Just Between Us (6 page)

             
He melted himself into me and I leant into him, his kiss became more urgent, and his tongue plunged into my mouth, caressing my tongue and set me on fire. Shit, I needed to regain myself, this was so wrong on so many levels, despite being my step-brother he was also an arsehole who I hated. I tried again to push him away but far too timidly. After what seemed like forever he pulled away from me. I stared into his eyes and took some comfort in the fact that no one here would know who we were and what we were to each other.

             
“Kyle,” I said, looking to him, my mouth agape. “This is wrong.”

             
“I know,” he whispered as he closed his eyes and his head fell back. “But that was fucking dynamite.” He leaned into me again, his forehead on mine, looking into my eyes. “Let’s just have tonight.” His eyes bored into me pleadingly, and I opened my mouth to protest, but rather than speaking, he covered my mouth with his again, and I took him at his word. Tonight we wouldn’t be step-brother and sister, tonight we’d be Kyle and Sophie, two kids who knew each other from school kissing in a club that could have been anywhere. Just two teenagers enjoying each other and ending the perfect week of partying with a goodbye kiss.

Five
–
Just kissed

Now

The dr
ive with Kyle was long, and the summer sun shone through, taunting me all the way, trying to entice me to be happy. The air con made it comfortable, and the summer was a reminder that I should be happy … except I wasn’t. I had managed to give myself a make over, well my mum had forced me into it kicking and screaming, and the alcohol last night had convinced me that I needed a change of scenery, but was it all just too much?

             
“What are you thinking?” he asked as we neared the city. I looked over to him. He was still just as beautiful as he had been as a teenager. As a twenty eight year old man he was devastatingly handsome, and I fully expected to be introduced to his latest woman whilst I stayed with him.

             
I shook my head. “This was a stupid idea,” I groaned, covering my eyes with my hands.

             
“Why?” he looked straight ahead, and I couldn’t see his eyes behind his aviator glasses.             

             
“What am I doing, Kyle? I’m not ready for this, I should be at home crying. This is going to be the worst few weeks of your life. I’ll be moping all over the place, and you’ll get sick of me.”

             
He smiled but didn’t look back to me. “I can’t believe you’re letting him define you like this. The Sophie King I knew would never have let this happen, she was strong.”

             
“What?” I was annoyed, and he was enjoying it, looking at me again,               “You’ve turned into a sap. What’s so great about this guy that you can’t get over it?”

             
“I can get over it,” I snapped. “It’ll just take time. We were going to get married, I thought I was safe and that my heart would never break again. You wouldn’t know anything about that.”

             
“Oh I know about heartache,” he laughed lightly, “you’ve taught me all about that.”

             
I didn’t look at him, didn’t dare. I wasn’t sure if he was alluding to our tangled past or my heartache now. “Look,” he said, breaking the sudden awkward silence. “Let’s just hang out, go out, enjoy ourselves, and maybe in a few weeks a few minutes will pass without you thinking about dickhead.” He sighed. “I might seem like I don’t know about this stuff, and I’m not a chick, but I do know that keeping busy and time heal a broken heart. I’m not gonna get mushy, but this is the best decision you could have made.”

             
“You’re right,” I glanced away from him out of the window, “I don’t need any more babying, I need you to say it like it is, and I need to get over this. I’ll focus on enjoying myself.”

             
“Good.” He nodded to himself. “Cos I think we need to start by getting shit faced again tonight.”

             
“What?” I wailed. “I thought you had work to do?”

             
“Well we can get shit faced whilst I do my work and sit on my balcony.”

             
“You’ve got a balcony?” I asked, raising my eyebrows to him.

             
“Yep and with the weather this nice we can eat out there, drink out there, and reminisce with some noughties music.”

             
I smiled; it was wide and genuine. Kyle had a way of taking all the feelings of dread away and replacing them with something to be excited about. Kyle and I had a past, but we could never have a future, and I wondered exactly how much of that past we could appropriately reminisce.  

Old Times

The following morning I woke up in a state of panic, panic that we’d been seen, or that I’d have to confess. I felt dreadful. I was sure our parents would know we had been sneaking out, and I thought my face would give away the guilt I was feeling. Kyle was my step-brother, and this was wrong. He should never have kissed me, and I shouldn’t have kissed him back. I was embarrassed and upset, and as I sat with my packed bags, I was dreading going down to breakfast to face him. It was another glorious morning in Mexico, the sun was hot even first thing, and I was sad it was our last day here before we returned to the cold.

             
When I saw Kyle at breakfast, it was as if the night before had never happened, which suited me fine. He didn’t look at me, there was no change in his behaviour, and I didn’t exist to him once again. I wasn’t bothered, I was relieved and thankful that this worry boiling up inside of me wouldn’t be realised. I just chatted easily to my mum as we walked down to the restaurant that was situated by the huge, blue swimming pool. We took a table outside, and Kyle was his usual aloof self. It was comforting and reminded me that the few nights out we had had didn’t change anything, we were nothing to each other.

             
Mum and Mick got up to go and help themselves to juice. I sat at the table waiting to order coffee as I always did. Kyle was watching me, suddenly his eyes were blazing into me, and I pretended not to notice.

             
“Last night was a mistake,” he whispered, so quietly that I only just heard the uttering.

             
I nodded but didn’t answer, looking down to my hands unable to make eye contact.

             
“Sophie,” he said whilst clearing his throat. “Look at me.”

