Chapter 1
Chris never imagined he'd find himself out of work at the age of forty and certainly never thought he'd end up homeless, but five months into the great pandemic of 2020, both of those things happened. First, the restaurant where he'd spent the past decade building himself up from bartender to manager closed its doors (three months later the landlord changed the locks and put the space back on the market), and then his landlord started eviction proceedings against him, claiming he intended to rent the seventeen hundred dollar a month loft to his niece, a convenient excuse that opened a loophole in regards to evicting tenants during the pandemic.
Having worked all of his adult life, he'd never missed a month's rent and it had been two decades since he'd last had to worry about where his next cheque was coming from . . . or where he'd live.
All four of his parents (natural and extended) were living in assisted living and unable to take him in even if they'd wanted to. In fact, the only person who could take him in was his brother, who lived halfway across the country and had five kids of his own to contend with. So, on Chris' last day in his apartment, surrounded by his belongings packed into cardboard boxes and ready for the storage unit, he made a last ditch effort to find a place to stay in the form of a "Hail-Mary" attempt on social media, pleading to anyone and everyone who knew him for a place to stay, even temporarily.
He hadn't really expected anyone to come to his rescue, but if he had it would have been anyone other than his step-sister, Jennifer. His jaw nearly hit the floor when she responded in a private message. He hadn't seen or even spoken to her in years, mostly by her choice, and she was just about the last person in the whole world he'd have expected to take him in. Just seeing her name on the screen filled him with guilt and shame over what he'd done, how his teenage infatuation with her had led to his disgrace. She and her husband, Sean, had done rather well for themselves; she, as a travelling sales rep for a bug pharmaceutical company, and he as an executive at her father's company. Together they had a beautiful four bedroom home in an affluent little suburb on the outskirts of town. Though Chris had never actually seen it, his mother had told him it was a million dollar property with an inground pool and a huge outdoor patio for entertaining. It had taken Chris years of effort to stop thinking about her, and the mere sight of her message brought back all those old feelings of shame. He wasn't even sure he could handle speaking to her online after all this time, never mind living in her home for weeks or possibly months. If he'd ANY other option, he'd have taken it, but as the hours he had left in his apartment ticked away, there was no other choice.
He responded to her instant message, his figurative hat in hand, sure that he was making a huge mistake. As he messaged her back to say that he was accepting her kind offer, he waited for her to add some sort of caveat or a warning of some sort, but she didn't. Instead she said only that she was looking forward to seeing him and told him to "come on over."
Chris spent the rest of the afternoon moving furniture out of his apartment and into a rented utility trailer, and then from the trailer into a storage unit. When only his personal belongings packed into cardboard boxes remained, he loaded them into the trailer and the back seat of his car, and said goodbye to the apartment he'd called home for the past ten years. Leaving knowing it was the last time he'd see the place was hard, and he had a good cry on the drive over to Jennifer's house, but as he got closer he forgot all about it and put his mind to what he would say to Jennifer when he saw her.
He pulled up to her beautiful home with his meager belongings in tow, continuing to fight the urge to turn around and drive away. He'd nearly decided to do just that, to drive away and message Jennifer from a couple blocks away to say he'd changed his mind or a non-existent situation had come up at the last minute, when she appeared in the driveway before him. She was just as beautiful as he remembered. Her long blonde hair . . . the way her freckled cheeks complimented her brown eyes. She'd put on a little weight since he'd last seen her, but it had landed in all the right places. Though she'd changed over the years, he could still clearly see the young woman who'd captured his heart so many years ago.
She greeted him with a warm hug before standing back to get a good look at him. "Look at you!" she laughed. "Were you always this tall and good looking?!?"
Blushing and feeling a familiar twinge in his pants at her scent, he returned the favor,
"Great to see you too, Jennifer. You look amazing . . . and this house, you guys have really done well for yourselves."
Ignoring the compliment on her appearance, she looked back at the house, "Yeah it's nice, too bad I only get to see it a few times a month. Well come on in, I'll show you where you'll be staying."
Jennifer walked on ahead of him and Chris' eyes dropped involuntarily to her ass for a moment. Three seconds . . . that's how long he'd managed to act like a decent human being in her presence before reverting back to lusting over her. Cursing himself, he averted his eyes and tried not to think of all the mental images he had of her locked in the dark vault of his mind. As a teenager, he'd wanted her so badly that it'd actually caused him physical pain to be around her. The truth was, she was probably the most beautiful woman he'd ever personally known, the kind of woman who'd never give him so much as a glance if they weren't related somehow, just being within arms reach of her after all this time was making his dick hard. And, for that, he was ashamed.
Desperate to occupy his mind with something other than her perfect ass, he commented on how nice her yard and gardens were, to which she replied, "Meh . . . we pay a guy to look after it for us, Sean and I don't have the time." She said it as though the idea of tending to a garden or mowing the lawn left a bad taste in her mouth, and it reminded Chris of how she'd never been a fan of menial labor like mowing the lawn or folding laundry, In all likelihood, she probably had a maid or someone cleaning the house and running her laundry, as those kinds of chores were beneath her.
He followed Jennifer up to the house and past two new-looking sedans (a BMW for her, and a Mercedes for him), and she opened the side door and held it open for him, gesturing for him to go ahead of her. "Come on in," she said, smiling in a way that made him hurt.
He felt himself getting hard again and he gave her a wide berth as he stepped inside, terrified he might accidentally brush up against her and cum in his pants.
The inside of her house was as cold as a tombstone and spotless, almost like a picture from a magazine; particularly her kitchen which looked as sterile as a hospital operating room. The appliances were all finished in stainless steel, and there wasn't a single finger print or smudge to be found. It occurred to Chris just then that the kitchen alone likely cost more than everything he owned, the majority of which was sitting outside in a rented utility trailer.
Through the kitchen, he saw that the living room was decked out in soft leather sofas and recliners all angled towards the massive 100 inch flat screen mounted on the wall. Everything in the house looked expensive and expertly placed to be as functional as it was pleasing to the eye, and Chris was certain that Jennifer had to have paid someone a lot of money to decorate for her.
"This place," he said in awe, "is really incredible."
"Thanks," she said dismissively. None of these things impressed her, and it made him wonder what would.
He remembered that Jennifer's grandmother had bought her a brand new car (a fully loaded Acura) as a graduation present. True to her nature, Jennifer was able to convince the old lady into returning the car for another under the guise that she didn't like the color, which was navy blue. What she ended up getting instead was a brand new BMW that cost 20k more than the Acura had, and goddamn if it wasn't blue.
