Ruined By My Stepbrother novel · Chapter 13 of 32

Chapter 13: The Towel

My mother held the towel out to me.

"You'll want this," she said.

That was all.

She went up the porch steps and into the house, and the screen door clapped shut behind her.

Glenn twisted around in his chair, beaming, with smoke still hanging over the rooftops.

"Where'd you two go? You missed the whole finale!"

"Ice," Barrett said.

He wasn't holding any ice.

"Bathroom," I said.

My hair was dripping down the back of my sundress.

Glenn looked at both of us with total love and no suspicion at all.

"Next year we get the good spot on the beach," he said. "All four of us."

I drove home with the towel folded on the passenger seat.

I didn't sleep.

I sat in my father's chair by the window and went over it frame by frame.

Had she seen the steam over the shower stall?

Had she heard us?

Or had she just found a wet towel in the grass and picked it up, because she picks things up?

"Hm," she'd said about my coffee.

"You'll want this," about the towel.

My mother spent thirty years telling four-year-olds to use their words, and she'd given me five.

On Sunday I went to dinner at one, because not going would have been louder.

She hugged me the same as always.

She asked about the new boat and the inspector and how many Apologies we'd sold on the Fourth.

She didn't look at Barrett any more or any less than she looked at the ketchup.

It was the most frightening meal of my life.

Glenn had moved the chairs so he could reach the grill, and Barrett sat across from me this time.

Our knees never touched.

I kept both feet flat on the porch boards.

When I left, my mother walked me to the truck.

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