Us Against Everyone

"Our lives are going to be so much better now," I exclaimed, my words echoing slightly in the grand entryway. "We're going to live the life we deserve!"

I looked at my stepmother and stepsister. Their eyes were large, looking at the staircase in the entryway.

"Carol, I know this is a big house, but I got a really good deal on it. It was on the bank's hit list and they were ready to clear it off the books for cash. Please tell me you like it," I continued a little hesitantly.

"Troy, it's beautiful, but it's a bit overwhelming. Our apartment could fit in this entryway. It's going to take a little getting used to," she said as she looked at me. "The heating bills are gonna be terrible in the winter. I just don't know."

"Carol, this is for all three of us. I don't plan on blowing through my winnings, sorry OUR winnings. As for heating, I know it is tough, but we have money to pay the gas bill now. No more shutoffs, no more letting things go for thirty or sixty days. If anyone deserves this, it's you and Sherry. We can stop living afraid. No gangbangers are getting through the gate, no pimps are gonna be staring at Sherry and we can pay the gas bill with our pocket change. You did the best you could for all three of us. Let me do this for us. Please. You can have the whole upstairs if you want. Just let me do this for you. I owe you so much."

For the first time since walking in, she smiled. It transformed her from pretty to beautiful, even if she was still wearing the uniform from the diner. Sherry ran over to me and gave me a hug.

"She will come around, Troy, this is just a lot for both of us," she murmured.

"It's a lot for me, too, Sher-bear. But we need this; you deserve so much more than what you got. I just want us to be happy," I replied as I hugged her tightly.

"Happiness is a state of mind, Troy," she stated. "But 200 million dollars can certainly help."

Carol came over and joined our hug. She smelled like grease and her hair was dirty, but I didn't care, the three of us were together and didn't have to worry about money. It could only go up from here. Right?

*****

8 Months later

"I said NO THANK YOU!" I heard as I was coming back from the bathroom. I rushed out to the entryway in time to see Sherry stepping back, trying to get away from her date's grasp.

"HEY DICKWEED! Leave her alone!" I bellowed as I started to run towards him. We were probably the same size, but I had a head of steam as I shoved him into the banister of the stairway. He shook it off and took a swing at me. He howled as I dipped my head and he broke his wrist on the crown of my skull. This preppy asshole never had to fight for his lunch money against bigger and tougher kids. I wasn't a karate expert or a MMA brawler, but I was a guy who was pissed off at an asshat pawing at my sister. The sound of his wrist cracking just spurred me on. When you are in a fight, you don't stop until the other guy has quit moving. Keeping my head down a little I started throwing punches into his gut. I had him backed into the banister so he had nowhere to go. After about 10 punches, I let up and he slowly slid down to the floor.

"Get the FUCK out of my house and I better never see you around here again!" I yelled at him.

Coughing and wheezing, he stood up.

"Fuck you and that little ghetto rat whore," he spat. "I am gonna sue you for every fucking dime you have."

He almost bent over double coughing and gagging.

"You're Jason Stefield right? Your old man is Byron?" I asked, waiting for him to nod. "Thought so. Ask your old man how many dealerships he will lose if I pull my money out from his business. Then decide if you wanna get lawyers involved. Now get the fuck out."

I watched him lurch to the door and try to slam it behind him. It was too heavy. I watched the door close, then went over to Sherry who was sitting on the steps, I sat down beside her and threw my arm around her in a one-armed hug.

"Bastard!" she swore.

"Shit, Sher, I am sorry. I thought he was hurting you," I replied.

She snorted.

"Not you, Troy, you were perfect. No, it's that twatwaffle and the ones like him. I am so sick of guys thinking because we came from the slums we are less than them. He started bragging that he could score some blow and that it would be better shit than what I gave head for growing up. Can you believe that?" she asked.

I had never seen Sherry cry, but she looked like she was about to do so now.

"Sher-bear, you are worth three times what that shithead is, both as a person and as a bank account. Please don't let him get to you," I told her as I squeezed her a little tighter.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I know, Troy-boy, but sometimes I need to hear it. Thank you," she replied as she gave me a kiss on the cheek.

