Chapter 5
Five
XANDER
Fifteen years earlier
Even with my eyes closed, I feel her watching me.
My fingers dance over the keys of the grand piano in the music room while late afternoon sun filters through the gauzy curtains.
The golden glow of the hour burns bright behind my eyelids.
Dad’s at work, and Suzette is on location in Georgia for the week, so once again we find ourselves alone for dinner.
“I was going to heat up one of the meals that Chef Meri left for us,” she says once the song comes to an end. I love how she does that, waits for me to finish before saying anything. “Do you have a preference?”
I turn on the bench and groan internally when I see what she’s wearing.
The shortest cutoffs and a cropped Ramones concert tee.
Why did I end up with a stepsister who loves dressing like a little alt goddess?
Her hair is piled on top of her head, and I can’t stop myself from imagining pulling it free and watching as it cascades down her back and shoulders or the way the scent of her shampoo would waft over me in waves.
She is a sensory dessert bar for my starving body.
“I’ll come help you.”
“Oh, okay.” She tilts her head back to look up at me as I walk past her into the hall. “Probably better for you to see all the options anyway.”
“Anything Meri makes I’ll be fine eating. I just want to make sure you don’t set the kitchen on fire again,” I tease.
She groans and pushes my arm. “It was one time!”
“Only one?” I smile and arch a brow.
“The other time doesn’t count. It was contained in the oven.”
“It actually does count because there were flames and I had to get the fire extinguisher.”
“Fine, whatever. You heat up dinner, then.” She hops onto a barstool at the island.
“I will.” After listing off the options, we both settle on herb-crusted salmon and risotto with roasted vegetables. I put everything into the oven to warm up and then grab us both a soda. “It’s a good thing you’ll be in the dorms next year, so you don’t have to cook for yourself.”
“Ha ha.” She takes the Diet Coke from my hand and pops the top. “What were you playing upstairs?”
“Just a song I’ve been messing around with.” I bite back a smile at the adorable little shimmy she does at the first taste of her drink. I’m too obsessed with her.
“You wrote it?”
“I’m trying to.”
“It sounded amazing.” She takes another drink and moans in delight. “It must be nice to have so much innate talent like that.”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far. I’m not good enough for Juilliard.”
“That’s one school. They’re probably all rich, uptight east coast assholes anyway. Who wants that?” She rests her temple on the heel of her palm, so she can look over at me. “Honestly, you could probably do anything you wanted with your talent. Not to mention, having the connections from your dad.”
“I don’t want to get a job just because my dad is a movie industry power player. I want to succeed on my own merit.”
“I get it, but there’s nothing wrong with getting a foot in the door because of your last name. It’s not like you wouldn’t earn your success with your own work. If I wasn’t a nobody, I’d definitely use any connection I had to my advantage.”
“You aren’t a nobody.”
“I know that, but out there I am,” she says gesturing out the window toward the city. “I’m so grateful to your dad for everything he’s done for me. I’ll become something great just to thank him for believing in me.”
“He doesn’t need anything in return. He always wanted more kids, your relationship with him might last longer than your mom’s.”
She glances down with a soft laugh I haven’t heard before.
It’s my immediate goal to catalog each laugh, each smile, each frown, and find their meaning.
Then make her do them multiple times a day.
She tucks a lock of beautiful red hair behind her ear and looks up at me again.
Amusement paints her freckled face with quiet joy that I wish I could color my world with.
“How long do you think they’ll last?” she asks.
“Dad’s tenacious, at least a few years.”
She shakes her head. “I doubt it’ll go longer than the end of summer.”
My chest squeezes at the thought of her not being around longer than the next two or three months. I scratch my shoulder, trying to ignore the weird tightening. “Why do you say that?”
“I know my mom. She loves the feeling of falling in love, but once things aren’t exciting anymore, she bolts.
” She pauses and looks around the kitchen.
“It’s better than cheating, which she’s never done.
Sometimes I wonder if she’s not just running from man to man trying to outrun the pain that my dad caused her by leaving us. ”
“Do you think they would have lasted?”
She shrugs. “I have no idea.” A melancholy air settles between us.
I know she doesn’t have much of a memory of him, so I pivot the conversation. “Well, let’s set aside the mess that is our parents’ love lives. What are your plans for the summer?”
