Sitting opposite you at the dinner table, Emily Burke shoves a spoonful of chicken fried rice into her mouth. She pulls out the empty soon and tells her mother, "Then he tried to spy on Haley again. He's been climbing on the bottom of the wheelbarrow to look over the fence when she's swimming."
"That's a load of crap," you exclaim, pushing your plate away. "I was back there trying to get the wheel back on. The wheel that you broke, by the way, when you and your little friends tried to ride it down the cul-de-sac for your stupid video."
"You had to climb on it to fix it?"
"I didn't climb on it. You're making that up."
"Why would I make that up, Robby? Everyone knows you've got it bad for that little tramp. Everyone knows you're a pervert too, so there's no reason for me to make anything up."
"Tramp? Really, Em? Do you know how stupid you sound right now?" After a sip of water, you wave a finger at the girl and continue, "Oh, yeah, and you stole my wireless charger. I know it was you. You even said you wanted one the day before you took it."
Your stepmother breathes in, holds it a second, then slowly exhales. "Guys, please, why do we have to make this a nightly occurrence? Robby, stop peeping on the neighbor girl. And Emily, I've told you to knock it off with those video stunts. You guys are going to end up killing yourselves. And give your brother his charger back. You're both eighteen, for God's sake, not twelve."
Emily pushes a strand of strawberry blonde hair behind her ear and glares at you. It's hard to say why the girl constantly tries to get you in trouble. Allison Foster used to buy every single lie that her daughter fed to her, which resulted in many groundings over the past seven years, but lately Emily's old tricks have lost their effectiveness for whatever reason. Maybe your stepmother has finally got it all figured out.
"If you like that Milton girl," Emily's older sister says, mindlessly swiping a finger across the screen of her cellphone, "then why don't you ask her out?"
Jennifer has always been the type to call it like she sees it, for better or worse. More than that, the twenty year old is as sharp and perceptive as a prowling fox. You shrug and tell her that it's not like that. "Me and Haley, we're just good friends. That's it."
"Ah," she says, lifting an eyebrow, "friend zoned?"
"No, not friend zoned. I mean, we're friends, yeah, but there's no zone or anything. We just get along."
Smirking, Emily shakes her head. "That's just sad."
This is not the kind of conversation you want at the dinner table, or anywhere else for that matter. Fortunately, your stepmother jumps in and changes the topic, though you know that it's not for your benefit. She begins assigning chores for everyone to complete over fall break while she's at work.
Later that night, Emily confronts you in the hallway. She places her hands on her hips, just below the waistband of her stretchy short-shorts, and narrows her cold blue eyes. "You had to tell her about the stupid wheelbarrow?"
"You told her that I was spying on Haley."
"Yeah, because you totally were. I saw you, Robby, so don't even try to lie about it."
"Whatever," you shrug. It's getting late and there's really no point in arguing. If you wanted to see Haley in her tiny two-piece bikini, all you'd have to do is walk through the gate. You've done it before. Plenty of times, in fact, and there's never been any issues. More often than not, Haley is glad to have the company. As gorgeous as the girl is, she doesn't have many friends, at least not around here. They're all back in her hometown. Shaking your head, you tell Emily, "Believe what you want, but I'm not letting you spoil my break. Not a chance."
"Oh, we'll see about that."
With that, the girl turns on her heels and storms off to her bedroom. What is her problem? You would think that she'd have better things to do, like spend time with that weird, dorky boyfriend of hers. Mitch Summers, only five-six, a whopping one inch taller than Emily, with glasses so thick you could use them as thermal plates on a space shuttle.
"There's no justice in the world," your friend Eric commented back when those two first got together. "Why in the hell did she pick him?"
Since he's only a block away, Eric Kurtz is always dropping by to hang out and play video games. It's been like that for years. You don't mind, since the two of you get along pretty well, but you know the guy comes around for more than just your company. It's hardly a secret that he's got the hots for Emily.
"You do realize that she's a huge bitch, right?" you've asked him on numerous occasions.
Doesn't seem to matter. Whenever she's around, the logical part of Eric's brain shuts down immediately. At least he manages to keep his tongue inside his mouth. For the most part, anyway. No doubt she could snap her fingers and the guy would be at her heels in an instant, ready to obey her every command like a German Shepard. After getting an eyeful of your stepsister, Eric will go off on a tangent about how it's a shame she's taken, and how he'd be all over that if Mitch wasn't in the picture. Yeah, right.
"I'm telling you, bro," Eric said the last time he was over, "I'd walk through fire for a piece of that. I mean, come on, I know she's your little sister and whatever, but you've gotta admit that she's hot. Swear to God, Mitch has to be swinging a lot of meat. A lot of meat, man, like down to his knees."
Not a fantastic mental image. It would explain how Mitch managed to score someone in a completely different league, though. As bratty and obnoxious as Emily can be, there's no denying that the girl is attractive. Far too attractive for Mitch Summers. Not quite as pretty as her older sister, at least in a conventional sense, granted, but her curves are vastly superior, as evidenced by the way she fills out those tank tops she often wears around the house. She clearly inherited those from Allison, whose hourglass figure has stood the test of time and then some. Not that you'd ever own up to it, but you've stolen a number of glances when nobody was paying attention, far too many to count. It's only human nature, after all.
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