I tried to pull my arm from Florian's grasp, but he wouldn't let go of me.
“This isn't a good time,” he said, pausing to glance over at me. I refused to meet his eyes. I didn't know how to feel towards him. Why was it okay for him to party, to kiss whoever he wanted, to … do whatever with whoever he wanted? I had a right to experiment, too. “This is my sister.” I cringed again, hating the way he said that word. Sister. I wasn't his sister and hadn't even known him as long as I'd known my best friend, Addison. Florian and I had met ten years ago and had only lived together full time for eight of them. “I've got to get her home, okay?” I looked back at the girl and saw her face soften. Sister. The word always did that to them, like I was no longer a threat. Because, of course, Florian would never want anything to do with me. I wasn't a girl to him, just an obligation. I was safe. “And then maybe I'll be back after,” he added which did nothing to enhance the slowly building smile on the girl's face. Her red lips turned down and she rolled her eyes, spinning on her heels and marching up the white steps we'd just come down.
“Abigail,” Flor said, and I swallowed again, this time to get past the lump in my throat. I wished he'd let go of me; that would've made things easier. “Let's go.” But Florian didn't release me and instead, pulled me towards his car, double parked next to a white Honda Civic, its silver paint dull in the shadowy corridor of the street. Only two street lamps on either side of the house worked; the rest had been broken sometime in the last few years. “Get in,” he said, finally letting go of my arm. I spun then, surprising him, tears welling up unbidden from God only knows where.
“Why?” I asked him and it was his turn to roll his eyes and shake his head, like he knew better, like he had room to talk. He reached out to take my arm again, but I stepped back, pulling it out of his reach. He mistook my emotions for fear and opened the car door with a sigh.
“I won't tell your dad,” he said as he tilted his head to the side and watched me. The eyebrow ring in his left brow winked as a car behind us turned on its headlights and pulled forward, zooming around Florian's illegally parked Mazda like it didn't even exist, like we were in our own little world. “If that's what you're freaking out about, don't worry.”
I watched him watching me, drank in the details of that moment, the way his eyes were focused wholly and completely on mine, the way his tongue brushed against his lower lip, the way his newest tattoo – a girl with a wolf skin draped over her shining brown curls – gleamed with lotion and a dabbling of sweat.
“Why do you get to have all the fun?” I asked, and I knew I sounded exactly the way I didn't want to sound – like I really was fifteen. “Why do you get to bring girls over to the house when Dad and River are at work? Why do you get to go to parties on school nights and disappear over spring break, long enough that your mom actually thinks about calling the cops?” I wrapped my arms around myself and took another step back as Florian's eyes narrowed.
“You're fifteen, Abi,” he said, confirming my worst fear. Eighteen year old Florian knew everything and here I was, his whiny younger sister who played the cello and had just had her first kiss with some stranger. He probably thought I was crazy. “Get in the car and let's go home.”
“No,” I said and he growled low under his breath, sending a chill straight up my spine. A cool breeze drifted down between the houses on either side of us, teasing my skirt and bringing goose bumps up on my exposed thighs. Florian's school blazer was hanging loosely from my shoulders, but not because he'd given it to me. Because I had decided to go to the party in my school uniform the way the rest of the girls did and wanted to wear burgundy – the color of the senior class.
“Why are you being so goddamn stubborn?” he snarled at me, running a hand through his sweaty hair. I wondered briefly how long he'd been at the party before he'd found me. “Do you want me to call your dad and tell him you're here?”
“Do whatever you want,” I snapped back, taking a step towards him this time. I needed him to know I wasn't going to back down without an answer. I watched as he scowled and shoved his hands in his front pockets, looking down at me as he sucked in a deep breath. I could tell he was pissed but trying not to show it. His eyes, green and sharp as thorns, took me in from head to toe, pausing at the black and white skull patterned socks I'd pulled up to my knees. Those definitely weren't regulation for Mercy High School students, but I'd worn them anyway and scraped by without detention for it. I'd even rolled the waistband of my skirt up a few times, hiding the bunched fabric by pulling my white dress shirt out and letting it hang loose – another fashion statement I'd never participated in before today. I could tell Florian noticed. “I'm not going home, Flor. I want to stay.” He looked up at my face then and took his own step forward, the toes of our shoes just this side of touching.