She perks up at the change in conversation. My chest goes from that uncomfortable pinching to a wave of warmth. I probably shouldn’t be having these types of feelings for my stepsister, but fuck if I’m not obsessed with it. I can’t remember ever feeling like this.
“I’m glad you asked because I was going to see if you’d want to teach me how to surf?” She rolls her lips inward as her eyes plead with me. “I’ve always wanted to try it, and I know you’re so good at it. Have you ever taught anyone?”
“A couple friends.” I lean back against the counter, crossing my feet at the ankles. “I have a board you could start out on.”
“Really?” A huge smile fills her face as she rockets off the stool she’s sitting on and races around the island to wrap me in a tight hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she squeals.
I barely keep my body in check, all I want to do is wrap her up in my arms and…Yeah, I’m not going there. Instead, I loosely return the hug, awkwardly patting her back, and pretending I’m not hyperaware of her tits pressed against me.
“It’s no problem. I was going to go out tomorrow if the water looks good.”
I scoot over just as the timer goes off for our food. She grabs plates while I pull everything out of the oven. Her phone starts to go off with notifications from her group chat, so we eat side by side but distracted.
I’m good with it, though, because it means I have time to text my surf buddies that I’m not going to make it in the morning. I can’t teach her to surf at my usual spots; the waves are too big. I’ll take her to Santa Monica where the bottom is sandy and the water more forgiving.
I finish securing the boards in the back of my truck and toss the wet suits into the backseat. She comes walking out of the house in a pair of jean shorts and a triangle bikini top. I have to tear my eyes away from the freckles that dot her chest and shoulders.
“Do you have sunscreen?” I ask after clearing my throat.
She gives me a look that screams ‘are you stupid?’ “Of course. I never leave home without it having been cursed with this skin and hair.”
“Good. The sun will be intense on the water today.”
“I’m so glad you told me.” She smiles at me and pats my chest. “I never would have known.”
“Don’t get sassy.”
“I was born sassy.” She walks past me and around to the passenger side door. “Besides, it’s part of my charm.”
I’d never agree out loud, but fuck if she isn’t right. As I pull out of the driveway, I break down what we’ll mainly be doing today, working on pop-ups first on the beach and then on the water. She’s adorably giddy as she listens intently while I drive.
We left early, so we’re one of the first to the beach and finding parking is a breeze. Had we waited an hour or two, it’d be a totally different story. I pull my wetsuit half on and open the back of the truck.
She grabs the old wetsuit I threw in the backseat and unbuttons her shorts, letting them drop to the sandy pavement.
I watch as she bends over to retrieve them, the pale skin of her round ass is just barely covered by the tiniest bikini bottoms. She steps into one leg of the wetsuit, then the other.
I should turn around.
I should definitely turn around.
Focus on getting my shit together.
Fuck my life, she starts jumping to get into the suit. All her perfect curves bounce as she wiggles into the tight neoprene. She leaves it loose around her waist just like I have.
I pull the boards out of the truck bed and tuck one under each arm. She locks our phones in the glove compartment.
“Do you want me to carry my board?” she asks as she falls in step beside me.
“Nah, I got it.”
We find a place close to the water, and I drop the boards to the sand. I pull my shirt over my head and look out to assess the water. There are perfect rolling swells with the smallest waves. I couldn’t have asked for better conditions to teach her in.
“Could you get my back?”
I look over, startled out of my thoughts by the sight of her beside me holding out a bottle of sunscreen. “Sure, of course.”
She pulls her hair over her shoulder, and the herbal scent of her shampoo washes over me.
I squeeze lotion onto my hand and rub it between my fingers to warm it a bit.
Her skin is warm and so fucking soft I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop touching now that I’ve started.
My dick rouses from its slumber at the contact between us, but I do everything short of running into the cold Pacific to distract myself.
“That feels so good,” she moans when I run my fingers along her shoulder blade.
Don’t fucking fixate on that moan, I tell myself over and over again. I can feel a ball of tension under my fingers though, and while I itch to massage it into submission, I know that would be a slippery slope.
Slippery.
Fuck. My. Life.
Every thought I have holds a sexual undertone. Time to fight them off. Chord progressions. Fret boards. Cookiecutter sharks. That one does it. Now I’m just completely grossed out thinking about them and their weirdly perfect bites.
You can do this, Xander. She’s your sister, and you won’t have dirty thoughts about your sister. You’ve taught so many people how to surf, it’s just another person. Shake it the fuck off.