[Chapter 1](
***CHERRY***
“Have a good day at school, princess,” dad said, giving me a peck on the forehead. I managed a half-smile as he eagerly got in the car with Drew’s mom and they drove off to work together.
Drew came up from behind, towering over me as he leaned an arm against the door frame. “Wait, they’re gone already? We haven’t even had breakfast yet!” he scoffed.
“It’s on the table,” I replied, ducking past him and heading back inside. He closed the door and followed. “Why are they in such a hurry?” I added, grumbling.
“They want some alone time at the office before everybody else shows up for work,” he said simply as we sat down to eat.
“I know that. But what’s the excuse they’re gonna give?”
He shrugged as he bit down on some toast, talking around it. “They could just make up some random work thing. We don’t know shit about that, so we can’t say anything.” He chewed loudly, and when I looked up at him he bounced his eyebrows and took another bite, gnashing the toast obnoxiously. He was doing it on purpose to piss me off, and it was working. “You ever think about breaking them up?”
I glared at him admonishingly. “Are you serious? This is the first time my dad’s been this happy in a long time. You told me before that it’s the same with your mom. And you wanna break them up? That’s so freaking selfish.”
“I know,” he said, unbothered. “I didn’t say we should do it, I just asked if you *thought* about it.”
I gave a short sigh before answering, “More than I’m willing to admit.”
“Now who’s selfish?”
“You just said–!”
I stopped myself short when he grinned at me infuriatingly, and I tried to focus on my food. This whole affair was gonna be even harder than I wondered if he was going to mess with me like this on the daily. It was my own fault, in a way; I got too easily riled up by him. *It’s only for a few months.* That had become my mantra ever since dad and Ms. Hammond had started getting serious about each other. I just had to last until the school semester began – or even earlier if I went vacationing with my friends or something over the summer – and I would be rid of this annoying jerk. He wasn’t an asshole, but boy, did he get on my nerves.
I looked up at him again, and all of a sudden the intrusive thoughts came flooding in again. Thoughts about his big dick rubbing up against my body. Jesus, in the heat of the moment, I’d let him see me naked. What was I even thinking at the time? My best friend Brie said sometimes I got passionate, but that was just another word for impulsive or impetuous. It was something I was still trying to fix, and now I’d shown my body to a *guy.* I sighed. Of all the people I could’ve chosen, Drew Hammond had been the first. That was a sign that I *really* needed to get control of my temper. And why was his dick so big?! Almost obnoxiously so. How he’d get it inside any girl was beyond me.
“Yo, snap out of it! Bus is here,” Drew said, his backpack already on his shoulder as he headed for the front door. I hastily put my plate in the sink and hurried after him, earning a dirty look from the bus driver when I boarded.
We sat separately, as usual. We used to be next-door neighbors and took the bus together anyway, so this was routine. A few stops later and a pair of twins got on. The brother, Stef, headed to the back of the bus and dropped himself down next to Drew, while the sister seated herself next to me, sighing happily.
“Morning, Brie,” I chirped.
“Morning, Cherry,” she replied. “So? How’s it going?”
“What do you mean, ‘how’s it going?’”
“Living with your new stepbrother.” The hint of a smirk played at her lips. What was that all about?
“He’s not my stepbrother,” I protested, and now the smirk fully revealed itself.
“Yet.”
“Yet,” I grumbled in agreement. “But it’s whatever. We’ll head off to college, and then I’d only have to see him during holidays. It’s really not a big deal, like our parents said. Just kinda wish they could’ve waited until after we left to get together.”
“Your dad’s been single ever since he lost your mom. That’s eighteen years, Cher. I don’t think he wants to wait anymore,” she pointed out, and I grumbled some more. “Why, is it that bad? What happened?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly, but she suddenly leaned in excitedly.
“Omigod, what happened?” she gushed. “You’re blushing like crazy, like a real cherry.”
I never cursed my name and complexion more. “Well… Um…” My eyes darted everywhere before I managed to pin her with a stern look. “Don’t laugh, alright?”
“Sure,” she said, her brow furrowing quizzically.
“Well, last night… we kinda showered together,” I stammered.
Instead of bursting into laughter like I was expecting, she looked at me blankly as if waiting for more. “…What?” she finally muttered.