I tried not to meet his eyes, keeping my gaze on the bleeding rose pattern that decorated his shirt, convinced that I could see every muscle in his chest and belly through the tight fabric.
“You're my sister,” he said, and this time, when I cringed, he noticed. “I'm not leaving you at some second-rate, shitty party to get taken advantage of.”
“It's not your decision,” I whispered as his hands came up and touched my elbows, sliding to my shoulders and pulling the blazer down my arms. Flor's face was ridiculously close to mine when he leaned in and tossed the jacket onto the front seat. I could feel the warm brush of his breath against my lips, like an indirect kiss, a ghost of a wish that would never come true. “And I'm not your sister.”
Then I did look up at him, meeting his green eyes with my blue ones and trying not to let him see how nervous I felt, how his nearness and his touch undid me. The things I felt for him, that I didn't feel for any other guy, they were wrong. I knew that. I knew that. Still, it didn't matter. He wasn't my brother and I was about three-fifths sure I was in love with him.
“I know.”
I thought for one brief second there that Flor was really going to kiss me. I could practically taste his mouth, smell the scent of his shampoo, could practically feel that cinder on my tongue burning against his, igniting some sort of … blaze between us that would burn us both to ashes.
But he didn't.
He didn't kiss me, just took a step back and went around to the driver's side of the car, opening his door and leaning on the roof with his arms crossed. His face was smooth-shaven, but the shadows from the trees looming above us played tricks on my mind and made it look like he had stubble across his jaw, rough and untamed. My eyes managed to find the single scar on his chin, the one he'd gotten from a bike ride gone wrong, even in the dim lighting. I focused on that instead of his eyes.
“Up to you,” he said, and his voice was easy to hear, even with the pulsing thump of music radiating from the old Craftsman. Flor always had a sharp, clear voice and a tone that brooked no argument, not even from his own mother. It was like he just knew everything, and that annoyed me. “Come with me now or I'll follow you back inside and tell everyone that you're fifteen. Then they can kick you out themselves and you can wait on the street corner for your dad to pick you up.”
“I hate you,” I whispered, even though that wasn't true.
Flor nodded like the know-it-all jerk he was and climbed into the car.
I followed after him, slamming my door to let him know I didn't like this and that I was pissed.
“I really hate you,” I said again, brushing away a slight swell of tears with an angry hand.
“Yeah, I'm a real piece of shit,” he told me as I slammed my foot on the dashboard and left it there, resting my cheek against my thigh as I gazed out the window. There was a long pause before Flor started the car and when I glanced over, I caught him staring at me. I narrowed my eyes and looked away again before he could see how hurt I was, how desperate I was for his attention.
Then the engine started and we were whizzing through the city and towards South Hills, towards the four bedroom house that I spent most of my free time in, re
ading and doing massive amounts of AP homework. Neither of us spoke as Flor drove me home.
When we got there, I shoved open my door before Flor had even put the car in park and stormed up to the front porch, tugging down the hem of my skirt as I went. Even if Flor didn't rat me out – which I wasn't at all sure about – my outfit might give me away.
I raced up the cement steps to the dark green door and pushed it open, hearing my stepmom's laughter ring down the staircase. She and Dad were probably upstairs snuggling and watching their evening movie. They always made time for it, no matter what happened. I sort of envied them their relationship. Must be nice to have someone to hang out with all the time. All I had was a best friend who'd just moved nine hundred miles away and a stepbrother that hated me.
