Stepbrother Dearest
By: Penelope Ward***
The “sweet” Elec was short-lived. A few days after our ice cream social, he showed up at the café where I worked right in the middle of the after school rush. Kilt Café was down the street from our high school and served things like sandwiches, salads and coffee.
If Elec’s showing up wasn’t bad enough, he’d brought with him probably the most beautiful girl in our entire school. Leila was platinum blonde and tall with huge breasts. She was the total opposite of me looks-wise. I had more of a dancer or gymnast’s body. My long strawberry-blonde hair was poker straight and simple as opposed to her big, bouncy Texas-style do. You’d think she’d be a bitch because of her looks, but she was actually really nice.
Leila waved. “Hey, Greta.”
“Hey,” I said as I placed their menus down. Elec gave me fleeting eye contact but was trying not to acknowledge me. I don’t think he knew that I worked there, because I never told him.
A pang of jealousy hit me when I noticed Elec locking Leila’s legs in with his under the table.
I wasn’t sure if Leila realized he was my stepbrother. I never spoke about him to people at school and figured he never mentioned me, either.
“I’ll give you two a few minutes,” I said before walking back toward the kitchen. I watched as Leila reached across the table and planted a kiss on his lips. I felt sick. She pulled on his lip ring with her teeth. It looked like she might have purred. Ugh. I’d never wanted to disappear into thin air so badly.
I reluctantly walked back over to them. “Have you decided what you want?”
Elec glanced over to the chalkboard that listed the daily specials and smirked. “What’s your soup of the day?”
That bastard.
“Chicken.”
“That’s not correct. You’re misrepresenting it.”
“It’s the same thing.”
He repeated, “What’s…the soup…of the day?”
I stared at him long and hard then clenched my jaw. “Cock a Leekie Soup.”
The owner was from Scotland, and apparently, that was a specialty there.
He flashed a mischievous grin. “Thanks. I’ll have the cock soup. Leila?”
“I’ll have the garden salad,” she said, looking back and forth between Elec and me confused.
I took my sweet time before bringing them their food. It didn’t matter to me if the soup was cold.
After a few minutes, Elec lifted his index finger for me to come to the table.
“Yes?” I huffed.
“This cock is leaky. It’s also bland and cold. Can you please replace it and ask the cook to actually put some flavor in it?”
He looked like he was stifling a laugh. Leila was speechless.
I took the soup back to the kitchen and dumped it violently into the sink along with the ceramic cup. Instead of talking to the chef, I had a light bulb moment and decided to take this into my own hands. I grabbed the ladle and put more soup into a new cup. I opened a bottle of hot picante sauce and poured it more than generously into the soup.
It was piping hot in more ways than one now. I walked back out and placed it carefully in front of Elec.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
I walked back over toward the kitchen and waited in the corner to watch him. The anticipation was killing me. His tongue would practically fall off when he got one taste of my specialty.
Elec took the first spoonful. He had no reaction.
How could that be?
He took another spoonful then his eyes sought me out. His mouth curved into a sly smile before he took the entire cup and started drinking the soup like a beverage. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, whispered to Leila and excused himself.
Leila’s back was turned to me when Elec walked over and dragged me by the arm into the dark corridor leading to the bathrooms.
He backed me up against the wall. “You think you’re so smart?” My heart was slamming into my chest. Speechless, I shook my head as he said, “Well, the joke’s on you.”
Before I could respond, Elec grabbed my face with both hands and smashed his lips into mine. The metal from his lip ring scraped my mouth as he nudged it open with his tongue hungrily and started kissing me deep. I moaned into his mouth, both shocked and excited by the ambush of his hot tongue assaulting me. My body was shaking. He smelled amazing. I felt like I was going to collapse from the sensory overload.
