Read Online Loving Siblings: Aidan & Dionne by Catharina Shields - Free Book Online Page A

younger brother, made her wish she was more like Candace.
For the first time in her young life, Dionne wished she was as sexy
and as beautiful as the girls Aidan seemed to prefer to date.
    To be completely fair and honest with
herself, she knew she wasn’t an ogre. She was just kind of . . .
plain. And easily overlooked.
    She had mousy brown hair in a part of the
country where blondes were revered, and she had boring brown eyes
where blue were idolized. She didn’t have long, lush lashes until
she found a friend in mascara, and her lips were cartoonish. Like
that Betty Boop character. They were much too small for her face,
too. She also considered her face too pudgy.
    So again, she asked herself, what was the
attraction? And what was that all about hating Helmut because they
were “competing for the same thing”? What same thing? Getting her
in bed?
    “ Right.” Dionne looked frustrated and
troubled. Then she sighed. “You were so much easier to understand
when you were little. Now you’re just an enigma to me.”
    As a boy, Aidan had always been restless and
full of energy, but at least she understood him. She recalled the
only time he seemed to notice her was when he needed a quiet moment
to “recharge”. He’d look her up, usually finding her on the sofa
reading a book like all nerdy girls did when they were too afraid
to date, and he’d join her there.
    She remembered how he’d wrap his arms around
her for a little cuddling, and she’d naturally oblige. As wonderful
as it always was, it was also always brief, because before she knew
it, he was gone; off to explore new and exciting things.
    She frowned in thought. New and exiting
things.
    That had to be it. Right? Turning his
attention to his sister was just another “new and exciting” thing
for him? And when he said he felt threatened by Helmut, was it
because her boyfriend was an obstacle in his way to explore this
“new and exciting thing”?
    She sighed. “I don’t know what’s up or
what’s down anymore.”
    She knew she should know better, though. She
was the older sibling, and she wasn’t a hormone-driven teenager
anymore. She was a twenty-three-year-old college student, and
Aidan’s oldest sister.
    “ Yeah, right. Older, but not wiser,”
she scoffed.
    Still living at home, and in addition to
going to classes, she worked part-time at The Video Paradise. She
had to keep herself as busy as possible and away from Aidan as much
as possible.
    The Video Paradise was her first job. It was
a family owned and operated video store by Thai immigrants. They
also had a special XXX adult section where she’d learned more than
she thought she’d ever needed to.
    With Dad having the foresight of buying real
estate in Arcadia when it was still affordable, then flipping it
when property values shot up, the van Nuys family lived
comfortably. That’s why Dad bought her a brand-spanking new Honda
Prelude! It was the most popular car among young Californians, and
it had to be special ordered from Japan. Unfortunately, she didn’t
get the color she wanted. She begged for fire engine red, but it
ended up being a subdued maroon.
    She used her Prue, as she lovingly named her
car, to and fro PCC and The Video Paradise. She used it that
morning to drive to Aidan’s soccer game. After witnessing how her
not being able to come had upset him, she knew she couldn’t skip
this one. So instead of accompanying Helmut to Loma Linda, she
drove to Aidan’s final championship game.
    Then the locker room incident happened.
    She hadn’t really recovered from the shock
of a stark naked Aidan that morning, so when she walked into the
locker room looking for him after waiting long enough outside to
make sure he was done—Shawn, being the last to exit the locker
room, told her he was—she got another shock to the system before
she could recover from the first one.
    She was the designated driver to take him to
Black Angus for the surprise celebration party that, in