Mia
I’m racked with guilt as I come down from one hell of an orgasm. I’m not quite sure why I feel so guilty, though. Maybe because I spent the morning chatting with Drake or because I’m supposed to be mad at Garrett, but can’t seem to say no to him. Either way, I don’t feel good about what we just did.
Even though it was so good.
He’s staring at me with a smug grin, and I want to punch it off his face. Or kiss it. It’s really a toss-up at this point.
Suddenly, the front door opens without warning, and Garrett and I scramble, pulling apart in a rush as I quickly snatch up my underwear before either of our parents notice. Garrett grabs a kitchen towel to clean up the mess of melted ice on the floor, and I do everything I can to hide the blush on my face as my dad enters the kitchen.
“Hey, guys,” he says as he sets down a bag of groceries on the counter.
“Hey, Dad,” I mumble with a forced smile. As he leans in to plant a kiss on my cheek, I die inside of utter humiliation and shame. If only he knew what we were just up to. Laura follows behind him with a slightly buzzed look about her and fresh sunburn, which means they’ve been on the boat today and must have stopped at the market on the way back.
“What are you two up to?” she asks, and I refuse to look in Garrett’s direction as he answers.
“Oh, not much. Just picking on each other a little bit.”
“Go easy on her,” my dad chimes in, and I resist the urge to climb the stairs and hoist myself off the third-floor balcony.
“Why is there water on the floor?” Laura asks, glancing down at the puddle Garrett must have missed.
“Oops,” he replies. “Mia dropped some ice.” And as he drops down to clean it up, I glance in his direction, just in time to see him wink up at me with a sly grin.
God, I hate him.
“How was your day?” I ask our parents, changing the subject.
“Good, but we had to come in early. Looks like a storm’s rolling in,” my dad answers.
“What time did you come in, missy?” Laura asks, interrupting my dad. “You weren’t in your room this morning…” The look she’s giving me is half-giddy curiosity and half-stern parental concern. I know what she’s thinking, though, that I went home with Reese, which I obviously did not.
“I don’t want to hear anything,” my dad announces before quickly leaving the kitchen, and Laura laughs in giggly drunkenness. Apparently, my dad doesn’t want to risk hearing about me going home with a guy from the bar.
But to my surprise, Garrett replies, “Oh, she stole my bed. We both stumbled in around two, and there was no way she was making it up those stairs.” I give him a quick, terse glare.
“And where did you sleep?” Laura asks.
“On the couch in the basement.” He lies so easily, it surprises me.
“Well, that was nice of you,” she says, ruffling his hair. “Such a good big brother.”
I choke on the air I’m breathing as those words come out of her mouth, and she looks at me with a quizzical expression, as I resume coughing for no reason.
As Garrett laughs, I quickly flip him the middle finger.
Twenty minutes later, the rain starts to fall, filling the house with relaxing white noise, and my dad and Garrett both fall asleep in the two recliners in the living room, watching some baseball movie I’ve never heard of—leaving me and my stepmother alone.
“It’s really coming down out there,” she says. “Want some tea?”
“Yes, please,” I respond, sitting on one of the stools around the island. I watch her for a moment, trying to imagine how she would react if she found out what Garrett and I were doing before she came home. How he had his face buried between my legs, licking my pussy like an expert, and if they had walked in five minutes sooner, they would have had a front-row seat to one of the best orgasms of my life. I’ve only had two other mouths down there, and neither of them were very good at it, so I had to fake my climax. Not this time. Garrett didn’t give me much of a choice; he had me coming so effortlessly, I wonder if he spends his free time licking clits. Of course, he works at a nightclub, so I’m sure he has plenty of experience.
And while I’m certain she wouldn’t want to know about all that, I’d like to believe Laura would be the most accepting of our relationship—not that Garrett would ever let it get that far. According to him, we’re just playing, but I’m still not quite sure why. Is he just horny for some action or does he suddenly find me irresistible? Either way, I’m not going to jinx it and just play along. At least for now.
“So…” she says after she puts the kettle on and turns to face me, giving me a knowing look. I tense in my seat. That look on her face has all the makings of a mom that knows everything.
“So…?” I feel myself shrinking. God, please don’t ask me about Garrett. I can’t do this now.
“What did you think about Reese?”
“Oh. Reese.” I force a smile. I really don’t want her knowing about what a jerk he turned out to be. It’d be almost impossible to bring it up without outing myself as a camgirl in the process, and I sure as hell hope he doesn’t go blabbing to his parents either. “He was super nice. And very good-looking.”
“Right? When Marcia introduced us to him last week, I thought…this boy needs to meet my Mia.”
This fake smile is getting harder to hold.
“Your brother wasn’t too overbearing, was he? I tried to get him to leave with us, to give you two some alone time, but he is so damn stubborn sometimes. He’s protective of you, and I think that’s really sweet, but you’re all grown up now. Garrett might have a hard time accepting that.”
I’d say Garrett is accepting that just fine, but I can’t say that out loud either. Instead, I hold up this incredibly stiff smile and nod.
“Garrett and I are getting along pretty good this week,” I say, which sounds innocent enough. I mean, that’s the truth.
“You have. Don’t think I haven’t noticed,” she replies with a raised brow.
Fuck, what is that supposed to mean?
“I know he’s hard on you sometimes, but that’s just how Garrett is. It’s not an excuse, but I’m just telling you that sometimes teasing and making jokes is how he shows affection.”
My heart warms in my chest. If that’s true, then Garrett has teased me so much in the past fifteen years, he must be madly in love with me.
The kettle whistles loudly, saving me from having to respond to that statement.
When she turns back, filling our mugs with water, I see a contemplative look behind her eyes. “I’m glad he came,” she says quietly.
