The Things You Make Me Feel Ch. 01

"I bet he was lying about everything in his emails," Ellie hissed. "That lying piece of..."

"Let's get out there and give him a chance to explain. Don't worry, he's not going to get away with it."

The women took their glasses and bottle and joined their family out in the patio, making sure their eyes conveyed the right message to Oliver, who was sitting with Michela perched in his lap. Ellie was grateful to a see a tank covering him now.

"Vita mia, perché non vai dentro e mostri a Gena il nuovo libro che ti ho comprato? Cinque minuti e ti raggiungo," (My life, why don't you go inside and show Gena the new book we got you. I'll join you in a few minutes).

It wasn't much of a book as an assortment of illustrations and a word or two depicting each.

"Va bene, Papi," (Alright, Daddy).

Michela gave him a peck on the lips and got off of him while nibbling her sandwich.

"Gena, would you please take her inside for a few minutes? She has an excellent book she wants to show you."

"Sure, Oliver." Jack's girlfriend rose and took his daughter's hand in hers. "Come on, Michela. Let's go check out that book."

*

"How dare you?!" Ellie bellowed the moment the girls disappeared. "Hiking up the Himalaya mountains?! Studying Buddhism in Nepal?! Traveling through India?! For the love of god, you're a father and have been for a while now. Where was all of this in your emails?!"

"I didn't—"

"How could you keep it from us?! Keep her from us?! For god's sake, I've had a niece for a few good years now without even knowing!"

"Ellie, baby, calm down," Alice said, hooking an arm over her shoulder. "Go ahead, Oliver, but it'd better be a good one."

Dan, Alice, Ellie, Jack, and Dave sat in exemplary stillness, eagerly awaiting Oliver to explain his five-year absence, and of course, to explain Michela.

He opened his second beer and sighed. "It was a week after I left. I was in Thailand traveling with a couple Americans. We just left Bangkok to northern Thailand when I met... Michela's mother. Bianca and I met on the plane to there. She was traveling with two of her best friends. I don't know what she saw in me as she was way out of my league"—he let out a doleful chuckle—"but she must have seen something. Two weeks later, Michela was conceived. We didn't know it right then obviously. We found out only a few weeks later while traveling through Vietnam and Laos."

"Oh my," Alice sighed and poured herself and Ellie another round. "That doesn't explain anything though."

"Yeah," Jack said as he opened three beers for the guys. "Why have you never come visit or told us about Michela?"

Oliver bobbed his head and took a swig from his beer. "We were madly in love; on top of that, Bianca was raised in a catholic home, so abortion was not an option. We discussed it, and it was soon clear to us both that I was going back with her to Italy. A month later, we arrived to Milano—I mean Milan—and—"

"Yeah, we're not idiots," Ellie said, oozing all kinds of hostility. "We might not be fluent in Italian, but I think we all know Milano is Milan."

Oliver absorbed his sister's glower briefly before he continued," Anyway, we got married the same week we—"

"You're married?!!" Ellie exclaimed, stupefied.

"Dear god," Alice sighed, her hand fanning her face.

The guys expressed their shocks in similar ways. Grunts and sighs were particularly popular.

"It wasn't this big wedding or anything like that," he quickly said, desperate to pacify them. "It was really small and plain with her best friends serving as witnesses, so don't think you missed out on this grand occasion... anyway, she introduced me to her parents and explained to them that I was her husband and that we were expecting a baby. As you may have guessed, it didn't go well, but they accepted it eventually. We lived with them throughout the pregnancy, and Antonio, her father, pushed me to start my bachelor in economics at the University of Milan; meanwhile, I was picking Italian up fast, and I was soon able to get by without English."

He sipped his beer and looked down to the ground, sorting his thoughts.

While he was in his own head, Ellie was trying to digest this transformation her baby brother had undergone. It wasn't just his physical appearance that had completely altered; his psyche seemed of a man in his late thirties, not early twenties. He was utterly a different man.

"Why didn't you say anything to us about all of this?" Dan said. "We're your parents. Didn't we deserve to know that you got married and was expecting a child?"

"What he said," Alice uttered bitterly.

