Return of the Sister: Part 8

Parked a few blocks away from Josh’s house, Kimberly’s curiosity was killing her. She’d left the party early, as planned, and had carefully ignored all of Bobby’s texts and calls, leaving Josh the opportunity to swoop in and play the hero. But had he pulled it off? She’d been coaching him for weeks on how to play it cool -- Bobby was already inundated with horny guys who were eager, at least online, to demonstrate how “open-minded” they were. It was essential that Josh came off differently. He had to be the one guy who treated “Barbie” like a normal person instead of an oddity or a sex object.

Of course, in reality, Josh was completely infatuated. If he couldn’t keep that under wraps, he would scare Bobby off before things even got rolling. But if it worked, it might just be the final nail in the coffin for her ex’s masculine self-image. It would be awfully hard for him to think of himself as a guy when he was busy getting all dolled up for dates with Josh Delacroix. She could just imagine him with Josh’s big strong arm around his dainty little waist, or sitting on his lap, or tipping his head back for a kiss…

It was weird, but it was also really hot picturing Bobby as another guy’s girlfriend. Kimberly figured she was still a little buzzed, and decided now was not the time for introspection on the matter. She needed to message Josh and find out what was happening back at the party. Just like she had him in her contacts as “Phone Repair Guy,” he had her in his contacts as “Aunt Lee” -- it wouldn’t do for Bobby to see Josh getting a text from her after she’d ignored all his calls.

Hey Joshy, how are things with you dear? she tapped, trying to sound middle-aged and aunt-like.

For a few minutes there was no answer, but then Josh replied, not with a text, but with a video. Completely intrigued, Kimberly opened it. She was met with a profile view of Bobby, glossy red lips pouted in concentration, holding his blonde hair away from his face with one hand while clutching a little white ping-pong ball in the other. Judging from the flush on his cheeks and slight sway to his slender arm, he was more than a little tipsy.

“For the win in double-overtime,” Josh’s voice narrated. “Barbie Vickerson lines up the shot… You got this, Barbie. This is our table.”

Bobby let fly, and Josh’s phone moved to show the trajectory of the ping-pong ball. It splashed into a red plastic beer cup on the other end of the table, producing howls of disappointment from the cup’s owner but also, simultaneously, a high-pitched squeal of excitement. The phone camera jerked back to Bobby. Kimberly could not quite believe the sound was coming from her ex, but it was.

“That’s three in a row!” Bobby exclaimed. “That’s a three-peat, suckers!” Had he been wearing more practical shoes, he probably would have been leaping up and down in excitement, but as it was the best he could manage was an inadvertently-adorable little shuffle dance. His long claw-like nails made fist-pumping out of the question, so instead he was fluttering his hands in excitement, looking for all the world like a ditzy blonde bimbo.

He turned and beamed at the camera -- or at Josh, rather -- then put his hands on his hips and gave a little shimmy. “Hell, yeah!” he chirped. “Who wants to lose next?”

The video jostled and cut out just as he finished speaking, but it looked an awful lot like Josh’s arm was already encircling Bobby’s slender shoulders. Kimberly blinked. It was a little perturbing, to see her ex so happy, but obviously the plan had worked. The Bobby Vickerson of two months ago had hated Josh’s guts, but “Barbie” was in desperate need of a friend -- and it looked like Josh Delacroix had become just that.

She switched over to her conversation with Bobby and tapped out a message: Hey, sorry I missed your calls, I got stuck on the phone with my mom and then had to go pick her up. Everything okay?

She had to wait a full ten minutes before she got a reply, which came in the form of a single, utterly dismissive thumbs up emoji. She rolled her eyes. It was almost like old times.

#

It turned out that tossing ping-pong balls into red plastic party cups was a whole lot harder with inch-long nails, but it didn’t matter -- he’d realized after a few rounds that he had developed a whole new superpower, almost superior to his former sharp-shooting. It seemed like all he had to do was bend forward, and the opposition was guaranteed to miss. Badly.

