Author's Note : Greetings. As always, thanks for reading. The brother and sister in this story are both consenting adults, and the whole thing is purely fictional. There's not a lot of sex, but there is some, just to let you know. Enjoy. -Tyzmartar
*****
I was getting settled in at my parents' house (I guess it was my house, too, since I still lived there) to watch the Superbowl. Football was always a family affair, and though our beloved Bills hadn't made it, the Superbowl was always worth watching. New England versus Atlanta. Seemed like it could be a pretty good game. My father and I were trying to hammer out terms on what would be a fair bet to make when my mother came into the room with her phone in her hand.
"Darren, do you think you could go pick up your sister?" she asked.
"What? Is Bryant afraid to drive in the snow or something?" I asked back. Bryant was my sister's boyfriend. He was some sort of metrosexual dink as far as I was concerned. He probably cared as much about football as I did about transgender bathroom policy. Not much, in other words.
"Bryant got called in to work and Cin doesn't want to watch the game alone," my mother told me.
I looked at the time. It would take thirty minutes to get there, thirty minutes back, add ten minutes because of the weather, we'd be cutting kick-off pretty close. "Ugh. He works in a mail room for an insurance company. How could he get called in on a Sunday night? He have to lick somebody's stamps or something? Tell her to get a cab."
Dear old Mom stared daggers into my soul. "Darren, get your ass out of that chair and go get your sister."
I looked over at my father for support. There was none. He nodded toward the door. "Fine. She couldn't have called two hours ago? If I don't come back, you can look for me in the ditches in the spring when the snow melts," I said. I trudged over to the door and began to lace up my boots.
"Be careful. I know it's coming down, but it won't get real bad 'til later. I wouldn't have you go, but Cynthia's been sounding down lately, and she hasn't been able to get out and about much because of her ankle. And I miss her," my mother said.
"I know, I know. I'll be careful, I'll call you when I get there," I said. I figured that it was my sister's own problem that she had broken her ankle and lived in a second floor apartment. It was also hard to believe that it would be my responsibility to chauffeur her around and try and cheer her up. I wasn't totally against trying to do something nice for Cynthia, it was just the inconvenience of the timing.
About five miles out from my house, I had my Blazer in four-wheel drive and was crawling along at about fifteen miles per hour. I had driven from some fairly nasty weather into a fucking horrible storm. At that point, I probably should have just turned around and tried to explain myself to my mother as to why I didn't have my sister with me. For some reason, I kept going, thinking that things would get better. They didn't. There were times that I wasn't even sure where the road was because of the wind and blowing snow. When I managed to break free of the rural route I had to travel to reach town, I could see that the city streets weren't a hell of a lot better. I could at least tell where I was going, though. By the time that I pulled up in front of Cynthia's apartment, I had some real doubts about getting back out again. I had to get my shovel out of the back of my vehicle just to get up the steps to knock on her door.
"It's open!" I heard Cynthia call out.
I went in and pushed the door shut behind me, feeling lucky to make it. Cin was sitting on the couch in her shorts and tee shirt, sipping something in a mug with her bad ankle resting atop a pillow on her coffee table.
"Where've you been? You're late."
"Are you kidding me? I almost died like fifty times on my way over here. None of the roads have been plowed or anything, it's a fucking mess out there. Let's go before it's impossible," I said.
"Well, I have to change my clothes and stuff. It'll only be a minute," she said.
"You were just bitching about me being late and you're not even ready to go? Unbelievable," I just about screamed. I examined my sister while she gave me the evil eye and slowly rose on her crutches. It looked like it may have been a week since she had last changed her clothes or brushed her hair. Maybe two. I would have thought that she would have wanted a fresh outfit just out of general principles.
"I wanted to make sure that you actually got here before I got ready. It's a pain in the ass to go anywhere," Cynthia said.
"You don't think it was a pain in the ass driving here? We're gonna miss the first quarter, at least, so hurry up," I told her. Just then, my mother called me, wondering if I had frozen to death or not.
"Well, if it's that bad, maybe you should stay there tonight," my mother suggested.
"Are you kidding me? Why'd you send me out here in the first place, are you trying to get me killed or something?" I wondered.
"Don't be foolish...wait a minute, your father's trying to tell me something," she began. I waited impatiently while I heard the two mumbling to each other across the connection. "You there? Your father says the roads are closed. It's a state of emergency."
"Are you kidding me?" I asked again. I walked into my sister's living room and changed her television over to the local news. There was some dork telling me that this was the first of an expected two feet of snow that had come swirling in from the Great Lakes. The State Police and the Sheriff's Office forbid travel by anything other than emergency vehicles. "This is awful."
"You can watch the game with your sister, can't you?" my mother had asked.
"I guess. I'll see you tomorrow," I said. I slid my phone back into my pocket while my sister crutched by in the hall carrying the clothes she was about to put on.
"Who were you talking to?" she asked.
"Mom. Look," I said, pointing at the TV. "Don't bother getting dressed."
"What? It's really that bad?" Cynthia asked, crutching over to join me. At the pace that she was moving at I figured that by the time she got dressed and down to the street that the game would have been over, anyway.
"Yeah. I told you how bad it was on the way over. Can I crash here or are you going to make me sleep in my car?" I asked.
"Depends on your attitude. You're dripping all over the floor, go take your boots off," Cynthia ordered.
I went and deposited my boots by the door in the kitchen and hung my coat over the back of a chair. It was then that I really took note of what a disaster the place was. Clutter everywhere, dirty dishes in the sink, it smelled like the litter box needed to be changed and she didn't even have a cat. I imagined that would be how my place would look if I ever got one, but then again, I was a lazy slob. Cynthia really wasn't.
Walking back to the living room, I took a seat next to my sister on her sofa while she arranged herself to be comfortable. "Can't you get your bitch Bryant to clean the place up, or what? It's gross around here."
"He's not my bitch, and he's not here," Cynthia said, turning the channel back to game coverage. At least I wasn't going to miss any of it.
"Well, I can see that he's not here. Did he really have to work, or is he just hiding in a closet somewhere so he didn't have to watch a football game? I know it would probably be traumatic for him if he started to produce testosterone," I said, not wanting to hide my feelings about the jellyfish that my sister was dating.
"Just drop it, Darren."
Shrugging my shoulders, I did. We watched the pregame show for a while before it finally was about time for kickoff. I thought maybe Cynthia would offer me some kind of refreshments or something, but she didn't and I was hungry. There was a massive blizzard standing between me and my chicken wings back at home.
