But I was intimidated by her in some weird way. I was no genius, but there she was, intelligent and serious and sexy as fuck. I had plenty of other girls to keep me busy, but Becca was always floating on the edge of my awareness, flickering in and out of my sight.
My career took off when I was seventeen. I won a local competition and realized that I could be pretty good if I wanted to be. I trained almost every day, climbing as often as I could, and something just shifted in me. Suddenly, the local competitions were too easy, so I started entering the regionals. I broke a few records, won a bunch of money, and my star took off.
That’s the funny thing about small towns, though. No matter how famous you get, you’re still only small-town famous. And all it takes is one thing to shift, one thing to change everything.
For me, it was two things.
The first thing was Becca. I never saw her coming, not really. Even though I had a thing for her, some little crush, I never understood what it was or what it meant until it was too late. Two days after the night I finally figured it out, our parents announced that they had eloped over the weekend.
Rebecca Foster, the girl from that night, that one sweaty night, was my fucking stepsister.
It was like a crime. The second I had something, it was snatched away, just like that.
The second thing that changed my life was my mom’s cancer. That was worse than wanting to fuck my stepsister. Becca went to college and was gone for most of it, so she didn’t see the struggle we went through. She didn’t see how her dad looked at me when I started bringing home money to help with the medical bills. She didn’t see what I put myself through to get that money, the shit I waded into and got stuck down deep in.
She didn’t see my mom hanging on to life by a thread. She didn’t see my mom eventually beat it, and come through the other side stronger.
She didn’t see the piles of debt we were barely living under. She didn’t see the darkness that I had let take over everything around me.
And after all that, after her short but agonizing visits, she came home. My stepsister, Becca Foster.
The genius girl I couldn’t get out of my damn head.
I watched as Becca climbed up the front steps, lugging her suitcase behind her. I sighed and smiled to myself. It was typical of her to refuse my help. At least she let me get it the first time.
The house was situated on an acre and a half of land, surrounded by dense forests. My stepdad, Jack, had bought it cheap back in the day, and when he married my mom, they moved in together. He had expanded the place big time over the years, adding on a large front porch, two additions, and a dormered second floor. It was a stylized log cabin, and because I barely remembered the houses I grew up in before it, I thought of it as home.
We weren’t wealthy. Far from it, because of the cancer treatments. But Jack worked hard and I helped as much as I could. I didn’t love living at home, but when my mom got sick, all of my plans went out the window. I couldn’t leave, not when she was suffering.
I helped as much as I possibly could. I sacrificed everything for my mother, and I’d do it all over again if I could. But nobody could know about what I did. Nobody could know about the things I did to help cover our bills.
I couldn’t even imagine where we would be if I hadn’t met Thom all those years ago.
“You just going to stand there?” Becca said, looking down at me.
I shrugged. “Rain feels good.”
“Okay, weirdo. Come on.” She pulled off her boots, leaving them by the front door, and went inside.
I stood watching her for a second. Becca, back in my life for a few months. Even after that afternoon in the van, I was still excited to see her. I loved to stare at her ass as she went ahead of me. I couldn’t help myself. The girl drove me fucking crazy.
With a sigh I followed. I stripped off my wet clothes, tossing them over a chair on the porch, and went inside after her.
It was warm, but comfortable. The rain had made the temperature drop, and my mom had lit a fire to heat the house instead of turning on the furnace. I watched as Becca disappeared upstairs, probably going to change into dry clothes and unpack. I walked into the kitchen.
“Everything go okay?” Mom asked me.
“Yeah, fine. She’s upstairs unpacking.”
She nodded and smiled. “I’m so happy you’re both back under one roof again, at least for a while.”
I shrugged. “Sure, it’ll be fine.”
She frowned. My mom had always been a perceptive person, but for whatever reason it was out of control when it came to me. She could practically read my moods like a book.
It annoyed the hell out of me most of the time, but every once in a while it felt good not to have to explain myself.