The Secret Sister by M. DeLuca (classic novels for teens txt) 📕

“Time to go, babe,” said Guy. I tried to read his face but he wasn’t giving me anything. What plan had been hatched in that office between father and son? And when would Guy fill me in on it? I wondered then where his loyalties really lay. If it came to some vital life or death business decision would he choose Gord over me? That familiar sense of precariousness caused me to stumble against the chair when I stood up. Guy’s eyes flew over to me.

“You okay?” he mouthed.

I nodded just as Nancy stood up to immediate attention and Gord wrapped an arm around her shoulder. She didn’t lean in towards him until he squeezed her close. It was like watching an intense war of wills that Gord inevitably won.

“So don’t forget Thursday night,” he said to Guy.

“What’s happening Thursday?” I said.

Gord shook his head and grinned. “Just a guy thing, Anna. One of our programmers is getting married and we’re having a bachelor party.”

“I’m an unwilling guest,” said Guy. “I’m not a fan of all that beer and male bonding garbage.”

“What did I tell you, Anna? My son is a wuss. He’s afraid of letting loose and enjoying himself. But you’ll change all that. Help him man up. I have high hopes.”

We drove home with Guy barely saying a word and later, when we tried to make love, he stopped halfway through and said, I’m sorry, I can’t, leaving my frenzied body screaming for release.

I lay there staring at the ceiling, listening to the night sounds and wondering exactly what Gord was up to and how it involved Guy.

26

Noises at night are magnified. It’s something to do with the darkness snuffing out your sense of sight. The clanking of rails cars shunting in the distance, the flak flak of a police helicopter circling overhead, the faint snuffling of Guy’s breathing. Like a symphony I couldn’t shut out. An hour later I was still awake, so I stroked the inside of my thighs and thought of Colby.

The day before the escape plan I stopped him at his locker once classes were done. He was shuffling through a deck of Magic Cards.

“I started reading the book you gave me. I loved that bit at the beginning, about the book being a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of art but after that it just rambled on about men wishing they had bigger dicks to use on women. Why is Miller such a misogynistic jerk?”

He snapped the locker shut, pushed his hair from his face and sighed. “I thought you of all people would see beyond the words. Can’t you see he’s just denouncing conventional art and morality? Asserting his own personal freedom – distancing himself from the crippling tedium of mainstream society. It’s like when you spell out the forbidden, you demystify it. Get it?”

For the first time we were on a different wavelength. But I couldn’t tell him that when you live with someone like Lester Flatt who tries to grope you every time you pass by him at the kitchen table, or rubs his groin while he’s sitting next to his stoned wife, it’s tough to find subtlety and meaning in explicit sexual imagery.

I followed Colby towards the exit door. “Tell me something,” I said, grasping his wrist. “If you’re so keen to demystify the forbidden like Miller says, then why’re you too chicken to go all the way with me?”

He looked scared. “I’m not. I just don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“What if I want you to?”

“Are you serious?” he said, stopping to look at me for a long, slow moment. “Then let’s go to Reid’s.”

The place was empty when we arrived at Reid’s house, breathless from running. “He’s done around six,” said Colby unlocking the back door of a tiny white stucco bungalow. Inside was a typical guy hangout that reeked of musty laundry and rancid cooking oil. He led me past a sinkful of crusty dishes and a kitchen table stacked with empty beer bottles and open cereal boxes. I took it all in, savoring the idea that this would be my first time. That someone cared enough to want to be with me. It was the closest thing I’d ever experienced to being loved by anyone other than Birdie.

“In here,” he whispered, pushing me into a tiny room off the kitchen. Warm, dark and musty, it contained a narrow single bed covered with a faded blue bedspread. We never made it to the bed. Once the door banged shut he pushed me against the door and started to tear at my clothes. I followed his lead, yanking his T-shirt over his head and groping at his jeans zipper. Soon we faced each other naked. I’d expected his body to be pale and skinny but his skin was lightly tanned and silky. I pressed against him. Skin on skin. Slippery like silk. Every nerve end tingling when I touched him.

He nuzzled the side of my neck. “You feel incredible.”

His warm breath tickled my ear and I kissed his cheek, his eyes, his mouth. Our lips were still pressed together when we stumbled towards the bed and fell back onto the sheets. I didn’t know what to do next until he fumbled at his groin, pushed my legs apart and I felt a slight stab of pain that set my thighs tingling. He thrust hard against me until he moaned and shuddered to a climax. And though I wasn’t transported into a state of ecstasy, the feeling of closeness – of being folded against his body – was worth the world to me. For that moment I felt I actually belonged to someone. That someone really cared.

“I love you,” I gasped, knowing that my heart would burst open with joy if I just let go for once in my miserable life. “I love you, Colby.”

An arm landed across my chest zapping me into the present and the sound of Guy’s soft