An Unlikely Holiday Pairing: Pt. 02

Hi! This is part 2/chapter 2/the second installment of the story! It took a little longer than expected to finish writing and edit. It's quite a bit longer than part 1, so I hope this really comes off well to anyone reading. Please let me know what you think in the comments (or send me comments if you're more comfortable with that)! Your feedback is greatly appreciated!

DISCLAIMER:

This is a work of fiction meant for entertainment and reading purposes only. Any resemblance to real people by way of descriptive appearances, names, mannerisms, or any other facet, are purely coincidental. All characters depicted who are involved in any sexual activity, whether explicitly or implicitly stated, are above 18 years of age. As a work of fiction, this story may contain fantastical exaggerations, embellishments, and creative liberties. When consuming fiction, a suspension of disbelief may be required at times, but otherwise, the use of common sense is always advised. Please be advised that there is no implicit, explicit, or tacit approval of any sexual behavior or deviancy depicted in this work. This story complies with the rules and guidelines of this site to the best of this author's knowledge. Thank you.

A raging winter snowstorm, just shy of a blizzard, has mostly just passed. For one family in a suburban town, the timing is just perfect. Eager to celebrate the holidays with loved ones and house guests, revel in old traditions as well as embark on creating new ones, everyone is ready to partake in a bit of holiday joy, food and festivities included. With a pair of step-siblings who fight like cats and dogs, their first reunion at this time of the year comes with unexpected, tempting, and risky escapades that may just form a new tradition. The holidays are meant to bring family together, but maybe just not this close!

The fork scraped against the plate lightly. Oliver eyed the bacon slice, crispy and crunchy, determined to stab it and launch it into his mouth in one go. He scraped the edge of the plate once more. His scrambled eggs were mostly still there, warm, but not hot. His cup of coffee sat, no milk or creamer, on the table beside his plate.

His mind raced with the thoughts of Madi and his inability to extricate himself from the events of last night. Oliver's feelings towards his sister, technically his step-sister, had never been this much in flux, at least not since the peak of puberty.

He tried again and failed to stab the bacon slice.

The doubts crept up in his mind. The bacon slice eluded his fork, sliding across the plate, just as his inability to pinpoint the crux of his conflict with Madi had bounced around like a pinball in his head.

Oliver's thoughts brought him back to the formative years of adolescence where he assumed the herculean task of defending Madi and her honor, even if he didn't always want to do it. Her beauty outpaced her friends and other girls, making her a magnet for guys at school. From her disarming smile, her cute little giggle, her sassy attitude, or her button nose, to her big, soft eyes, or her firm and perky butt, he'd heard it all and seen it all.

Tormented by such words of admiration, of sexual desire, of praise, for the one person who he couldn't have for himself left him confused and upset. His parents' strong stand for a traditional family and Madi's initial bratty attitude towards him when they first became a family all worked to shape his view of her. But as their lives progressed, his feelings became too difficult to ignore. Yet for the sake of everyone, Oliver had no choice but to relegate himself to the typical brother, settling into the role that he didn't want it for himself.

Madi had always represented everything that Oliver wanted in a girlfriend, so much so to the point that his preferences were inextricably linked to her. A quick tour of his dating history made that very clear, though he likely never realized it, seeing it more of a coincidence than anything else. A subconscious channeling of his attraction into dating girls who closely resembled his step-sister in some way seemed to be the norm for him, even if he never stayed with those girls for very long. It proved to be enough to distract him, to keep him from thinking of Madi again in any way beyond platonic love, until last night.

His fork jammed into the plate. The bacon slice slid across the plate once more. Almost, but not quite.

Just as he almost had it, his recollection of last night already started to fade. Eroding slowly like waves crashing on the shore to destroy a sand castle by gradually reducing it to nothing, bit by bit, wave by wave, so too did his second-guessing of the event begin to do the same. It would still be there, but would be unrecognizable. Soon, he would be forgetting the real details entirely, rewriting it into oblivion to the point of no return or recollection of what really happened. Last night would be a distant memory, the details foggy and sketchy at best. The only other person who might stand to remember what happened was Madi.

"I don't get it... nothing happened," he mumbled to himself, holding his fork directly over the bacon slice now. "Why am I thinking about this so much?"

