Bad Company

by S. L. Sterling

  “You kids all settled into your new rooms? I will admit, Leah, I am kind of surprised that you didn’t take the room Logan chose,” my father said digging into his dinner.

  I was just about to tell them what happened when Logan gave me a look and kicked me under the table. I jumped and my knee hit the bottom of the table causing everything to rattle.

  “Leah, are you okay?” Anna asked. Dad looked up from his plate and gave me a questioning look.

  I looked at Logan who was grinning at me. “I bit my lip,” I lied. “Yep, all settled in,” I answered my dad before going back to eating my dinner.

  “So, Anna, when do you go back to work?” I asked between mouthfuls.

  “Well, your father and I talked about it. We have decided that I’m needed here at home more. So, I gave my notice last week and completed my last shift before the move.”

  I noticed Logan perked up and was now keenly listening to what was being said.

  “You will be here like all the time?” I questioned.

  “Yes. I used to love to cook, we will have some amazing meals for dinner because I can be home. I think you will love some of my deserts, dear. I make a great chocolate fudge cake, just ask Logan.”

  I looked at my father who sat with his hand over hers. “We are looking forward to it, Anna,” he said as he winked. Dad used to love my deserts too, before her, that was.

  “I make a good cake too, right, Dad,” I asked.

  “Yep, not bad, but I bet you could take lessons from Anna.” I took a sip of water to help swallow the lump that was forming in my throat and forced to keep the tears unshed.

  “What about college?” I asked.

  “What about it?”

  “Well, if Anna isn’t working, how will you pay for us both to go to school, Daddy.” Bottom line was I had been told I could go anywhere I wanted. Now with two of us to pay for, if that was going to change, she needed to work.

  “The dealership is doing well. There is nothing to worry about, Leah, everything will stay as is. Same goes for you too, Logan.”

  I breathed out a sigh and was just about to say something when I heard Logan clear his throat.

  “May I be excused?” Logan asked.

  “Logan, you barely ate anything,” Anna said looking worried. “Are you not feeling well?”

  “I’m not hungry.” He didn’t wait, he pushed himself away from the table and headed upstairs.

  I helped Anna with the dishes and then spent the rest of the evening watching TV with Anna and Dad. At 9:30 I made my way up to my room. I had school tomorrow and I was tired. Trudging up the stairs, I walked into my room to find Logan sitting on my bed with my diary open in his hand. He looked up from the page he was reading and gave me a sly smile.

  “Give me that!” I shouted practically running across the room. I went to grab my diary from him, but he stood up and held it over his head. It was impossible for me to reach.

  “Oh, Gingersnap, why? Don’t want me to know about Aaron or Matt, guess you’re not into girls after all,” he said looking down into my face.

  I shoved him against the wall and tried to reach for my diary once again. “Don’t call me that, give me my diary back.”

  “Don’t call you what?”

  “You know what!”

  “You better be careful, Gingersnap, I wouldn’t want you to get turned on by pressing up against me like you did when Aaron accidentally brushed against you in gym class.” He laughed grabbing hold of me, wrapped his arm around my back and pulled me against him while he ground his hips into me.

  My cheeks burned with embarrassment and I pulled away. “Give me my diary back, Logan.”

  “You know there is a lot of great material in here.” I watched as he flipped to another page and read the lines I had written. Tears were threatening to pour down my cheeks as I finally ripped the diary from his hands.

  Logan chuckled to himself. “Oh, Gingersnap, it’s all right, don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody.” He laughed and walked out of the room, as he crossed the hall he repeated what he had read.

  I slammed my door shut and hid my diary in one of my drawers. Thank god he had started at the front and not the more recent entries, I would have died if he read about him. I got ready for bed, cracked open my bedroom door, crawled under the covers and opened the book I had been reading. A while later I heard Logan talking to one of his friends.

  “Yeah, I took the damn room, I fucking hate the color pink.” I could feel the anger boil in me, he had done it on purpose. “I only took it because then she couldn’t have it. Yeah, I know, I expected her to cry like a little girl too.”

