Change of Plans

Finally here. Thanks for your patience!

Part 2

In a lot of ways, it was a hungover morning after like any other. I groggily opened my eyes, scowled as I saw the sunlight streaming through my window and making my head throb, and instinctively reached over to grab my phone and check it.

Then I noticed that my arm was bare -- I was naked, not wearing my pajamas. I looked down the bed and saw my clothes from the day before strewn everywhere. And right in the center of my sheets, a sizeable wet patch.

All of a sudden, the memories came flooding back.

Charley and I had sex last night.

I groaned and shut my eyes, turning onto my back.

How on Earth did this end up happening? I know it had been an...

eventful

week, but surely there were a few steps we skipped in between walking in on each other masturbating and actually fucking?

Did Charley like me now? Wait... had she liked me the whole time, too? That seemed unlikely given my physical traits and lapdog personality as a kid, but what the hell did I know anymore? No, it was probably just a drunken misstep, but I just couldn't stop my mind racing. New thoughts were being generated faster than my hungover brain could deal with them.

Unfortunately, I wasn't going to get the chance to organize said thoughts. I heard a knock on my door, and it didn't take a genius to figure out who it was.

"Just a second!" I yelped. I quickly got up, scrambled over to my wardrobe and threw on some clothes. After a failed attempt to fix my bed head in the mirror, I sighed and ran over to the door.

Sure enough, when I opened it, there she was. "We need to talk," Charley said.

Just seeing her triggered my fight or flight. I wasn't even close to being prepared for this conversation. "Ah... okay."

She strode over and sat down at the edge of my bed, and I cautiously sat beside her, my heart pounding. She looked like she'd been awake for a while -- hair brushed, light face makeup and fresh clothes, an ensemble which I was relieved to see did not include a pink crop top. She was back to her usual pristine self -- a far cry from the beautiful, red-faced mess she'd been last night.

She cleared her throat. "So. Last night."

I stood up quickly. This was too much. "Charley, I don't think I can -"

"Sit down," she ordered.

I sat down.

"It had been a... strange week," she began. "We were very drunk. It was a huge mistake, of course... but it doesn't have to be a big deal. We're both reasonable adults and we can be mature about this."

Always the rational one.

I just nodded. I didn't trust my voice to come out as anything except a squeak.

Unfortunately, it didn't seem like she had anything else to say either. After a few seconds of awkward silence, she turned to me and shot me an exasperated look. "Are you gonna say something?"

Uh oh.

I gulped. "What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know! Anything. How are you feeling about all this?"

I groaned inwardly. "I honestly have no idea. This is all insane, Charley."

"Well... I need you to help me figure it out, okay?" She sighed. "This is all came

so

unbelievably far out of left field."

"Okay, okay..." I began, taking a deep breath. "I agree with you, pretty much -- it

had

been a really strange week. Honestly, I hadn't expected you to fly home at all, and then I walked in on you touching yourself... it threw me off, to say the least." I remembered her questions last night. "And I think you already know that my actions later that day were not entirely unrelated."

She nodded, and I winced. The crazy events of last night lessened my individual embarrassment, but knowing that my stepsister was aware I had masturbated to her was still not the best feeling in the world.

"Anyway," I continued. "Then we're sitting on the balcony last night, and you keep bringing up the masturbating and weirdly complimenting me, and so when you kissed me out of nowhere-"

"Uh, what? When

I

kissed

you

?" she interrupted. "Please."

"Believe me, my memory of the moment is pretty vivid. You initiated it. Trust me, you never forget your first kiss with your stepsister."

She gave me a look, clearly not appreciating my joke. "Whatever. You were saying?"

"Right... so yeah, we were both super drunk and you kissed me, I had already been feeling weird emotions and got swept away in the moment, we had awkward, amazing sex and here we are the morning after." I grimaced, realizing I'd been rambling. "Extremely hungover."

Charley paused, looking at the floor. "You thought it was amazing?" she asked quietly.

I felt my face grow hot. 'I mean... it wasn't bad. I think." I hadn't even really considered whether it had felt good for her whatsoever. "Right? Was it just me?"

"No." She blushed too. "I know I said I'd been getting a bit of action at Stanford, but actually it's kind of... been a while. I broke up with my ex last November and haven't done anything since then. Too busy. So yeah, it hit a little different for me. I'm sure it's similar for you."