"I didn't know how to even start that conversation," Oliver sighed. "I didn't want all of you riding my ass, telling me that I made the biggest mistake of my life. But Bianca and I agreed that I would tell you after Michela was born. Speaking of which, we went to the hospital when Bianca was in labor. Her mother, Francesca, was in the room with her, and Antonio and I were waiting outside."

His head slumped, and his eyes welled up with tears.

"And...?" Dave said.

He lifted his head, clearly a man carrying a heavy burden in his heart. "And two hours later, I was told I was the father of a healthy baby girl"—he sighed as a couple of tears coursed down his cheeks—"and a widower. It was the best and... worst night of my life."

"Oh my god," Alice could barely mutter before her hand covered her mouth. Tears ran down her cheeks a second later. "Oliver..."

The rest were as quiet as church mice.

"Yeah, what can you do." He faked a smile and wiped off his tears before he buried back those excruciating memories with a deep sigh. "After the funeral, Antonio and Francesca insisted that I must stay with them until I graduated. They were very attached to Michela as she was the only thing they had... left from Bianca, and I couldn't say no to them, not after what we'd been through. So, I stayed and continued with my studies, and they helped me raise Michela. I got my degree a month ago, and I decided that it was time... time to come home."

Alice and Ellie were visibly weeping, and the guys were in tears themselves.

"In less than a year, my whole world turned upside down. I fell in love with an amazing girl, got her knocked up, got married, became a father, and buried my wife. How the hell was I going to explain that to you?"

"But, Oliver, you can't keep stuff like that from your family," Ellie interjected as tears streamed down her cheeks, "especially events like these... you can't withhold..." Her sobbing escalated.

"I wanted to tell you; I really did. Many times, I picked up my phone and stared at your numbers, but I just couldn't bring myself to make the call. You have to understand that I was a wreck. I could barely keep it together; in fact, it had taken me quite a while until I was finally able to. I was barely there for Michela the first couple of months. Was I selfish by keeping it from you? Perhaps, but that was what I needed to get through this, and after a while, it became easier not to make that call than to make it. I know it's messed up, but it is what it is. Sadly, I have no good excuse for this. But it doesn't mean that I don't love you guys. You've never left my heart."

"How old is Michela?" Jack asked after a prolonged period of discomforting silence.

"She turned 4 in April."

"Jesus Christ," Dan sighed while shaking his head in disbelief.

"She looks 4, but when she speaks, she seems older," Dave mused a minute later.

Oliver smiled proudly. "She's gifted, diagnosed and all. She may be 4, but intellectually, she's 6. At least that was how the experts explained it to me." He polished his beer off and smiled. "She does one wicked math."

Everyone chuckled at the remark.

"So, what now?" Jack asked. "Are you staying for good?"

"That's the plan. We'll see how Michela adjusts though. She's my priority. If I see that it's difficult for her, that she misses her family in Italy too much, then I don't... I may need to reconsider."

"The hell you will," Alice said, in dread of the thought of losing Michela. "You're not taking my only grandchild anywhere. Do you get me, Oliver? She'll adjust just fine. I'll see to that."

"What she said," Dan said, looking no less worried than Alice.

Oliver nodded with a smile. It felt good to have his family back. "Mom, Dad, would it be okay for Michela and me to crash here for a couple of days? Just until I find us a place?"

"Are you kidding me?" Dan said. "You're both staying here forever. Don't even think of leaving." He got up and pulled his youngest into his loving embrace. "God, I've missed you."

Dan always had a soft spot for Oliver. He'd let him off the hook on many occasions when Oliver was a teenager, and not once had he covered for him when Alice wanted to lay down the law to him. He might never admit it, but Oliver had touched a place in his heart his siblings had never.

"Papi, mi fa male la pancia..." (Daddy, I have a tummy ache...), Michela whimpered with a pout upon returning with Gena.

Everyone guffawed in such joy. Although they didn't understand a word, Michela had a way of relaying her feelings quite dramatically, and it was easy to pick up on what she was feeling. None laughed like that in a very long time. Michela and Oliver seemed to have brought with them an intangible of sort, one that none of them was willing to see ever going away.

Oliver lifted his daughter and kissed her long and hard. "Now what do we do when we have a tummy ache?"

He'd switched to English to make sure everyone was in the loop.

"We make tea and go to the bathroom."

"That's right." He kissed her nose. "And we can't allow you to be sick, now can we? You're going tomorrow shopping for clothes and having gelato with your grandparents. Unless you don't want to..."