She stood up and I got a good glimpse of what a hot little number my stepsister had turned into: knee high black boots with a pair of black nylons, a pleated skirt that came halfway down her thigh and a red button down shirt under a tight leather jacket. Add a beret over her perfectly symmetrical oval face, and she was a vision of sexy beauty.

"Damn, sis, you are looking good." I told her.

She gave me a smile with her perfectly straight white teeth. We both had a number of caps and crowns, and six months of dental work had done wonders for our smiles. Growing up, there weren't a lot of dentists working on the southside. Plus, who had money for something as extravagant as braces or fillings?

I remembered when we went to the doctor for the first time after winning the lottery. Carol broke down sobbing when she was told that we were malnourished. She was crazy about our diet and vitamins for six months until she was told we were healthy. Even to this day she made sure that all the meals prepared for us were healthy. I had her hire the cook and the housekeeper. I thought about how wild it was that we had staff. For the first part of our lives we had nothing except each other. It was us against everyone.

My mom died of the flu when I was three. I feel bad I don't remember her at all. Dad was working for a tire shop and met Carol when she was working as a temp out of college. Carol was 23 with a five-year-old, and dad was 29 with a six-year-old. I guess my dad was charming when he wanted to be, but I never felt like I was anything more than a nuisance to him. They went out, got drunk, got pregnant, got married, and lost the child. Dad went nuts, blaming Carol and beating the shit out of her. Then the asshat decided to go grab some beer while Sherry and I were trying to stop the bleeding. He couldn't even get himself killed decently. Instead, he had to take out another car and permanently injure a four year old boy. The resulting lawsuit cost us any savings, life insurance and home equity.

Nine months after we put the bastard in the ground, we were packing up our stuff and moving to rent-assisted housing. Carol could have left me to the system, after all, I wasn't her child. Instead, she never once made me feel like anything other than part of the family. As I grew up, I really felt like it was us against the world. She worked two jobs for a total of 75 plus hours a week. We were still broke. I did everything I could to help out. I could make a pretty decent dinner, was able to keep our piece of shit car going and could help Sherry with her homework. It was still a struggle every freaking day until the day I turned 18 when I took two dollars and bought a lottery ticket. I wasn't about to start smoking. Everyone knows how expensive cigarettes are. I wanted to do something for my 18th birthday, and a lottery ticket was it.

I won. Big time.

The jackpot was over 400 million dollars. It was all mine. I waited a few days and did some research at the library about what to do with my ticket. I signed it, put it in a plastic sleeve, and hopped on a bus to the lottery office. They confirmed it and took pictures with me holding a huge check. I opted for the lump sum payout of 265 million and got a ride to a financial holding company. I deposited 200 million with them and called up the nicest hotel in town. I booked the presidential suite for three months and picked up Carol and Sherry in a limo. We got our stuff out of the rotten apartment and didn't look back.

So here we were, our investments were making more money in a month than we had made in some years. We still had over 60 million just sitting in our bank account as liquid cash. Life should have been the tits. I just felt like something was missing.

"Why are you home on a Friday?" Sherry asked.

"Penelope failed the batting cage test hardcore, I dropped her off at her place by 8. I am sure she is telling her friends what a loser I am." I replied with a smile.

The sad part was, we had enough money that I would have a date next Friday even with her trashing me. I think I was growing cynical.

"At least you got to the batting cage date," Sherry snorted. "All I got was an octopus with attitude."

I laughed at her turn of phrase.

"All we need is for Mom to have another shit time at her board meeting and we will have another trifecta on our hands," she continued.

I winced. Carol had taken money and set up a trust fund for various charity projects. It sounded great, but she was learning that there was very little goodwill involved with these committees, Mainly, it was for show. The fact that she brought so much money got her a seat at the table but that didn't mean she was able to get a lot done. It appeared that politics trumped altruism. We were all getting jaded.

Sherry stood up and unzipped her boots. She probably didn't mean to look so sexy doing it, but she couldn't help it. The stylist, the wardrobe, and the diet all combined to take her natural pretty features and turn them into a stunning 20-year-old woman. Plus, the fact that she was a genuinely good person made me love her even more.

