I blinked twice but managed a lopsided grin. “That’s an interesting hypothesis. I think we need to conduct further experiments in order to draw viable conclusions.”
My sister reached across the board and shoved me in the shoulder, chuckling and shaking her head.
I looked up into the corner of the room, grasped my chin, and pretended to be deep in thought. “Or perhaps, -I- should attempt to withhold certain privileges you have recently exploited upon my humble personage. For example, I could start to lock my bedroom door and make you sleep alone again.”
“Stop it.”
“I could stop doing our wonderful makeout sessions and you can go back to sending underwear Snapchats to random guys in a desperate plea for attention.”
“Stop it!”
“And you DID say you still had a boyfriend. Maybe you should start having FaceTime sex with him—”
“STOP IT!”
“—because I can always just go to Alex knowing that SHE will put out for—”
“I said STOP IT!” Michelle actually threw a pawn at my face, and it bounced off my forehead.
Still laughing to myself, I finally turned to face my little sister and found that she was not laughing. Her eyes were moist, and she looked genuinely hurt. My jaw dropped, and confused, I started to mutter an apology, but Michelle quickly stood up and walked away, wiping her eyes as she went. A moment later, her thundering steps echoed down the hallway as she practically raced up the stairs, shortly followed by the sound of her bedroom door slamming shut.
A minute later, Alex came into the room and folded her arms across her chest. “What the hell did you do?”
I blinked and raised my hands, palms up. “I don’t know!”
Arching an eyebrow, Alex did a quick survey of the room and then nudged the chessboard on the coffee table while taking a seat in the wing chair recently been vacated by our little sister. I still sat on the couch. “Well I’m pretty sure she’s not mad over losing a game, so I’ll repeat: What the hell did you DO?”
Grimacing, I told her the story about Michelle threatening to withhold sexual stuff in order to get me to do her bidding, followed by my joking around that I’d do the same.
Alex leveled her eyes at me. “But did she seem to get that you were joking?”
I grimaced again. “Apparently not.”
Alex sighed, kicked her feet up onto the coffee table, and shook her head. She looked thoughtful for a moment, then blinked and gave me a serious look. “When are you going to sleep with her?”
I furrowed my eyebrows, not understanding. “We’ve slept together every night this week.”
“I mean fucking,” she stated plainly.
I pursed my lips, leaned back in my chair, and shrugged my shoulders. “I have no idea. Maybe never. I think Chelle’s still hung up on the incest part, to be honest, and as much as she may want to, she can’t quite wrap her head around crossing that line with her big brother.”
“That’s not it,” Alex disagreed, shaking her head. “We’ve talked, a little. I don’t spend nearly as much time with her as you do, but we’ve talked. It’s not the incest thing. If it were, she wouldn’t have blown you Sunday night, or been doing everything else the two of you have been doing the whole week.”
“Maybe’s she’s just not ready.” I shrugged again, pondering, but then suddenly jerked upright. “Waitaminute. You don’t think Chelle is a ... a...”
Alex arched an eyebrow, guessing where I was going with this. “A virgin? No way.”
“What else could it be? She IS a teenager.”
“She’s a senior. High school seniors that gorgeous aren’t virgins.” Alex rolled her eyes.
“How do you know? Neither of us has been home for the past two years, pre-pandemic. We don’t know what she has or hasn’t been doing while we were gone.”
“She’s got a boyfriend,” Alex pointed out. “And high school senior boys don’t stick around to stay boyfriends if their girlfriend isn’t putting out.”
I arched an eyebrow and said sarcastically, “You mean the way Chelle’s boyfriend calls her all the time and drives by the house every few days just so he can see the love of his life through the window? THAT boyfriend?”
Alex frowned and thought about that. “Okay you may have a point...”
“Look, I’m not saying she is a virgin. It DOES make sense that she would’ve lost her cherry at some point in the last couple of years.” I shrugged. “I’m just saying, it would explain a lot about her hesitation, that’s all.”
Alex pursed her lips and mused on that, only now considering it as a real possibility. “Well...” she began. “I suppose it would. But then THAT would mean...”
Her voice trailed off as she suddenly looked up at the ceiling in the vague direction of Michelle’s bedroom. She blinked twice, shook her head quite vigorously in the negative, but then her expression softened as she seemed to re-consider her own thoughts. Blinking twice again, she stared off into space for a moment, and at last turned her attention to me.
I expected her to say something. She didn’t. Alex just continued to stare at me, and the silence went on long enough that I started to get nervous.
But finally, she spoke. “I love you,” she stated rather robotically.
I arched an eyebrow, not understanding, but I readily replied, “I love you, too.”
Leaning forward, Alex put her elbows on her knees and frowned before repeating, this time a little more seriously, “I love you.”
I popped both eyebrows, feeling very much like a lab rat under a microscope. But I took a deep breath, thought about everything I felt for my big sister (including but not limited to the amazing sex), and replied quite warmly, “I love you too, Lex.”
Alex suddenly slapped her hands together and actually pointed at me. “Holy shit! It makes perfect sense!” She sat up straight and grinned widely. I could practically see the light bulb that had gone off above her head.
I blinked, not understanding. “What?”
My sister got out of the wing chair and came to sit beside me on the couch. Placing her hand on my leg, she enthused like a giggling schoolgirl, “Chelley’s in love with you!”
I jerked my head back. “WHAT?”
“Well, infatuated at the very least. It makes total sense! She SAID you had no idea how long she’s been fantasizing about banging you. I’m guessing she was crushing on her big brother even before you went to college. She snuck into your room to check out your package. And when she found out you were banging me, she didn’t have any issues with the incest. Her instinctive first question was to ask what sex felt like!”
I frowned. “Everything you just said points to Chelle wanting to have SEX with me. She’s a horny teenager trapped in a house where I’m the only human being with a penis.”
“That’s what -I- thought.” Alex shook her head. “But then how else do you explain this entire week? All the cuddling and the makeout sessions and the way she’ll randomly hold your hand at the dining table. Think about it! You two are basically having a high school romance right now! But really, it’s the ‘I love you’s’ that cinches it for me. I mean, I love you squirt, I really do. But I’m not IN love with you. There’s a difference in the way I say it versus the way SHE been saying it for the past week. Chelley’s in love with you. AND she’s a virgin.”
Now it was my turn to exclaim, “Holy shit!”
“Dude! You gotta go up there!”
“What, now?”
“Yes, now!”