“So?” She starts nervously.
“This thing happening with us.” I finish for her.
“What are we doing Dean? Are we being stupid? Will this little game ruin our friendship?” she asks with worry.
“What if this, and by the way, it’s not a game, but what if it’s the most important thing to happen to either of us?” I ask. Because what if it really is? “What if all these events in time that have happened for the past forty-eight hours are setting both of us up for something amazing?”
“You sound like you’re drunk. Did you take a shot in there?” she asks, pointing towards the kitchen.
“Is this part of the plan though to you? To make your lie to your family to be more believable?” I ask.
“No.” She says.
“Are you attracted to me?”
“Are you stupid?”
“No, I have an impeccable G.P.A. That would prove that I’m not.” I grin.
“I mean, yeah, of course I’m attracted to you. Have you looked in the mirror? I mean, from the moment that I met you, I have been attracted to you.”
“Really?” I ask, suddenly confused.
“So then why now? You never said or acted differently before.” I ask.
“Because you’re my best friend’s twin brother. That’s almost like sleeping with Denise.” She turns her head and covers her mouth before mumbling, “plus, she may have told me not to go there.”
“Wait, what? She wouldn’t have.” My eyebrows go to my hairline.
“Your first two years of college, what was it like?” She asks.
I tip my head back to recount. “Football. School.”
When I first started college, I was so focused on keeping my grades up and playing the best ball that I could, I barely had time for anything else. When the season was over, I trained my ass off and even taught a peewee league in the inner city of Seattle.
“So, you were so enamored with school that your sister said that any additional things would be a distraction. So, you became a friend. Then a roommate. Now even though, you’ve let loose a lot more and aren’t so stringent on your regime of things, you still have your habits that are important.” She says.
“So, how was I supposed to know that all these years you’ve thought of me in the more biblical sense?”
“You weren’t, but I guess now you do.” She shrugs.
“Can we get back on subject here? We got sidetracked with my attractiveness.” I ask her with a smile. “This thing with us? What do you want to do? We can stop and go back to pretending we’re a couple? Which I think is a monumentally horrible idea. Or, we can continue and see where it goes?”
“Hold up!” A voice from behind us says loudly.
Shit! We both turn our heads slowly toward Maddie, eavesdropping from the hallway.
“Crap!” Kaley hisses. “Hey Mads.” Her voice is shaky as she greets her sister.
“You guys aren’t even a couple?” She asks.
“We… um.” Kaley stutters.
“We are.” I say, my hand squeezing Kaley’s hand.
“Bullshit. I heard you guys. You guys are pretending to be a couple.”
“How long were you listening to our conversation, Mads?” Kaley asks, with an edge to her voice.
“I got thirsty and I come out here thinking you guys are asleep, when I hear him ask you if you want to keep pretending to be a couple. So what the fuck Kaley? You guys just bouncing on the bed this morning? Gross.” Maddie’s hands are on her hips and she looks disgusted.
Kaley releases my hand and stands up.
“Listen Mads, I think you’re misunderstanding things here. You heard Dean, we are together. I think you misheard our conversation.”
“Bull. Shit! I’m telling Daddy!” Maddie stomps off to the bedroom with Kaley on her tail. Kaley pounds on the door and then lets herself in.
I’m stunned silent on the couch, unsure of what just transpired, and left clueless as to what Kaley and I are now. She wasn’t exactly forthcoming with a yes when Maddie asked her; she hesitated.
Well fuck.
Kaley
I’m sitting on the bed having a staring contest with my teenage sister. Her lips are thin and her eyes are a storm of anger, but I’m just confused as to why. She grips her cell phone, but I know she’s not making any calls since it’s so late. That means I have all night to talk her out of saying anything to our parents.
“I can sit here all night with you, Mads. I need you to understand what you heard and what the truth is.” I say evenly.
“I don’t need to listen to your lies. When I tell Daddy that you are lying to him and mom, he’ll be pissed and see that you return home and then I’ll be off the hook for everything and will be allowed to live my life as I want.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” I seethe. “You know Dad would continue to be strict, especially on you because if you tell him whatever you think you heard, he will think you’ll do the same, so he’d hold on to you tighter. Just so you don’t get tainted like me.”
“I know what I heard. You guys are pretending. I mean, you’re both very good actors, because all that shit coming from your room this morning was quite believable and then all the PDA, yeah. Good job, sis.” Maddie slow claps.
“We are together. We’re just discussing the past.” I try to explain. It’s part truth.
“Such a lie.” She shakes her head, looking at her lap.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want to talk to him. Alone. But not right now, I want to talk to him tomorrow. You go out with mom and dad while I stay here with him.” She says.
“But—” I start when she raises her hand to silence me.
“I want to go to sleep, you can leave now.”
I stand, defeated and unsure what my sister’s plan is as I retreat out of the room.
