Once More You Open The Door

Brandon and Ashley moved into the dining area, the petite blond cheerleader turning to face her ex-boyfriend as she leaned with her lower back against the table. She considered sitting, but she was too riled up to stay still right now, tapping her foot even as she rested briefly. And she had the suspicious feeling that whatever Brandon was about to ask of her was going to be neither pleasant nor calming and it would be a lot easier to tear his throat out if she didn’t have to stand up again first.

“Alright, what’s this about?” Ashley asked, breaking the tense silence. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to fuck Trent Thornton,” Brandon told her bluntly.

Ashley stared at the quarterback for a moment, trying to gauge if he was serious or if she’d misheard or it if was supposed to be a joke because he knew how upset she was; anything that would explain why Brandon would ask anything so obviously stupid and enraging right now. When his face yielded no explanation, she demanded it from him directly, saying, “What the fuck, Bran?”

“I’m serious,” he clarified, frowning, though he’d expected such resistance. “Madison invited him to the cabin today, but I want you to intercept him and fuck him first.”

“Ok, and why the fuck would I want to do anything with your teammate?” Ashley asked, clicking her tongue. “And why would I care if he fucks your sister? Better yet, why do you? I thought you wanted her to get out from under you.”

“I do,” Brandon assured her. “But, not like this. She’s not actually trying to move on, she’s just trying to make me jealous.”

“Clearly it’s not working,” Ashley scoffed as she rolled her eyes.

“It’s not,” Brandon was adamant. “I’m not trying to keep her for myself, but she’s not going to take this seriously if she’s focused on what I’m thinking or what I’m feeling.”

“So, you distract Trent…for now. He’ll try again later, and I’m not stalking him for the rest of his life. Trent won’t even be the only man in Madison’s life. Am I supposed to follow her around fucking every man who tries to get close to her?” Ashley asked the obviously absurd question.

“Madison will lose interest when she sees I’m serious about this. And all I need is for her to be open to finding someone else,” Brandon insisted, certain. “If I let her get away with this now, she’ll just up the ante to get even deeper under my skin. So, you fuck Trent, and she gives up her crusade to win me back.”

“Ugh, hearing you talk like that just reminds me that you’re brother and sister and my stomach starts churning,” Ashley groaned, holding a fist before her mouth as she retched slightly. “But this is a terrible plan, Bran. Heather texting her father level terrible. It’s just as likely she’ll find some other sap to fill her hole and make you jealous. And it’ll only make her hate me even more.”

“Well, let’s say you do this and we call it even for you making her strip naked in front of all of our friends,” Brandon snapped back, frustrated that Ashley was still fighting him.

“She was wearing my dress,” Ashley seethed, emphasising each work through gritted teeth.

“I’m calling in every favour possible. I’m serious,” Brandon said, his hard face conveying the sternness of his words. “For me lying to cover you last night, for you cheating on me, for ruining the last Spring Break of my senior year. No matter what, this time will always remind me of the time that my girlfriend and by best friend decided to utterly betray me.”

“Come on Bran,” Ashley said gloomily, knowing that she couldn’t protest what she done, only that she didn’t want to add to her sins. “You can’t ask this of me. Not when I’m trying to prove to Zack that I only want to be with him.”

Her mind briefly flickered to Gavin and their mutual oral gratification last night on the sofa and the floor. That had been a blip on the radar. But Ashley took it as a lesson to be learnt, that she couldn’t let herself go even to get herself off. Her body, and the universe it seemed, would always conspire to draw her deeper, to seduce her to the dark side. So, Ashley had resolved not to fuck another man until she and Zack were back together, and to facilitate that, she wasn’t even going to get herself off anymore, no matter how much she felt she needed it. Yet, here was the world throwing her a curve ball once again, begging her to fail.

“You do this, this one time, and I’ll consider us even,” Brandon insisted convincingly. “I’ll have no more favors to call in even if Trent does come back to try again.”

“Bran, do you even know what you’re asking of me?” Ashley held her head in her hands, falling back and finally sitting down as the anger was replaced with gut wrenching feeling of being trapped. “To risk never getting back with Zack, just so you can continue not fucking your sister. To consciously choose that…how can I…”

“Well, consider that, even if you don’t like my relationship with Madison, because of ****, what better way to keep us apart than to get Madison to give proper consideration to the fact that there’s probably a good man out there for her that isn’t me. Isn’t that what you want?” Brandon noted, sensing Ashley’s resistance wavering. “After everything, I think this is a fair request. You won’t be risking anything that I apparently blindly risked just by coming here to the cabin.”