The feelings that he shouldn't have experienced, the ones that he trained himself to avoid, he did. The fact that his mind taunted him about it now only evidenced the need for a deeper look. But he didn't want to go there, not yet ready. He didn't want to play the game: the what-if game. What if it was okay? What if it wasn't that big of a deal? What if he didn't see her as his real sister? What if she reciprocated? What if he held her until she woke up? What if she wanted more? The dam opened up wide and the questions flooded out, hitting him like arrows trained and released with prejudice on a large bullseye target.

Suddenly, Oliver's eyes focused like a camera lens, sharpening to focus. His fork came down with a slower and less chaotic speed this time, landing directly in the center of the bacon slice with precision.

"That's it... it was a fluke," he muttered, "and I'll just get Madi back in bed to prove it."

He stared out through the bay window at the breakfast table, squinting as the sunlight beamed into his eyes, reflecting off of the fresh sheet of blinding white snow that had fallen overnight. The rationale was sound and logical. An accident, a mistake, hormones gone wild. Nothing happened. Nothing actually happened. Yet the question lingered in his mind: was it really a fluke?

Oliver shook his head and wiped the absent, spaced-out expression from his face.

Hurried trotting erupted directly ahead of Oliver's head straight out into the distance until light footsteps approached, coming down through the secondary stairs that led into the kitchen. Oliver nearly set his fork down, eyes fixed forward as Madi's bare feet came into view, her festively painted dark red toenails giving her away. Despite there being no glass slippers in sight, her Cinderella-like presence captivated Oliver's attention, an oddity for him if there ever was one.

In a pair of white and red plaid lounge pants and a white long-sleeved pullover that amplified her sexy, dirty golden hair, she slowed her descent, almost to a crawl, upon spotting Oliver at the table straight ahead with her tunnel vision. Her hazel eyes met the rich brown of his, the hold nearly magnetic. She noticed that he was already mostly dressed, decked out in his black snow pants and a thick green sweatshirt that accentuated the brown facial hair along the sharp edges of his face.

"Ollie," she said without her usual confidence, a bit shaky with her voice. A mere statement of a greeting, called from a distance before she made it onto the tile kitchen floor to then realize that Oliver wasn't alone.

Rick stood in front of the stove and cracked the last egg into the skillet as the sausage links sizzled in the one next to it.

"Oh, hi, Daddy. Good morning!" she said with a cheery demeanor, eyebrows raised and all smiles, a quick shift from the expression she just had on a moment ago.

Ever the daddy's girl, Madi had more reason than most for the close bond she shared with Rick. Losing her own father at a very young age, she found a father in Rick, a man who did everything for his little girl. He saw no difference between her and his own flesh and blood son, helping Madi navigate the landmines that were budding emotions, crushes, and hormonal changes during those trying teenage years. He became the daddy that she always needed and she became the daughter he never knew he wanted.

"Good morning, baby. Sleep well? I hope the arrangements were okay," Rick called out a bit loudly over his shoulder with an innocent and curious tone.

He kept his head straight, only breaking for a moment to acknowledge her as he desperately focused on not overcooking the eggs. The pink apron fashioned around his body and tied at his waist, borrowed from Wendy, didn't match his gray Henley or bright blue snow pants in the least. It appeared obvious that there was a miscommunication or coordination issue that led to Rick making breakfast.

"I, uh, y-yeah," she replied, immediately looking over at Oliver and locking eyes with him again as he sat up straighter to return the glance.

He walked over, smiling without looking at her, with a skillet of sausage links and set several onto Madi's empty plate across from Oliver. "That's good... I was thinking that maybe you might be a little upset with Oliver and the whole sharing a bed situation."

Madi felt the blood rush away from her face, going pale. Her eyes bulged and her jaw dropped as she bore a hole into Oliver's face. The girl stood frozen with her feet bolted to the floor just a few steps away from the table. Rick pulled out the chair for her, the scraping of its legs against the tile floor snapping her out of her stupor. He motioned for her to sit.

"W-Wait, w-what? What do you mean? Upset?" she inquired with a cautious tone as her heart rate accelerated.