The first time he realized the guys at the other end of the table were taking every opportunity to look down his top, it had turned him into a blushing mess and he’d missed three straight shots trying to awkwardly keep his cleavage from showing. He couldn’t help but think about Serena’s boob job threat.

“Hey, quit shooting funny,” Josh scolded. “Where’s your form?”

Bobby flushed. “I’m trying! It’s this freaking top, it keeps…”

His partner’s eyes traveled down to Bobby’s chest, but instead of a lustful leer, he just shrugged. “Use it, Barbie. It’s like a mismatch, right? He can’t handle you.”

Bobby grimaced at the choice of words, but since he didn’t want to let his teammate down, the next time their opponent went to shoot Bobby tossed his hair in Serena-approved fashion, pouted his lips, and casually leaned forward to watch. The ping-pong ball didn’t even hit the table, slipping right out of the guy’s hand into his own cup -- point for team Josh and Barbie. The spectators guffawed.

“Good work,” Josh said, with a bit of a smirk, and offered a high-five.

“Whatever,” Bobby said, but he returned the high-five as well as he could without scratching his teammate’s hand.

Under any other circumstances, it would be completely humiliating, but he was drunk enough to dull his embarrassment -- he and Josh had finished off the Budweisers in the bathroom -- and besides, it was in the service of the thing Bobby loved most: winning. Guys were going to ogle him no matter what, so he might as well make it into a strategic advantage, right? That way, even if he wasn’t shooting so great, he was still helping his team dominate.

All the embarrassing moves and poses Bobby had learned from Serena were now fair game: he played with his skirt, tossed his hair, shimmied his shoulders, and to prevent a potential game-tying shot, even bent down to pretend to adjust his high-heeled sandal, giving his opponent an eyeful of his taut butt. He figured once he got his shooting touch back he would stop, but since he kept missing cups, the only way he could contribute was by distracting the other team -- and it was working like gangbusters, so how could he justify not doing it?

Sure, it was demeaning, but as the victories kept racking up, Bobby almost quit caring. For the first time in what felt like forever, he was winning again. And Josh, unlike the other drooling idiots in the room, wasn’t ogling him at all. He was just complimenting his tactics, throwing out high-fives, and hitting pretty much every single shot for their team.

Bobby was drunk, he knew that, but even so: Josh was so much cooler than he’d realized. He didn’t treat him like he was a chick, or like he was some kind of freak. It was basically like they were just two dudes hanging out together, even if Bobby also happened to be flashing a lot of cleavage. And they obviously made a great team, since they were kicking everyone else’s ass. In fact, Bobby was having the time of his life.

When they won their eighth game in a row, Bobby was so excited he threw his arms around Josh without even thinking, just how he would embrace a basketball teammate after sinking a buzzer-beater. Josh was just as pumped up, and Bobby found himself lifted off the ground, spinning in a circle before Josh set him back down.

Under any other circumstances, humiliating. Under these circumstances, while somewhat drunk, it actually felt kind of nice. Other than the occasional hug from his mom, which was usually perfectly calculated to avoid rumpling any clothes or messing up his hair, he hadn’t had much physical contact since becoming “Barbie.” Being crushed up against Josh’s chest had set off the weird but not entirely unpleasant tingling sensation in his breasts.

Not only that, Josh smelled really good. Bobby knew it was probably his imagination, but it seemed like his sense of smell had improved lately, and for some reason Josh’s mix of cologne and sweat made his stomach flutter. As he gripped Josh’s bicep to steady himself, he realized the much taller boy still had one arm wrapped around his waist. He realized if he were actually a chick, this would be the ideal time for Josh to kiss him. Which was a weird, drunk thought he definitely would not be sharing.

“You’re so cool,” Bobby said instead, beaming up at him. “I was totally wrong about you, dude.”

“You’re pretty cool, too,” Josh said, eyes fixed on his face -- that was another cool thing about Josh, everybody else wanted to look at his boobs. “We should hang out and watch a game some time. What’s your Insta?”

