Lock Step - Love Under Lockdown

“Yep. In their new love shack,” I said, rolling my eyes.

After Mom had passed, Dad downsized into a small apartment that was perfect for the two of us. It had two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and a community garden where we enjoyed planting cucumbers and tomatoes. I really missed that place, as cheesy as it sounded.

But after he married Daphne, she used the proceeds from her divorce to go in with him on a new house. He had saved up a lot of money over the years and hadn’t had to pay for as much as my college as he’d thought, thanks to an academic scholarship I’d received, so they were able to afford a pretty nice place together. Which was fine, as long as I didn’t have to live there, although unfortunately, now I would have to, at least temporarily.

“Oh, that’s so sad,” Gillian said. “I feel bad for the other guy. Kinda. Unless he was a wife beater. Was he?”

“No. Or, at least, I haven’t heard any reports of that being true and you’d think if it was, that would be the perfect excuse to make my dad’s new wife sound like not so much of a hussy and my dad not so much of a homewrecker. Instead, as far I know, Daphne was just, I don’t know, ready and willing, despite being married, I guess,” I sneered.

“Is she one of those older ladies who’s always throwing it all out there?” asked Diamond. “Does she walk around with outfits that are too sexy for the occasion?”

“Mmm, her wedding dress at the ceremony was kind of scandalous,” I remembered. “It had a big slit down the front, so it really showed off her cleavage. And it was the Mermaid kind that wrapped itself tightly around her waist and ass. In my opinion, it wasn’t very age-appropriate, plus, this was a second wedding, but she acted like she was a blushing teenage bride or something. It was all very weird and I tried not to pay too much attention and just drank enough of their open bar cocktails to be able to get through the event.”

“Did she wear white? She shouldn’t wear white,” Gillian pointed out. “Unless her first marriage wasn’t consummated somehow, then maybe that’s allowed.”

“She has a son from her first marriage,” I reported, “so I would say it was definitely consummated.”

I was hoping to change the subject. I wasn’t exaggerating about having had an awful time at the wedding and didn’t feel like talking about it now. I just wanted to let bygones be bygones.

But now I was reflecting on the fact that I had wanted it to be over quickly so that I wouldn’t have to endure one more minute of it. I tried to be happy for my dad and I’d agreed to be in the wedding to support him, but I’d had to grin and bear it the whole time.

“Oh,” said Gillian. “So, you have a stepbrother. You didn’t mention him before.”

“I didn’t?” I asked, feeling myself blush. “I thought I did. You just must not have been listening.”

“I don’t think so,” Diamond said. “Not to me, anyway. I know I go on about myself a lot, and maybe I was drunk or hungover at the time. But I’m pretty sure I’d remember that interesting detail.”

“Yeah, you probably left it out because you didn’t want us to tease you,” Gillian said.

“True,” I said, but that wasn’t it.

Really, thinking about Phil was even more unpleasant than thinking about my dad’s wedding to Daphne. I hated that he was such a jerk. And I hated that I was fucking attracted to him.

I did not just think that.

“How old is he?” Diamond asked, and even though I didn’t want to talk about him, I welcome the chance to not have to think about the regrettable fact that he was super hot.

I had spent the wedding ignoring him because I could not let it be known that I thought my new stepbrother was a hunk.

“A couple years old than me,” I told her. “He’s a junior at Marley State.”

“Wow. An older stepbrother. Even better. Is he cute?” asked Diamond.

“Eww!” I said, sounding as grossed out as I felt about the fact that I had already answered that question to myself in the affirmative, one too many times. “He’s my brother now!”

“Stepbrother,” Diamond corrected me. “That doesn’t mean anything. You aren’t blood relations.”

“Yeah, you can legally have sex with him,” Gillian said.

“Oh, my God! Ew!” I exclaimed.

“Why ‘ew’? Is he ugly?” asked Diamond.

“What celebrity does he look like?” Gillian immediately asked.

“You always do this,” Diamond pointed out.

“It’s the quickest way to get a picture in my head,” Gillian said, defending the tactic.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Maybe Aaron Paul, except a little huskier and taller than he is.”

And way more handsome.