Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Stepsister Potential

Miller

I glance up at the sound of the screen door sliding closed. This is it. The big introduction. I’m about to meet my dad’s girlfriend’s teenage daughter. This could go one of two ways; good or not good.

The first thing I notice about Skye and Violet is that they’re basically carbon copies of each other. Except Violet is a little shorter than her mom. And obviously younger. They have the same long, dark, wavy hair. The same body type. The same mannerisms, even.

I set the net in the holder and wipe my hands on my shorts. Dad smiles as I approach, but he’s doing that thing where he taps on his leg, a sure sign he’s nervous. That makes two of us.

“Hi Skye, you look nice today,” I say.

“Hi Miller, thank you.” Skye looks just as nervous as my dad, and her eyes keep darting to her daughter. “Miller, this is my daughter, Violet. Violet, this is Miller, Sidney’s son. He’s in high school, too.”

Violet lifts her hand in an awkward wave, then pushes her glasses up her nose. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you.”

I wave back. “Yeah. You, too.” I wish my best friend wasn’t already in training camp this summer. He’s ultra-smooth with the ladies where I’m not. Not that I need to be smooth with my maybe-future-stepsister, but not awkward would be a good start.

“Miller, why don’t you take Violet to the pool house so she can change into her bathing suit, and you can grab her a soda while you’re at it?” Dad turns to Skye. “You can get changed in the house and we can bring out that delicious-looking cheese tray.”

Skye beams at my dad. “That sounds great. Violet, is that okay with you?”

Violet shrugs. “Sure.”

My dad and Skye disappear inside, leaving me alone with Violet.

“Whelp, this is nice and awkward, isn’t it?”

I grin. “Yeah. Kinda. Want me to show you the pool house?”

“Might as well, since I’m pretty sure our parents are about to get their bone on.”

I glance toward the house. “Seriously?”

“Based on the way they were eyeing each other, yeah.” Her slides slap the deck. “Let’s move away from the house so we don’t hear anything that will result in us needing therapy to recover from.”

I follow her across the patio to the pool house. “You’re tiny,” I observe.

“Or maybe you’re just unusually large. How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

“How tall are you?”

“Six-two and a half.”

Violet snorts. “Like you need to add the extra half inch when you’re already over six feet. I’m barely five-four. I need every single one of those inches to count, partial or not.”

“Bet you can fit in any backseat without a problem.”

“True, but I always end up in the middle seat and that sucks the D. Especially in those really old cars with the hump on the floor.”

I rush to get in front of her when we reach the pool house so I can be polite and open the door for her. “That’s legit.”

She steps over the threshold and whistles. “You have a TV in your pool house?”

“Yeah. This is where me and my buddies hang out. There’s a bedroom through there if you want to change.” I point across the room.

“Sure. Thanks.”

I rummage around in the fridge and line up a selection of sodas on the counter while I wait. A few minutes later, she returns wearing a beach cover up and she’s piled her hair on top of her head in a huge, puffy bun.

“Want something to drink?” I motion to the counter.

“Ooooh, I haven’t had grape soda since I was a kid. I’ll take one of those.”

“Cool.” I hand her the can and take an orange soda for myself. “We can spike them.”

Violet arches a brow. “Tempting, but I’m a lightweight and awkward with the word vomit when I’m sober. Pretty sure I don’t want to add booze to the mix.”

“Fair.” I gulp down some soda and replace it with the contents of a tiny vodka bottle, hiding it under an empty bag of Doritos in the garbage before we head outside.

Violet takes a lounge chair in the shade. I strip off my shirt and take the lounger beside her. Nothing is worse than a t-shirt tan.

“You’re fuzzy as fuck.” Violet gently pats my arm hair, then snatches her hand away. “Shit. Sorry. That was weird. And awkward. You have a lot of chest hair for a teenager. I mean, it’s blond, so like, it mostly blends in, but it’s almost like an optical illusion. You have a blond aura of protection. Imagine if that was an actual superpower? Like your body fuzz was a magic repelling force field!”

I stare at her, waiting to see what else will come out of her mouth.

“Sorry. I suffer from word vomit. It’s worse when I’m nervous, but it never really goes away.”

“My dad sort of warned me about that,” I admit.

“That was smart of him. Seriously, you must be the envy of all the dude-bros in your grade,” Violet says.

I run my hand over my chest. “I’m due for a trim.”

“A trim?”

“Yeah. I use a number four trimmer in the summer. Keeps the mosquitoes from getting caught in my arm hair.”

“That makes sense. It would be a good insulator in the winter, though.” She grins. “You’re like a yeti.”

I snort-laugh. I could get used to Violet.

“So let’s talk about our ’rents before they come out. If we’re meeting, that means they must be pretty serious, right?”

I nod. “Seems that way.”

“I haven’t met one of my mom’s boyfriends since middle school. How about you?”

“There was one woman in my freshman year. She had two younger kids, I think, but I never met them, and they only dated for like, a couple of months, maybe?”

“And our parents have been dating for what, like, five months now?”

“That sounds about right.” I sip my drink. “My dad’s been working out with me a lot more lately, maybe trying to buff up for the summer.”

