Chapter 1
I’m lying on my bed reading a magazine when Alex stops at my open door. “Ashley,” he says, “I’m running to the store. Do you want to go with me?”
“No thanks,” I reply. “I’m still in my nightshirt.” “Do you need anything?”
“Condoms.”
He does a double-take. “What?” I giggle. “Just joking.”
He frowns. “That’s nothing to joke about.” “Relax, Dad. Don’t take things so seriously.”
My stepdad is a cool guy, but he’s a little uptight. Especially when it comes to the subject of sex. Even though I’m not his real daughter, he’s very protective of me. He didn’t even allow me to go on a date until I was sixteen, and I had to call him every half hour to let him know I wasn’t raped and left for dead in a ditch somewhere.
Now, two years later I’m eighteen, and I don’t have to call Alex when I’m out on a date. But he grills every guy who comes to pick me up like he’s the CIA interrogating a terrorist.
Of course, he would totally flip out if he knew I’d lost my virginity a year ago. Not only that, I’d been sexually active since then. From the way I always hear him and my Mom in their bedroom arguing about sex, I probably get laid more than he does.
“If you decide you need anything,” he says, “text me.”
He’s the embodiment of masculine, with his rugged, scruffy unshaven face, deep blue eyes, and longish dark hair. To complete the look he’s wearing a red and black plaid flannel shirt over his lean, muscular frame, and a pair of worn blue jeans.
“Thanks,” I reply.
He disappears down the hall.
After I hear him go down the stairs, I move to my window and look out at our driveway. A minute later his SUV backs down onto the road and heads off.
Finally, I’m alone in the house. I’ve been waiting for this moment. Alex is at the store and my mom is off for the weekend with her book club on a wine tasting tour.
I go downstairs and grab a chair from the kitchen, carrying it down the hall to the closed door to Alex’s home office. Placing the chair in front of the door, I stand on it and reach up to the top of the frame, feeling for the key up there. After grabbing it, I hop down and move the chair out of the way.
Alex makes his living as a writer, and instead of commuting to an office somewhere like other dads, he stays at home and writes. What does he write? I have no clue.
I’ve asked him many times, but he just brushes me off, telling me I wouldn’t be interested in the things he writes. I’ve told him I’d be interested in anything he writes, but he’s like a brick wall on the subject. Not only that, he keeps his office locked at all times he’s not in there. And any time I do come in to visit while he’s working, he quickly closes his laptop screen so I can’t see anything. It’s so frustrating. When I ask Mom about it, she just says it’s ‘technical instruction manuals’ and I should stop worrying about it.
Then one day last week I’m vacuuming the carpet in the hall, and I accidentally bang the vacuum cleaner against the base of the door to Alex’s office. As if by magic, a key falls from the sky onto the carpet. Of course, I check to see if it fits the lock, and the door opens. Bingo.
I guess Alex figures with my five-feet-four height, I’d never discover the key at the top of the frame. While his six-feet-two allows him to just reach up and grab it.
Since I’m not alone in the house at the time, I put the key back on the frame and plan to use it when I had the chance.
And today is that chance.
I slide the key into the lock and turn, and the lock pops open. I enter my stepdad’s forbidden sanctuary.
can feel my heartrate picking up. If Alex had forgotten anything and comes back, I would be busted without any reasonable excuse to be in here. He’d probably ground me for a month.
Artwork fills the walls and a couch sits along one side, but I ignore all of it and walk straight to his large wooden desk. I move behind it and sit it in the high-backed leather chair before opening his laptop. It starts right up, showing the login screen, including the request for a password.
Damn, I hadn’t considered this possibility.
