“I have some news!” she exclaimed.
“News?” I asked, keeping my voice impassive. I had no clue what this was. A slight tingle moved up my spine, telling me it might be bad news, telling me it might involve never seeing Jessica again. But that was just foolish speculation. Mom leaned forward, placing her hands on my shoulders. “We’re going to Malta for a week.”
“Malta!” I gasped.
“Malta!” she agreed, taking her hands from my shoulders and clapping them together. Behind her, I could see Jessica being told the same thing by Andrew, and behind them, near the car, I could see the three hippies carrying suitcases to the car. They must have planned this in secret, I guess. They knew we could take care of ourselves. Both of us had been to college, had lived alone.
“I’m—” I stopped. The tingle in my spine disappeared. It was replaced with warmth rising in my chest. Jessica smiled for a second when Andrew told her, smiled and looked in my direction. She smiled at me, and then quickly turned away. It all happened in less than a second, but I saw it. She was thinking what I was thinking, then. We’d be alone. She and I would finally be completely alone in the house for an entire week. “I’m happy for you, Mom,” I said. “Really, that’s great news.”
“Thanks, Eli!” she laughed, and kissed me on the cheek. “We’re going right now. Can you take Andrew’s car?” As she said car, Andrew moved around the side of her and handed me the keys. I took them numbly, like a man who had just been told he’d won the lottery. This was amazing. This was excellent. Suddenly, the next week was bright and optimistic in my mind. A whole week with Jessica!
“Sure,” I said, spinning the keys on the key-ring. “Why not?”
“Okay.” Andrew nodded. “I think it’s time for us to go, Annabelle.”
“I think it is, too, lover-lover-man!”
I cringed at that. Lover-lover-man. Jessica saw me cringing and offered me another smile. I smiled back. When we smiled at each other like that—or looked at each other, communicating silently—I felt as though an invisible rope was thrown around us, a rope that allowed us to share our deepest desires and fears with no need of words. I knew she was happy that we were going to be alone for a week, and I knew that happiness confused her.
But it didn’t confuse me. No, the time for confusion was gone.
I knew what I wanted.
Jessica
I had had no idea that Dad and Annabelle were going to randomly jet off to Malta. Apparently it had all been booked beforehand, though. Dad had said it was a last-minute thing last night. That was fine by me. I realized, as he told me, that a large part of my anxiety about living with Eli came from the necessity of being two people. I was the person Dad and Annabelle saw me as, the loving daughter who was happy for their marriage and looked at Eli like a stepbrother, and I was the person I really was, the wolf in the hotel, the woman who’d fucked a man she did not know. Yes, it was out of character, but since then when I’d thought of it, that woman had seemed much more me than this fake-smiling one.
I said goodbye to Dad and Annabelle with a smile and a wave, and climbed into the car beside my stepbrother. My stepbrother! It was official now. Dad and Annabelle were wearing their wedding rings, they had signed the marriage certificate, Annabelle had thrown the bouquet (Hippie No. Three had caught it) and they were jetting off to their honeymoon. There was no way to deny that the feelings I had for him right now, as he started the car (my inner-thighs hot and tingly, my mouth dry, my lips aching to be kissed, my eyes straying to his pants, my hands hungry to reach across and touch him), were wrong. They had to be wrong—he was my stepbrother.
But they didn’t feel as wrong as they had when Dad and Annabelle were here. “Are you ready?” Eli asked, hand on the wheel, engine rumbling.
“I’m ready,” I said.
I think we both knew that meant more than it did. He smiled at me knowingly, and I smiled back. He looked down at my breasts, and I let him. I didn’t fake smile. I real smiled. And I looked at his strong, tattooed hand on the steering wheel and imagined how it would feel on my body, touching me, pleasuring me, making me hot as hell and ready to come over and over.