"Uh, yes," I replied. Now didn't seem the best time to bring up that last night had actually been my first time ever.

She went silent for a moment, and when she spoke again, there was something new in her voice. "The important thing is, you don't want to ever do it again, right?" she asked.

Her question felt like an electric shock. If I didn't know her, I would have guessed from her words and tone that she was asking that question to confirm that like her, I also didn't want to.

But I

did

know her. "But... you do?" The realization almost made my brain explode.

Charley wants to hook up with me. Again.

A drunk mistake is one thing, but to sit here the morning after and want to make that same mistake again... I could feel my head begin to throb.

Her eyes widened after I saw through her meaning. "No! I don't think so..." She hesitated. "I was just really horny, and it was really good, and I was just thinking that it's not like it would ruin my plans or anything."

Jesus Christ. I couldn't believe she had actually considered whether having sex with her stepbrother again would fit into her plan or not. And yet, knowing Charley, I guess it really wasn't that surprising.

"We're adults, right?" she continued. "And we're not

actually

related. I mean, stepsiblings can legally get married."

My heart stopped. "What?"

She saw what I was thinking and slapped my leg lightly. "I'm not saying I want to marry you, you moron. I'm just saying that if getting married isn't wrong, then surely sleeping together occasionally wouldn't..." She stopped and laid her head in her hands, groaning quietly.

I instinctively wanted to rub her back, but at the same time I didn't think touching of any kind would help given the circumstances. "... you okay?"

"I just realized that I was genuinely trying to convince my little brother to fuck me again." She chuckled painfully. "What's wrong with me?"

I took a deep breath. "There's nothing wrong with you. And you're not wrong, what we did really wasn't that bad."

She lifted her head and looked at me, catching my tone. "But we can't do it again."

A small voice in the back of my head screamed at me for being such an idiot. I mean, I had fantasized about something like this happening for literally my entire childhood.

But the rational part of me fought back. I remembered those times I'd thought about her, all the guilt that had caused. How

unbelievably

shitty it felt to walk up to her, Mum and Dad everyday like everything was normal. Like I wasn't violating her in my mind. It wasn't just because she was any other girl I couldn't have.

We were literally family. I mean, Charley and I weren't actual siblings, but... we really kind of

were

. It felt like that at least. And that meant that as annoying as it was, this would never stop feeling wrong.

"Yeah." I breathed out. "It would not be a good idea. I mean, we have an... alright relationship, right? It wouldn't be smart to mess with that. And this isn't even considering what would happen if Mum and Dad found out."

"Oh my god." She grimaced and looked up at the ceiling. "I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to look them in the eye again."

Welcome to the club.

I didn't know how to respond to that, so I just sat there silently.

Looking over, I watched as she sat leaning back, staring at the ceiling light and breathing deeply. And I couldn't help but flash back to when she was doing the same thing last night, only in very different circumstances -- sat up and hugging me, our bodies tightly pressed together as we both came. When I had looked up at her, I had thought that she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

And somehow here and now, even with all the awkwardness, I thought the exact same thing. And I could feel my trousers becoming tighter.

Goddamn it, Luke.

Finally, she spoke. "I think the best thing to do is just to stay out of each other's way for a few days." She turned to face me, and my chest tightened.

Why does she do this to me?

I was rapidly losing my self-control. "I don't know if we'll ever be able to actually forget this ever happened, but we can at least --"

I leaned in and kissed her deeply. After a second of surprise, she folded and started kissing me back, and now that I was sober, I was a million times more aware of every spectacular sensation.

Jesus, why does this feel so incredible?

It took a herculean effort to break the kiss before it progressed any further. I rested my forehead against hers. "Fuck... I'm sorry."

"Okay," she breathed. "That time was definitely you."

I groaned and pulled away, resting my head in my hands like she had earlier, as I tried to calm myself down.

Beside me, Charley coughed. "And you're sure you don't want to..."

"Yes." I dug my fingernail into my palm as hard as I could, trying to force myself to be smart about this. "I'm sure."

She took a few moments, steadying herself. "Good. Well... as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, we won't forget but we can move on. We're not in love or anything, we just drunkenly slept together once. It's not a big deal if we don't want it to be."