  I threw my book down, got up, slammed my door shut and crawled into bed pulling the covers up over my head. I hated everything about this move.

  The rest of the week I tried my best to ignore what had happened and what I had heard, and Logan barely looked at me again, never mind mentioning anything else. The following Friday, Dad and Anna left for a weekend away with friends, which meant Logan and I were alone together for the first time.

  “Now please tell me you two won’t kill one another while we’re gone,” Dad said as he grabbed Anna’s coat from the hall closet right before they left.

  “No, sir. I’m just gonna play my video games, and I’m sure Leah will do whatever girly things she normally does. You know, write in her diary, cry over some guy.”

  I walked into the living room carrying a bowl of popcorn and a can of soda and sat down in the living room chair across from Logan, ignoring his snarky commentary. “When will you be back, Dad?” I asked picking up my book.

  “Sunday morning. Oh, and for tomorrow night’s dinner, I left you guys money for pizza,” Anna said. She kissed us both on the top of the head and then walked out the door with my father.

  A while later I sat munching on popcorn, texting with Jenna, ignoring the idiot across the way from me who sat there engrossed in his stupid video game. After an hour, Logan shut the game off, and we watched a stupid show about deep sea fishing.

  “Hey, Gingersnap, what’s your phone number and your email address?”

  “What do you want those for?” I had given up about asking him not to call me that, the more he knew I hated it the more he used it. It wasn’t just the nickname I hated, I had hated the color of my hair since I was a child, so it bothered me that he called me that.

  “Well, if you ever need a ride home, you can text me. Seriously, I think it’s time we buried the hatchet.”

  “Only if you promise not to call me Gingersnap.”

  “No problem, Leah.” He smiled at me.

  I was leery, but we exchanged information and for one night out of the few we had lived in the same house we sat and watched a movie together without arguing.

  Three weeks later I came home and threw my book bag down on the kitchen table and went upstairs to get my laptop. I had a ton of homework to finish. Anna made me a hot cup of tea and a snack while I opened my textbooks and began working away. I was just about to email one of my friends about an assignment when an email caught my eye.

  The subject line was “I like black panties.” I frowned looking over my shoulder to make sure that Anna couldn’t see my screen before I opened it. Inside was a picture of an older, gross looking man requesting to see a picture of me in a black thong. I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw that it was sent to Gingersnap16. I felt the rage coil through my veins, no doubt Logan had something to do with this. Suddenly Anna walked into the room and I slammed my laptop down, looked up at her and tried to smile innocently, guilt written all over my face.

  “Leah, honey, everything okay?”

  “Yes. I was uh, just working on a surprise for your birthday.” I smiled up at her.

  “Oh, all right, well, I don’t want to ruin that.” She smiled and refilled her mug with hot water and went back into the living room, sat in her rocker and continued reading her book.

  As soon as Anna was gone I picked up my cell phone and sent
off a text to Logan.

  ME: WHAT DID YOU DO?

  Almost instantly a reply came in, like he had been waiting all day for my message.

  LOGAN: NOTHING WHY

  ME: GINGERSNAP16

  LOGAN: OH THAT . . . FIGURED YOU WANTED A DATE AT SOME POINT IN YOUR YOUNG LIFE

  ME: DELETE IT NOW OR GIVE ME THE PASSWORD TO GET RID OF IT

  LOGAN: SORRY I CAN’T DO THAT

  ME: WHY NOT

  LOGAN: WHAT FUN WOULD THAT BE GINGERSNAP

  ME: DELETE IT OR I TELL YOUR MOTHER

  LOGAN: GO AHEAD SHE WON’T BELIEVE YOU

  I threw my phone on the table and opened my laptop back up only to see five more emails in my inbox from different guys. I clicked on the name Gingersnap16 and waited for the page to load. I almost died when the page populated. The photo was one of me in the bathroom after a shower, standing with a towel wrapped around my body. How he had taken it I had no idea but when I read what was on the page, tears starting to pour down my cheeks. I put my head into my hands and called Anna.

