Page 2 of Step Puck

He has always been my forever crush. Since I met him when I was four. He was a nose in the air, older eighteen, but I was in love. We never met until our parents were ready to get married. As if our meeting was an after-thought. For me it was a revelation. Skies breaking open and rainbows after a rainstorm. I was four. What could you expect except a cartoon experience?

Now he’s a grown man and I hear ready to retire at thirty-five. And I’m just starting my life at college.

His big body makes shivers skitter over my skin and my body heat with a desire that plays over like a…well, almost season winning game. I love hockey almost as much as Billy does. I grew up on it. He’d played since a little boy, and I breathed and consumed the sport with him. Followed him to his practices and games like a junior stalker. Now I’ve just upped my stalking with the internet.

The heat is this room has gotten hotter and I mean hot. Hot as a full-blown nuclear explosion. I flutter the neck of my shirt trying to cool myself off, but I know it’s not the room, It’s me. And it’s that man now sitting next to me. I try to not look at him and try to get my scattered thoughts together. Which is an almost impossibility with him sitting next to me. The scent of his familiar cologne wrapping around my memories and thoughts tugging them into the past. A past where I annoyed the fuck out of him and yet he still protected me like I actually was his little sister and not a step.

He’s wearing a black, fitted dress shirt that clings to his broad, wide shoulders and bulging chest and biceps, sleeves rolled up to reveal the veins on his forearms. Just looking at him makes my heart leap and run in circles waving pom poms as if cheering at the sight of him.

“Lorelei. Lorelei.” A chuckling voice says beside me. I blink, coming back to myself. How embarrassing, staring like a lovelorn teenager.

“Sorry Billy. It’s good to see you again. Been a long time, yeah?”

“Yeah. How’s your mom? Haven’t seen her in a few years. I called and left a voicemail, but she never called back.” He leans back in the metal chair which creaks in protest. I don’t mean he’s fat. No, he can’t be with everything he has to do. Weights, exercise and playing. Hey, I’m no lightweight myself. He’s all muscle, and I almost sigh like some historical heroine in a romance.

“She’s okay. Doesn’t talk to me much either since your dad died.” My throat clogs with the tears I can’t shed. Jason was like a father to me. I never knew my biological father, he left when he found out my mom was pregnant, she told me. I miss him every day and the way Billy turns his head away and clears his throat I know he does as well.

“Yeah, well.” Is all he croaks, and I lay my hand on his arm. We both look down at my hand at the same time, the muscles jump in his arm, and I lay my hand back on the table. Not sure if he hated my touch and sympathy.

He turns away and starts talking with one of his teammates about the game and what can be improved. I listen to his voice and tune everything and everyone else out, a silent eavesdropper. The voices and music around us fades in and out of my consciousness, I sip on my drink and jump when a waitress asks if I want another, and I nod. “Wait. And an order of jalapeno poppers and fries please.”

“Oh, that sounds good. Me too and another beer.” He waves at her and a gaze full of lust, her eyes travel slowly over his upper body like every other woman in this room. I don’t care if they’re married and only have eyes for your man or one hundred, any woman is going to appreciate his body.

“So, Lorelei what are you doing with yourself these days. Are you in school? Working?” Billy settles his attention back on me, those deep, blue eyes of his roam my face as if I’m his latest attraction in an amusement park. His mouth curves into a smile, jaw square and a dimple in his chin.

“Um. Yeah.” I shrug a shoulder as if talking with him isn’t anything. “Going to school and working. You know.”

“Where are you going?”

“UCLA. Taking business classes.” I blush and shrug the same shoulder; I’m not used to all this attention. I’m used to being in the shadows, listening to everyone else live their lives. Me. I’m too afraid to put myself out there. The only places I’m outgoing are my jobs.

I was more outgoing before Jason died. He was everything to me. My best friend. I told him everything, he was my diary and when Billy wasn’t around, he was my dad. My mom started drinking heavily after he died and now, she puts me down. I don’t make enough to move out but with the amount of money she takes from me to support us and her drinking habit. I don’t know. I don’t want to abandon her, but I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I pay the mortgage on the house which should have been paid off a long time ago, sometimes I wonder if she got another mortgage. I think I’m going to put up a needed roommate sign-up at school.

“Business classes is smart. I went straight into hockey from high school. Didn't have any interest in anything else at the time. Young and stupid ya know?” He rests his hand on his thigh, leaning closer to me. I do too. We’re almost breathing each other's breaths, we’re so close. If he leans a little bit closer, we’ll be kissing. God, I wish.

“I missed seeing you, Lor. Knowing you were following me and then knowing you were safe.”

I’m shocked by his words. I lean closer yet so only the two of us know what we’re saying. Softly. “You did? I thought you hated me for tagging behind you all the time.”

Billy leans back again and laughs at my words, as if I made some joke, “I’m sorry. I had a teenage rep to protect. Bad ass boy. Couldn’t have his little sister around.” He knocks his shoulder against mine in a friendly gesture, not what I’d ever want from him. He thinks of me as a sister. My heart drops to the floor in shreds of disappointment.

I do notice a tightness to the corner of his mouth and the eyes as if this is forced. A full-on chain link cage around his true emotions, hiding them from me. I bite my bottom lip wanting to know how he truly feels about me. Am I the annoying little sister only or more? I somehow need to know.

3

BILLY

I can’t believe my stepsister is the beauty I’m drooling over. I have to get it together. She’s only what? Twenty-one? Way too young for me.

How she’s changed from the little, short-haired tomboy. She’s now a beautiful woman I’m sure has men following her with their tongues hanging out like a kids cartoon show.

The waitress brings our appetizers and drinks. We’re quiet as we eat, pretending there’s no huge white elephant in the room standing between us. I’m thankful for the separation, the time to think, the time to convince my dick to calm down.

I try to remind myself she’s my sister. But the devil on my shoulder reminds me, she’s no relation. She’s no blood. You’ve always been in love with her, now she can be yours.

My conscious fights a great battle with the demon and I’m still not sure who’s going to win. I’m back and forth with this. I was eighteen when our parents married, Lorelei was four. She latched onto me immediately when I moved in. What eighteen-year-old young man wants a four-year-old following him around with his friends and girlfriends?

I’m so deep into myself I don’t notice until Gary pushes a chair on Lorelei’s other side and with an engaging grin on his bruised face from an earlier fight that knocked his helmet off and allowed the fist to meet his face.

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