by Aubrey Irons
My mother takes a big gulp of her wine before she glares at me; “Well it’s not my fault that you managed to get kicked out of law school after two weeks.”
I roll my eyes; “Mom, I dropped out; there’s a slight difference.”
“And does that distinction put you any closer to being a lawyer?”
I groan, pinching the arch of my nose between my fingers; “No, mother. Which is exactly the reason I left.”
Seriously, we’ve been through his three hundred times.
“Well maybe if you’d spent as much time in undergraduate thinking about your career as you did working in those restaurants, you’d have been more prepared.”
I groan loudly and my mom shrugs and takes another sip of her wine.
“But hey, what do I know?”
“Mom!” I snap; “Can we back it up here? Who is this guy?”
“I’m not sure I like being interrogated like this, honey,” she says frostily, taking another quick sip from her glass. “And you’re ‘just hearing about it now’ because I just got off the phone with him ten minutes ago when he asked me.”
I scrunch up my brow. “He asked you over the phone? Who the hell is this guy?”
She sips her wine, and then drops her eyes to the tablet sitting in front of us.
“Well, you remember that nice boy Oliver Beckett don’t you? The one we had stay at the house for that exchange program during your senior year?”
Yes, mom, the boy who nearly took my virginity in the back seat of your mid-sized sedan.
“Yes,” I snap.
My mom tsks and shakes her head; “You two don’t talk, do you? Oh he was such a nice boy, Chloe.”
No, he wasn’t.
“No, mom, we haven’t talked since back then.”
“Oh, that’s a shame.”
Mom’s being cagey. After ten years alone together, even having been away most of the last four I can tell she’s avoiding the subject at hand, “Mom?”
“You know, his father is quite nice, too.”
I frown.
“Quite nice, actually. And maybe you two haven’t kept up, but Barney and I have stayed in touch since Oliver left.”
“Um, Okay?”
“A lot, honey,” She says quietly.
I can start to feel a horrible sensation creeping up inside of me. Oh c’mon, there’s no way-
“Mom where is this goi-”
“You might say we’ve been doing the long distance thing,” Mom bites her lip and looks at me, “You know, dating.”
The horrible sensation starts to turn into a roar inside of me, and suddenly, my eyes are darting back to the table, and the cocky, smirking, arrogant, panty-melting grin of Oliver fucking Beckett.
“Mom-”
“It’s Barney, honey!” My mom squeals excitedly; “He’s asked me to marry him, and he wants me - he wants us to move to London!”
The bottom drops out then. And I’m just in free-fall as I stare at the boy from those nights five years ago. The boy whose kisses I can still remember, the boy whose hands I can still feel. And I’m putting the horrible little pieces together as the floor starts to sway beneath my feet.
The boy who nearly took my v-card, and then told everyone at school that he did.
The boy who’s about to be my new stepbrother.
Oh. My. God.
2
Oliver
It’s grey, it’s fuckin’ raining, and it’s miserable outside as I scowl and trail my dad through the arrivals terminal at Heathrow. Fuckin, of course it’s raining; it’s England, land of eternal non-sunshine.
Dad looks at his watch and frowns before glaring up at the arrivals screens, as if it’s obviously someone’s fault that their plane is all of ten minutes late.
Not that I’m much better; that’s ten more minutes of me being here as a participant in this whole fucking train wreck instead of elsewhere. Elsewhere like the restaurant.
“Pop, I need to get back.”
“They’ll be here in a minute, Ollie.”
“Dad, I’ve got stocks to prep, mis to set up-”
Shit to cut, cook, sear, broil, sous vis; you name it. If it’s food and it requires some sort of preparation, it’s probably on my to-do list.
“Cool it, boy.”
“Shit doesn’t cook itself, dad.”
He shoots me a look; “This is important, Oliver.”
Yeah, to you.
I’m still trying to process this shit, even now when “this shit” is about to land in England and walk right into our lives. The “shit” I’m somehow just learning about within the last week, I might add.