  “What is it, dear?”

  “Look!” I said pointing at my screen. “Logan did this. He set up a fake profile under my name and now all these gross men are messaging me. I asked him to delete it and he said he won’t.”

  Logan came walking through the front door and Anna quickly pulled him into the kitchen. “What on earth do you think you are doing, Logan?”

  “Ginger, I mean Leah, needs a boyfriend, so I thought I would help her out,” he said grinning at me, completely giving himself away.

  “Get rid of it, Logan, now,” she demanded. “This is unacceptable.”

  “Oh, Mom, relax, it was just a joke,” he said laughing.

  “A joke? Look at the things these men are saying in their emails. This isn’t funny, Logan, it’s dangerous. Joe will be beside himself.”

  Logan grabbed my laptop, turned it toward him, logged into the account and deleted it while Anna watched. “Happy now,” he bit out and then took off to his room.

  “I’m sorry, Anna,” I whispered.

  “Oh, honey, don’t be silly. It’s not your fault.

  After I had calmed down, Anna went back to sit in her chair. I continued with my homework, but I realized that Logan would hate me more after this. I would need to dig deep to forgive him because I was determined to make him like me.

  FIVE

  Logan

  It had been six months of pure torture sleeping across the hall from her every night. She was part of every masturbatory event I had and even though I treated her like shit almost every single day, all the girl did was continue to try and suck up to me. I figured after the hair dye incident she would stay far away, but no. Shortly after that she baked me a batch of my favorite cookies. I told her they were dry, even though I would secretly sneak down into the kitchen every night after everyone was in bed to eat them.

  For my birthday she made me my favorite cake, triple chocolate brownie. Even though it killed me, I only ate one piece of the perfectly moist cake before announcing I was giving up chocolate.

  It didn’t matter what I did, she kept coming back for more punishment. One night, I replaced her shampoo with lube. She screamed for my mother to help her and while I listened to her as she cried in the bathroom, Joe had come in to have a long talk with me. After he left, I couldn’t help but sit there and laugh.

  The best prank I pulled was hiding the pregnancy test in her room after she had started dating Aaron. My mother found it while collecting her laundry and I got to stand on the sideline and listen while Joe and Anna had a very serious talk with Gingersnap. It was the funniest thing ever to hear her plead her case to them both that nothing was going on.

  Leah barely spoke to me for a month after that. Every time she would look at me she would get this super cute annoyed look on her face. I won’t lie, I was sort of beginning to miss her.

  “Are you hanging out with us tonight?” Trevor asked as I walked from the front of the school to my car.

  “No, I can’t, it’s my stepsister’s birthday,” I said making an annoyed face. “I’ve been told I have to be home.”

  I opened the car door and threw my bag in the back.

  “Have you heard anything back from the university?”

  “Yeah, I got my acceptance a week ago. I haven’t told anyone yet. I need to because the tuition will be due soon. Just not sure how my mom will react knowing I am moving across the country.”

  I looked across the parking lot and saw Leah standing against the tree waiting for the bus. She stood there with her coat pulled tight around her. I kept my eyes on her, there was something about the way she stood there that was bothering me. Normally she was surrounded by her friends but today it was just her, and then Aaron approached her. She turned away from him as he tried to pull her around to face him.

  Trevor looked in the direction I was looking. “I don’t know how you do it.”

  “How I do what?”

  “Live with that, your stepsister is so fucking hot. If she were mine, I’d be taking every chance I got to sneak into her room at night and tap it.”

  Every muscle in my body tensed at his comment. “What did you just say?”

  “What? I said if she were my stepsister, I would tap that every chance I got.”

  I turned to him and grabbed him by the collar. “Don’t ever let me hear you say anything like that again. You got me.” My pulse was hammering in my ears.

  “Yeah, man, no problem. Sorry.” Trevor held his hands up in defense.

