Dirk: A Stepbrother Romance(36)
“Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t think anyone was home. I needed to pick something up for your stepdad, Ryan. You know, work stuff for when they are off in the South Pacific.”
“Oh, okay. How do you know who I am?”
“I figure you are his new stepdaughter and um,” he said, averting his face,” your towel is slipping.”
Jennifer looked down to see the top of her small breasts edging the hem of the towel. She quickly pushed the towel back up. She could see mirth in his eyes as he tried not to look. She could also see lust. She realized then that he was the same guy who had caught her in the coat room with Charles. Her eyes looked down at herself and she quickly started to back up towards her room to get dressed. Her cheeks were red and she could feel the blush going down her neck and chest.
“Well sorry to bother you. I will be on my way now Jennifer.”
She did not look back as she fled into her room and shut the door. She figured the guy must be some personal assistant or someone close enough to Ryan that he was invited to the wedding. Her day was not turning out to be as peaceful as she had hoped. After she heard the door close downstairs and she was sure he was gone, she went and bolted the front door. Jennifer did not need any more uninvited guests.
Jennifer spent the rest of the day and into the night going through her old things. Cleaning out her old closet was like going through a time capsule. Helping herself to the full liquor cabinet, she decided to take a break with a glass of wine as she looked through some old photo albums. As she sipped the wine and felt waves of nostalgia wash over her, she had a crazy idea. She wished there was a way that she could just buy her mother’s house. This place was where she grew up and it held so many happy memories, it just killed her to think they were selling it. But what could she do? After all, she didn’t have the kind of money it would take to buy it. On top of it Ryan seemed to be pushing the issue of the sale. Jennifer thought that maybe it was because he didn’t want his new wife to have a way out. Or maybe she was just feeling protective – or paranoid.
But she thought that Ryan was controlling and getting rid of Darla’s house would be like a guarantee for him that she couldn’t leave him. At least that is how Jennifer saw it. Jennifer never said a word though. How could she tell her mom that the guy she was going to marry might be rich, but he was also a class “A” jerk? Jennifer was sure that his son’s would be no better. She wasn’t looking forward to having to meet more rich *s. She was sure that they had just as little class as their father did. The thought of holidays with the three of them looking down their noses at her was almost more than she could bear. Jennifer knew that she would have to get used to this new situation eventually, but at the moment Christmas was still eight months away. She could afford to maintain her morose outlook about it for a while yet.
Jennifer stewed about the wedding and then she stewed about where she was going to live after she got out of college. It had all just changed so fast and she was finding it hard not to blame her new stepdad Ryan. Before she left for college, her mother was dating some other guy entirely. Then, the next thing she knew, she got a phone call from Darla telling her that their mother was engaged. On top of that, it was to an entirely different guy that Jennifer had never even met, let alone knew anything about. There was a slight sadness mixed with a fair amount of irritation because Jennifer felt like she was losing her mother and gaining three pompous men in return. She knew she had not even met her new stepbrothers yet, but she was already convinced they would be jerks.
She tried to spend the rest of her break relaxing. She knew the material for the finals pretty well already. She wanted to visit with some of her friends that had decided not to go off to school, or had gone to college locally. Her friend Cindy was working at a local club, The Highball, so she went down there to get a few drinks the next evening. The more time they spent talking about old times the more homesick Jennifer became. Still, they had a good time dancing and laughing, just like old times. It turned out that her mother had left her a couple of messages while she was dancing. By the time she saw them, she was on her way home anyhow and didn’t bother checking them. Had she taken a minute to listen to the voicemails, she would not have been surprised to find the front door unlocked when she got back to the house.
Jennifer walked in slowly and paused, listening to see if she heard anything. By this time she was getting almost used to random people appearing in the home. It did belong to her mother and she just had to deal with her penchant for giving out sets of keys.
There was a light on in the back by her mother’s room and as she walked back there her hands found a glass vase to use, just in case. Having grown up in a safe neighborhood, and knowing her mom, she wasn’t too worried really. As she got closer, she could hear the shuffling of papers, but despite her feeling it would just be another random friend of her mother’s, it took her a moment to get the courage up to peer around the corner to see who it was. This was the downside of the free room and board.
Jennifer came around the door with the vase in front of her and, although relieved, was still shocked when she saw that it was her mother.
“Mom! What are you doing here? I thought you were on your honeymoon for the next two weeks? It’s only been three days.”
“I know baby, but Ryan had a merger deal that ran into some sort of trouble unexpectedly, so he wanted to get back and take care of it. I guess we’ll take the honeymoon later.”