Stepbrother With Benefits 16 (Third Season) (8 page)

"Well, he's got a girlfriend now, so I don't think he'll be doing that anymore," Caleb says.

"Wait, what?  Ethan's got a girlfriend?" someone asks.

I don't even know who, because the question is passed around like some fucking pop song chorus, and then everyone wants to know if it's true.  Who is she?  Is she hot?  Why is that
that's
question they immediately ask, too?  Is she hot?  Are you guys for real?  Fuck you.

Also, fuck you, too, Caleb.  I was trying to get us out of here.  I mean, it was mostly for myself, but whatever.  Now we're going to be stuck here for another hour while I field bullshit questions about my recently discovered love life.  I've already fielded bullshit questions about my sex life before, and I don't want to do this right now.

Because I'm trying to get them to calm the fuck down so I can leave, I take out my phone and show them a picture of me and Ashley together.  Everyone passes it around, then scans through more of my pictures because they're idiots.  Thankfully I hid the picture of Ashley naked, so I don't have to worry about them finding that one.  The rest are basically safe.

"Holy shit, she's cute," someone says.

"Yeah," another guy agrees.  "I'd buy her flowers and take her to a nice restaurant."

"Fuck that," Joe says.  "I'd take her to meet my parents."

Oh yeah?  I've already done that, guys.  I mean, I guess I technically did that before we were even dating.  How does that work?  Isn't that a serious relationship milestone?  Going to meet the parents?

I don't know what's after that.  Are we skipping that one, or do we have to do something else?  What the fuck else is there to do?  Fuck.  I need to consult with Ashley on this one.

I finally get my phone back, and because they're all rambling about my cute girlfriend, I decide to call her.  This is for me, not them.  I called her about an hour ago, but she didn't call me back, and there's no response to my text, so...

The call goes to her voicemail.  Motherfucker.  Ashley, you're killing me here.  Where the fuck are you?

"Alright, let's just calm the fuck down about my girlfriend and vote on Caleb joining the team," I say.

Finally this is easy.  Finally they just vote.  It's unanimous.  There's guys in the locker room, but fuck them.  They left already, so they're voting in favor, too.  If anyone has an issue, they can bring it up with me.

But they won't, because Caleb is pretty good, and he's not an asshole like me.  It's easy to like him, I guess.  Unless you think he's trying to flirt with your girlfriend, and then your dad, who doesn't know that your stepsister is your girlfriend now, is trying to get him to date your girlfriend.

That's a long story.  I'm kind of guessing you know it.  What the fuck was that all about, though?  Seriously, Dad, I'm never forgetting that.  I'm still a little pissed about it.

"Good.  Now I'm getting the fuck out of here," I tell them.  "Don't do anything stupid."

Everyone laughs and they're all screwing around.  If the cheerleaders were here, they'd try to show off, but this was just orientation.  The cheerleaders have their own orientation, but it's more like some, uh... trust exercises?  Like falling backwards into someone's arms or something.  Team building and all of that.

You can't do that in football.  Some of these guys weigh three hundred pounds.  You want me to fucking catch someone like that?  I like those guys, and I want them on the team, but no fucking way in hell am I going to do some cheerleading team building exercises with them.  It's just not happening.

I'm still in regular clothes, since I wasn't planning on doing anything crazy today, so I just walk off the field and plan on heading back to my dorm. 
Plan
being the key word there.

I plan to do it, but Caleb comes chasing after me.

"Hey, uh... Ethan?" he asks.

"Yeah, what's up?"

"Remember the..."  he quiets down, whispering the end of his sentence.  "The lessons you talked to me about?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we do those soon?  I want to ask Scarlet on a date."

"I guess we can do them soon," I say.

I don't know why I tell him this, because it's not even that fucking hard.  Here, I'll include a mock example for you:

Pretend I'm Caleb, alright? 
"Hey, Scarlet, want to go on a date?"

Now pretend I asked this to Scarlet.  She'll say:
"Yeah, sure, of course!  I'd love to suck your cock, Caleb."

Maybe she wouldn't say that exact thing, but you get my meaning, right?  I think she'd go on a date with him.  Maybe there's more to it than that, though.  I don't think asking a girl on a date is too hard, but then when you're actually on a date...