“Hey,” Flor said, reaching out and grabbing at my arm again. The front door shut softly behind him as I turned, looking down at his fingers curled around my bicep. He licked his lips again and for a split second there, he looked almost nervous. “I meant what I said, you know. I won't tell your dad a thing.” I didn't respond. “But that doesn't mean I like what I saw.”
“Like I enjoy finding you with your hands up girls' shirts on the living room couch.” I started to pull away again, but Flor pulled me back. I spun around, intending to give him a piece of my mind and found him way too close to me, smelling too good, breathing too hard, eyes even sharper than normal.
“You never said anything before,” was all he said, and since I didn't know how to respond to that, I decided to be flippant.
“Why should I? It should be obvious. What sister likes to see her brother going at it with a different girl every weekend?”
Flor stared at me for a good long moment, fingers still curled around my arm and then suddenly, he was pushing me against the wall, pinning my arms above my head with his right hand, and molding our bodies together in a way that brought a small moan tumbling unbidden from my lips.
“I thought you said you weren't my sister,” he whispered, and then he really did press his lips to mine, slide his tongue into my mouth. I wanted to slap him or scream for joy or run upstairs and call Addison or knee him in the balls or … I found myself arching my breasts against his chest, my mouth moving against his. I melted into Flor as he leaned into me, one knee between my legs, barely keeping me from sliding to the floor in a puddle of surprise and … pleasure. It really, really shouldn't feel this good to be touched, I thought, echoing my earlier feelings. But if Flor's fingers around my wrist had been like a flame, his body pressed into mine was like the sun.
I arched my back and felt my hips rock against his, felt his erection hot and unyielding against my thigh. I struggled to pull my arms from his grip, to touch him the way his left hand was touching me, sliding down my side, caressing my hip through my skirt. When his fingers met the bare skin of my upper thigh, I gasped into his mouth, felt his tongue dig deeper while my heart split open and released all of the feelings I'd been keeping back for so long.
Butterflies had taken flight in my stomach, battering at my belly with nervous wings and tightening places low in my body, places that I hadn't even realized could ache like this. Oh God, I didn't think anything could ever ache so bad and feel so good at the same time. That is, until Flor's fingers found my panties, the black silky ones with the lace that I'd put on just because. A lick of flame raced up my spine as he touched me and I found I could barely breathe, let alone think. I knew my dad and stepmom were upstairs, that finding us like this would destroy them both, but I couldn't stop. I didn't want to stop.
Flor pulled back a fraction of an inch, just enough that he could whisper my own name against my lips.
“Abigail.”
As quick as it started, it stopped.
“Abi, is that you, honey?” I heard my dad's voice a split second before I snapped my eyes open and found the lights in the stairwell flickering on.
Florian released me, much the same way the guy at the party had, like I was hurting him, burning him too hot, scorching him too deep. Like I was dangerous.
His eyes mirrored back a look of hurt, of longing, that I knew was plastered across my own face. I dropped my arms, crossed them over my chest. Ice was seeping into me at that look, at this taboo breath that was passing between us. We both knew we couldn't have what we wanted, and that we never could. I reached out, just once, a single hand grasping for a love I knew could be, but Florian didn't reach back. Instead, he backed up, chest rising and falling with rapid breath, his lips still moist from the touch of my own. And then he turned toward the front door and left. Just like that.
“Yeah, Dad,” I called back, fighting to keep my voice strong and steady. I didn't want him to find me down here like this, panting and red cheeked and moist lipped and … hurting. I slid to the floor as tears stung my eyes again. “I'll be right up.” I put my forehead against my arm and waited for the emotions to pass.
But they never did.
And Flor never touched me again.
We never even spoke of it.
I set the box down on the counter and eyed Flor's ass as he bent over and set a second, much smaller box on the floor with little care or consideration as to what was inside. I didn't mind scoping him out anymore. I had long given up on anything happening between us. I mean, our parents were head over heels in loco love with one another and they even referred to us as “their kids”. It would kill them if they even knew I thought my stepbrother was hot.