I sighed. "Yeah. Cool."

"Right. Well, like I said, no contact for a little while." She fell silent, and we both sat there awkwardly for a few seconds, unsure of where to go from here. "Um... see you later, I guess."

She stood up, brushed herself off, and quickly walked out.

*****

So, we had both agreed to avoid each other for a bit -- stay out of each other's territory. The problem was, Charley's territory was not only pretty much the whole house, but also the entirety of London. And that meant more time cooped up in my room, which was starting to get a bit grating, even for me.

Being alone with my thoughts right now wasn't helping. Had I made the right decision when I told Charley we shouldn't ever do it again? Surely, yes -- us starting some secret, borderline incestuous love affair opened us up to a whole host of potential problems. But on the other hand, I'd had a crush on her my whole life, and as you can imagine recent events hadn't helped with my plan to move on from her. I kept thinking about how incredible that night had felt. Was I an idiot for giving up the opportunity to do that again?

Anyway, now I had plenty of time to go in circles trying to answer these questions in my head. And now that there was no Friday party on the horizon that would alleviate my incel behavior, my parents were starting to give me grief.

The Monday after my talk with Charley, my stepmum came knocking on my door.

She walked in, and immediately grimaced. "Ugh, it's a pig sty in here." She sniffed. "And it smells... ripe, to say the least."

"I appreciate the constructive criticism. I'll get on it real soon, I promise." I swung my chair to face her a flashed her a sarcastic smile.

"It's really not healthy to hole up in here constantly, Luke."

I sighed. "It's the holiday. It's not that deep." I wasn't about to let her in on the fact that the real reason I wasn't leaving my room was because I had drunkenly slept with her only daughter and was now avoiding her.

She muttered something under her breath and walked out, shaking her head. I had a feeling this wasn't over.

Sure enough, that weekend there was another knock on my door.

"Come in," I sighed, preparing myself for more nagging. But it wasn't my Mum or Dad that walked in. As soon as I saw the flash of blonde hair, I averted my eyes and looked up at the ceiling. "Uh... hello, Charley."

"Hey."

"Um... what can I do for you?" I coughed, wincing at how awkward I was being.

"Very formal," she remarked, one eyebrow raised. "I just came to see if you wanted to come to this party tonight. One of my old school friends is hosting."

"Oh." Weren't we supposed to be avoiding each other? "And... why exactly did you decide to invite me?"

She shrugged. "It's probably only going to be people from my year coming. You might know some of them, want to catch up."

Now that was far-fetched. She knew I'd only had six friends in school, and all of them were from my year's football team. "Mum told you to, didn't she?"

Charley looked away. Or at least it looked like she did, out of the corner of my eye. "You got me."

"Great. Well, you don't have to worry -- I'll tell her you begged me to go, but I told you to piss off and let me rot."

"No," she sighed. "You should come. We can't just avoid each other for the rest of our lives. It's time to push through and move on."

Why not? We've done it for the past four years, no problem.

But I didn't say that. Truthfully, despite the fact that I hadn't sorted my feelings out yet, I wanted to go. If only to get my parents off my back.

"Okay," I said. "When are we leaving?"

"We're not going together. Unless you want to leave right now and spend two hours sitting around while we do our hair and makeup."

Two hours?? Luckily, I knew better than to comment on that absurd amount of time. "Alright, sure. So, when should I get there?"

"Around ten. I'll text you the address. And don't come empty handed, bring beer or something."

I rolled my eyes. "Thanks professor, I know house party etiquette. I'll see you then."

She gave me a small smile and left.

I sighed and rested my head in my hands.

Are we really ready for this?

We hadn't even looked each other in the eyes once during that whole conversation.

I took a deep breath.

No. You got this Luke.

I knew there would be alcohol. And I knew that Charley was so popular that she'd likely be flitting around all night, trying to find the time to greet a hundred people.

There was no pressure for this to be a massive turning point to put us back on track. Baby steps -- first, we needed to show we could spend an evening in the same area. Of course, in order to make it all go smoothly I was going to pre-game

hard.

And so, five hours later I was standing in front of a pretty sizeable house in North London holding a six pack of Asahi, already pretty drunk.

