than Lindsey and her big mouth. As I forded the river again, the water up to my waist this time, I felt a stab of nervous energy spike through my core. I held my pack up above my head to make sure it didn’t get wet, and I knew that I was a target for anyone watching the border. I’d be an easy target, splashing around as fast as I could with my pack up in the air. There was nobody around for miles, or at least as far as I could tell, and I hadn’t seen so much as a deer during my entire walk.
Still, someone could easily wander along and spot me. If that ever happened, everything would be over.
My luck held, though, and I was across without incident. I set out immediately for the campsite, knowing full well that I would get there in plenty of time.
I wondered again how Becca would take it if she knew that I was a drug smuggler. Worrying about the morality of the whole thing was probably a waste of time, but during long hikes in the middle of the wilderness I couldn’t help but let my mind wander over that shit. Becca always had a strong sense of right and wrong, although I didn’t know where the line fell for her. If only she could understand what it was like during those first years, how bad Mom was doing, how the bills just kept piling up higher and higher with no end in sight, maybe she would understand. The stress of buying drugs and paying hospitals and of fighting with insurance companies to cover what we needed only made Mom way worse.
I did what I had to do for my family. I always would. I couldn’t stand by and let a thing like money threaten my mother’s recovery.
A man couldn’t be a man if he wasn’t willing to sacrifice, to fuck shit up in the name of keeping his family safe.
Soon, I got to the campground with plenty of time and sat down on my usual picnic table to strip off my shoes and socks. The sun felt good on my face as I leaned back and waited for the black cars to suddenly show up with their gangsters and their drugs.
As I sat there, river water dripping from my clothes, I remembered the walk back to our house with Becca. After an hour of just lying there, we stood up and dressed, heading back slowly toward the house.
I had wanted to tell her everything. I’d wanted to tell her what she made me feel when she walked into the room, how my dick stirred almost every time she came near, how hungry I was for her body. I wanted to take her again then and there, over and over, until she walked crooked and I could barely breathe. I was starving for her in a way I had never experienced before, and getting a taste of her pussy had only made it worse.
With so many women before her, one night had been enough. One night and I was tired of the boring, vapid girls that kept going after me. And because I was successful at climbing, that made me popular in a small town like Ridgewood. For a long time I had no trouble getting girls back into my room and doing what I wanted with them. And after I got it, I didn’t need it again.
But Becca was different. She had staying power. She was still lodged deep in my skull, despite getting inside her.
But as we walked back toward the house, I didn’t say any of that and she didn’t say anything either. We hiked in silence, hardly looking at each other, almost as if it were awkward. I could practically hear her brain screaming out about us being stepbrother and stepsister, but that never mattered to me. Those were just words. Our parents may have gotten married but that didn’t mean a thing to me. We weren’t really siblings. I wanted what I wanted and that was enough.
Once we got back to the house, I heard my mom moving around the kitchen, cooking dinner, and her dad was watching a baseball game on TV. She looked at me and frowned.
“Keep it between us,” she whispered.
“What am I going to do, go inside and announce to your dad that I just gave you the best orgasm of your life?”