Parker and I plan on enjoying everything that Star Cove has to offer, including the legendary parties that the twins kept talking about and the many local girls in search of a summer fling with a tourist.
“Hey Bryce, could you double check the address my father sent us on my phone and read me his directions, please?”
I grab Reid’s phone from the glove box and switch the screen on but I can’t resist the temptation to rib him a little bit. This is what the four of us do, we love to keep up a constant, fun banter and we don’t shy away from the occasional prank. It’s the way we express our feelings of friendship with one another. After all, we aren’t chicks braiding each other’s hair and syncing our periods or whatever chicks do to bond.
I open Reid’s text messages and click on ‘Dad’, reading him the directions out loud.
“It says to leave the Interstate and then take a left after leaving Shell Cove’s city limits. Continue for ten miles and then rather than taking the road down to the marina, take the new road that climbs up to the hills.”
I make a comment about his lack of navigation skills, since he’s been to Star Cove before, and he responds that he and Chase haven’t been for the last two summers and since then their old man got a brand new place built for his new bride.
I’m about to scroll upward to close the message app but fail to do so ... Dude, I fucking hate the new phones without the home button.
So instead of closing the messages, I end up scrolling up and see the photo of two women that Reid’s old man sent him.
I click on it to enlarge it, suddenly curious and when I see the two similar looking brunettes, obviously mother and daughter, I let out a low, appreciative whistle.
“Damn! Who’s this hot stuff in the photo your dad sent you?”
Reid barks out a laugh.
“Dude, gross! That’s my stepmom.”
I laugh back.
“Yeah, I figured. Not her, I’m talking about the younger one. I assume she’s your sister? She’s hot as fuck!”
“She’s not our sister! She’s our fucking stepsister. So she’s strictly off-limits.”
I thought Chase was sleeping but he scolds me without any trace of laughter in his tone. Lighten up, dude!
I chuckle darkly, staring at the gorgeous creature on the screen.
“Talk for yourself, dude. She might even be your stepsister but she ain’t mine. I say she’s fair game for me and Parker.”
Reid takes his eyes off the road and snatches his phone out of my hands, setting it down on his lap.
“No, motherfucker! Chase is right. Kaya is off-limits. I mean it. Star Cove is full of chicks and most of them are fairly easy, especially the townies. Leave our stepsister the hell alone, that’s non-negotiable. Got it? Plus, she’s a goddam kid!”
I don’t have time to retort anything before Chase reinforces his twin’s statement.
“Yeah, a kid. And she’s a spoiled brat. My old man and her mother would blow a gasket if any of us touched Kaya. So, you’ve been warned, fuck whoever you want, but keep your dick away from sis. She acts like a stuck up little bitch most of the time anyway.”
Whoa! Whatever has got up these guys’ asses today! I was gonna tell them that I was only joking but I pipe down not missing the hard set of their jaws and their eyes meeting in the rear view mirror communicating with one another something that obviously Parker and I aren’t supposed to be made privy to.
Reid
“I ASSUME SHE’S YOUR sister? She’s hot as fuck!”
Bryce’s statement makes my blood boil and I almost slam on the brakes and climb out of the driver’s seat to go beat the shit out of my best friend.
This was a fucking mistake. A disaster in the making. I told Chase that inviting Bryce and Parker to spend the whole summer with us in Star Cove wasn’t a good idea, but my twin brother never fucking listens to me. He’s a goddam alpha male wannabe, constantly harping on the fact that he was born five minutes before me to assert his dominance over me and act like the ‘older brother’.
I sigh, slightly shaking my head at the fucking mess that this summer has the potential to become.
This is the problem with Chase, he thinks he knows everything but he doesn’t know shit and I’m not convinced that adding Bryce and Parker to our fucked up situation will diffuse it any. If anything, I think it’ll make things worse for the both of us.
See, things had worked perfectly well when we decided to stay away from Star Cove and from Kaya.
This? This is everything we’ve been running away from and then some.
But in Chase’s defense, I guess he thought that Bryce and Parker would act as a buffer between us and sis. It’s not like we could turn down our dad’s request to come and work with him, not if we’re to take the reins of his multi-billion dollar company one day.
We’d been deflecting his attempts to give us summer jobs here for two summers and our old man had always caved, but this year he was determined to put us to work and none of our usual excuses had any effect on him.
To be honest, I can imagine how he must see us: as two spoiled brats who have no work ethic and want to spend their summers drinking, chasing pussy and engaging in every possible kind of debauchery.
He couldn’t be further from the truth but Chase and I didn’t do anything to correct his perception when it comes to us. We prefer to have him think that we’re two selfish, spoiled shitheads rather than risk him learning the truth about us.
What’s the truth? It’s so simple and predictable that it’s almost cliché: we both have the hots for our little stepsister.
We did from the moment we saw her three years ago, way before we knew that our dad was dating Kaya’s mom.
