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  STEPBROTHER GAMES (THE BET BOOK 1)

  BY JESSIE VALENTINE

  Copyright 2015 Jessie Valentine, all rights reserved.

  No part of this work may be reproduced without written consent of the author. This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  NOTE: This book is for a mature audience only due to strong language and strong sexual conduct. ALL CHARACTERS DEPICTED IN THIS BOOK ARE 18 OR OVER.

  Chapter One

  It all starts with a bet. A bet so cruel that anyone who would take part in it must be heartless. That’s what I kept telling myself whenever he was close to me, whenever I felt like maybe anything that we were feeling was real. It was just a game to him. A disgusting game. And me? I was just the poor girl picked.

  Who would even take on a bet that involved seducing their stepsister? Someone who has no morals. That’s who. Someone terrible. That’s who.

  Yes, I was spying on him. Yes, I would linger secretly while he hooked up with girls, imagining that one day maybe I could be one of them. And it might sound creepy, or like I was obsessed with him, but the truth is that I was obsessed with him, even if I couldn’t admit it back then. And Karma’s a bitch, but I didn’t deserve this. This was on a whole new level.

  I had hated my stepbrother for as long as I could remember. And in girl talk that means I had wanted my stepbrother for as long as I could remember. Even when he wasn’t my stepbrother, but just my next-door neighbor, I had worshiped Zane from afar. He had the whole dark and dangerous thing going on that me and every other girl in the world so badly wanted a piece of. When our parents announced they were dating at the beginning of freshman year, nothing really changed. And when they announced they were getting married sophomore year, again, nothing really changed.

  Unless you count Zane paying a little more attention to me in the halls at school change. And when I say attention, I mean he would wave at me from a crowd of people shouting things like “there’s my sister!” or “hey sis! See you at family game night tonight!” We didn’t even have a family game night. His friends would burst out laughing. It was clear that I was a big joke to him, like he thought the whole thing was hilarious. I felt like a outcast as it was in my grade. I had started school a year later than my peers when I was younger due to my mom not “thinking I was ready.” Also known as her not thinking I was ready. Zane wasn’t any older than me, but he loved the power of pretending he was just because he was a grade ahead of me.

  Our parents were married right away, a very small ceremony on the beach, and Zane and his father moved in with us within a few weeks after, halfway through my sophomore year, and halfway through his junior. If I’m being honest me spying on Zane and his friends started right away.

  It’s not like I tried to do it. It started on accident, at first. And then it became almost an obsession. A need. I would depend on it and wait on it. Sitting in my secret spot for hours, sometimes, waiting for them to come. Waiting to hear what they would talk about today.

  By the time my 18th birthday rolled around it was worse than ever. I was only a junior when Zane was already 18 and halfway through his senior year. I was older than everyone else in my grade and had no friends my own age. I felt alone more than ever, and the more alone I felt, the more I wanted to live through him and the great life that I felt like I would never have myself.

  My secret spot was more like a closet than a room. It started at the very top of the stairs that led down to our basement. If you took one step down on the right side of the wall there was a trick wall that popped open if you pushed on it gently. My dad had added it when he originally built the house, I think for safety reasons, but that’s never how he expressed it to me. He called it our special place for as long as I could remember.

  You could tap the wall and step inside shutting it behind you, taking a separate narrow staircase down to the room that was technically in the basement but hidden behind the walls. It wasn’t very big, more the size of a walk in closet, but it made me feel special when I was little, like my dad was sharing a secret with me that no one else knew about. We’d camp out with snacks and Disney movies, hide there and listen to my mom working out downstairs, giggling about how she didn’t know we were there.

  Of course now I know my mom probably knew exactly where we were, and could here everything, but it was still fun to pretend at the time. After my dad died I would go down there just to be alone, just to feel close to him, just to feel like me and him still had a secret together even after his death.

  My trips down there became less and less over time, but one day after school I was missing my dad more than I had in a long time. I came home from school and crawled down there, wanting to feel close to him.

  That’s when it started. Our basement had been finished, and the bottom floor was turned into a party room of sorts. Big screen T.V., pool table, huge sofas and chairs, a mini fridge, and various games and workout equipment.

  Zane would often come home with his friends, grab a bunch of food, and zoom past me with his boys like I didn’t exist. And that’s what they did on this day. Only on this day I wasn’t in the kitchen or in my room doing homework. On this day I was in my secret spot where I could hear everything they said.

  I didn’t mean to do it. But once it started, I couldn’t stop. I would race home after school, get into my secret room, and wait. Wait for Zane to bring his friends home so I could listen to what they said.

  Sometimes it was nothing, just jokes and video games, but sometimes it was more. They would talk about what girls they hooked up with that weekend, the best weed they had just gotten, or how wild a party had been the previous day. It was like being a part of a world that I had only dreamed of. It was like being an actual member of the popular crowd.

  And I learned so many of their secrets in that secret room too. I knew who was cheating on their boyfriend or girlfriend, who was coming to school drunk, and who was doing what drugs. It made me look at people differently; it made me want to know more and more about their life.

