Jacob arrived at the address listed on his phone early in the morning.
He had ridden a bus from his collage campus all through the night and
had slept rather poorly. He was eager to take a shower and rest.
Unfortunately, there were some formalities that he had to deal with
first.
This was the house his mother had moved into after getting remarried
without so much as a word to him. She had not even invited him to her
wedding. It was unlikely he would have been able to attend but the
gesture would have been appreciated. Of course, it did not surprise
Jacob at all. Since his parents’ divorce, his mother had shown little to
no interest in him. It was agreed his younger brother would stay with
her as he was nearly five years younger than Jacob and needed his mother
more than Jacob did.
Jacob had lived with his drunk of a dad until he had been able to go off
to collage. Now it was summer and he needed to come home until the fall
semester but his dad had lost his house and moved to another state
entirely. The only choice was to contact his mother. To his surprise,
she had a new last name and a new house. He was lucky the man she
married had been so understanding or he might not have been allowed to
come here at all.
After ringing the doorbell, Jacob heard the thumping of stairs. A
brother he hardly recognized opened the door, wearing typical summer
shorts and a t-shirt. “Hey, Weasel,” Jacob used his pet name for his
brother.
“Don’t call me that in front of Jessie,” Wesley instructed him.
“Who is that? Your girlfriend?” Jacob laughed at him. “Can you even talk to a girl properly?”
“Just because you’re so popular at campus doesn’t mean everyone should
be. I don’t have a problem with girls, I just treat them with more
respect than you do,” Wesley argued.
“I respect women, but I also don’t say no when they ask to stay in my room for the night,” Jacob laughed.
“Were you like that in high school too?” Wesley asked.
Wesley was too young to understand dating when they were separated.
Jacob had never brought a girl home when their parents were together.
“Hell yeah, I was a stud in high school too,” Jacob refused to show any
weakness. “Haven’t you gotten a girlfriend or two yet? Are you still a
virgin.”
“I'm at third base,” Wesley announced proudly.
Jacob raised a skeptical eyebrow. While it was true he had not kept a
close eye on Wesley in recent years, his current appearance did not
suggest he was popular with the opposite sex. Jacob had blonde curly
hair too, but he kept it shorter so it did not stick out like a mini
afro. Additionally, he was more muscular and tanner. Just by doing
regular sports and jogging he had kept himself in shape. Wesley found
the difficulty of sports to be disheartening and avoided them, hence his
scrawny appearance.
“Who is the lucky girl,” Jacob decided to play along.
Wesley gave him a conflicted look before responding. “I can’t tell you.”
“Why? Are you afraid I’ll steal her?” Jacob joked.
“You’ll get me in trouble with Mom and Dad,” Wesley whispered.
“Is your new dad against you dating? It’s definitely not Mom. She never had anything to say to me about it.”
Suddenly, someone appeared at the top of the stairs, leaning down over
the railing. “Close the door, jackass, you’re letting the AC out,” she
spat angrily.
Jacob quickly shut the door behind himself before looking up at the girl
that was probably no older than Wesley. “Hello.” He flashed her a
friendly if not flirtatious smile.
“He-hey,” she responded shyly while blushing. Suddenly she turned and
ran away from the stairs. Jacob could hear the sound of a door slamming
in her wake.
“Who was that?” Jacob was intrigued.
“What do you mean?” Wesley was confused.
“I thought she was your girlfriend at first but she wouldn’t be talking
like that or slamming doors in your house, unless you have horrible
taste in women.”
“Wait, didn’t Mom tell you?”
“Tell me what? Mom isn’t even my legal guardian anymore since I turned
eighteen. I'm not her new husband’s step son like you. She doesn’t need
to tell me anything.”
“So you haven’t heard about Jessie at all?” Wesley surmised.
“Is that her name, your new sister,” Jacob wagered a guess at who he just saw.
“Isn’t she adorable?” Wesley smiled sheepishly. Jacob thought back to
her appearance, pajama shorts and a red t-shirt. He could plainly see
her belly button and one of her shoulders. It had as many freckles as
her face. Her chest was lacking but with a waist like that it did not
matter. It was an interesting combination, a loose top with tight
shorts. Jacob stopped himself just short of trying to imagine what that
girl might look like without clothing. Looking at his brother he quickly
realized he was having similar thoughts.
“You like her,” he accused Wesley.
“She fancies me,” Wesley corrected him.
“She called you a jackass,” Jacob recalled.
“That was just her teasing me. Besides, she was actually calling you that. You left the door open after all.”
“Still, a girl like that is interested in a Weasel like you?” Jacob scoffed.
“Hey, for your information, she finds me quite charming. I mean, she doesn’t have much experience with boys to go off of.”
“Okay, that makes more sense,” Jacob agreed.
“So you don’t believe I could get a girl who had more choices than me?”
Wesley was offended. “For your information, she’s the girl I’ve gotten
to third base with.” Wesley was all out smirking.
“Really?” Jacob was impressed. “It’s no wonder your new father would
kill you if he knew. How do you plan to keep your relationship a
secret?”
“It’s not hard. If you haven’t noticed, our parents aren’t home much.
Mom works for Dad’s company. That’s how they met, did they tell you?”
Jacob shook his head. “Well yeah, so they are always at the office these
days, or going on dates. It gives Jessie and I plenty of time to get
acquainted. She is a little shy though. She mostly stays in her room.
She loves video games a little too much if you ask me but that’s
probably part of what makes her easier to conquer than most girls.”
