"You're not dating my stepsister, Chuck." He wasn't being protective of Katie. HeH was being protective of Chuck. Katie was eighteen going on twenty-five, and seemed intent on proving that the sharpest cutting instrument known to humankind was a woman's tongue. Two minutes of his macho bullshit and he'd find himself curled up on the side of the road, crying like a bitch and not even knowing what hit him, his masculinity lying in a nearby ditch, neatly drawn and quartered.
Steve was rinsing the glasses after they'd left when Katie walked into the kitchen. She tossed the sandwich wrapping in the garbage and said, "You know, it's amazing how sound carries in this house."
Oh, shit. Steve braced himself. He had an idea of what was coming, and Katie didn't disappoint. She smiled at him, and he swore he could see the sarcasm dripping off her chin. "'Balls-deep,' huh? What a lovely expression. Misogynist much? Oh, and don't bother trying to hook me up with Chuck." Her expression turned to one of withering scorn. "He sounds like an even bigger asshole than you are."
She started to walk away, then thought better of it. She turned and smiled sweetly. "But that Brandon is a real keeper. I bet
he
wouldn't make me blow him in church."
In a different world, something might have happened between Steve and Katie. They were both attractive people. Steve was six feet tall with body that was well-toned, but not too muscular, and a handsome, fuck-boy face. Katie was a little on the short side, just 5'3", but her shoulder-length curly brown hair framed an adorably cute face, her hazel-blue eyes undoubtedly her best feature. And, as Chuck and Brandon had observed, she looked really good in just a t-shirt and jean shorts. Or in just about anything.
So yes, in a different world something might have happened between them.
There was one problem: they hated each other's last gut.
Steve was no dummy, Dean's List and headed for law school in two years, but whenever the two of them argued - meaning when they spent more than three minutes together - Steve knew he had to bring his A game. He remembered one brutal encounter when they'd been arguing about gender pay equity, and Katie had shut him down by telling him, "Do you know there are more men named John on the Fortune 500 than there are women?"
Every course Katie was taking her senior year in high school had an AP in front of it: advanced placement calculus, advanced placement English, advanced placement biology ... hell, she was probably taking advanced placement gym for all Steve knew.
But he was pretty sure she'd also snuck in a course in advanced placement bitchiness somewhere along the way. Being a smart, pretty teen-age girl isn't exactly a humbling experience. She wasn't mean to other girls, but boys were a different matter. She didn't have much dating experience, mainly because she intimidated the hell out of the other boys in her school. She even chased away the one college kid she'd gone out with a couple of times. She was currently dating some guy named Brian for about three months, the longest relationship she'd had. Katie didn't suffer fools gladly, or much at all.
So when Steve's father called a couple of months later and said that Katie had gotten accepted at State, his immediate thought was to fervently wish for that campus expansion they'd been promising so she could be as far away from him as possible. Opening a satellite campus in, say, Idaho or Uzbekistan, would do, too. Dad interrupted that thought by telling Steve that Katie and her friend Gabbie, who'd also gotten in, wanted to come up to visit the campus to scope it out, and that Katie needed somewhere to stay. That was a problem, Dad explained; the hotels were locked up with the big basketball tournament that weekend. "Can she stay with you? You said Rick always spends the weekend with his girlfriend."
At first Steve thought he meant Gabbie. That didn't sound bad at all. Steve had met Gabbie a few times over the past summer; she was a hot blonde with a set of the nicest breasts in the Western Hemisphere. And she knew it. Her customary attire ran to what Katie referred to as "boob shirts," which displayed enough cleavage to hide a small puppy in. So, yeah, I would have no problem with spending the weekend taking Gabbie to Poundtown, as Chuck would have delicately put it.
Then a shudder coursed through Steve as he realized his father was talking about Katie. Yes, Steve's roommate Rick was absent on weekends, preferring the company of his girlfriend, but Steve would have chosen an Apache torture session over having to put up with Katie for two days.
His resolve melted when his father put Katie's mother Gloria on the phone. Gloria was the sweetest woman Steve had ever met. Steve was convinced that Katie was adopted, or that Gloria had borne her in some kind of
Omen
-like fashion; Katie as the spawn of Satan sounded about right. But Gloria explained in gentle, caressing tones that this was really important for Katie, and Steve finally relented, although he had serious doubts that the two of them could spend 48 hours in the same apartment without exchanging gunfire.
Katie, it turned out, was equally unenthusiastic about the arrangement. When Steve's father and her mother broached the subject, Katie's response was, "Are you crazy? I'd rather be homeless for two days than stay in his apartment."
"Oh, honey, it's just for a couple of days."
Paul gently chided. "Why can't you two just get along?"
"Because he's arrogant and obnoxious, and he treats me like I'm twelve."
"Well, you're not the easiest -" Paul started to say, but a warning glance from Gloria shut that conversation thread down.
But there wasn't much of an alternative. Katie had gotten early placement at State, but that meant she had to let them know by the end of the month, just a couple of weeks away. She wanted to make sure she made the right decision about college. And on the bright side, she thought, she could use her background in biology to spend the next few days figuring out what poisons don't show up on a tox screen.
She and Gabbie arrived early Friday afternoon. Katie had given some thought to hooking Steve up with Gabbie for the weekend so that she could get out of staying with him. Gabbie was sweet and much smarter than the big-breasted airhead blonde that most guys took her for, but she wasn't exactly discriminating when it came to sex. As Katie heard one guy put it when Gabbie was elected Prom Queen last year, "Gabbie puts the prom back into promiscuity." And Gabbie had told Katie on several occasions that she found Steve to be "super-hot."
But Katie realized that pairing wasn't going to work. It's not like she could stay with Gabbie's sister, and to her the only thing worse than staying in Steve's apartment for the weekend was staying in Steve's apartment for the weekend while she spent the night listening to him fucking her friend.
Things didn't go badly after they arrived, mainly because Steve and Katie stayed away from each other. Katie had some interviews that afternoon, and she and Gabbie went out Friday night. When Katie crept back into the apartment sometime after midnight, she could hear Steve snoring as she snuck by his bedroom door, apparently - thank God! - alone. He was gone by the time she woke up on Saturday, and she and Gabbie had scored tickets for the game, so she didn't see Steve again until Saturday night.
She wouldn't be seeing much of him then, either; some guys they'd met at the game had invited them to a frat party. Gabbie showed up at eight, and to Katie's surprise - and Steve's obvious sorrow - she was somewhat modestly attired. If you could call a tight pair of jeans and a v-necked striped t-shirt modest, that is. Then again, Gabbie had the kind of figure that would attract attention if she'd been wearing a nun's habit.
Steve's eyes almost popped out of his head when Katie came out of Rick's room. Even she had to admit she'd overdone things a tad. She was wearing a halter top that, while it didn't display Gabbie-esqe cleavage, wouldn't have people averting their eyes in disgust and loathing, either. The top was complemented by a tiny skirt that hugged her hips about two inches below her bare navel and ended halfway down her thighs.