I remember the first time I saw her as if it was yesterday: I was having a look around the shops on the boardwalk in downtown Star Cove and she was there, sitting on a low wall in a red one piece, bathing suit and cut-off jeans. Her hair was damp, probably from swimming and she was eating a soft serve ice cream cone.
I remember watching her, almost hypnotized by the way her luscious lips made contact with the rapidly melting frozen treat, immediately imagining how sweet those lips would taste against mine.
Our gazes met briefly and I felt my heart jump in my throat at the sight of the pure, emerald green of those irises. Kaya looked carefree and happy, that smile was innocent and yet full of promises.
The whole encounter lasted mere seconds and one of her friends came to drag her back on the beach, but I remember immediately making a plan in my head to find out who she was and find a way to talk to her.
On the first weekend in Star Cove, Chase and I hit several parties and I was surprised not to see mystery girl anywhere. It took me a few days to find out that she was three years younger than me and not a local.
I remember spending a couple of days trying to find out where she was staying and planning to find a way to ‘casually cross paths’ with her and start a conversation. I didn’t wanna come off stalkerish or creepy but I couldn’t forget those green eyes and those beautiful, heart shaped lips. The days turned into a couple of weeks as I was looking for the courage to go talk to her, so imagine my surprise when I saw her again when Chase and I showed up at a dinner with our dad at a local restaurant.
Dad had asked us to have dinner with him and a woman he had started dating a few weeks earlier.
We immediately agreed: this was the first time Dad introduced us to any of his dates, so it must have been someone truly special.
We hadn’t really seen him date all that much since we lost our mom ten years earlier to a mysterious and unforgiving illness, so both my brother and I were glad that Dad liked someone.
We obviously felt pretty protective of him, we didn’t want some gold digger pursuing Dad only for his money but our father was an intelligent man. His shrewdness and drive had allowed him to build a multi-billion dollar business from nothing, so we trusted his judgement and we knew that if he wanted us to meet this woman she m
ust’ve been someone special.
But nothing could’ve prepared me for the shock of seeing the girl I’d been thinking about for days sitting at my dad’s table.
Kaya was Karen’s daughter and at first I didn’t fully understand the implications of it.
I sat there for the duration of the whole meal, looking at her chatting up a storm with my dad and my brother.
I guess I was both shellshocked to see her again and also quite surprised by Chase’s behavior.
Because you see, the smiling, easy going dude cracking jokes at the dinner table was a far cry from the mostly quiet, introspective, brooding and slightly bossy brother I’d always known. He’s definitely the most outgoing one between us but neither of us likes to talk a lot.
If I hadn’t ridden in the car with him to the restaurant in complete silence, I’d have thought that Chase had been snatched by aliens or some fucked up shit like that.
But there he was, talking to Kaya about his favorite Japanese manga and his favorite action flick novels, two things that he and Kaya had in common. So I sat there, like an idiot, looking at my twin brother talking nonstop to the girl I liked.
And as I said, at first I didn’t see the implications of the situation and seeing Chase get so friendly with Kaya, spurred me into action and I finally did what I’d been planning all along and ‘bumped into her’, striking up a conversation and inviting her to hang out with me at the arcade.
I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking, how I couldn’t foresee the disaster we were headed for at breakneck speed.
Because both Chase and I started to hang out with her, separately and together on the frequent occasions when our dad invited us kids to join him and Karen.
And one of those occasions was when we caught wind of the fact that we were playing with fire: we were having a ‘family BBQ’ at the beach house our old man was renting.
He and Karen were sipping cocktails on the patio, while us kids played with a volleyball in the pool.
That soon turned into us splashing one another with water and goofing around, until Chase decided to grab Kaya, tickling her and making her giggle while the splashing war continued.
I didn’t miss the looks on Karen’s and Dad’s face, Chase and Kaya weren’t doing anything inappropriate as such but none of us missed the ‘chemistry’ between the two of them.
So I wasn’t surprised when Dad sat us down at breakfast the morning after and laid down the law.
He explained that he was extremely serious about Karen and that he hoped we’d be on board about her and Kaya becoming part of our family.
He concluded his talk with a veiled remark that didn’t fail to hit home with me and my twin.
“You’re leaving for college in the fall anyway, but I’m glad you both like your new sister. So I expect you two to be good brothers to her, watch out for her and show her kindness. She’s family now.”
He didn’t really say it out loud, he didn’t spell it out clearly but the look in his eyes and the way he said ‘sister’, said everything we needed to know. He’d marry Karen and it was obvious that whatever Chase and I felt about Kaya had to stay brotherly and platonic. We could be her friends but that was all.
I know it sounds crazy, it did then and three years have changed very little for me, but in that moment I felt my heart breaking in my chest.
So the only thing I could do to cope with the irrational feeling of disappointment, was to stay away from Kaya. I had to stop thinking about asking her out, thinking about kissing her and making her giggle the same way Chase had been doing in the pool.