  “Listen, I’ve got to go.” I released Trevor and got in my car and started the engine, then turned and looked in her direction again. Aaron flipped her the bird, and I watched him run off. She slumped down against the tree and put her head in her hands.

  I drove over and pulled up alongside the road. “Want a ride, Gingersnap?” I yelled from the window.

  “Go away, Logan, I’ll take the bus,” she yelled back.

  I wasn’t about to beg, so I put the car in drive and headed home.

  I had just finished wrapping the special gift I would give to her later when I heard the front door slam and footsteps on the staircase. I poked my head around the corner to see a trail of red hair fly into her room and the door slam. I was about to knock when Mom caught my eye, waving at me to come down into the kitchen. “Logan, Joe will be home soon, come help me in the kitchen for a minute, please.”

  I followed her in and looked around the room. She’d blown up pink balloons and they surrounded the chair where Leah always sat. Gifts were wrapped, sitting off to the side. “Take the casserole out of the oven, please, while I finish up the decorations on the cake.” I watched as she carefully placed the last few roses on the top of the cake.

  “What are we having?”

  “It’s a broccoli casserole. Joe said it used to be Leah’s favorite when she was younger, so I found a recipe and made it and for dessert I made a lemon cake.”

  I pulled the casserole out of the oven and sat it on the counter turning to see Joe walk into the kitchen carrying a small box. “Where is the birthday girl?” he asked walking over and kissing Anna.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen her yet this afternoon,” Anna said smiling.

  “She’s upstairs.”

  “Well, go get her, Logan.”

  I went up to get her, finding her face down on her bed in tears. I frowned, why was she crying. “Mom wants you to come down for dinner,” I said pushing her door open.

  “I’ll be there in a minute, go away,” was all her muffled voice said.

  What seemed like hours later, I was bored to tears while Leah finished opening her gifts, all gifts but mine. I had left it in my room and would give it to her later. While she and Anna were engrossed in looking at the flyer to the spa they were going to over the weekend, deciding what treatments to have, I got to help with dish duty instead of Leah tonight. I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and grabbed it. Aaron had sent me a text letting me know he had brok
en up with Leah, and that if she was pissy, it was his fault.

  After I put everything away, I wandered up to my room but stopped outside of her door. I could hear more crying and wondered what the hell had happened between them to make her so upset. I grabbed my gift and knocked on her door and waited. I heard a few bangs come from behind the door and then she pulled the door open a crack. She peeked out at me, “What?” I held up the wrapped box in my hand, but taking one look at her I turned around and was going to go back to my room.

  “You got me something?” I heard her ask in surprise between sniffles.

  “It’s nothing, really,” I said turning back around still holding the box in my hand. I should have gone with what I had decided, not to give it to her after finding out what had transpired after school. I was being more of an asshole than anything else with what was in the box. I didn’t enjoy seeing her like this, and having second thoughts, I turned to walk away again, but she pulled the door open further and invited me into her room.

  “No, Logan, please,” she said. I turned around and took one look at her, her green eyes sparkling in the light.

  I seriously debated just telling her it was an empty box and retreating to my room, but she stood there begging me with those sexy green eyes.

  “Please, Logan.” I hesitated and then I held the box out to her. She took the box from my hands, went over to her bed and sat down and gently pulled at the purple ribbon. There was no stopping her now. She lifted the edge toward her and gently opened the box only to slam it shut again, her face going as red as her hair, tears filling her eyes.

  “Leah, honey, what is it?” I turned and saw Joe and Mom standing behind me on their way to their room. I was going to be up shit’s creek now.

  “It’s just a little private joke between Logan and me,” she muttered pushing me into the hall, slamming the door shut on us. I could feel the anger coming from both Mom and Joe as they stood there staring at me.

  “Why the hell can you two not get along?” Joe demanded standing behind my mother.

  “I’ll talk to her.” I watched Mom go to Leah’s door and open it, slipping inside. Joe stood staring at me as he waited to find out what the hell happened.