Chapter Three
I can hear her— that soft, nervous breathing through the door.
She’s hiding from me already. Hoping I won’t know she’s inside, but where else would she be? Leigh’s always hidden away in there, trying to avoid that pull. The one that reaches between us when we’re both here.
Her presence screams in a way I’ve never experienced from another person, which is part of the reason why my visits are short.
I know if I stay too long, I’ll do something stupid.
Stupid like trying to fuck my stepsister.
It’s not the step-siblings part I care about, because I truly don't give a shit. It’s her.
The way she hesitantly entered my life that day at the law firm’s holiday party, clearly a few years younger and testing out her limits with a minor theft and underage drinking. It was adorable. Captivating.
I can’t stay away.
My ‘brotherly’ instincts weren’t normal. After a few years of trying to ignore her and realizing that the obsession only grew, I gave up pretending to feel guilty for the thoughts I had about her.
No, I didn’t want to talk it out when she came home crying that the boys at school were being mean to her again.
Instead, I went straight to my father to plant the idea in his head that she should be home-schooled.
Let him suggest it. And when that took too long I simply followed the ringleader home from a party and forced him off the road.
Problem solved, and she cried a lot less after that.
Leigh has a soft kind of smile that I crave to see aimed in my direction, but it always slips away when I come near.
I know it’s my own doing. Dad’s used to my lack of emotional expression—I’ve been in therapy for a decade for a reason—and Leigh’s mom accepts it for what it is.
No, I’m not going to pull my stepmom in for a giant hug, but I will install a security system so I know that her and her daughter are safe in our house. That’s just how I show that I care.
But Leigh? I know she can feel the weight of my obsession, and it drives her away.
But it’s way too late for me to do anything about it now.
Running away didn’t work, and refusing to come home from college the last few years while she’d dated Isaac did not remove the impulse to frame him for something horrific so that he’d be dragged away to prison for the rest of his life.
Yeah, yeah, I know. That’s what the therapy is for. He’s lucky I keep going back. But again, that’s for her too. I don’t want to scare her, so I try my hardest at the appointments to help soften my sharp-ass edges.
But now I’m here. Back home to finally get my fill of her. It’s been eight fucking years, and I have to do something about the need for her that’s eating me alive. I’ve gifted our parents a surprise Fall cruise like the loving son that I am, so now I’ll have her here all to myself.
For the first time. Just me and her.
…And Danny. He’d be fucking livid if he got left out.