A regular fucking Sherlock Holmes

When he opened the door, he was wearing his bright pink, love heart adorned bathrobe. “Luke?” His eyes shot open with a mixture of surprise and embarrassment.

I looked him up and down, chuckling, just for a moment all the problems I’d been stewing over on the tube ride over vanishing from my mind. “Man … I say it every time, but pink really is your color. Wasn’t this a gift from your ex? You told me you’d thrown everything of hers out.”

He gave me a look. “Yes … but I can’t give this up, it’s too comfortable. Anyway, I wasn’t expecting visitors. Weren’t we all supposed to meet up tomorrow? What are you doing here?”

The smile dropped from my face as the momentary distraction passed. “You remember that text conversation we had, just before I left for Tokyo? I was hoping I could take you up on your offer.”

His face instantly became understanding. “Ah … of course. I’m just gonna … change quickly. Come in.” I stepped inside and plopped down on the couch, as Max hurried into his bedroom.

“Are you sure?” I called out, smiling to myself. “Wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

“Dickhead!” he shouted from the other room. After a minute or two, he scampered back in wearing jeans and a sweater and plopped down on the chair opposite me. “Okay. Talk to me.”

It was only then that I realized I hadn’t exactly thought this through. What the fuck do I actually say to him? Outside of everything he already knew – that there had been a girl, that things hadn’t gone well … I couldn’t tell him anything.

What was I supposed to say? That my stepsister, who I’d slept with and fallen in love with last year, was now trying to **** us back to being regular siblings, and it was killing me?

“Um … it’s the girl from before,” I began. “Since I came back, she’s been trying to talk to me like nothing happened between us. And … it sucks.”

“Uh huh. Yeah, I can imagine.” He nodded at me expectantly, waiting for me to carry on.

I cursed silently at my own idiocy. “That’s it.”

He shot me a look of confusion. “That’s it? You came all the way here for that? Tell me who the girl is, at least.”

“Yeah … no. Sorry.”

“Why? It’s not like I’m going to flip out, whoever it is. Unless it’s my mum, I guess.” He paused. “Please tell me you didn’t have an affair with my mum.”

“No, you freak,” I laughed. “Look, it’s just complicated.”

He sighed. “Nope. Not good enough.”

“Sorry?”

He leaned forward and rested his chin on his hands, eyeing me. “I’m figuring this out, right here right now.”

“Oh, really?” I laughed nervously.

“So … you start seeing this girl last Summer, after two years of absolutely, positively no play while we’ve been at uni.”

“Don’t really think that comment was necessary,” I muttered, frowning.

“Nuh uh, every detail is important,” he grinned. “You’ve gotten with a total of three girls in clubs, dated two here and there. And what’s interesting is I know about all of them. You don’t usually hide this stuff, so that begs the question – why are you hiding it now?”

“Or … maybe I just haven’t told you about all the girls I’ve been with, and this isn’t anything new?” I ventured.

Max’s eyes flicked up and down, like he was assessing me. “Nah. That’s not it.”

By that point I was starting to get kind of concerned about how low his opinion of me was. But I just rolled my eyes – it wasn’t like he was wrong, I guess.

“So, we have two options: embarrassed or guilty. Embarrassed because she isn’t very attractive?” He rested his fingers on his chin for a second, as if deep in thought. “But you’ve always had crazy high standards … I don’t think so. And I don’t know why you would be guilty about this, unless … maybe it’s one of our exes? But Jayden wouldn’t give a shit if you got with any of his random hookups, Chris is just as involuntarily celibate as you, and for me … you never liked Anna the whole time I was with her. I seriously doubt it.

“Well, damn … none of the above. This is a tricky one. I feel like it has to be something really out there. Maybe a professor or something? Nah, I don’t think that’s crazy enough to the point you wouldn’t tell me. It has to be even juicier than that…”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as his monologue progressed. I really didn’t like where this was going.

“Hence why I said my mum at first. I feel like it would have to be someone’s family member for you to be this **** to spill. Or your own, I guess,” he chuckled.

I froze.

I think his last comment had been intended as a joke, but then his eyes suddenly went serious, his train of thought clearly switching as things began to fall into place. “Hang on,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “Wouldn’t they have graduated last…”

In that moment, I frantically tried to come up with a way to push him off this line of thinking. Oh, shit … should I try to quickly change the subject? Laugh at him? Fuck, maybe I should just chuck something at his head and hope the brain damage makes him forget what we were talking about.

Apparently, I wasn’t fast enough. Because all of a sudden, his eyes went wide with surprise. “Oh, fuck … your stepsister!”

I knew that this was my last chance to throw him off course. But I was so tense after everything that had happened today that I wasn’t sure I could pull it off.

“Come on, man,” I laughed, forcing a dissuasive smile. “Please be serious.”

I honestly thought it was a pretty good performance. But in response, Max just stared at me, and right there I could see in his eyes that there was no way I was going to successfully deceive him.

“Holy shit. It is, isn’t it?”

And … there we go. The secret’s out.