“You were busy with taking over at the restaurant, Oliver, I didn’t want to distract you with that.”
Give me a fuckin’ break. There’s what, like twenty million eligible women his age in Great Britain, and dad goes for one from America. And not just any woman, of course.
Nope, he goes for Chloe fucking Caulfield’s mom.
Surprise, your old pop is getting married again, and guess who your new stepsister is? I mean it was a long time ago, but it’s still too fucking weird.
Okay, so it’s also a teeny bit interesting, if I’m being honest.
Chloe Caulfield. I haven't seen her since that senior year exchange trip. Rigid, bookish, uptight, and one might even say bitch if one were being crude. And yet, things sure got interesting back then. Interesting like three days of sleepless nights, three days of sneaking around to make out late into the night. Three days of pressing myself against her, seeing how far she’d let my hands go before pushing them away. Three days and nights of wanting so much more that an uptight virgin like her was going to give, even if I knew it wasn’t going to happen.
Well, until it almost did.
“Ever been properly kissed?”
She darts her eyes to the floor, her cheeks going this flushed red color. “Of course I have.”
“Naw, sweetheart, I mean real proper kissed.”
She wrinkles her nose, “What, like frenching?”
I have to grin. “If it’s 1985, sure.”
But whatever, she’s here, even if it’s apparently only for a few months until she goes back to school. “Taking a break” I think is how my dad phrased it. Yeah, right; heard that one before.
She was a pain in the ass back then, and I can’t imagine that’s done more than grow in the five years since.
She was also temptation on a fuckin’ stick.
I’m suddenly wondering if that’s grown too. Four months might not be long, but it’s going to be an eternity if we’re anything like we were back then. I barely survived four days of that girl before.
Four months? Yikes.
But whatever, I wouldn't have time for this shit even if she wasn’t going to be my stepsister. I’m way too busy with the restaurant. Fuckin’ ‘ell, I’ve been “chef” for three weeks and it already feels like forever. Three fuckin’ weeks since dad fired Martin and stuck me in his place. Martin of the two stars, and now me with zero of them.
Hey, no pressure.
Every day a fucking battle to make sure they respect that in there. A kitchen is a war zone; it’s a military regiment that needs the discipline of a damn army to run efficiently. I’m not talking a burger joint kitchen here either. Jolie is the fucking big leagues. This is 200 quid a head dinners, and that price demands the type of discipline from a kitchen that you rarely find outside of the Queen’s guard. And if you’re the type of utter idiot like me who wants to be at the top of that? Congratulations, you’re the general. Now, act like the toughest motherfucker in a room full of guys who willingly spend the majority of their waking hours in an insanely stressful environment involving sharp knives, open flame, and close quarters for a living.
And I have to run that with an iron fist.
So like I said, I’m a tad busy, and a touch high-strung at the moment, and hanging around Heathrow waiting for the girl I don’t want here anyways is pushing all my buttons.
But whatever, at least I’ll be so busy with Jolie the next few months that I’ll probably never see her anyways.
“Dad,” I glance at my watch, “I’m seriously pushing it on time. I’ve gotta get back. Look I’ll just take my own taxi or the Piccadilly train or something.”
“Oy, cool it boy-o, they’ll be fine at the kitchen. We’re closed Mondays anyways.”
“No, they won’t be, and I’ve still got shit to do, you know.”
“Ah!” He says cheerily, completely ignoring me. He points to the gate flashing their plane’s call numbers. “Looks like they’re here!”
Wonderful.
He turns to me, “Besides, you ought to wait for Chloe anyways before you go back.”
I groan, checking my watch and wondering how fast I can bribe a taxi driver to go on the M4 today; “Why?”
The gate opens, and suddenly, there they are. I can see Mrs. Caulfield - Laura - beaming as she sees my dad. And he’s grinning too as he starts to move towards her.
God, ‘Mrs. Caulfield’? Fuck, do I have to call her step-mum now?