  I know it sounds creepy. Me huddled in a little room listening to the lives of people who probably had no idea I exist, but it made me feel alive somehow. Like I was somehow living through these people who had so much going on when I had nothing.

  I became dependent on it. I couldn’t stop, even when I knew it was wrong.

  Zane would bring girls home sometimes too. He had tons of friends who were girls. They would come, sometimes in groups, sometimes alone. Sometimes just to talk or hang out, but most of the time to hook up. On those days I would freeze, scared that any sound would blow my cover. Worried that somehow I would become discovered.

  I would hear them making out, and then the sounds of whatever else they did. I would find myself wishing it was me and imagining what it would be like to ever be that close to a man, especially one who looked like Zane.

  It was humiliating and creepy. And boarder line crazy, if not full on psychotic. I knew that, but a part of me didn’t care. I couldn’t bring myself to stop it. I didn’t want to stop it. I had no intention of stopping it.

  But that’s the thing about doing something you know is wrong, it’s a dangerous line, and if you aren’t careful it could blow up in your face. And that’s exactly what happened to me.

  The day that I overheard the worst possible thing I could have.

  The day the bet first came into play.

  Chapter Two

  I’m in my secret spot, slowly eating a pack of cheese crackers that I grabbed out of the pantry before I came down here. I usually just grabbed whatever I wanted to eat fast and brought it down here with me. I never know how much time I had before Zane comes home. Sometimes it’s minutes; s
ometimes it’s a few hours, depending on what his friends and him did after school.

  I’m in mid-chew when I hear the front door slam and the sound of footsteps above me. It was show time. A few seconds later the sound of shoes on the basement steps makes me toss the crackers on the floor and sit up straight in the chair that I had dragged down here a few months before. The room was clean and had carpet but all the sitting on the floor had started to cramp up my legs.

  “I can’t believe you, dude. No way in hell it happened.” A hear a voice say from the bottom of the basement steps. I recognize it as Troy Douglas, captain of the basketball team and one of Zane’s best friends.

  I’ve gotten pretty good at keeping track of who everyone is based off of their voices. The usual people were easy to recognize by now, and Troy was definitely a regular.

  “I’m telling you, it was going down.” Zane says now, the sound of his laughter bouncing off the basement walls. “And by it, I mean she was going down.”

  They all laugh loudly like Zane had just said the funniest thing in the world. I roll my eyes; it was language I was all too used to hearing in the privacy of my little room. They were guys, and spying on guys meant that I had to get used to guy talk.

  “I’m afraid I have to side with Troy on this one, it just seems too unlikely.” The third voice belongs to Ben Cummings, a usual in Zane’s crowd, but I had only seen him at the house a handful of times. It almost seemed like him and Zane had some unspoken tension between the two of them. I got the vibe that they were almost in competition with each other, like they had something to prove. More from Ben than Zane; but there just the same.

  Zane lets out an annoyed sigh. “It’s unbelievable how you guys still doubt me, have I ever let you down before? Ever steered you wrong in the past?”

  Troy laughs again, louder this time.

  “There’s no way,” Ben sounds sure, like Zane is completely full of shit. “She’s way too into her boyfriend. She’s probably already planning their fucking wedding, man.”

  “Oh, she is.” Troy adds. “She has an album and everything. I overheard her telling Shelly Perkins about it one day in gym.”

  I hear the sound of the T.V. turning on.

  “Hello! Try to stay on topic here,” Zane says, sounding annoyed, like he can’t believe anyone would doubt what he’s saying.

  “The topic being your made up fantasies?” Ben snickers, causing Troy to start cracking up, too.

  “No, the topic being that Jessica Boulanger totally sucked my dick after the game last night. In my car! In the school parking lot for fucking sake!”

  He delivers more and more information, clearly trying to shock his friends. I’m not sure if it’s working on them or not, but it’s definitely working on me. In the parking lot of the school was a new low, even for Zane. He still managed to surprise me, even when I thought I had heard it all.

  I find the same pit forming in my stomach that forms every time Zane talks about hooking up with a girl, or every time I’m secretly hidden away in here listening to him have his way with a girl. It starts off small, like a tiny pain, and then gross bigger and bigger causing my stomach to feel like it’s going to lunge up in my chest and explode at any moment.

  I understood their disbelief. Jessica Boulanger was definitely not the type to be sucking anyone’s dick, especially not Zane’s dick, and especially not in the school parking lot. Jessica Boulanger was a good girl. A good girl who happened to have a boyfriend of four years, they had literally been together since seventh grade, and the idea that she cheated on him was highly unlikely.

  But if anyone could pull it off, it was Zane.

  Troy’s still laughing, choosing not to comment, but Ben seems like he’s growing more and more annoyed. Like he thinks Zane should just let it go and come to terms with the fact that it never happened.

  “No way in hell, Zane. We are talking about the same Jessica, right? Tall? Kind of looks like a bird? Always walks around talking about how amazing her boyfriend is?” Ben sounds exasperated, like this story is getting old.

  Zane doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, like he’s trying to decide if he should say bring something up or not. All I can hear is some game playing on the T.V. and the sound of Troy’s laughter, softer now, but still there.