A girl I didn't know opened the door and immediately gasped. "Oh my god, Charley. Your stepbrother's kind of cute."

Charley came up behind her and rolled her eyes. "Please don't be weird."

"I'm just saying, I never thought I was into younger guys, but..." The girl raised her eyebrow as she looked me up and down.

"Awful," Charley sighed. She shot me an apologetic look, but we ended up eyeing each other for a moment too long and both had to avert our gaze awkwardly.

Clearly, I didn't pre enough.

"Sorry Luke, just messing with Charley." the girl laughed. "I'm Abigail. You remember me from school, right?"

Obviously I didn't, but I smiled and nodded anyway. "Yeah. Nice to see you again."

"Well, come on in." I followed them both inside, while Abigail gave me a quick tour. "Kitchen -- you can get a drink in there. Everyone's in the living room, There's one toilet down here, and the stairs here lead to the bedrooms and another toilet." She pointed at each of them in turn. "I'm hoping at your age, you won't find anyone to use any of the bedrooms with tonight."

"I'm twenty," I laughed.

"Aww. Just a baby," she giggled. Charley didn't care to comment on that apparently and was checking something on her phone.

Abigail quickly glanced at her to confirm she wasn't paying attention and leaned in close. "

I wasn't joking about the cute part though,

" she whispered.

Apparently, she hadn't been as sneaky as she'd thought, because now Charley turned around and stepped between us. "Right -- that's enough. Abigail, go call your parents or something and reevaluate your life."

Abigail laughed and held her hands up, winking at me as she walked off. "He's all yours."

Charley turned away, but not before I saw her blushing slightly at Abigail's last comment. I couldn't blame her, given recent events. "Luke, come grab a drink and I'll introduce you to some of my more... respectable friends."

Once we made it to the kitchen, she sighed as she poured me a vodka lemonade and topped off her own drink. "Thanks for coming. I think it'll be good for us."

I smiled at her, doing my best to hide my doubt. "Yeah. I think so too."

She looked up and smiled back at me, and in that moment, I appreciated the two hours she and her friends had spent getting ready.

She looked incredible. She'd curled her shoulder length blonde hair, and it framed her face perfectly. Her cheeks were tinted red, though from alcohol or makeup I couldn't tell, and her lips were a deep shade of scarlet. Her black eyeshadow framed her almond shaped, light brown eyes. Smoky hot yet somehow still classy -- just like her to pull some shit like that off.

Luckily, I didn't have time to form any inappropriate thoughts about my stepsister. Drinks now made, Charley took me by the arm and led me into the living room, where a crowd of people had already amassed. We walked up to a group of five or six people standing near the fireplace.

"Hey everyone," Charley announced as we joined them. "This is my little brother, Luke."

One of the guys, good-looking with frizzy brown hair, smiled at me. "Oh shit, the stepbrother, right? I'm James. I was on the football team in school, Charley said you were too. Yeah, we heard about you guys three years below, you were pretty good."

I nodded. "Nice to meet you. Yeah, we weren't so bad. But you guys went undefeated in your last season, no?

He shrugged, feigning modesty. "Eh, what can I say? We did alright for ourselves."

"If only you could have replicated that in your A-levels," Charley commented.

James laughed. "Uncalled for, man."

The other people around the circle introduced themselves. All nice enough, but very much people I would never have met or talked to in my time at school.

Just then, the doorbell rang. "Oh. that's probably Eloise, I should go say hi," Charley said. She shot me an apologetic glance and rushed off to greet another member of her legion of friends.

James draped an arm around my shoulder. "Guessing you don't really know anyone here?"

I laughed nervously. "Yeah, not so much."

"No worries man, we'll look after you. Can't imagine it's easy being Charley's younger brother."

I shook my head. "Oh, you don't know the half of it."

The next few hours were pretty much standard house party stuff -- a whole bunch of introductions to people whose names you'll forget a minute later, followed by meaningless small talk, made bearable only with copious amounts of alcohol.

I hung out with James and his friends for a bit, only to find them dispersed after I came back from the kitchen after refilling my drink. I kind of floated around the living room, talking to anyone who I may have recognized, my voice getting hoarse from trying to tell people my university degree time and time again over the blasting music. After a while, I met up with James again and he introduced me to a couple other people from his football team.