“Or he’s trying to buff up for all the boning they’re doing,” Violet mutters. “He’s got an ass you can bounce a quarter off of, that’s for sure.”

I spit spray my drink all over my chest. “You checked out my dad’s ass?”

“Not on purpose.” Violet makes a face. “The first time I met him they were doing the horizontal tango.”

“Wait. What?”

Violet waves a hand around and almost smacks herself in the face. “Nothing. Never mind. It’s not important.”

“You can’t say something like that and then wave it off.”

She sighs, but launches into the story. Her face grows progressively redder and by the time she gets to the part about my dad’s bare ass, she looks like she might burst into flames.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

I don’t share the story about getting caught bringing girls home by my dad and Skye. Or that Skye drove the girls home and apparently took them out for coffee and dessert afterward.

Dad and Skye return, both wearing huge grins. We eat snacks and talk. I find out Violet is a math nerd, and she gets all A’s in school. I’m more of a C-minus student. Especially with English, since I’m dyslexic. But I have a tutor for that. Although, if I’m honest, we don’t spend a lot of time on the tutoring part. I’ve gotten really good at giving orgasms, and not all that good at writing essays.

It gets hot in the afternoon, so we jump in the pool. Violet falls in no less than three times over the course of the afternoon. Dad barbeques steak, corn and salad for dinner and Violet and I offer to take care of dishes, mostly because our parents are making eyes at each other and it’s gross.

“Okay, so I’m all about probability and statistics, and taking into account past relationships and present circumstances…” Violet says as she scrapes the plates into the garbage disposal.

“Math isn’t my favorite subject,” I say.

“You use angles all the time in hockey, though. Like when you’re shooting the puck thingy at the goal, that’s angles.”

“I just point and shoot. Why are we talking about hockey? I thought you weren’t a fan.”

“I’m not not a fan. It’s just not something I’m willing to commit three hours of my life to several times a week. Anyway, that’s irrelevant. I’m talking about our parents. I feel like they’re way more serious than I realized, which means we might end up as stepsiblings and I think we need to come to terms with that possibility.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. Well, next year is my draft year with the NHL, so depending on how fast they move, there’s a chance I’ll already be playing for the farm team by the time our parents take it to the next level. At most, we’ll only have a few months of the whole stepsibling situation, which should be manageable. You’d have your own bathroom. Or maybe they’d convert the pool house for one of us.”

“Oh, that’d be cool. I’m planning to go to a local college so I don’t have to pay out the butt for housing and stuff. I don’t want to rack up all kinds of education debt.”

“What about the whole living away from home, party like it’s your job part of college, though?”

“I’m a Mathlete. My idea of a good party includes pizza with lactose-free cheese and winning at competitive Sudoku.”

“You’re like the exact opposite of all the girls I hang out with.” I take the bowl from her and do a half-assed job drying it.

She uses the back of her hand to push her glasses up her nose. “I feel like your hanging out and my hanging out are a lot different. I also feel like most of the girls you spend time with probably want to do a lot of not talking.”

“That’s super true,” I agree.

“Ah, so you’re a typical jock fuckboy.”

I shrug. “I wasn’t always. This year things changed.”

“Your promising rise to hockey stardom made all the girls fall in lust with you?”

“Something like that.” Mostly it was the whole teeth getting fixed thing and Randy forcing me to talk to girls, but the hockey situation is like teen girl catnip.

“It’s weird that people feel the need to rub up on future stars like it’s somehow going to make them a star by proxy.” She hands me another dish. “Hockey players make good money, don’t they?”

“Not as good as football, or baseball, or basketball, but still pretty good. I’m hoping I get a contract for a few million to start.”

“A few million to start? Man, it’s too bad I suck at all things sporty. Except hula hooping. I can hula hoop like nobody’s business.”

“It’s a real skill.”

“Too bad hip gyrating isn’t a six-figure job. Although hip thrusting naked can apparently make lots of money. Not really a career path I want to entertain, but still viable for some.”

“Wait. Are you talking about porn stars?” My eyes dart to her chest, which is covered by a t-shirt.

“That’s a land mine topic we should step around.”

“You brought it up.”

“And I’m putting it away. If we end up as stepsiblings we should probably avoid talking about things like porn, unless I’m making fun of the fact that the girls you bring home sound like they’re auditioning for a role in an adult film.”

“That’s fair. And probably accurate.”

We finish up the dishes and Violet and Skye thank my dad for having them over. Skye hugs me and Violet gives me a fist bump. We stand on the front porch and wave as they drive away.

“You and Violet seemed to get along pretty well,” Dad says.

“Yeah. She’s cool. Like super nerdy, and has zero verbal filter, but she’s got good stepsister potential.”

His eyebrows dance on his forehead. “Stepsister potential?”

“You and Skye have been dating for months. You got us together for a family barbeque and bought filet mignon and you’ve been looking at vacations. I can count on one finger how many times that’s happened in my life.” I pat him on the shoulder. “I think they’ll be good for us.”

Dad smiles. “Good. I think so, too.”