"Dici vero, Papà?! Mi ci lasci andare?!" (Seriously, Daddy?! You're letting me go?!).

Again, no translation was needed as Michela made quite a show from how excited she was, which triggered an additional wave of laughter from the family she'd never known she had.

Oliver chuckled and then nuzzled her nose. "Come on, dolce mia. Let's go make you feel better."

***

"Hi," Ellie said as she stepped out to the patio the next day.

Oliver's face lit up. "Oh, hey." He nervously jolted away his tablet. "Aren't you supposed to be at work?"

"I called in sick. Why? Am I bothering you?"

"No! Not at all. I just didn't expect uh..."

The hostility in her voice immediately put Oliver on the defensive, which Ellie was quite pleased to see.

"So, what are you up to?"

"Catching up on my reading. Nothing important though," he quickly added, making it clear that he was anxious to speak to her.

She pretended not to notice his eagerness. "Cool."

"Yeah." He took a moment to ponder what he wished to say. "Ellie, I wanted to—"

"So," she cut him off while glancing over her shoulder, "where's my favorite niece?"

"She's out with the folks for ice cream and whatnot. I bet they're gonna spoil her ass so much that I would have to work for a solid month just to try to compete with them."

They laughed, yet there was very little authenticity in that false chuckle.

"Yeah, probably." Ellie's eyes jerked about, her nerves as visible as her brother's. "I thought they'd be here by now."

"Uh, no. In fact, they have a full day of activities planned with Michela, so I wouldn't hold my breath."

Ellie knew perfectly well that their parents weren't home, nor would they be home for at least another hour. She wanted some time alone with her brother, but since she was infuriated with him, she had to resort to this pretense. He needed to make the first move if their relationship were to be salvaged. Oliver more than suspected Ellie knew that since it had been discussed in great length just a day before when they'd all sat down for supper, but he was not about to call her out, not when he needed to make serious amends.

"Did you sleep okay on your first night back?"

"Like a baby. Michela and I were beat from the flight and from"—he smiled sheepishly—"everything else."

By everything else, Oliver was referring to the harsh conversation he'd had with his parents. After Jack and Ellie had retired to their respective homes, he received what was coming to him. It would take a while until he was forgiven, he knew.

"You?"

"Like the dead," she lied.

Ellie was preoccupied with thoughts of Oliver for the better part of the night. She was distraught over the way her body had reacted to his much-improved aesthetics; she was enraged at the countless revelations he'd bombarded them with; she was amazed at how quickly she was growing attached to her newly-discovered niece. She'd had to take two sleeping pills to quell the mayhem in her head.

"G-great," he mumbled.

"Yeah," she sighed wearily. "Awesome."

It was a grim spectacle. Once the closest of all siblings were now as estranged as two distant relatives.

"Well, I'm... off to the pool," Ellie said. "Nice chat."

She made no more than three steps before—

"Listen, Ellie, I'm... I want to talk to you."

"I'm going to the pool now."

"Can't you wait with the pool for a few minutes? So we can talk?"

Ellie considered his face, staring intensely into his bright brown eyes. "No."

"Ell—"

"Oliver, if you wanna talk, you know where to find me."

Although at first glance Ellie seemed to be winging it, she came, in fact, with an elaborated plan, one that its first phase she believed to have just executed quite successfully, yet only time would tell for certain.

*

Ellie was lying on one of the chaise lounges in the shade, simultaneously texting her fiancé and a couple of friends, anxiously awaiting phase one of her scheme to play out. She kept texting for several more minutes, now doubting both her plan's objective and motivations, when she saw her kid brother approaching. He was wearing navy blue swim trunks and a white tank, a couple of bottles in his hand. The right corner of her lips fleetingly curved upward as phase one had met its end with flying colors. Phase two was now awaiting on standby.

"Hey," Oliver said apprehensively. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"No," Ellie replied inattentively, preoccupied with her phone.

"Good. Because I really wanted to—"

"Well"—she set aside her phone—"I'm off for a plunge."

Ellie rose and took off her tank, unveiling her pink bikini top, which was revealing sections of her sizable bosom that probably should never be on display for a sibling. Oliver was doing his best to elude the promiscuous views his sister was awarding him but failed miserably when he snuck one peek too many, which hadn't gone unnoticed by Ellie.