“Um, hello,” I said, knowing the exact look Flor was going to toss over his shoulder. Ah ha! I was right; it's a scowl. “It says fragile on it. It also says bedroom.” I put one hand on my hip and smirked, knowing how frustrated I was making him, forcing him to carry the smallest boxes while I shouldered the largest ones. Call it a case of raging feminism or what have you, but I liked pissing him off. Big tough guy that he was, I let him carry in the pillows and the lamps while I hauled in the pots and pans, the kitchen stools, and the boxes of books – with great glee, mind you.
“How the hell was I supposed to know?” he said, letting his scowl relax into a smirk as he leaned back against the counter. “Maybe it said fra-gee-lay. I thought it was fucking Italian.” He stood up suddenly and snapped his fingers, breezing past me before I could get out another word, make fun of him for his infatuation with a A Christmas Story. I decided to follow after him and try anyway.
“Can't even come up with your own jokes?” I asked, following quickly behind Florian and down the steps to the street. I don't know what was putting the pep in my step – the fact that I got my first place or the fact that I could tell I was getting under Flor's skin. “Have to pull material from old movies? That's pretty sad there, Flor. How do the girls at the shop take that? Or are they even cultured enough to know what A Christmas Story is?” I hated mentioning the girls at my stepbrother's tattoo studio, even as a joke, but Flor's 'groupies' were a fact of life that I'd since learned to deal with. Each one like a thorn in my side, I thought as I continued to scope out his ass. It was watch from afar or do nothing at all. At this point, the absence of Florian in my life hurt more than his distanced presence.
Flor climbed into the back of the moving truck and grabbed a box before pausing and glancing over his shoulder at me. I noticed it was a heavy one and stepped up, putting my arms out like I thought he was trying to hand it to me. He scowled again and I smiled.
“What do you take me for?” he asked, raising his dark brows in a way that made my toes curl. “An idiot? That's my pre-sex question right there. Tell me about the leg lamp or I don't take you home tonight. Works like a charm.”
“Oh, I'm sure it does,” I replied, smothering the surge of jealousy that threatened to take over me and kill my mood. Flor and girls and … sex. This was yet another thing I'd learned to deal with. I wasn't his, and he wasn't mine. We could never belong to one another and much as I fantasized about him staying celibate for me, pining over me every waking day and night, it wasn't going to happen. I was a big girl; I knew t
hat and I could handle it. Or at least I thought I could.
I took a deep breath and smoothed a hand over my curls, hoping they hadn't already dissolved to stray strands of fluff in the blustery afternoon air. Addison was going to be here any minute, dragging her longtime boyfriend and his brother along for the ride. She'd promised me this one was cute, tall enough to wear heels with, and had a brain at least three times the size of my brother's. “I bet they just can't wait to dive into bed with an underdeveloped boy who still watches his favorite Christmas movie every night before bed.”
“Not every night,” Flor said, pulling the box from the truck and purposely sidestepping around me. He leaned in and breathed hot breath against my ear, making me shiver. “Just on weekends. And who said I was underdeveloped?” I kicked him lightly with my bare foot and climbed into the truck, searching for a very specific box that had somehow gotten lost in the fray. Inside was my long ago dismantled shrine to my stepbrother: a series of pictures and notes and gifts that he'd given me over the years. I used to keep it all in one of the bottom drawers of my dresser, but after … the 'incident' as I liked to refer to it, I put it all away in a box, taped it up and hadn't looked at it since. Unfortunately, it had somehow ended up on the truck even though I'd meant to throw it away. For three years it had sat on the top shelf of my closet collecting dust. I was lucky the bastard never found it, nosy little asshole that he was. Once, I'd come home to find him sitting on the edge of my bed, an unlit cigarette between his lips, and a condom I'd gotten from my sex ed class clutched between two of his fingers. It had taken me an entire hour to convince him that I was actually still a virgin, not that it should've been any of his business anyway.
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