Apparently, I was in the bedroom with Maddie and that staring contest longer than I thought, as the living room is dark. There’s a faint light on in the bedroom and I slip inside.
Dean is sitting at the head of the bed, his back against my bed frame, shirtless with the laptop on top of the pillow on his lap. He looks up as the door latches closed.
“Everything okay?” He asks concerned as he closes the laptop.
“I’m not sure.”
“You were in there for a while, what happened?”
“She wants to talk to you.” I sit facing him on the bed.
He moves the laptop and pillow off his lap, but I reach over and stop him.
“Not tonight. She wants to do it tomorrow, alone.”
“She doesn’t want to talk tonight?”
“No, she probably wants to plan something.”
“Not like trying to make a move on me. I mean sure, I’m hot on her sister, but she’s not you and also a kid.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her. She’ll try to manipulate the situation, maybe even try to make up some lies or try to convince you that I told her the opposite of whatever is the truth. But I’m honestly not sure what she’s going to do.”
“I’m sorry, Kale. I’m really sorry. We should have been smart and talked in here or something.” He shakes his head.
“Hey. No. We live here, we shouldn’t feel like we need to hide to have a serious conversations.”
“True, but we should have been more careful.” I whisper.
We’re silent for a moment.
“You didn’t answer my question,” He says.
“It would be really stupid of me to not want this with you. After all, I don’t think that we could go back to just being friends.” I say smiling while I crawl over to him, I push the pillow and laptop completely out of my way as I sit astride him. I lower myself completely on him and feel his dick stiffening under me. His hands go to my hips and he leans in to kiss me lightly.
“You had me scared there for a minute.” He says as he kisses my collarbone. My fingers flirt with the hair at the back of his head as I rel
ish in his touch.
“How so?” I ask.
“You hesitated. When Maddie asked if we were together, you hesitated.”
“I was surprised. I didn’t think. My brain hadn’t caught up to Maddie being in the room yet.”
“I’ll let it pass just that once.” He playfully says.
I relax into him, kissing him and loving the friction that our bodies create together.
I need to feel Dean, since I don’t know whether my sister will tell my dad and then I’ll—No, I’m refusing to go down that path and think my life will be turned around so much.
I press myself into him and start removing my shirt.
I need to lose myself in this man right now.
Chapter Six
Dean
The quarterback fakes to the right, but goes up the line, dodging huge wide-receivers and cornerbacks. The safety tracks the player and tackles him off sides, and the announcers go wild.
“That guy came out of thin air!” One guy exclaimed.
“He really paid close attention to Tanner and went around the other players when all eyes were on the path Tanner was taking. That’s a smart player right there.”
I rewind the recording and observe the same play, but by watching my teammates instead. I note where our cornerbacks look to go when Tanner darts through the line and then I see where Trevor, the other safety went when I made my play. I shake my head, Trevor dove right into the middle.
Again, I rewind and observe our opponents. The guards didn’t know what their QB was going to do. They scattered leaving him wide open. You can see the moment they notice that the ball wasn’t thrown, which was right when I tackled him.
I rewind again.
“You really need to watch that part over and over again? I mean, you should know how it turned out, after all, weren’t you playing?” Maddie flops down on the couch beside me.
“It’s like studying. I study what we did, what we could have done better, and the reactions of the other team.”
“Don’t you usually do that in the locker room or something? Or is that all whipping towels at each other and walking around naked?”
“We will, but I don’t go in until tomorrow. So tomorrow during our team meeting, I’ll be able to speak effectively about our win.”
“You won. That should be what you all meet about.”
“Believe me, we do. But we also know that we could have lost. We’re athletes, we’re competitors. Something could have gone wrong and we could have lost, that’s not something that we ignore. So we discuss the other players, the other team, and everything that we see on the field.”
“Do you guys ever get to just relish in the win?” She asks.
“All the time.” I say with a smile.
I lean forward, my elbows on my knees as I watch the next several plays. Maddie sits beside me and quietly watches. She played the ‘I want to get to know Dean’ ploy and kept telling their parents that they needed alone time with Kaley, to get me alone. She hasn’t yet breached the subject that I’ve been anxiously waiting for, so I have just gone on with what I would do if she wasn’t here.
I’m fixing my second sandwich of the day when she clears her throat. I turn and she’s standing by the counter separating the kitchen from the living space.
“So, I wanted to talk to you today,” she begins.
“Yeah, I heard.”
“Kaley told you?”
“Of course she did.” I say with a little more bite than deserving.
“Then I want the truth.” She huffs.
“The truth? We told you the truth last night.” I repeat.
“So, what were you guys talking about? I mean, it sounded to me like you guys have been lying to my parents and me since we first got here.”
“Listen, your sister and I, we started out as friends and now, we’re more than friends. We live together, we’re in a committed relationship, and that’s that.”
“What’s my sister’s favorite color?”
“Maroon, for some really weird reason. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who liked that color, aside from her.”