Sighing in frustration, I continued, “We have a Jack-and-Jill bathroom, and we both wanted to shower. It turns out he’s as stubborn as I am, and he got in with me. So I… kinda showered with him.”
Her blank look persisted as she processed, and it made me realize how insane and asinine it sounded. Eventually, Brie managed to form a response. “But why?! Were you naked? Was he naked?” She dropped her voice, wearing a grin full of mischief. “Did you see his dick?”
I squirmed in my seat, turning to look out the window. “I mean… Yeah, well, we were in the shower, duh.” God, even *I* could hear how bashful I sounded.
“And?” she urged.
“And what? And why are you so interested? Didn’t you get a boyfriend or something?”
“Yes, but now we’re talking about you,” she pressed gleefully. “So judging by how you’re acting, I’m guessing he doesn’t have a shrimp dick.”
“He’s a freaking *horse,*” I muttered under my breath, and to my chagrin, she heard me.
“Oh jeez. How are you gonna fit it in you…?”
I whipped my head around at her, eyes wide with alarm. “What? No, I– Nobody’s fitting anything in me!” I stammered.
“I’ll say.” She winked at me. “You’ll have to go for somebody smaller. I’m a little worried about how you’ll… y’know…”
“Brie, please, no,” I groaned. “Besides, he’s not my type.”
“What *is* your type? You’ve never told me, after all this time.”
“I… I don’t know what my type is,” I admitted. “At this point, I’ll settle for somebody who’d be willing to date a girl with my height and lack of endowments, without being a pervert about it.”
“Yeah, definitely steer clear of perverts,” Brie agreed. “But there’s nothing wrong with your body, Cherry.”
“I’m four-nine with double As. All I attract are perverts. That’s a problem.”
She frowned as she ruminated on my dilemma. I’d already given it a lot of wondered myself, and ultimately there was no solution. I just had to hope somebody I liked fell for me for the right reasons. Luckily Brie dropped the subject, but my mind kept roaming back to the events of last night, the moment when Drew caught me from falling playing on loop. It was silly, something out of a tropey soap opera, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Of course, the situation only got worse at lunch.
Brie and her best friend Lexi had started sitting with Stef and Drew at lunch near the beginning of the college year. At first I wondered it was because Drew liked Brie and Lexi liked Stef, but now both of the twins were in relationships, leaving me a bit mystified. Of course, today Brie had to drag me along as well, and I sat down next to her… and across from Drew.
“I’m just saying, ‘hotdog’ refers to the sandwich, not the sausage,” Drew said, waving his relevant lunch around for emphasis.
“It can refer to both,” Stef groaned.
“Well it shouldn’t. Alright.” Drew set his hotdog down and leaned in, combing back his wild dirty blond hair. “Let’s say there’s a plate of hotdog sausages and a plate of hotdog sandwiches, and I ask you to pass me the hotdogs. Which one are ya gonna pass?” He leaned in further, as if daring Stef to argue.
“Oh my God, it’s just a fucking hotdog,” Stef hissed.
“We have the brain trust right here,” Brie snarked with a smirk, rolling her eyes.
“Anyway, welcome to group, Squirt,” Drew said to me lazily. “You sure you wanna be associated with us?”
“I’m definitely having second thoughts,” I quipped. Our eyes locked, and I watched him swallow at the same time as I did. This… was so awkward. I was seriously considering just standing up and going back to having lunch with my other friends.
“So what’s being stepsiblings like?” Stef asked with a devilish grin.
“We’re not stepsiblings,” Drew and I said together.
“Oh damn, you two even coordinated that. Cute.” Drew shoved Stef’s shoulder, making him snicker. “Lex, help me out here. You don’t want in on this?”
Blonde gorgeous Lexi glanced up curiously from her lunch, looking at Drew, then past Brie at me, studying us carefully. Drew had a dour expression. “Stepsiblings?” she verified.
“Yeah,” said Brie, looking at her expectantly.
“Not interested.” With that, she turned back to her lunch, then gestured for us to continue the conversation without her, as if she were auditing a class.
“Ugh, am I gonna have to do all the work here?” Stef sighed. Drew cut him off.
“Dude, stop. I get it, haha, meme very funny. But it’s not happening between us.” He turned to me. “Right?”
“Right,” I said quickly.
