Starlee's Turn (The Wayward Sons 2)

No Sex

Jameson goes through the list, including about twenty others that don’t pertain to me, and I scrawl my signature at the bottom and my sister does the same.

“Alright,” he says, voice light, “I think we’ve got everything together.”

We both stand and Sierra says, “Thank you for your time.”

He eyes her and grimaces like he’s struggling with something. Finally, he says, “You’re up for a home visit, either by me or the foster care worker. You know I can’t give you any dates, but I’m tipping you off to be prepared.”

“Thank you. Yes. We’re ready at any time.”

“Excellent. I knew you would be.” He smiles broadly at her. I feel like I need to leave and give them room to flirt this out, but Sierra doesn’t seem interested.

Back in the car, we both breathe a little easier. “His crush on you is pretty cute. You totally need a hipster boyfriend.”

“Stop. I don’t need any kind of boyfriend. I’ve got four boys in my house that take up all my time.”

“That’s lame.”

“Maybe one day you’ll move out and I can have a life of my own.” I know she’s kidding but there’s truth in there. She sacrifices a lot for us, including a personal life.

“Who’d make your pies?”

“That’s the damn truth.” She turns the car onto the highway. She’s letting me skip the rest of the day so we can go back and get some work done at the shop. We’ll close early anyway since it’s Friday night and football is on the schedule.

Our joking settles down as we pass the road that travels west of June Lake. The road that leads to our childhood home. The one I took Starlee to.

Sierra and I don’t talk about the past much. It’s too hard. I feel too much guilt about what happened. She feels too much pain over the loss of our parents. Neither of us want to pick at those wounds. This is why I’m surprised when she says, “I drove out to the cabin a week or so ago.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I thought I should make sure everything is secure before the first snowfall. Make sure no animals had gotten in or whatever.”

“Sure.” I focus out the window. “Any problems?”

“Not with animals, no, but I’ve turned off the electricity.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s expensive, first of all. We’re going to have to make some decisions about the cabin at some point—you know, if we want to continue to maintain it.” Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. “But the other thing I found was a piece of a condom wrapper in the trashcan.”

I say nothing. I feel her eyes shift my way.

“Any idea how that got there?”

I exhale. “Yeah, that was me.”

“Dammit Dex.”

“Look, it was months ago. Summer. A one-time thing.”

“A one-time thing.” She snorts. “You think I’m a fool? I know good and well it was Starlee and sure, it may have stayed one-time if she was still in North Carolina. But she’s not. She’s next door.” She sighs. “You just signed that paper saying no sex.”

“That is a bullshit rule.”

“Of course it is, but it’s still a rule. You can’t risk getting caught breaking any of those rules if you want off probation in December.”

“It hasn’t happened since she’s returned, and I have no plans for it to happen again either.”