A mix of shame and embarrassment washed over her at the thought of their father thinking that they slept together, that she slept with his son--her brother. She knew that this wasn't like two small children sharing a bed, especially considering what Madi experienced. She couldn't believe that Oliver might have said something to their father about the logistics at all.

Her father turned his head and raised an eyebrow at her in confusion, setting a hand on his hip and the other still holding the handle of the skillet.

"Well, I mean you had to share your bed with your Aunt Helen, and Oliver didn't have to share at all. Mom told me that you weren't too thrilled about that," her father said with a slower more deliberate tone, indicating that he hoped that he had correctly restated the crux of the issue.

"Oh, r-right... yeah," she said with relief in her voice before looking down at her seated step-brother, turning her gaze onto him. "No, I'm not upset with Oliver at all."

Nodding in satisfaction, Rick walked off back to the stove, leaving the pair alone, but still within earshot of them. Madi sat, but avoided eye contact with Oliver, instead looking down at her plate as she wondered if she meant what she said.

Oliver slowly chewed on a forkful of scrambled eggs, reassessing his plan again now that Madi herself was in front of him. He had to do it. He had to find out if he was man enough to play the game, if he was man enough to figure out just what actually happened last night. He needed to replay it through reliving it. Fluke or not, he had to put it to rest, despite the palpable tension that he felt now between himself and his sister that he had never felt before in all of the time being her brother, at least not this type of tension.

"I'll be awake tonight... when you come in," he leaned in slightly and whispered to Madi as she slowly chewed on a part of a sausage link.

She stopped moving her fork on her plate and raised her eyes to meet his for a moment, mouth full. She offered no words, but just halted her chewing to think about it before finishing and swallowing.

Before she could respond, Rick walked back over and set a sizeable helping of scrambled eggs onto his daughter's plate. He quickly returned the skillet back onto the stove and undid his apron.

"In case either of you were wondering where your mother went, she and Aunt Helen went down the street to pay that old lady a visit... what's her name again?"

"Mrs. Garcia," Madi replied with glee while looking up and smiling, amused by her father's forgetfulness.

Oliver smiled at seeing her light up, sensing a return to normalcy between them. The awkwardness that he felt between them, the unspeakable tension, put a damper on an otherwise platonic relationship.

"Oh, that's right! Mrs. Garcia! Such a sweet old lady! I'll remember her name one of these days, Madi. I promise!" Rick exclaimed. "They left at 7 AM or so... must've gotten roped into having breakfast over there or something. They were looking for you, by the way, but Aunt Helen said that she couldn't find you. Where'd you run off to?"

Madi's ears turned red as she clasped her fork in hand and started to aimlessly push her food on her plate, unable to come up with a realistic excuse for her absence. She refused to look her father in the eye. "Uh..."

"She was in my room, Dad," Oliver smirked, eyeing Madi, who was now speechless and very discreetly shaking her head for him to stop.

"Oliver, shut up!" Madi blurted out, pleading with her widened eyes for him to stop speaking. She froze, unable to say anything more.

"She didn't want to hog up her bathroom in case Aunt Helen needed to use it, so she asked me if she could take a huge dump in mine instead, right, Madi?"

Madi exhaled and started to breathe again, their secret still remaining a secret just between them. Her shoulders sank and the relief on her face quickly turned to embarrassment as she processed what her brother had just told their dad.

"Y-Yeah... thanks for embarrassing me, moron," she hissed. She fixed her elbow on the table and stuck her arm up with her hand out to shield her face from their father while having to stick with Oliver's lie. Despite her lashing out, the overwhelming relief that she suddenly felt could be seen and felt by Oliver as well, her gratitude not needing to be verbalized.

"Oh, well, all right then! Everyone goes!" their father chuckled a little too much before quickly shifting his focus to a more pressing matter.

"I'm going to get started on plowing the snow from the driveway. Oliver, finish up breakfast with your sister and meet me out front. Grab a shovel and do the walkway and sidewalk."

"But didn't you already do that so Mom and Aunt Helen could leave?"

"Well, yeah, but I only did enough for them to get by. I need you to clear it entirely."

"Sucks," Madi chimed in with a smirk, chewing another bite while looking down at her plate.

Oliver nodded in response to her, not minding her remark one bit.

