, but it was because I was having a hard time on that day. It was the day after the wedding, and I was missing my dad a lot, feeling weird about the fact that my mom was marrying someone else. It really wasn’t a big deal that we didn’t have pancakes that morning, but in my already upset head it felt like a slap in the face to my dad. I know that sounds silly, but it was a really emotional day for me.

  Zane smiles his same cocky smile now. “You were such a baby!”

  “Was not!”

  “Whatever,” Zane says. “So, are you going to help me, or are you going to just watch me fumble around trying to figure it out?”

  I jump up from the island. “Okay, I’ll help you, but it’s only because I take my pancakes very seriously.”

  “Of course.”

  “First thing is first, we don’t need this.” I turn the stove off and lift the frying pan off the burner, tossing it to the side. “Now, the key to a good pancake is to make sure you mix the batter just right.” I start shifting through the fridge and emerge a few seconds later with some blueberries, strawberries, bananas, and milk.

  “Whoa,” Zane says, “you weren’t kidding about taking your pancakes serious.”

  “I told you.” I set all the ingredients in my hands down on the counter then I pick up a bunch of stuff he pulled out that don’t belong in pancakes and laugh, pushing them toward the back of the counter. “We will not be needing these.”

  Zane shrugs and smiles at me sheepishly. He’s wearing a zip up hooded sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants. His dark hair is sticking up in all directions, probably from the little sleep he had gotten that night. He still looked sexy as ever, of course.

  I start throwing ingredients into the bowls at the speed of light. It was all coming back to me like yesterday, everything my dad had taught me. All the different flavor combinations and mixtures. There’s three different bowls in front of me; all with different ingredients and flavors inside of them.

  “Now, like I was saying, mixing it just the right amount is key.”

  “Can’t we just use an electric mixer?”

  I gasp, appalled at his suggestion. “No, Zane, we can’t use an electric mixer! We
need to mix it by hand in a circular motion, not too much but not too little. It has to be just right or it won’t sit right. Got it?”

  “Not really,” he says, sounding unsure.

  I pick up a big spoon and hand it to him, then pick up one for myself. “Just follow my lead.” I start to mix it slowly, careful to go toward the right and never mix up my strokes, or direction.

  I feel Zane’s blue eyes on my hands, watching me intently, and I immediately feel myself starting to get nervous. I had felt okay for a few minutes, like Zane was just a regular person, and this wasn’t a big deal. But Zane wasn’t just anyone and I was starting to feel weird again.

  I’m so caught up in feeling nervous that it takes me a second to realize that Zane has set his spoon down and started to walk toward me. I feel him behind me before I feel him wrap his arms around me and place his hands over mine. He’s much taller than me so he has to lean down a little bit in order for them to fit on top of mine. I feel his head rest on my shoulder and I freeze, paralyzed by how close he is to me. He presses his body closer to me, pressing his crotch into my ass, and I feel myself instantly feel warm all over.

  My hands are frozen in place, unable to move, or do anything underneath his touch. He just stands there for a few moments, letting me grow more and more in a daze by his touch, by his closeness.

  “Show me,” he says softly into my ear. His voice is raspy and sexy and I feel a shiver shoot up and down my body as he speaks. I still don’t move, and he chuckles softly into my neck. “Come on,” he says again, “show me how.”

  His breath smells like mint and cinnamon and I let the aroma drift down and absorb into my skin. Why did he have to be so sexy? I know I should pull away, or something, but I’m unable to. I’m unable to stop him. I start to move my hand slowly again, mixing the batter in the same circular motion I was before.

  We stay like for a minute, his hands on mine, while I mix the batter slowly. I hate the effect he has on me, and somewhere in the back of my mind I’m reminded that I’ve never been this close to a boy who looks like Zane before. I’ve never been this close to a boy who’s in anywhere near the same universe as Zane before as far as sex appeal goes, as far as hotness goes.