Fuck, I just realized I don't even know what to do on a date.  I've only dated Ashley, and I can't say our first date was even a date... does deciding to drink in order to forget her shitty ex-boyfriend, eat pizza and junk food while watching a movie, and then her daring me to fuck her, which I happily obliged... yeah, does that count as a date?

Pretty fucking sure it doesn't, but whatever.  I'd do it again.  I can still remember the look of confused bliss in her eyes when I gave her an orgasm during sex.  Like, holy shit, this is an orgasm during sex, that kind of look.  Yeah, that was intense.  I fucking loved it.

I love all her orgasms, and all her looks, but that one will forever hold a special place in my heart.

I should probably stop thinking about Ashley and her sexy as fuck orgasms with Caleb walking right next to me.  I don't want anyone getting the wrong idea.

I also don't want to be that asshole that checks his phone fifty times to see if someone called him back, so...

"I guess I have some free time right now," I say.  "You want to do it in like... fifteen minutes?"

"Oh, now?" Caleb asks.  "Yeah, sure.  Uh... you said I could invite some people, right?"

"You can't invite Scarlet," I tell him.  "That's completely fucking... what the fuck is that word?  Counterintuitive?  Yeah, I think that's it."

"It's not Scarlet," he says, wrinkling his nose at me.

Why can't you just fucking glare at me, Caleb?  Why do you have to wrinkle your nose?  Fuck, man...

"Yeah, it's fine," I say.  "No girls, though.  Girls aren't allowed.  This is Ethan Colton's Bad Boy Club.  Girls are denied entry.  That's how this works."

"Oh," Caleb says.  "It's a club?  Do we get membership cards?"

"Get the fuck out of here, Caleb."

––––––––

I
didn't actually have much homework left to do, so my impromptu study date with Kevin turns into us hanging out and talking.  I guess that's what we're doing, but Kevin is trying to do some work, too.  I lean over the table to help him with his homework now and then, but eventually he just kind of shrugs it off.

"It's not actually due until next week," he tells me.  "I was only doing it to help you out.  I'll probably just do the rest later."

"Oh," I say.  I'm not really sure what to say to that.  "Thank you."

That seems like the best and safest place to start.  I don't really know what I'm doing right now.  Instead, um... the conversation veers towards something else entirely...

"So..." Kevin says, leaning closer to me, kind of whispering.  "I don't know if this is presumptuous, but... you're dating Ethan?"

Wait!  Did I tell him this?  I'm pretty sure I didn't tell him this.  I sort of told Jacky, but that was a secret.  Did she tell him this?  Ugh!

"Just a guess," Kevin adds.  "The look on your face says I might be right, though."

"How'd you guess that?" I ask him, confused.

"The flyers," he says.  "The whole thing about you... with your brother, except I went to high school with you so I know you don't actually have a brother.  Then I realized maybe it was about your
step
brother, which made a lot more sense.  And who else could that be but Ethan Colton, jock and lady's man extraordinaire."

"Oh," I say, laughing.  "I almost forgot.  You know Ethan, too.  Um... did you know him?  Were you two friends?"

"I don't know if you could call us friends," Kevin says, somewhat evasive.  "I knew him and we talked sometimes, though.  How's he doing?"

"He's alright, I think?" I say.  I don't really know how to answer that.  "He's not the same, just so you know.  Um... we've been dating for about two months now, I mean.  He used to be... well, you know.  He's changed a lot, though.  Since we started dating.  I know a lot of girls always thought that, but this is different.  It's actually different, I mean.  I know most girls used to think it was different, but..."

I'm just talking myself in circles here.  Also, this sounds really bad, doesn't it?  Yes, every girl thought they were the one with Ethan.  They were the different one, and they were the one that would get him to change.

To be completely honest, I never even thought I was that different, though.  I kind of thought we were only going to be in it for a week.  That's how this all started, right?  Rule number one?

I don't know exactly when that changed, but I'm glad it did.  Maybe we were deluding ourselves by saying it'd only be for a week.  We went on a date our first day of that week, even when Ethan said that this wasn't a dating kind of thing.  I specifically remember that.