The throng of travelers and loved ones milling around the exit ramp begins to part, and then there she is.
And she’s staring right at me.
Our eyes meet across the crowd of people reuniting. All around people are hugging and kissing and shaking hands and generally glad to see each other. Which puts us distinctly out of place, because one look at each other and it’s clear neither of us is glad to see the other.
But fuckin’ hell, any hope I had of her losing her hair or putting on eight-hundred pounds or something since the last time I saw goes fluttering away the second my eyes land on her.
Shit.
She’s wearing jeans, a long-sleeve t-shirt, and rain-boots, but she might as well be in a fuckin’ red-carpet gown. Or fuck, lingerie or something.
Because, fuck me sideways, she’s even hotter than I remember. Those searing blue eyes like cold rain, that dark brown hair like a wave of silk down over her shoulder, that defiant way she’s holding her head up high and her shoulders back.
That perfect rack and an ass that gets my cock hard right there standing in the middle of Heathrow Airport.
This is going to be bloody problem.
Whatever, I tell myself. You’ll barely see her. She can deal with this whole situation however she wants to.
But suddenly, the last thing my dad said to me pings and resonates inside my head.
“Dad,” I grab his coat before he takes another step through the crowd; “What do you mean I should ‘wait for her’.”
I narrow my eyes at him as he turns back and throws me a quick questioning look. “Oh, bugger, didn’t I tell you?” He’s smiling away, as if none of this is at all blowing apart my whole world.
“Tell me what?”
They’re getting closer now as they push their way through the crowd; the smiling bride-to-be and her scowling, sexy as fuckin’ sin daughter. My dad shakes his head, “Must’ve slipped my mind with all this happening so fast. She’s a baker you know.”
“So?”
Oh, fuck.
And instantly, I’m seeing where this is going, and I’m slowly shaking my head even before my dad can open his mouth.
“I hired her. She’s your new pastry cook.”
And then they’re right in front of us, and my dad and Mrs. Caulfield are laughing and hugging, and I’m just standing there, staring at Chloe with our eyes locked.
Yeah, this is going to be a right bloody fuckin’ problem.
3
Chloe
I moan, feeling the shudder of new feelings - dangerous new feelings - roar through my inexperienced body as the boy kisses me. He presses me against the back wall of the garage in my backyard, his hands sliding up to my waist and slipping beneath the hem of my t-shirt.
It’s then that I freeze, stopping his hands and pulling back from his perfect, wonderful lips to look worriedly up into his eyes. “I- I’m not sure that we should be doing this.”
He grins at me, those dark eyes sparkling with the promise of passion and wickedness all mixed together; the promise of sweet, deliciously bad decisions.
“Are you scared?” I nod, and he kisses my cheek; “You don’t have to be, I’ll go slow.”
I blush and bite my bottom lip and he grins.
“Oy, you keep doing that you’re gonna make a habit of it.”
I giggle but then my eyes flash seriously at him. “I’m just- I’m not sure we should.”
He nods. “I mean, we’re both eighteen, luv.” He grins at me, “You’re going away to college in a few months; you really want to show up with that V-card?”
I blush bright red, almost regretting that I’ve told him that. I mean, of course I HAD to, the night before when things got- well, when things went further than I’VE at least ever been.
Much further.
Far enough that even now I can remember the night previous, where we slipped into the very garage I’m pressed against right now and found ourselves in the backseat of my mother’s Toyota. I can remember feeling both scared and hotter than I’ve ever felt before, the feelings of apprehension and excitement as I took my shirt off in front of him, blushing at the way his eyes drank me in.
“You’re gorgeous, you know,” He says quietly; reverently.
I can remember whispering his name again and again into his lips as his fingers find me wet and ready for him, stroking in and out of me with my pants on the floor of the car and my panties tangled at my knees.
And then here we are, back at the garage; the whispered promises of “tomorrow” in the aftermath of the previous night’s release, weighing heavily on me.
