Chapter 4

The next day I didn't see Ally before I left for work. I spent the day thinking things over. Normally I joined in talking and joking with the other guys but today I kept to myself. When I got home that evening I discovered Ally had eaten dinner and headed out to see friends before I got there. I was well aware that she was avoiding me.

It continued this way until the Fourth of July weekend. I wasn't in the best of moods by this time to say the least. I still thought Ally was being unreasonable but now I was also wondering if maybe I was being unfair too.

Every fourth we went camping at the same place with the usual cook outs and fireworks. It was like a tradition for us and one that I normally looked forward to. This year the drive there was quiet and uncomfortable. I definitely didn't like that. When we got to the lake where we camped, the first thing was to set up our tents. Our parents shared one, Ally and I each had our own.

We were the only ones who made this holiday pilgrimage every year and we could always look forward to seeing at least a few familiar faces. This year the fourth landed on a Friday so we arrived Thursday evening with the prospect of a 3 day weekend.

By the time we were done setting up, it was getting on in the evening and dad had fired up the grill. The smell of cooking bratwursts soon filled the air. Despite my mood, the aroma carried by the wafts of charcoal induced smoke had my stomach grumbling. We ate dinner and tried to engage our parents in idle chit-chat as if nothing were wrong.

After dinner, Ally decided to take a walk down by the lake. I opted for my tent, my portable CD player and my Game Boy. After a bit of time I noticed the lantern come on in Ally's tent for a few minutes then go back out again. I guessed she had gone to sleep. I decided to do the same.

The next morning dad wanted to go do some fishing as was usual. Since I love fishing I am always more than happy to go along. Most times Ally came with us but today she opted not to, instead wanting to go for a swim. I knew the reason she didn't come along and it vaguely annoyed me.

Still, the afternoon went pleasantly enough and the fishing was pretty good. That was a nice change since in the last few years we had pretty much struck out. Later that evening we took lawn chairs down by the lakeside to wait for the fireworks to start.

Ally spied some people she must have talked to earlier while swimming and she was off. I stayed behind and talked with our parents. Right about the time the fireworks were starting, Ally found her way back. I had to admit it was a pretty good display.

Once again Ally and I went to sleep that night barely speaking to each other. There was a part of me that was really starting to want to cave in and spill the beans about us to any and everyone Ally wanted to. Still, the more dominant part of me wanted her to be realistic and see all the problems going public could and probably would cause.

The next day I headed to the lake for some swimming. When Ally came down for a swim, there wasn't much she could do since I was already there. As I swam around I kept one eye on Ally. She was talking with a couple of girls and a guy whom I remembered from past years and one guy whom I didn't. It was this new guy that had my interest.

As they talked and laughed I noticed he stood pretty close to Ally. Every now and then when they would talk he would put his hand on her shoulder and on the small of her back a couple of times. I could feel a cold anger boiling up inside of me as I watched them.

Seething at this blatant display of flirting, I headed back for camp. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Ally was watching me leaving. That evening after dinner Ally went for one last walk down by the lake as we would be leaving for home the next day.

I tried to convince myself that nothing was bothering me and that I didn't care where Ally went, what she was doing, or whom she was with. The truth though was that it was eating me up inside.

After a while of trying to kid myself I finally made an excuse in my own mind for wanting to go down lakeside one last time. Naturally it had nothing to do with Ally or wanting to check up on what she was doing.

Wandering around down by the swimming area of the lake I finally spotted the people Ally had been talking to earlier. The only problem was Ally wasn't with them. Neither was the guy I hadn't recognized. Self made excuses are damned at this point. Now I was getting pretty ticked off.

I had no idea exactly where she might be but I started walking parallel to the shoreline anyway; in the hopes of stumbling onto her. I did exactly that too. She wasn't very far away from where the others had been and she was indeed with this unknown guy.