"It's time for sweats and movie night," she declared. She started undressing as she made her way down the hallway to her room. By the time she turned the corner, I could see she was unbuttoning her shirt. I enjoyed the view and went to change clothes myself.

When we were broke, the one treat we had was movie night. On Friday, the three of us would get into sweats, make a bag of microwave popcorn and watch some random movie on Netflix, which was our only option for TV. We would cuddle up under a wool blanket for warmth and forget about life for a few hours. Now that we could afford pretty much anything we wanted to do on a Friday, we still cuddled up and watched TV quite a bit. Of course, now the TV was a 77 inch OLED and the popcorn was air popped. It still felt natural to toss my arm around Sherry and pull the blanket up over us.

The last few kernels were popping when we heard the chime that someone was at the door. A few minutes later, Carol walked in with her pretty face set in a scowl. We both went around the giant table and gave her a hug. She had been crying, but I didn't get that she was sad. She seemed pissed off.

"Okay, pretty lady, talk," I joked with her.

"Sebastian Lane and Grover Markos are misogynistic pricks who should have their balls handed to them on a stick," she fumed.

Those were the two heads of the charity committees that Carol was part of.

"They halved their donation amount and told me point blank that I should just sit there and cut them a check; not to 'worry my pretty face' about these matters. Oh, and they suggested I should make up the difference for their drop in donations, since I had more money than I needed. I could have punched them in their stupid faces. Instead, I got up and just left. I am done with those fuckers," she continued.

Even as angry as she was, Carol was a beautiful woman. She had on a pencil skirt that ended just above the knee, gray tights and some designer boots. Her blouse was cut to minimize her best features: her

[SJC1]

gorgeously big and heavy breasts. When she was waitressing, she would dress to accentuate her chest, for tips. Now that things were different, she was talking about maybe getting them reduced. Personally, I thought that would be a crime against nature, but if it made her feel better, I was supportive. She went to the same spa as Sherry, and most of the time looked like an older sister as opposed to a 38-year-old mom. I was lucky to be living with two beautiful women.

Growing up I never fantasized about either Sherry or Carol. They were my friends and my partners. I never really developed a sister or mother relationship with them. Somehow, what we had was deeper than family. It was us against everybody. Our lifestyle forced us to spend time together, and when it is 100 degrees out and your air conditioning doesn't work, you strip down to what is the bare minimum for modesty. They would both wear t-shirts and boy shorts around the house, while I was known to strip down to my boxers during a heat wave. I appreciated their bodies, but never really thought of them as sex objects. That was about to change.

Carol had hopped into sweats and climbed under the blanket on the right side of me, Sherry snuggled into my left side and we started the movie. I don't remember the name of it, but the opening shot started out with a beautiful scene of the Caribbean. The expensive TV showed every detail in bright light, and the blues and white of the water and beaches were breathtaking. That gave me an idea. When the movie was over, both of them were lightly dozing. I kissed the top of their heads and slid out from the blanket. I opened my phone and booked three first class tickets to a private resort in the Bahamas. I booked us a private bungalow with our own pool and cabin and our own beachfront. I added the water taxi service and booked resort SCUBA classes for the three of us. I booked a spa day for the ladies and a snorkel trip for me. We had to get passports but that shouldn't be a problem. It was still us against everyone, but now we had a few bucks.

I broke the news over egg white omelets and whole wheat toast. Carol was a little peeved at first, wishing I would have talked to her about it. Not that she didn't want to go, she just thought I could have saved some money if I had looked around. I gently reminded her that the 30k I spent on this vacation wouldn't be noticed in our bank account, let alone our investments. I could see her sit back and reflect.

"I just don't want to ever go back to where we were, Troy," she told me.

"Neither do I, Carol, but we have money, and right now I feel we are afraid to spend it. I have thought about this a lot, and I think it is easier for us to try to live like we did before, but we aren't poor any more. I think we have shown great restraint to the point of being overly cautious. Yes, we all bought new vehicles, but an Audi, a Bronco, and an Explorer aren't exactly a Maserati, a Lamborghini, and a Ferrari, which we could have paid cash for. This isn't us buying a plane and flying to Italy. This is us taking a vacation to a popular resort and buying a few extras," I replied.