Oliver sees the hesitation in my eyes, or reads it in my voice, because suddenly, he’s stepping back. “Okay, no.” He shakes his head, his hand coming up to stroke my cheek. “You’re right, we shouldn’t do this.”
Well, shit.
And it’s a line like that that has me grabbing him and kissing him fiercely. It’s those words that have me dragging him through the backdoor of the garage again, and climbing into the backseat of the Toyota all over again. We’re grinning, and giggling, and once we’ve stripped each other’s clothes off and I’m kissing him again, I know this is everything I want it to be.
Except just when I think I’m ready to throw all the caution in the world to the wind and go for it, that feeling of boundless bravado comes screeching to a halt. We’re naked, and he’s RIGHT there, and I know he wants it, but-
“We’re not doing this, luv,” he says quietly.
I bite my lip, dropping my eyes to the side so he doesn’t see them wavering, “I’m sorry, I really thought-”
“Hey,” He puts his hand on my cheek and turns my face so that his eyes meet mine, “Don’t you ever apologize to anyone for sticking to what feels right, yeah?”
I wrinkle my brow; “You’re not mad?”
“I’d be a serious fucking prick if I was, Chloe.”
He slides onto the backseat next to me, and I ease my head down onto his chest; “So…” I drag a finger over his chest, feeling my pulse race. “So maybe we can’t do THAT, but that doesn’t mean…” I trail off as he turns his head and grins at me, “That doesn’t mean you can’t show me some other stuff?”
I almost jump out of my skin at the first touch of his mouth to me there, and then I’m biting my hand to keep from screaming as he licks me there, filling me with feelings I’ve never had. There’s a wild pressure building hotter and higher inside of me, until it bursts with a white light as I buck and moan under his tongue and his fingers. And later, he shows me what feels good for him. I’m nervous that I’m going to be awful at it, but he’s sweet with his encouragement, and then gasping for air as I move my mouth faster and faster up and down on his size that I’m honestly not sure I could have actually taken inside of me anyways. He warns me, but I don’t want to stop, and I want the full experience. And when he fills my shocked and sputtering mouth, he�
��s moaning my name as I swallow as much as I can.
The backseat is cramped, and I’m jumping at every creak of the wind, thinking it’s my mother, but it’s absolutely and without question PERFECTION.
And afterwards, we lie there in the dim glow of the dashboard light listening to Led Zeppelin coming through the tinny speakers of the backseat while Oliver tells me about the new job he just got at a kitchen, and how excited he is to learn how to cook “everything”, as he puts it.
And the whole time, I’m holding him close, and desperately trying not to think about what happens in two days, when this boy with the charming English accent who’s permanently implanted himself upon the pages of my life goes back home forever.
It’s the next day when it all goes bad.
It’s the next day, the day I’m wearing the world’s biggest smile, that I walk around the corner of the gymnasium to see him smoking cigarettes with some of the other guys from school.
I didn’t even know he smoked.
But it’s not the cigarette that stops me in my tracks and sends that cold, horrible feeling sinking to the pit of my stomach, it’s what he’s saying.
He’s bragging; he’s telling them that he slept with me.
It’s then that one of them looks up and sees me, and grins as he nods in my direction. They’re all turning then, all of them grinning and smirking at me in way that has the color draining from my face. And then he looks up, and when my eyes meet his stunned, shocked ones, I can almost feel my heart breaking as I turn to go run and hide myself away forever.
It’s after half the cheer squad walks in on me bawling in the locker room already having heard Oliver’s little story that I spread my own little tale. I’m drying my eyes and laughing as I spin wildly untrue stories about how small he is, and how he couldn’t even get it up. And I’m telling them he cried during it, and they’re laughing and hugging me and telling me it’s going to be okay, even though I know the lies are only a temporary balm.
My story travels even faster than his, but really, it’s not like it really even matters much for him, seeing as he leaves a day later, forever. Me though? I have to stay.