Ally was standing next to a tree and the mystery guy was facing her. He was holding her hands in his and from where I stood it looked as if they were making out. My blood was really boiling now. We get into one fight and she runs off with some guy she just met. There were a lot of nasty names running through my mind at that moment.

I slowly started walking closer to the pair not even knowing what my intentions were at this point. Neither of them had seemed to even notice I was drawing closer. When I got close enough for their conversation to be heard by me though, I stopped. After a few moments it became clear to me that my initial take on the situation was wrong. The guy was trying to coax a kiss out of Ally and from the sounds of it even more. Ally on the other hand was giving him a polite turn down.

I suddenly felt ashamed of myself for having jumped to such a wrong conclusion and for forgetting the fact that if I had stopped to think, I would have realized Ally wasn't one to just jump into anything remotely romantic with someone she had just met.

Ally was right; sometimes I really could be an ass. Even as my own self berating had just gone into full swing, my anger began to rise again. I could hear this creep become more insistent with his wants and intentions.

I stepped out of the shadows and before either of them had known I was there I gave the guy a savage shove. He went sprawling onto the ground unceremoniously.

Ally snapped her head around in surprise at me. I maintained my concentration to the guy I had just sent flying with a look of pure anger on my face.

"What the fuck?" He asked with a mixture of surprise and anger.

"What the hell do you think you were trying to do to my step sister?" I shot back at him in a voice that was as much a growl as it was a speaking voice.

"Damn, chill out dude. It's not like anything was happening." The guy said as he was picking himself up off the ground.

"Mike." Ally started but stopped short when I whipped my head her way to look at her.

"You're sister is pretty good at giving a guy the brush off. It doesn't look like I was going to get anywhere anyway." The guy continued.

"I think you need to shut the fuck up before I kick your ass across the lake." I snarled at him. I took a couple steps closer and my hands were balled into fists now.

"Relax. It's not worth my effort. I'm out of here anyway." The guy said as he quickly turned to leave. He didn't seem to want to stick around to hear my response.

I turned to look at ally who just stood there for a moment looking back at me.

"Nothing was going to happen." She told me softly.

My emotions inside were still in a turmoil and my anger had not yet subsided so I decided it was best for me not to say anything at the moment. Instead I headed back to camp, leaving ally to follow me in silence.

The day after our return home was bright, and warm. I decided it was a good time to catch some sun next to the pool and bake the tension out of my body. I hadn't been out there for thirty minutes before Ally came out in her bikini and sat down in the lounger next to me.

"Mike, I want to talk about the other night at the lake." Ally said while as she squinted her eyes in my direction.

"Shoot." I replied.

"I could have handled the situation myself. There wasn't anything that was going to be going on." Ally told me, though in a soft voice rather than harsh.

"What were you doing out there with him to begin with?" I asked

"We were just talking. Actually I was talking mostly about you. No, I didn't tell him about us, just in general." Ally answered defensively.

"I see."

"He seemed like a nice guy at first. I know now he was just pretending interest, in the hopes of getting into my pants." Ally continued.

"That's about the size of it. You should have known better than to go off alone with some guy." I snapped at her.

"Well, excuse me for being friendly and wanting to trust people. Not everyone is an ass with no thoughts to other people's feelings." Ally snapped back

"What is that suppose to mean?" I asked, my anger starting to rise again.

"You know exactly what it means!" Ally shot back in a voice that was starting to crack with emotion. "You probably thought I was just running off to fuck some guy just to get at you."

A look of surprise flashed briefly across my face before I could stop it. My mind flashed on my first impression when I had seen the two of them standing under the tree in the waning evening light. Once again I felt some shame for jumping to the conclusion I had when it should have been the last one to cross my mind.

The look on my face answered for me, even though it only flashed there for a blink of an eye.

"Jesus Mike, is that what you really think of me? You don't know me better than that?" Ally asked me. The hurt in her voice was unmistakable now.