  “Okay, I didn’t want to have to do this, but I see I’m going to have to.” Zane finally speaks again, and I can hear the sound of fumbling like he’s searching for something. “If it didn’t happen, why was she texting me all morning freaking out that I was going to tell her boyfriend?”

  There’s nothing for a few seconds, and I assume Troy and Ben are looking at Zane’s phone, trying to put together the pieces from the texts that are on his screen.

  After a few more beats, Troy starts howling, and I hear the sounds of high fiving and laughing. “You are the king, my man, I must admit.”

  Ben huffs loudly. “It’s not that impressive, Troy, she’s not even that good looking.”

  “She was pretty enough that you tried to hook up with her after homecoming last year,” Troy tells him, like maybe he forgot.

  “I did not.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, ” Ben snaps.

  “Who gives a fuck about homecoming last year?” Zane says, sounding annoyed that somehow the topic got off of him and what he had accomplished. “We’re talking about last night and the fact that Jessica Boulanger definitely hooked up with me.”

  “I don’t know how you do it, dude,” Troy says, sounding like he really means it. “You get any girl you want.”

  “And if I remember correctly, it was just last week that you were saying how Justin Timberlake himself could walk in and Jessica would pass him by because she’s so obsessed with her boyfriend. Well, the last time I checked I wasn’t a celebrity, I’m just me, and I managed to pull it off.” I can practically hear the grin that’s spread across Zane’s face through the wall.

  “Is that why you did it? To prove me wrong, Zane?” Ben’s voice is a little calmer now, almost like he’s more curious than mad.

  “Actually, he said Justin Bieber could walk in, not Justin Timberlake,” Troy points out.

  “Who’s Justin Bieber?”

  “You know that kid who got his start on YouTube, every girl in the world is, like, obsessed,” Troy tells Zane.

  “Who cares,” Ben says, “answer the question, is that why you tried to get with her?”

  “No, he definitely said Timberlake, I don’t even watch YouTube that much since I got my PS4, why would I know who he was?”

  “He’s not just a YouTube star now, you idiot, he’s like one of the biggest stars on the planet. I bet even your dad knows who he is.”

  “Who gives a fuck what I said?” Ben asks, sounding pissed again, “is that or is that not why you tried to get with her?”

  “I guess part of it, but I didn’t have to try very hard.” Zane chuckles after he says it, and I hear the sound of Troy whistling in response.

  “So, how was it?” Troy wants to know.

  “It was… different,” Zane finishes.

  The boy’s laughter ones again fills the basement and I find myself rolling my eyes in the darkness of my confined area. They were so immature.

  “That bad, huh?” Ben says. “Well, better you than me.”

  “Man, Frank is going to freak when he hears this shit.” Troy sounds exciting, like a girl who’s just heard a great piece of gossip she just can’t keep to herself.

  I swear until I started ease dropping on Zane and his friends I never realized that guys gossip just as much girls, but they definitely do, if not more. It was a wonder they were able to keep anything to themselves.

  “No, you can’t tell him, or anyone.” Zane has a serious tone now, like he’s talking to a bunch of children instead of his friends.

  “Why the fuck not?” Ben snaps.

  “Come on, she’s clearly not going to break up with Josh
. I’m not trying to ruin the girls reputation.”

  No one says anything, and after a second I hear Zane again. “What are you looking for?”

  “Your fucking balls, you must have dropped them,” Ben laughs, “what the fuck do you mean we can’t tell anyone? Who gives a fuck about her reputation? That’s not our problem.”

  “I give a fuck about it. We don’t tell anyone, or I’ll be pissed. I mean it.” No one says anything again and he adds, “got it?”

  Zane sounds serious, like he means business, and I know even before I hear the mumbled replies of agreement from Ben and Troy that they’re going to do what he says. Zane was the leader; everyone always did what Zane said, even if they didn’t want to. He had the power to make or break you in their clique, and no one wanted to be broken by Zane.

  The game plays for a few minutes and no one says anything. I hated the periods of time when it was silent, when no one was talking; it made me even more paranoid than I already was. Like at any moment my cover was going to be blown, and they were going to figure out what I had been doing this whole time. The fear of what would happen if anyone ever knew the truth about all I had heard and spied on was almost too much to even think about. It would be awful.

  It was times like these I would find myself hoping that they would say something, praying that someone would say something, anything. Sometimes the silence would drag out forever, especially if they had just smoked and they were all high.

  In this case, though, it was clear that Ben and Troy were probably annoyed that they couldn’t get their gossip on and tell people what had happened between Zane and Jessica. See. Girls. I told you.

  After what feels like forever Troy finally breaks the silence. “Dude, still, you’re the fucking man.”

  There’s more laughing and high fiving.

  “I am, aren’t I?” Zane asks, all cocky.

  That’s the thing I had learned the most about Zane in the last four months of spying. He was confusing as fuck. He did this all the time. One minute he would be being super sweet wanting to protect a girl’s reputation, and the next he would be celebrating how he had gotten said girl to cheat on her boyfriend with him. It made absolutely no sense to me.