It wasn't that Oliver lusted after Ellie; he was simply being a man who was blessed with the gift of eyesight. There are some things no heterosexual male can look away from. A pair of large, milky-white breasts was one of those things, even if that pair was indeed assembled on his own sister's sin-inducing frame.

Ellie swayed her hips from side to side as she slithered out of her crotch-length skirt. She coiled the length of her blond hair into a loose makeshift ponytail and secured it with a pair of hairclips. She twirled around to the chaise lounge and bent over to lay her clothes, feeling confident her kid bro would be checking out her rear that was clad in a V-shaped black bikini bottom that was just as contentious as its bust-covering associate. Inescapably, Oliver took a moment to indulge in Ellie's ungodly build, noting that five years had altered absolutely nothing in that perfection of a figure.

His sister put on her stylish Gucci sunglasses and sat on the edge of the pool. She submerged her legs and kicked lightly to assess the water temperature. Once she felt comfortable, she got inside and swam across—careful to keep her hair dry—where she propped her back against the wall and soaked up the warmth of a brightly shining sun. Oliver didn't know what to make of Ellie's eccentric behavior. He wanted nothing more than to square things away with her, but she was giving him very little chance to do so.

"Ellie, can we please talk? I feel so bad, and I—"

"If you wanna talk, you know where to find me."

He sighed when seeing how cold she was. Never in his life had she been this frigid towards him.

"Do you want a cooler?" he asked, holding high up the bottle he'd brought her.

"Why do you ask me for?"

Confusion creased his forehead. "Should I have asked someone else?"

"Well, I trust you to make the right call here. You know, like how you hid your 4-year-old child."

Oliver sighed once more, realizing he should probably quadruple the amount of work and time he had already been planning to put in his sister so they could mend their broken relationship.

"Will it be okay if I join you? Or do you want me to leave?"

"Do whatever you want, Oliver," Ellie said, withdrawn, face confronting the sun. "Just like how you've lived your life till now."

For a fleeting moment, Oliver thought of walking away, but he knew he deserved anything his family might throw at him, and from Ellie, if needed, he was willing to take as much as required for her to get it out of her system.

He took off his tank, opened the beer for him and the cooler for his sister, and walked up to her.

Ellie, meanwhile, was inwardly celebrating the conclusion of phase two: her brother getting topless.

It wasn't that Ellie was looking to get it on with Oliver. Her plan wasn't nearly as depraved. She simply wanted to test herself by duplicating the conditions of yesterday's troubling events, I.e., to see if her baby bro's bare upper torso could make her pussy cry again.

"Here." He handed her the beverage and placed his by the edge of the pool.

He jumped in with a headfirst leap and embarked in an intense swimming from one end to the other. After completing two cycles of those, he leisurely swam to his sister, who'd been carefully observing throughout. She was relieved that those shocks of lust from the day before seemed to be absent today. There were no sudden shudders, no harsh pounding in her chest, and although the aquatic environment of a pool was no place to test a pussy's state of saturation, she felt confident she wasn't leaking.

Oliver seized his beer and rested against the wall next to his sister, contently winded. "I love this pool," he panted as he took a swig from his beer.

"Did you get to swim much in India, or Tibet, or Cambodia?"

Ellie's tone of voice sounded innocent enough, yet her face was insinuating rather crassly.

Oliver looked into her bitter eyes, his face apologetic. "I realize it's gonna take some time till I'm able to properly make amends here, not just to you but to everyone. I'm not running away from this. I've hurt you all, and I will do anything for you to forgive me... especially you, Ellie."

"Especially me?" She snorted and averted her eyes. "Be careful, Oliver, you might accidentally give a girl the impression that she's someone who's dear to you, and we both know that that is not the case here."

Ellie couldn't help it. She was deeply hurt by Oliver, and as much as she missed him, she couldn't let it go, and despite her knowledge of the tragedy he'd endured.

Oliver kept quiet and finished his beer in periodic gulps. There was nothing he could say at the moment that would soften his big sister's aching heart.

"I really thought we shared something," she murmured bitterly and sipped her cooler. "A special connection if you will."

Although Ellie and Jack were twins, surprisingly, it was Oliver who she had always felt emotionally closest to and in spite of the age gap.