So I took a step back and began to ignore her. I started hanging out with other girls, telling myself that Kaya was a child anyway and that girls my age – those three years difference at the time seemed like three decades – would be more fun. I told myself that even if Dad hadn’t married Karen, what could I possibly want with a fifteen-year-old girl? Kissing and holding hands would be fun for a week but with older girls I could get laid, I could party without worrying about my old man’s disapproval. I know it was bullshit now and I knew it back then too but I put all my energy in making that look and sound real. I lost count of how many girls I slept with that summer, trying to tell myself that it was what I wanted and barely taking notice of Kaya. I was grateful that she didn’t go to parties and not seeing her made it easier to pretend that my thoughts didn’t go to her every time I kissed someone.
If I was struggling, Chase had it worse than me: ten times worse at least. We hadn’t talked about Kaya. I guess before we realized that neither of us could ever pursue her, we’d been silently competing for her attention. And once it became clear that she was off limits, there was no point in even talking about her.
For those who don’t know my twin, it might have been hard to understand his change in attitude toward our stepsister to be. For me? I knew what was coming and I wasn’t surprised at all. Because you see, Chase is the greatest guy in the whole world but he’s intense and doesn’t know how to keep his intensity under control. I knew how bad he’d had it for Kaya when he started being a real asshole to her.
Honestly it hurt to watch: because I saw straight through the withering looks he started throwing at our step sister and the way he began flaunting his conquests in front of her, bringing a date whenever our parents made us hang out. But it also hurt to watch because I could see how much our new attitude hurt Kaya. At first, she tried being friendly to us, ignoring our monosyllabic answers and the bored condescension we treated her with. She didn’t seem to want to take the hint that we no longer wanted to hang out with her.
Until one day, about a week before the announcement that our parents were engaged, Kaya found us drinking beer on the patio before another ‘family dinner’ to celebrate our eighteenth birthday.
She bought a vintage manga for Chase as a birthday present and when she presented it to him, my brother didn’t even touch it.
He’d set his dark blue eyes on her in an ice-cold stare and told her that he didn’t have time for her childish comics.
I still can see the hurt look in Kaya’s eyes.
“But ... this is the last episode of ‘Video Girl Ai’, our favorite—”
“I don’t have time for your stupid manga, Kaya. I’m not a kid anymore. I’m eighteen now. And I’ve never really liked manga that much. I just wanted to be nice to you to get my old man off my ass about partying, this is why I pretended to be interested in your manga and books. I liked that stuff sophomore year. Now? I’ve got better things to do.”
He didn’t even take the comic book from her, leaving it on the table. I remember looking at the evident tears in her eyes, noticing the effort it must’ve taken her not to cry in front of him.
She looked at both of us and left the manga and a wrapped present for me on the table, rushing back into the house.
After that night, she stopped trying to be our friend, she began ignoring us as much as we did her, until the end of the summer.
I hated my brother in that moment for making her cry but I hated myself just as much for not stepping in for her.
I’m as much of an asshole as Chase for not going to check on her, to see if she was all right. But I’d made it almost the whole summer staying away from her and I couldn’t risk doing something stupid like going to comfort her.
I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her how much I liked her, how sorry I was about being a weak asshole that would rather ignore her than be her friend; because I wanted more than her friendship and I knew it was impossible, so I would rather settle for nothing.
Because I was selfish and jealous: a part of me was mad at Kaya because I suspected that she liked Chase better than me anyway.
After that summer, we both stayed away from Star Cove and from family events to avoid seeing her.
We went to the wedding and that was torture enough, so we both brought dates with us and hardly exchanged more than two words with our ‘new sister’.
Then college star
ted and I was almost convinced that Chase had forgotten about her because he seemed to lead the perfect college life: he was QB of our football team, an A student and went from one party to the other, from one hookup to the next.
I told myself that he was over it and I was the only one still hung up on Kaya.
The only one who couldn’t even hookup with a girl unless he was drunk, or high or both.
And I know very well that I’m a pathetic mess. Because I always latch onto every bit of information about her from Karen or my dad.
And every night, for the last three years, I’ve slept in the t-shirt that Kaya gave me for my birthday: a dark blue t-shirt with my favorite surf shop logo on it in white. The shirt is faded now by the countless washes but it’s my dirty little secret, the only connection to her I let myself have.
3.
Judgement
Kaya
THE RINGTONE OF MY phone wakes me up and I notice with a groan that it’s almost noon.
Marc’s name flashes on my screen and I answer with my heart slightly picking up its pace at the thought of talking to him.
“Hey beautiful! Guess what?”
I smile, Marc always sounds happy when he talks to me and he writes such good, thoughtful letters.
“What?”
He chuckles.
“I’m here! I just got to my beach house and I can’t wait to see you. Listen, I need to have lunch with my parents, I haven’t seen them since last Christmas and I can’t be rude. But I’d love to take you out tonight. What do you think? Me, you and some of Joe’s southern fried pickles?”
“Sure, that sounds great.”
“It’s a date then! I’ll pick you up at seven?”
“Hmm, Marc? Can Nate come too?”
He sounds a little taken aback.
“Do you want to go on a date with both me and Nate?”
Forbidden (Perfect for them Book 1) Page 2