I thought he was teasing me at the time.  It's just a movie, Ethan!  It's not a date.  So what if lots of people went to the drive-in movies as a date?  That doesn't mean we have to.

I do not know if a lot of people had sex in their cars at the drive-in theatre, though.  We definitely did that.  Was that a date thing, or a stepbrother with benefits thing?  Because I kind of wouldn't mind doing it again...

Ugh.
  Why am I distracting myself here?  I'm trying to explain this to Kevin.

"I never thought Ethan was a bad guy, I guess," Kevin says.  "He hurt a lot of girls, though.  Maybe not on purpose, but it happened."

"I know," I say.  "I was kind of worried about it, too.  We have these rules, though.  Um... the first was actually a weird one.  It was just supposed to be for a week."

"What was supposed to be for a week?" Kevin asks.

"Our stepbrother with benefits thing," I blurt out before I can realize what I'm saying.

"Stepbrother with benefits?" Kevin asks, lifting one eyebrow.  "Hm..."

"You're not going to judge me about that, are you?" I ask him.  "I know it's kind of weird.  I get that it's not exactly normal, but it's not like we're related or anything.  It's not a bad thing or illegal or whatever, not like what Jake was trying to say with his flyers and the website, and..."

And here.  And all the time.  Jake keeps making it into something awful.  I don't know if that's just how he feels, or if other people agree with him.  I'd like to think no one does, but I saw a few girls giving me weird looks during some of my classes today.  I'm not sure why.  It was just quick glances when I saw them out of the corner of my eye.  They didn't look long, but it was enough to make me question myself.

On the other side of that, more than a few guys were giving me looks, too.  Not really the sort I'd ever want, and I'm pretty sure they were just thinking of me naked.  I mean, I guess that's flattering in a weird sort of way, but... I'd really prefer they didn't.  To be fair, some looked at me in a weird way, probably the same as the girls, and so if they weren't imagining me naked, they were probably disgusted and thought I was gross.

"I don't think it's weird," Kevin says, pulling my mind back to the coffee shop.  "I'm kind of jealous, actually."

Wait, um... what's that even mean?  He's jealous?  Is he flirting with me?  He knows I have a boyfriend, and yet he's saying he's jealous of Ethan?

It doesn't sound like he's flirting with me, though.  I know I'm not very good at this whole "is someone flirting with me?" thing, but I think I'm getting slightly better.  I now know that Caleb was definitely not flirting with me over the summer, he was just being nice.  Maybe Kevin is being nice, too?

"I think I'm running out of coffee," Kevin says, shaking his nearly empty cup.  "Do you want another?  I'll grab it.  My treat for helping me with some of my homework.  Actually, I think we're in a few of the same classes later in the week.  I saw your name on the roster."

"Oh?"

Alright, so this is definitely starting to sound more flirtatious.  He's offering to buy me coffee, and also telling me we have some classes together.  I've seen a few movies about college students, and this is usually how some of the flirting goes.

"Just an English class and a Literature class, I think," Kevin says.  "Popular Contemporary Fiction?"

"Oh!  Right.  That's neat," I say.  "I think that class will be fun, but I've already read all the books we're reading, so I was thinking about asking for extra credit so I can read something new."

Kevin laughs and shakes his head.  "That's the Ashley Banks I remember," he says.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask, wrinkling my nose at him.

"Nothing," he says, grinning.  "How about that coffee?"

"Sure," I say.  "As long as your intentions with me are pure."

I belatedly realize that, um... while I thought that this was a good way to stop flirting, what I just said sounds kind of flirtatious.  Like a challenge, you know?  Ethan would totally consider it a challenge and do everything he could to
impurify
me, if you will.  Pretty sure he's already done that enough, but who's counting?

"The purest of intentions," Kevin says, laughing and shaking his head at me.  "Any secret coffee flavors I should know about?"

"Yes," I say.  "You should ask for a shot of gingerbread syrup and one of Irish cream syrup.  When they mix together, it tastes kind of like banana bread."

Kevin gives me a look of utter disbelief.  "Gingerbread plus Irish cream equals banana bread?" he asks.  "Really?"

"I wouldn't have believed it myself, but it works out, I swear!"

"I don't know... I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.  I hope this isn't some sort of trick."

"Nope!  It's not a trick!"