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It hadn’t occurred to me that Charlottemightnotwant to. She’d put a lot of effort into the hairand the makeup and the dress. While I knew she’d been stressedabout the night, maybe she’d been looking forward to parts ofit.
“Did you want to stay and dance?” I asked.And for the first time, I realized that I…couldn’t. I didn’t havethe balance, my leg was exhausted, and the nerve pain wasrelentless.
“As much as a fancy ball is every girl’sfantasy, no,” she said with a shake of her head. “I feel likeeveryone is looking at me and trying to figure out why they haven’tseen me at the polo grounds. But hanging out with Scott? It’s stillkind of awkward.”
“I should have told you this sooner,” Ibegan with a sarcastic sigh. “But Scott is my best friend.”
“I know.” She poked at the remainingfrosting on her plate with the tines of her fork. “And you’ve beenspending all your time with me lately. You want to hang out withyour best friend. I get it.”
I put my hand on her wrist. “You’re not theperson who’s been isolating me. You know I don’t blame you forthat, right?”
“I mean…. I guess Iamthe one whogot you to leave Ascend Red finally, after you ran away from home.”She didn’t sound convinced about her role in that development.
But she was right. “Exactly. Who knows howlong I would have stayed down there? I might have even missed myown mother’s birthday because I was too busy fucking around bothliterally and figuratively.”
She laughed.
“I have a bad habit of getting into a newrelationship and totally disappearing from my friends’ lives for awhile,” I admitted. “Right now, all I want to do is be alone withyou, doing absolutely nothing but fun stuff. I seriously consideredleaving my job entirely when I had to go to work the otherday.”
“I think your bank account would survive,”she said dryly.
“Fair. I don’t want you to think you’reinterfering in my life or messing it up in some way. I’m perfectlycapable of—and was in the process of—doing that all on my ownbefore you came down to Ascend Red,” I promised.
“Confession time? I do that too.” Her facecrinkled up in disgust. “Not that I’ve had serious relationships oranything. But I would get these infatuations where all I wanted todo was stay with that person I was infatuated with, doing nothingbut, well. Them.”
“See? There’s another thing I love aboutyou. We’re both broken in similar ways.” I was relieved that shelaughed, because otherwise, that statement would have sounded grimand judgmental.
“I’m glad we have such healthy things incommon,” she added. “Okay. I’m about done with my uncomfortableundergarments. If we’re going to do a movie, I need to changefirst.”
“Only if I get to peel that dress off ofyou.” I’d been looking forward to that all evening.
“We could make a quick stop by the library,”she suggested. “Unless you’re insisting on letting your awfulpunishment stand.”
“My word is set in stone,” I said, because Iwasn’t going to let her weasel out of her punishment. I’d said shecouldn’t come until eight-thirty in the morning, and I would stickto that.
No matter how painfully hard my cock got atthe thought of pushing her up against a bookcase and drowningmyself in her pussy.
She curled her lip and went back to moroselydrawing patterns in the smeared frosting on the plate.
“Do you want to pout, or do you want to getinto your pajamas?” I asked.
She nodded decisively. “Good point. Let’sfind my brother.”
* * * *
We made it halfway through the movie beforeCharlotte passed out cold.
“In hindsight, maybe we should have let herpick what we watched,” I said, giving her a little nudge that madeher produce an adorable snore.
We sat on the double-wide seat, Charlottecurled up beside me, her head resting on my shoulder. My T-shirtwas rapidly becoming a drool rag.
“Never give her that power.” Scott had put aseat between us; the straight man’s buffer zone. He shook his head,eyes firmly on the screen. “She’s been like this her whole life.Get used to every movie you watch at home turning into anapfest.”
I chuckled.
“If you’re lucky, she’ll wake up halfwaythrough and ask a lot of questions. ‘Who’s that?’ ‘What’s hedoing?’ I don’t know, maybe watch the damn thing.” His monotonerecitation bore the lengthy suffering of lifelong siblinghood.
“You know, the fact that my girlfriend isyour sister might come with some unexpected benefits,” I musedaloud. “You can tell me all these annoying little details.”