Stef grouched as Drew forcibly turned the conversation away from our new living arrangements, but something about that stung just now. Whatever. The others were alluding to all the step-incest porn out there, but despite my hurt feelings, at least Drew and I were on the same page.
—
I waved my hands comically as I struggled in vain to reach the detergent. This new situation we were in really was the bane of my existence. Of course Drew put the box of detergent on the highest shelf in the laundry room, because why wouldn’t he? I couldn’t discover my stepping stool anywhere, and I needed it to climb onto the washing machine to even hope to reach the detergent.
I was considering pulling in a chair from the dining room when I heard Drew come back home. I had a bone to pick with him anyway. “Stilts!” I shouted. “I need your help!”
“Where are you?” he called back, voice indicating that he was getting closer.
“In the laundry room.” There was a pause, and I realized he’d stopped walking altogether. What the heck was he doing?
“Nope. Not doing this,” I heard him say, and he began walking toward his bedroom instead.
“Drew! Drew, you dickhead, get in here!”
“I’m not helping you get unstuck from the washing machine!” he yelled.
“Will you grow up?! I can’t reach the detergent because you put it all the way up on the highest shelf!”
He eventually came in, almost cautiously, and spotted me waiting for him with my hands on my hips. He snorted and turned away and resisted the urge to laugh, stoking my anger.
“Sorry, Squirt, you just look–” he managed, cutting himself off when he saw my outrage. “Sorry, sorry. So you can’t reach?”
“I need my stepping stool, but I don’t know where it’s packed,” I said through grit teeth.
“You’re a dancer, right? Can’t you just lift yourself onto the washer and–”
“I don’t wanna risk damaging the machine. Can you just not make a fuss about it and get it down for me? Please?”
He looked at me again, and I swear it was in a patronizing way. “Alright, but only because you said please.”
He stepped over, then put his hands on my waist and lifted me into the air with a little grunt, causing me to pinwheel my arms and almost kick a dent into the machines. “What the heck are you doing?!” I demanded.
“Helping you get the damn box,” he replied. “Now freaking grab it before I drop you or something.”
“Fucking drop me and find out,” I snapped, retrieving the detergent. He lowered me back down slowly, and I had to stop myself from whacking him with the box, lest the powder spilled everywhere. “What is wrong with you? You trying to humiliate me? You coulda just reached up and grabbed it yourself!”
He seemed to look me up and down once, a strange expression on his face and his fingers rubbing his palms, before inhaling sharply and grinning. “But where’s the fun in that?”
“Can you please not make this whole thing more painful than it is?” I griped.
“I will as soon as you start being polite, like thanking me for helping you.”
“Why do I have to thank you for fixing a mistake you made in the first place?”
“Are you serious?” He shook his head. “Unbelievable. You’re just a little ball of angry energy. Like a chihuahua.”
“And you’re just an arrogant dickhead who thinks he’s smarter than everybody and only cares about himself!”
We glared at each other, and it felt like a minute went by before he smirked. “Speaking of dickheads… what did you think of last night?”
The question took me by surprise, and my face contorted in rage when I finally recovered. Was this guy for real? “And you can’t take anything seriously except stupid hotdogs!”
“Speaking of hotdogs…” His grin widened, and I wanted to scream. He was doing all this on purpose. It really was starting to feel like he was bullying me. I didn’t think I could take having one more; Lauren and her pack of bitches were already enough.
“Just… go, please,” I said quietly, suddenly feeling exhausted.
His face immediately fell, his tone softening. “Hey, I’m… I’m sorry.”
I ignored him, measuring out the detergent before putting the box on the dryer as I loaded my clothes into the washing machine. He stood there for a moment longer before leaving, and I sighed heavily. Why couldn’t he just be nice to me? Even calling me Squirt was insulting, let alone picking me up like a child. And he all the time started it. The most frustrating part was that I knew he could be nice, he just chose not to.
*Except for last night, when he caught me.*
Oh my God, not now. I was supposed to be angry at him, not thinking about his naked cock pressed up against–
I slammed the washer closed and set the timer. Five more fucking months of this. I don’t think I was going to make it unless something drastically changed between us. A girl could hope.
NSFW: yes
Sorry the chapter is late this week, but it’s a bit longer to make up for it! No sexy stuff though, but we’ll get there 😉
This story was voted on in Poll #5, and will be the main full story going forward. Enjoy!