"Sure thing, Dad," Oliver said, renewed in confidently devouring his plate. The instincts of the ex-wrestler and athlete in him worked on fueling himself with his hearty breakfast.

As Rick left the kitchen, Madi sharpened her gaze on her brother, clearly not forgetting what he said. Oliver had leveled her with the insult as well as the save, both for her benefit, but also for his own. He needed to get them back to the baseline that he had grown accustomed to all these years. The relationship that Madi wouldn't consider perverted was the one that he had to maintain, the one he had to accept. The situation with Madi last night had to be nothing more than a one-time incident, physical contact, feelings, and all.

Madi extended her leg with a swiftness that made her clench her teeth, kicking Oliver in the shin for the embarrassing remark about her, especially one that wasn't true. Oliver grinned, the distance between them being enough to severely lessen the impact.

"Couldn't come up with anything that didn't make me look bad?"

"Well, you didn't come up with anything at all."

"Okay... fine."

"You heard what I said earlier, right, Madi?"

"Yeah... you'll be awake," Madi repeated before pausing, "you know... you just assumed that I would come back tonight."

"Hmm?" Oliver paused and raised an eyebrow at her, trying to make sense of this curve ball.

"Yeah. Tonight. I was planning to just sleep on the floor of my own room, Ollie," Madi teased, her bluff seeming semi-believable.

He paused again, trying to figure out her angle or how to salvage his plan. This golden opportunity to figure it out had no better organic way to materialize, and he knew he couldn't afford to lose it.

"No, you won't... you would've done that instead last night then. And... you said that she was too loud, remember?"

"Maybe I'll just tough it out," she countered, unable to resist stringing him along for her own interest and amusement. Even then, it made sense especially after Oliver seemed so annoyed by her even asking last night.

Oliver grabbed his warm cup of coffee and took a large sip, gulping it hard before looking at her again. "Forget the noise. You've used a rolling pin before, right? Aunt Helen is a 250-lb rolling pin. If you want to get flattened, then go for it, but don't come crying to me after that."

Madi broke her poker face, slightly tilting her head sideways at him while shaking it in reluctant disapproval. Although she agreed with his assertion of the large woman, she wasn't the type to say it out loud.

"Suddenly worried about me, Ollie?" she teased him with a patronizing tone, her curiosity to see where this would go getting the better of her. She bit her lower lip involuntarily and smiled a bit, eager to hear what he would say in response to her now.

"Not really... I just don't want to take time out of my schedule to make hospital visits with Mom and Dad to see you," Oliver replied, denying her assertion mostly without breaking a sweat, but noticing the warm and playful change in her demeanor and body language.

"Right..." Madi nodded slowly. The slight smirk on her face and the deliberate slowing of her annunciation conveyed how she didn't quite believe him.

Wanting to break away from the topic at hand before Madi could change her mind, Oliver tapped his fingers on the table near his plate.

"Listen, I've got a lot of physical work to do today besides plowing and shoveling snow, so come to bed earlier tonight. I plan on passing out pretty quickly and I don't want you to wake me up," Oliver said while stretching to loosen the cobwebs from his body.

"Come to bed earlier? Don't say it like that, Oliver. It sounds weird."

"Okay, I want you in bed early or don't come at all."

Madi rolled her eyes, deep in thought for a moment before she then sighed. "Fine, but don't breathe all over me tonight. Your breath stinks."

Oliver nodded and shook his head, grinning at her after getting exactly what he wanted out of her.

"Wait, what other physical work?" she asked with a raised eyebrow, curious now as she reached out with her hand and placed it ahead of her plate to reach out and get his attention. "Isn't the gym still closed after some pipes froze and burst a few days ago?"

"Yeah, it's still closed, but I'm pretty sure Uncle Tyler wants to wrestle me since it's been a few years," Oliver said without much enthusiasm and a certain level of dread.

"Seriously? You know he's going to crush you, right? He's like 300 lbs," Madi laughed.

"Yeah, I know... that's why I need to get as much recovery time in tonight after that. It's always the pro wrestling type that he likes," he shook his head, laughing and making light of the situation.

The girl hummed for a moment, bobbing her head playfully and biting her lower lip while looking at him with wide eyes. Unsure of whether she should suggest it, she began to giggle.