Chapter 14

The wait for what we later learned was the annual party was excruciating. The first handful of days wasn’t all that bad. Mandy and I talked a lot during those first days but really played out some of those ideas when we went to bed in the evenings. Those nights were a lot of fun, not that that was any different or more fun than any other night, but it sort of was in a way that was tough to articulate. The anticipation and the unknown of exactly what we were walking into gave the whole thing a mysterious excitement that we didn’t have on any regular night.

It was like we were little kids, impatiently waiting for Christmas morning all over again.

Thankfully, instead of getting anxious and irritable, the two of us seemed happier the closer we got to the night of the party. It was still weeks away at that point, though, and as things usually are, everything could change on that front in an instant.

One of the nice things for me was Taco Tuesdays. That’s when Beck and I met up for lunch, enjoying each other’s company for just short of an hour. We’d talk about work while we ate, amongst other regular things your typical friends shared. Weirdly, we didn’t really talk about sex during those meals. It wasn’t until I would walk her to her car when we were done that she would kiss me, saying, “Thanks, Daddy.”

Mandy teased me about those lunch dates, telling me, “You should have those little rendezvous on Wednesdays, because then it would be hump day!” She would drop her tone of voice, trying to act like one of those ridiculous ‘dude bros’ we both hated when she said, ‘hump day’ and fall into a fit of giggles afterwards.

At first, I was kind of annoyed at her ongoing joke, but each time she did it, my annoyance faded, and eventually, I started laughing along with her, chorusing ‘Hump day’ when she said it.

Stephanie was coming over for dinner or just to hang out more and more often, the closer we got to the night of the party. For the first few visits, I excused myself, giving the girls some alone time to do whatever they did together. That was until my little sister asked if I’d stay and hang out with her and Mandy.

“Hey, Tom?” Stephanie called out, stopping me in my tracks on my way to the stairs.

“Yeah?” I replied, turning to look back at the girls sitting on the couch.

“Do you want to hang out with me—” Stephanie blushed and quickly corrected herself. “I mean, us?”

My face scrunched up in confusion. That was probably the last thing I thought I would hear out of Stephanie’s mouth. Never, ever, have we just ‘hung out’ together. At least not since we were both in elementary school. What siblings don’t hang out at least a little together when you’re that age? Since then, however, never. Not once.

“Aw, you want to hang out with your big brother, how cute,” Mandy teased, using a little kid voice for the full effect.

“Oh, knock it off,” Stephanie shoved Mandy playfully, her face burning red. “He always just kept going up to his room. So, I thought I would ask, it’s not that big of a deal.”

“You want...” I paused, trying to think of what exactly I wanted to say. I was wading in the deep end and had promptly forgotten my water wings. “I mean, don’t take this the wrong way, Steph.” I let out a deep breath and waited for her to acknowledge what I’d said. When she did, and didn’t have some kind of snide comment, which I was expecting, I was caught off guard for a moment before I continued my thoughts. “I can’t think of a single time when this has happened before. We both know it. Steph, we don’t exactly ‘hang out,’ you know, ever?”

I shifted my gaze to my girlfriend, who was just watching me, smiling like she usually did. I had hoped she was going to lend me some sort of support, but that didn’t happen. She was quite alright with just watching how the potential train wreck unfolded.

I glared at her; she saw me do it, but she looked over at my sister before looking back at me and giggled. What the fuck is going on in my own house?!

“Come on, Babe,” Mandy said, grinning, and you could have pushed me over with a feather. “Hang out with us, it’ll be fun!”

“Yeah, listen to your girlfriend!” Stephanie added, grinning like an idiot.

I sighed, letting my shoulders slump dramatically. I couldn’t believe I was about to do this, but I did and flopped down in the recliner, not anywhere near brave enough to join the two girls on the couch. I knew my limits. “This is fucking weird,” I grumbled, kicking up the footrest. If I was going to sit here, I was going to be comfortable doing it, damn it. “You both know that, right?”

It really was freaking weird hanging out with my sister. It shouldn’t have been, but it was. This was not how our relationship worked. It never had. Even our parents didn’t attempt to push the two of us together. They knew, as well as both of us, that we were completely different people, and you couldn’t find a better example of oil and water. It was like the two of us were some sort of unstable and combustible pairing when mixed together. My sister and I just didn’t work well when we were placed in the same room together.