“What was she afraid of growing up?”
“Bunnies, she saw one that just ate a berry and it looked like it had bit someone and had blood dripping down its fur.”
“What did she want to be when she grew up?”
“Jem from Jem and the holograms.”
“Okay, favorite movie?”
“She has four. Never-ending Story, Grease, Dirty Dancing, and the Labyrinth.”
“So you know my sister.”
“I do.” I nod.
“Those are easily things that a friend would know. What’s her fears?”
“No offense, but to be stuck back at home.”
“Why do you like my sister?”
“She’s one of the most selfless people that I know. She knows what I need before I can vocalize it. She’s nurturing and puts 110% into everything that she attempts. She’s a hard worker, a good person inside and out and that… that’s just some reasons that I love her.”
“You love her?” Maddie gasps, hand over her mouth.
I consider the question, this one taking my time from answering considering Maddie’s rapid question asking.
“I do. She’s one of my favorite people.”
She considers me and then turns to walk away.
“Wait, seriously? That’s it?” I ask after her.
“For now. I still think you guys have been lying to us. But I do see that you care for her and that you may even truly love her.”
Kaley
I nervously spent the day with my parents while my sister spent the day with Dean, by the time we met up with Dean and Maddie for dinner at the apartment, I felt like I was going to pass out from worrying about what may or may not have been said.
When we walked into the apartment, Dean was doing pushups and Maddie was counting them off for him with gusto.
Weird.
Maddie jumps up from the chair she’s perched on and smiles at us as we stand watching the spectacle.
“Is this a normal thing?” Dad asks me.
“He hasn’t been to the gym all weekend, so yeah.” I shrug.
Dean pops up and shakes out his arms and legs.
“Hey guys,” he says, out of breath. “I got the fixings to make dinner, are you guys opposed to Italian?”
I look at him quizzingly.
He tries to not eat too much pasta during football season, so I’m slightly afraid of what he has in mind. I eye him as he makes his way to me around the couch. He pecks me on the lips, gives my waist a squeeze as he leans over to shake hands with my dad.
“We love Italian. You cook?” My mom gushes, clasping her hands in front of her chest in excitement.
“I can cook a few things. But I’m Italian-ish and my noni used to make me watch her cook in the kitchen when I was in high school when I was around the house.”
“Noni?” Maddie asks.
“Grandmother.” He replies. He looks to me and quickly angles it to the bedroom. “I’m going to shower, but first, can I steal Kaley for a second?”
Without words, we walk to the bedroom. I sit on the bed, eager for his rehashing of the day as he closes the door behind him.
“So, your sister grilled me about what I knew about you.”
“Oh shit.” I palm my forehead.
“No, I did well. But she’s still suspect. I don’t think she’s going to tell your parent anything, but I wouldn’t put it past her.”
“Ugh. I can’t believe this is happening.”
“What if you told your parents the truth that we just started dating?”
“Well, then they would think that I’m being stupid and living with a guy that I just started dating.”
“You couldn’t tell them that I was your roommate before?”
“Remember, they’re conservative that would go against their beliefs.”
“If they were really that conservative Ka
le, they would be against us living together period unless we were married.”
He has a point.
“I can’t. If they knew I was lying, then who knows what they would do.”
“They pay for your part of the rent, yeah?” He asks as I nod.
He paces.
“Do you think your sister is going to blab on us?”
“Depends on how convincing you are. Did you do any housework with your shirt off?” I smile, coming to stand before him.
“Nope, I didn’t think to use my body for an advantage.” He laughs.
“Well, we can only hope that she believes us then.” I say patting his chest.
Maddie kept close eyes on Dean and I for the rest of the night as if she was studying us. Dean went to sleep early since he had to resume some normal schedule tomorrow while I sat up watching late night TV with her.
“So?” I start.
“We’re not talking about you and Dean and the lies that you’ve been telling mom and dad so you can go about living the life that you know they wouldn’t approve of.”
“Listen Mads, I didn’t go to seminary school like they wanted. That doesn’t mean that you have to because they want one of their kids to. You can make your own choices. You’re an individual and you have your own mind.”
“Living under their roof means that I have no choices of my own, I have zero control. The choices that I have are choices that are made already for me. You should remember how it is to live there.” she says with anger in her tone.
“I actually don’t remember it being so strict.” I admit.
“That’s because they use what you’ve done, against me. Kaley didn’t do as we wanted her to do, so you will. Kaley moved out of town, but you’ll stick close to home. Kaley has the love of a man, who has a potentially successful career in front of him, but you’ll die an old maid. The list, I’m sure will go on. Don’t you get it, you’ve paved the way for how my life will be by not doing what they wanted?” Tears glisten my sister's eyes and guilt surrounds me.
“So you think that Dean and I are lying to them, what would telling them do for either one of us?” I ask.
Little White Lie Page 4