A knock at the door made both teens jump, both expecting Trent Thornton now and imagining that it had to be him, come to meet up with Madison just as she and Zack said he would. Glancing over his shoulder and back again, he put some pressure on Ashley, pushing for an answer, “I need to know now, Ash. Are you gonna help me out?”

In the living room, with Ashley and Brandon having moved, Kurt and Chloe were left alone. The air was awkward and tense, not just because they’d barely spoken since fucking at the waterfall and when they had spoken last night Chloe warned him from getting too close to Victoria. Kurt could tell that there was something weighing heavy on Chloe’s heart but with everything that had happened between them, or not happened as case were, he wasn’t sure if he should be the one to talk to her about it, or if she’d even want to open up to him again.

But, as he turned back to the kitchen, he heard Chloe say, “Ignore what I said last night.”

“Huh?” Kurt asked, taking a few steps closer to the redhead.

“I don’t take back anything that I said,” she admitted, glancing over the back of the sofa at him. “I think you need to tread carefully and Victoria needs to face up to the consequences of what she’s done, regardless of what influence she was under…I don’t want you to think that I’m saying that because of selfishness on my part. Like, if I can’t have you, neither can she. It’s not like that. I just…I care for you Kurt. It felt like you were there for me when a lot of people weren’t. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Chloe,” Kurt called softly, as he walked over and sat on the arm of the couch by the redhead. “For a long time I never even considered being with anyone seriously. I’d been rejected before and I didn’t like that feeling, so I drowned myself in meaningless relationships. Maybe even some of them could have went somewhere but I made pains to blow them off and let them down, so I didn’t have to get close. Being here, with you, changed that. With you, for the first time, in a long time, I was actually considering a serious, committed relationship. But I messed up again. I assumed you were with Gavin, and that seemed like a better fit. You guys were friends and had known each other for so long, I didn’t want to compete with a relationship that deep and risk getting rejected again. So, I ran and I busied myself, but I want you to know how important you are to me. No matter what happens one way or another, you will always be the woman who convinced me to open my heart again.”

“Open your heart again?” Chloe quoted, giggling softly. “That’s so corny. Next you’ll be telling me your heart will go on.” She laughed again, a little harder, but short, as her expression fade back into a pensive frown. “There’s just so much at stake for so many of us right now. I just don’t want to lose anyone else.”

“Chloe, what happened?” Kurt asked, no longer caring whether it was appropriate to ask or not.

“My dad…he’s a lawyer, Carlos and Lisa’s lawyer,” Chloe revealed, looking up at the older teen with tearful eyes. “Everyone that’s had anything to do with Lisa, Hannah has found a way to get at. Heather, Zack, even Mr. Ravers. And now my dad’s getting involved and he’s trying to get Carlos and Lisa free as well. What if she goes after him as well?”

“I don’t think she would do that, and I’m not just saying that to make you feel better. Hannah didn’t even retaliate until Ashley and Heather went after her and tried to record a confession. She might be impulsive and devious but she’s also pragmatic,” Kurt tried to convince her. “Anytime she’s acted out, it’s been because people were getting close to her and she felt cornered.”

“So, we just have to hope my dad is as dumb as the police,” Chloe sighed.

“Hell, we only stumbled on it because Heather and Ashley were investigating Robert and the board of Ravers Enterprises,” Kurt reminded her.

“That’s true,” Chloe agreed, taking solace in that small fact.

The pair fell into silence again, though a much less awkward quietness that wasn’t quite as stifling. This was reflective as they considered each other’s words and suggestions and what they meant to each other, until a voice from the hallway erupted through the silence, making them both jump in their seats.

“Oh…” Gavin said looking back and forth between Kurt and Chloe. “Am I interrupting?”

“No,” Kurt insisted, rising to his feet. “Not at all.”

“Well, alright. By the way, who was that at the-” He began, another knock upon the door intruding before he could finish the sentence. He waved Kurt back and said, “I’ll get it.”

Cheerfully, he opened the door on the tall, brunette, her fabulous smooth legs on display in a denim playsuit with a turned down collar, short sleeves and a zip up front, undone to just below her breasts, exposing a generous amount of cleavage. Gavin opened his mouth to greet her but seeing such a hot woman before him, the words caught in his throat.

“Hello,” she said, since he’d been rendered speechless. “I’m looking for Gavin.”