Or so I thought.

I think Stephanie was just as shocked as I was when there weren’t any fireworks when we hung out. The conversations got a little shaky when the party was brought up, which only got worse when I brought up Joe. Why, I wasn’t sure, but when I mentioned his name, the mood and feeling in the room changed. Not that it was a bad change, not exactly, but it was noticeable.

“Do you really want to know about the guy I want to fuck at the party?” Stephanie asked, without an ounce of shame. It’s lucky I didn’t have something in my mouth when she said that, or I would have spit it out on the floor in my shock. My little sister was as brazen and unapologetic as anyone I’d ever met. So, her sharp response to my curiosity wasn’t a surprise.

“Actually, no. Don’t answer that,” I said, leaning away from the girls, my hands up in defense as I shook my head. “Keep that information to yourself. I’m sorry I even asked.”

“Yeah, thought so,” Stephanie grinned, and Mandy snickered. “But if you do want to know, I’d love to tell you all about his beautiful hard—”

“Nope!” I cut her off, frantically trying to backtrack. “No, no, no. I don’t need to know!”

That got both of the girls laughing at my expense, or at least at the expression on my face. My face reddened as I laughed right along with them. It was hard not to, considering their reaction, and if I was being honest with myself, it was pretty funny.

Weirdly, the three of us hanging out just kind of ... worked. It was as if that initial invitation from Stephanie to join her and Mandy opened some kind of door between us. As the days went by and she started hanging out with us more and more, I learned a lot about my sister in a short period of time. Little things, like her favorite movies and stuff like that. She actually read books, which nearly floored me when she admitted it. I had been a big reader while in junior high and high school, something she’d given me no end of grief for. We found an appreciation for each other, which was cool.

Stephanie was quick to tell jokes and laugh at them if we didn’t, which would, in turn, get both Mandy and me laughing at her. It was refreshing.

I was starting to wonder why I’d always found a reason to leave the room every time Stephanie had come to visit. It was actually nice having her around, and Mandy absolutely loved it. There were a lot of things my sister and I didn’t quite see eye to eye on. Our interests were not aligned in most things, but we had two major things in common, Mandy, the biggest one, followed closely by swinging.

‘All good things come to an end,’ and as the excitement for the party grew, so did the conversations. I was fine talking about the upcoming festivities in a general sense. It was when the girls started to get into some of the gory details that it got a little uncomfortable for me. Sure, Stephanie and I had grown closer, but not that close!

It was the week of the party, and everyone was excited. Stephanie has been at the house every night the last few days, and that wasn’t going to change, as it seemed.

“Is it cool if I just hang out here this week with you guys?” Stephanie asked, looking at Mandy, who was snuggled up in my lap in the recliner. “I know I’ve been here almost every day. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t interrupting anything.”

“Sure, I think that’d be fine, right, babe?” Mandy replied, looking at me. When I shrugged, she squealed and kissed me on the cheeks before resting her head on my shoulder. “And don’t worry about interrupting, Tom gives me exactly what I want every night when we go upstairs.”

“So, I’ve heard, literally,” Stephanie joked. “I think you need to get insulated doors or something, Tom.”

“You know, you don’t have to sit here and listen to it,” I replied, kind of hoping she would leave so it wouldn’t be an issue of her overhearing us.

Mandy reached up a hand to my chin, turning me, so I was looking right into her gorgeous eyes. “Don’t let her act like she’s put out by it,” Mandy smirked. “She loves it.”

“Don’t you get tired of hanging on him like that all the time?” Stephanie said, changing the subject, rolling her eyes at Mandy’s antics.

“Hell no!” Mandy snapped back. “You’re just jealous you don’t have someone to do this with every night.”

“Hmm, yeah, probably...” Stephanie said, her face changing to one of someone in deep thought. Maybe Stephanie’s starting to slow down, I thought to myself as I watched her internal debate. “Actually, no. I don’t think I’d want what you two have, not now, at least. I like being able to do what I want, with whom I want, and not having to worry about what someone else thinks, or worse, needing their permission.”