             
I did and his blue eyes were searching mine to see if I heard. “Okay,” I whispered, extremely uncomfortable and embarrassed. I felt my cheeks redden, and he looked away.

             
“It’s just …” He began.

             
“You don’t have to explain anything, I wish it hadn’t happened, too.” I didn’t give him chance to respond as my face was on fire with embarrassment, I just stood and walked away from the most awkward conversation I had ever had.

The journey home was uneventful, and after our holiday our lives returned to exactly what they were before. Our parents worked hard and enjoyed their social lives. I studied for my last two exams and spent my free time with my best friends, Ashley and Kathryn. My exams were almost over and then I would be free. I had had an offer from Newcastle University that I had accepted to study English Literature, and I couldn’t wait for a long summer before starting. It was already mid-May, and we were all eighteen so my friends and I were excited for nothing but parties and lazing around before real life started.

             
We had been home a week when Ashley came round, one Friday afternoon. Ashley was shorter than me, tiny in fact, and she had a very toned petite body. She was an athlete, ran long distance, swam, and had her own horse. She was blonde and blue-eyed; she wore her hair long and straight down her back. She was stunning, but she had a wicked side and was the most sarcastic person I knew.

             
“Come on Soph,” she sighed, leaning against the worktop in our kitchen whilst I poured us some orange juice. “Come to Tim’s party, it’ll be good.”

             
I sighed, “Really? It’ll just be full of idiots getting drunk and dick heads from school that we hate.”

             
“I doubt it,” she smiled, “Tim’s pretty cool.”

             
“But all Kyle’s crew will be there, and they’re idiots.”

             
“Oh they won’t bother us,” she said breezily. “Come on, I’m sick of us never going to the parties.”

             
“We go out enough, why do we have to mix with people that we have no connection with just because we go to the same school.”

             
“Because I want to go to the party.”

             
I rolled my eyes. “Fine.”

             
Yes!” she hissed and hugged me, “plus Vinnie Peterson is going, and I’ve lost five pounds because of these bloody exams, so I look hot.”

             
“Vinnie Peterson?” I whined, “you better not bog off kissing him and leave me with the sheep.” She just grinned at me.

             
Ashley and I had a totally different high school experience from Kyle and his gang. They were effortlessly popular and nothing they did seemed to change that. He was rude, obnoxious, and often ignored people, including teachers, but somehow people loved him for it, and girls fawned over him. The thing about Kyle was that he was so indifferent, that when he did turn on the charm, you felt it. He had a gang of six including his best friend David and Vinnie Peterson. They all hung off his every word and threw insults around the sixth form lounge like confetti.

             
Tim, the host, was an in-between-er; he fit into every social group at school, and his party would be the link for Kyle’s crew and the rest of the school population. Ashley, Kathryn, and I were together most of the time, but we had friends individually from classes we attended. We stuck together and were invited to parties just like everyone else, but we despised fake people and wannabe popular crew people, clingers-on, sheep.

             
We saw ourselves as cool and the rest of them as desperate. Then there was Vinnie Peterson. Ashley adored him, she had since we were fifteen, and he knew it. I discouraged her chasing him as it made her look needy. She chased him regardless, and he secretly loved it. He was one of Kyle’s wingmen, and he kissed her some weeks, and other girls in between. She was hooked on him, but they didn’t date and he never took things further. I was not looking forward to chasing Vinnie Peterson around Tim’s house.

             
After Ashley and I had settled into the conservatory with our drinks, Kyle breezed into the kitchen. I saw him out of the corner of my eye.

             
“Hi Kyle,” Ashley shouted, always pushing to be on speaking terms with him. He turned to us and smiled slightly.

             
“Hi Ashley,” he said quietly.

             
“You going to Tim’s?” she said through an innocent smile, the question really being, “will Vinnie be there?”

             
“You going?” He glanced to me, and I looked away. Kyle and I didn’t chat, we didn’t make small talk, and often he ignored my friends, so this was new. Things had also been even more awkward since the holiday, for me anyway.

             
“We’re going,” she trilled.

             
I turned to see him nodding and walking away with a can of coke and a packet of biscuits.

             
“Why do you hate him so much?” Ashley asked after he left.

             
“What?” I shook my head. “Have you met him? He’s the most anti-social arrogant idiot ever.”

             
“He’s not so bad.”

             
“Oh shut up.” I slapped her arm. “We’ve both known Kyle Hanson for years and nice guy is not in his repertoire. You’re letting the Vinnie obsession muddy the waters.”

             
“Shhhhhhhh …” she said dramatically, pointing to the door.

             
“If he heard he won’t care, he only cares about his dick and the next place he’s going to stick it. Oh and Mick’s money.”

             
“You’re harsh.”

             
“You’re deluded.” I laughed.

Later that night I was the designated driver to Tim’s house, and then we would get a taxi back. We picked Kathryn up, with Ashley in the passenger seat, on the way to Tim’s house in a nearby town. Kathryn lived with her parents who were doctors. She had two sisters who were older and now away at University. Her parents were fairly relaxed about her whereabouts since they were workaholics and she was the third child. They had run out of energy. She was as tall as me with dark hair and emerald green eyes. She was quite dark-skinned which made her look like she had a permanent tan. She was so lucky. She was a little curvier than Ashley and me, but that meant she had fantastic big breasts that we both envied. She was the loveliest person you could meet, beautiful both inside and out.