“Me too, for once.”
“It’s good to see him smiling so much. I worry about him sometimes.”
I pause, my eyes lifting to her face. “Worry about him how?”
Her jaw clenches as she stirs honey into her tea. “Garrett…has always had…high highs and low lows.”
As I reach for my mug, I let those words sink in, trying to fit them into the picture of the man I know. Does Garrett have low lows? I don’t think I’ve ever seen them.
“Can I ask you a question?” I say carefully. Before I continue, I turn, glancing around the corner to the living room, and see him sleeping soundly on the recliner.
“Yeah, honey. Of course.”
Then, I broach this one cautiously. Why am I so nervous to ask this? “What did you mean yesterday when you said it was nice to see Garrett running again?”
Her eyes stay fixed on my face for a moment before she lets out a long sigh. Pulling her tea bag out, she squeezes it around the spoon before tossing it in the trash. Then she brings the cup to her lips and blows against the steaming liquid. I wait patiently for her answer.
“I’m trying to decide how much I’m allowed to tell you.”
I swallow the lump in my chest. I knew there was more I didn’t understand, and I’m dying to know, but I’m also terrified. I’m not sure why. Knowing something so private and personal about Garrett feels like an invasion of his privacy.
Finally, she puts the cup down and takes a seat on the stool across from me. “When Garrett was younger, he used to get in these…moods. Dark moods and benders. Almost as if someone flipped a switch and the bright, happy light inside him just went out, and then he would disappear for days, doing God knows what. I worried about him so much. But then he started running, and when he went to college, things seemed to get better.
“Then about ten years ago, he started a new job, and things were going well. He seemed to be thriving. And then suddenly…the light switch flipped off again.”
“What happened?” I’m leaning over the counter, whispering so he doesn’t hear.
“It was your thirteenth birthday. He didn’t answer my calls all week and then showed up at the house a complete mess. We got in a little fight and then he stormed off.”
The lifeless expression in her eyes is harrowing. As if she’s reliving a nightmare. I’m hanging on her every word, feeling my heart crack and wanting to immediately run into the living room and curl into his arms to hold him.
“What happened?” I whisper.
“Your dad and I went to his apartment.” Tears brim in her eyes. And I wait for her to finish, but suddenly, she shakes her head and blinks away the tears. “I don’t want to tell you this part, Mia. It’s not…not how I want you to think of Garrett. He wouldn’t want me to.”
My chest is heaving and I’m left with my mouth hanging open. “But he was okay…” I say, as if knowing he survived whatever it was, is enough.
“He wasn’t okay. But he is now.”
Tears sting my eyes, and suddenly, my chest feels so heavy it’s impossible to pull in a breath. I don’t know what she means exactly by, wasn’t okay, but it’s pretty clear that we almost lost him. And I had no idea.
“Why don’t I remember this?”
“You were only thirteen. You went to your friend’s for the weekend, so you had no idea, and I didn’t want to worry you.”
“But he’s my—”
“Exactly,” she says, interrupting me. “As much hell as Garrett has given you over the years, he has always looked out for you. He wanted you to see him as the funny and sometimes annoying big brother and protect you from the dark stuff. I shouldn’t have told you this much, but you’re an adult now.”
I close my mouth and lean back, unable to see this version of Garrett behind the one I know. And my heart suddenly feels blindsided. How have I spent the last decade hating him so much when he’s only been trying to protect me?
Garrett is still asleep after we finish our teas. I decide to go up to my room alone and catch up on some unanswered messages on the app. I sent out a blanket statement to my regular patrons that I’d be on vacation for a few days, but quite a few have still reached out.
Gregg sent me a hundred dollars to spend on a new bathing suit that he wants to see a picture of me in. I feel wrong even reading the message, and I leave the gift as pending because I don’t know if I can accept it now. Between Drake and Garrett, I just need a minute to think without work interfering.
I decide to close the app for now and save it for a later time, when I can really focus on it.
Instead, I think about what happened in the kitchen and what the hell is going on between Garrett and me. Just the memory of his lips against my skin and the frantic need in the way he dropped to his knees sends butterflies straight to my core. There is electricity between us. It’s palpable and real, and I feel my heart getting attached to the idea that Garrett is, in some way, mine.
I wish it wouldn’t get attached. He’s never going to commit. He keeps his feelings guarded, making it impossible to form any kind of serious connection, but I can’t deny that the idea that he would open up his heart to me is a feeling I could get drunk on.
Trying to get out of my head, I consider reading or watching something on my phone, but as I curl up on my bed, pulling my throw blanket over me, I open my photo app instead.
Scrolling through the albums by years, I go back quite a few, until they’re ones from middle school. I didn’t see Garrett much those years, and now that guilt eats away at me for not realizing there was so much going on with him. I may have only been a kid, but now that I know he was struggling, it hurts to think he did that alone.
I find some photos of us together at Christmas. I was twelve, and he was twenty-five. The photo is a selfie of us in the car, and I remember that he was taking me to the movies when we were supposed to be Christmas shopping. I look ridiculous with my big shiny braces and acne-riddled complexion, but he looks almost the same. There are minor changes in his face, a few less lines, lighter and brighter skin, but for the most part, it’s just him.
Then I scroll a few more, and I search the photos for any sign of what Laura was talking about. Was he struggling at this time? Because, in these moments, we’re laughing, making stupid faces, stuffing our faces with popcorn and wearing 3D glasses in the movie theater. He looks happy.
I’m not stupid. I know being happy in one photo doesn’t show what’s lurking underneath, but even if the photo didn’t capture it, why couldn’t I?
And if I didn’t catch it then, does that mean I might not be catching it now?