Jacob rolled his eyes. While he was proud of his younger brother for
getting a girlfriend, he also felt he had done so in the easiest
fashion. Rather than talking to a girl and gaining ground he had just
suddenly moved in with her. She was also a shut in with hardly any
friends which made it easy for him to become her only point of
reference. Either that or Wesley was completely mistaken and he was
being played with by a slutty girl. The thought of his brother being
taken for a ride annoyed Jacob. He made the decision then that he would
need to talk to Jessie and evaluate her. First though, he needed a
shower and a nap.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jacob was asleep on the couch when the sound of someone moving in the
kitchen disturbed him. Looking at the glass doors to the back porch he
could see that it was still slightly light out, meaning he had not slept
the whole day away. He sat up and glanced into the kitchen. Jessie was
filling a crate full of snack foods from the cupboard. She even had a
full case of soda. “What are you doing?” Jacob asked.
She gasped when she saw him. “I didn’t realize you were awake,” she sputtered.
“You woke me with your noise,” he explained.
“It’s the middle of the day,” she argued.
“Right, but still, what are you doing?”
“Stocking up,” she answered meekly.
“So you’re not going to eat all that in one sitting?” Jacob sighed with relief.
“Do I look like a whale to you?” she was annoyed.
“Weasel said you didn’t come out of your room much, but I never thought you’d be hoarding food in there.”
“Weasel, that’s a good name for him.”
Jacob’s expression turned stern. He could make fun of his brother but
what gave her the right. “You called him a jackass earlier. For
siblings, you two aren’t very nice to each other.”
“Well, when he does something deserving of my politeness I’ll let you know.”
Jacob was taken aback. “So you really don’t like him,” he confirmed.
“Don’t get me wrong, he’s probably a really great brother. Just be glad he never had a sister until now.”
“He’s harassing you?” Jacob was starting to put the pieces together.
Jessie gauged his concern before saying more. “I don’t want to turn you
against your brother or anything. Forget I said it at all.”
“We barely know each other,” Jacob admitted. “I moved out before he hit puberty. I'm actually curious what he’s like.”
“He’s really polite to his mom and my dad,” Jessie gave the only compliment she could.
“And to you?” Jacob was getting more and more worried.
Jessie looked around. “Can we talk somewhere else? I don’t like not
having a locked door between us. I decided it might be safe to re-supply
while you were down here because he wouldn’t try anything but the
longer I'm out here the worse I feel. I like the walls of my room.
They’re comforting.”
“You’re going to invite a nineteen year old into your room?” Jacob was
surprised. She shrugged. She did not see a problem with it at all.
Sighing, Jacob picked up her crate and carried it up the stairs for her.
Jessie stared long and hard at the door to Wesley’s room before closing
and locking her door. “Alright, continue,” Jacob tried to pick up their
conversation again from the exact point they left off.
“I assume all boys in puberty like to peek at girls in the shower.”
Jacob nodded. While it was definitely something he wanted to do when he
was younger, he cannot be certain he would have peeked on his own step
sister if he had one. “Maybe I was just being paranoid at first but I
can hardly change without him trying to peer through the keyhole
anymore. He actually climbed the tree outside my window once or twice.
“He’s being rather bold,” Jacob decided not to try arguing that Jessie
might have been mistaken about Wesley’s actions. He did not know his own
brother enough to judge his character. For now he just had to try
mediating Wesley’s intent.
“I’ll say,” Jessie agreed with Jacob’s statement that Wesley was bold.
“If that were all it were I could deal with it. However, he comes into
my room whenever I'm not there and sifts through everything. He has
stolen at least two pairs of my underwear and for some reason a pair of
my socks.”
To Jacob, Jessie really is starting to sound paranoid. “Why exactly are you telling me all this?”
“I have to tell someone, don’t I?” she shuddered.
“Maybe your parents?” he suggested.
“They don’t believe me at all. His mom says he’s just being a growing
boy and my dad says I need to stop making up reasons to split him and
his new wife up.”
“Father of the year,” Jacob muttered to himself. He was starting to
recall his less than stellar life with his own drunk of a father. The
thought plaguing his mind was something else though. “Wesley said you
two had gotten to third base,” he spoke out loud. The look of shock on
Jessie’s face made him realize he had made a mistake almost immediately.
“Once when we were sitting on the couch downstairs, he kept nudging
closer to me. When I wasn’t looking, he put his hands in my pants. I
screamed and slapped him. He got mad and chased me all the way to my
room. I’ve tried not to leave since.”
Jacob was getting more and more disappointed in his brother by the
second. For some reason, he believed every word Jessie spoke. Unless she
particularly wanted something from him, she had no reason to make up
such lies about his brother, especially when he was more likely to take
Wesley’s side over hers. “I’ll try to have a talk with him,” he assured
her.
“You believe me?” Jessie sighed with relief.
“I don’t know who to believe, but I definitely need to hear his side as
well,” Jacob tried to remain neutral. He really did not want to get
involved. He already knew though that he was going to have to get
someone else involved as well. He could not go back to collage and leave
these two alone in this house together. If he could not convince Wesley
to tone down his behavior, he was going to end up getting in trouble
with either his parents or some higher form of authority. Either that or
Jacob would have to leave Jessie to Wesley’s whims and that did not sit
well with him.
Jessie leaned against the wall which her bed rested against. She seemed
incredibly relieved. “You believed me rather easily too,” Jacob
disturbed her. “What if I simply sided with my brother?”
تعليقات
إرسال تعليق