She nodded.

"You're right, but please let's not ever become like those douchebags that are on the board or seem to ask you two out," she responded. "By the way I love your batting cage date idea."

I chuckled. The batting cage date was a test. If I was interested in a girl, I would take her out to a nice dinner or a play for our first few dates. Then I would tell them I wanted to go to the batting cage and putt-putt golf place. If they wanted to hang out with me, I figured it should matter what we did. If all they wanted was a free ride to whatever social event was happening, they would decline. Of the snobs I have dated since I got money, none of them have wanted to go to the batting cage. Sherry would do the same thing with the same result. We ended up going to the cages together and had a blast.

"Fuck those guys," I heard Sherry say from behind me. "It's us against them."

I looked at her quizzically.

"We were broke and only had the three of us; now we are rich and still only have the three of us. Fuck 'em and let's just enjoy ourselves" she explained.

That is what we did. The girls went out and bought clothes for the trip. When I asked about swimsuits, they both blushed and told me not to worry about it. We got our passports and new luggage. None of us had ever been on a plane before, but we made it down just fine. The water taxi ride was fun, and we acquainted ourselves with the amenities by reading a brochure. We rolled our luggage down the dock to our bungalow and were met with our first problem.

"I am so sorry, guys," I told them. "I could have sworn I got three beds."

Our bungalow was very nice but it was a two-room suite with a king size bed in one room and a full-size in the other.

"Don't worry about it, Troy. Sherry and I will take the second bedroom and you can have the first," Carol replied.

"That is ridiculous. You two take the king bed and I will take the full," I responded. "Now, let's take a look at the pool."

The pool was neat. It had jets on one side, making a hot tub type setup, and it overlooked the ocean. I really didn't understand why there was a pool when you could just go swim in the ocean, but I chalked it up to how rich people did things. There was an open area for sunbathing and a small tiki bar that was self-serve. I had heard the horror stories of people getting charged 14 dollars for a bottle of water from a mini bar, but I didn't care. If I wanted a drink I was gonna get a drink, no matter what the cost.

Carol was looking at the brochure.

"It says here that our lunch is paid for, but if we want something different than prepared, we have to pay. Look at those prices!" she said.

"Carol, price means nothing on this trip, please," I begged. "Order whatever you want and get me a hamburger with French fries and a pitcher of margaritas. We are on vacation and we are going to enjoy ourselves, finally!"

To her credit, she ordered whatever we wanted and got two pitchers. Looking back, those pitchers were the start of the best part of our lives.

An hour later, we were fed and slightly tipsy. We retreated to our room to put on our swimwear, and when they came out I couldn't help but stare. They were wearing matching white bikinis that only barely covered their good parts. They looked like sexy sisters as they made outrageous poses. I literally couldn't stop staring. Both of them must have shaved. All I could do was stare.

"Looks like our man approves," Carol said with a grin.

"Yeah, all of him seem to like this look," Sherry said with a smirk.

I gathered my wits and looked down. I was tenting my board shorts big time. I looked back at them and blushed.

"I'm sorry, ladies, but you two are simply stunning," I said.

Sherry walked up to me and gave me a soft kiss on the lips.

"That's exactly the reaction we were looking for. We know these are racy and we wouldn't wear them around just anyone. You're the only one who gets to see them," she said softly as her hand brushed my dick. She squeezed by me, grabbed the tray with the booze and the glasses and walked outside.

Carol came up and did the same kiss and brush.

"Thank you, Troy, it is nice to be appreciated in a good way," she said.

I tried to get my erection to go down, but it wasn't happening. Things only got better.

I jumped in the pool and did a few laps, trying to not ogle my friends. After about 30 minutes, my boner had subsided and I was feeling pretty loose again. Then they called me over.

"Troy, can you put lotion on us?" Sherry asked sweetly.

I swallowed hard. The second pitcher was almost gone and the girls were giggling at my predicament. I figured they were just teasing, so I went along with it. I dried myself off and grabbed the bottle of lotion. If they thought I was not gonna tease them back, they had another think coming.