"Yes, of course I do." I answered my step sister. Now I was on the defensive and I wondered at how things got turned so quickly and easily.

"Then you wouldn't have been thinking what you were." Ally shot back at me.

"Well, you have to admit it didn't look good." I answered, trying to get off the defensive.

"Really? I wouldn't have just assumed you were out there messing around. I would have trusted you. Of course you have to actually be a couple before the need to trust that a person isn't cheating comes up and since you've decided we aren't a couple it really wasn't any of your business anyway!" Ally replied in a flourish of emotions.

To this day I still have no good reply for that kind of female logic and I sure didn't at the moment. It didn't matter because as I was formulating my reply Ally got up and stormed off. I didn't know it at the time but she headed for her room and cried to herself for a while. It wasn't the first time since our fight either.

The next couple days went on like before, with Ally pretty much avoiding me. Intervention soon came from the most unlikely of places though.

It happened one night after I got home from work. I showered and got something to eat as usual. Afterwards I headed downstairs to watch some TV figuring Ally wouldn't be there. I was wrong. Ally wasn't alone however. Our parents were also there, sitting on the couch. The TV wasn't on and Ally was standing in front of them looking both bored and worried.

"Come in Mike. We need to have a talk." My dad said to me.

Several thoughts flew through my brain at the mention of those words; not the least of which was they knew something was going on between Ally and me. I wondered if she had said something. I glanced at her face to see if there were any answers there but she looked as clueless as I was.

"What's up?" I asked trying to sound casual.

"It hasn't taken a genius to see that something is going on. Mike, you've been a bear to be around and Ally, you have been spending a lot of time alone in your room and we know that some of that time has been spent crying." My father said while eyeing us both closely.

This was news to me and I glanced over at my step sister for confirmation of this. I could tell by the flushed and somewhat embarrassed look on her face that it was.

"I had a talk with Jenny." Ally's mom announced.

Ally's head snapped up at this and a look of incredulity washed over her face.

"We were concerned over your recent behavior." Her mom said, heading off Ally's protests. "All Jenny would say is that she thought you were having man problems."

"We're not going to B.S. you two. You're adults now so no kid gloves." My father said. "It wasn't hard for us to put two and two together."

"You're father and I are not going to sit here and judge you. We thought about it long and hard, worried about it and spent a few nights talking until the early morning hours. What we're telling you didn't come lightly to us." Ally's mom told us.

"We know you kids are going through a lot. First and foremost we want you both to know that we love you. We're going to be here for you while you two sort this out." My dad continued.

"But you do need to sort it out." Ally's mom added.

"We're going to leave you two to talk things over. When you're ready, you can talk to us and we'll all go from there." My father told us.

"Remember, we have to live with you too and that hasn't been easy lately. You two have been a pistol, work it out." My father said as a parting shot.

With that being said our parents got up and went up stairs leaving Ally and me alone. I was at a loss for words. This had come so suddenly and out of no where. I was still trying to process the ramifications of what had just been said to us.

I looked over at Ally and at the tears slowly streaming down her cheeks. In that moment I felt a dull ache in my heart. A bittersweet feeling I had never experienced before and my first instinct was to take her into my arms and tell her everything would be ok.

I knew however that Ally wouldn't exactly welcome that reaction from me at this very moment. There were things that needed to be said first.

"Well, obviously we weren't as sly as we had thought." I finally managed to say.

"Obviously." Ally said with a dark, choking laugh.

"Look, Ally, I admit I'm at a bit of a loss here. I'm not exactly sure what to say or where to start. I know one thing and that is I miss the way we were. I miss having my best friend." I told my step sister earnestly.

"You made a good start." Ally told me while wiping away a tear.

"I know I freaked out over how people would react if they knew about us. It still worries me but the thought of you with another guy drives me crazy as you saw at the lake." I continued.

"I saw. I don't think I've ever seen you so pissed. It was actually a little scary." Ally agreed.