Bobby took Josh’s phone and carefully tapped in his Instagram handle. “Ignore all the, like, modeling photos,” he muttered. “My sister just made me do this lingerie shoot. Fuck my life, right? Anyways, here you go.” He handed the phone back, still smiling vaguely at Josh. “Dude, you have kind of a twitch going on under your eye,” he said, pointing it out with one glittery nail. “That can be a symptom of high blood pressure. Who’s your doctor? I know this great guy, his name is Dr. Skito, but he’s not Japanese, and…” He trailed off into a girlish giggle. “Oh, man, I’m kind of drunk.”

“Sounds like a great, uh, doctor,” Josh said, shifting from one foot to the other. “I have to hit the bathroom real quick. Set up the cups for next game?”

“You got it,” Bobby said brightly. “Hey, remember that time we went mini-golfing and I thought that one guy had an erection? That cell phone was definitely bigger than Kevin’s junk. Tell him that. Tell him he has a tiny baby weiner.”

“Will do,” Josh grimaced, grabbing an empty chip bowl off the nearest counter and holding it at waist-level. “I’m going to go get the IcyHot. I mean, the chips. I’m going to get more chips on my way to the bathroom.”

He hurried out of the room -- poor dude had probably been holding it during their whole winning streak.

“Get sour cream and onion!” Bobby called after him. “It’s the potato chip of champions!”

#

Kimberly was practically tearing her hair out by the time Josh finally messaged her. He and Bobby had both been totally incommunicado all night, but she hadn’t dared go back to the party to check on things -- she knew Bobby would be embarrassed to have her see him hanging out with Josh, since he’d spent so much time telling her how much he hated the guy, and she didn’t want to risk it. She’d ended up going to bed, barely sleeping, and then waking up early to check for messages from either of them.

She didn’t get what she was waiting for until almost noon: a short message from Josh saying I think it went okay. Bringing her over to your place now.

Normally Kimberly would have pretended to not give a shit, but her curiosity was so overwhelming she was actually waiting on the front porch of her house when Josh pulled up in his dad’s Mustang. The blonde hottie in the passenger seat was wearing a pair of white aviator sunglasses and sipping on a smoothie from Orange Julius.

Kimberly watched in amazement as Bobby offered Josh a fist-bump -- the macho action now looked ridiculously cute -- and clambered carefully out of the car. He turned and waved goodbye as Josh drove away, wiggling his manicured fingers, looking for all the world like a girl sending off her boyfriend. Then, with the same seductive slither in his hips as he’d demonstrated at the party, he sashayed up to the porch.

“Hey, Kimmy,” he said, looking slightly embarrassed but also quite pleased. “What a party, huh?” He took the aviators off, observed them for a moment, then tucked them back into his blonde hair. “I mean, I guess you missed most of it, but it was totally lit,” he assured her.

“That was Josh Delacroix,” Kimberly said, choosing to go for the most neutral statement possible.

Bobby blushed. “Yeah, you know, we got to talking last night, and he’s actually pretty okay.”

“Pretty okay?” Kimberly echoed.

“Yeah,” Bobby said, sounding slightly defiant now. “I mean, we absolutely dominated beer pong. Then he kept talking smack about how good he is in NBA2K, so we went back to his house, just, like, the two of us, and played this huge tournament…” He had an almost blissful look on his face recounting it. “He’s actually pretty good, but I still won, and we had a couple more drinks and then, you know, passed out.”

Kimberly blinked. I think it went okay, Josh had said. That faux-modest oh-so-humble son of a bitch. He’d gotten Bobby to actually sleep over at his house, and the fact that it had been a completely innocent night of video games would do nothing to dispel the rumors. Bobby had to know that, but clearly he didn’t care.

“Oh, my God, my makeup got everywhere,” her ex continued, slipping into an extra girly cadence -- he seemed to do that automatically now whenever he talked about his hair or makeup or shoes. “I was a mess this morning, but Josh snuck me some remover and stuff from his mom’s bathroom. He didn’t even know the difference between lip liner and a brow pencil, can you believe that? Anyways, then we went for breakfast, you know, like, hangover breakfast, and we got smoothies at Orange Julius. And guess what his favorite flavor is?”

Kimberly winced. Josh was taking things over the top -- too many little coincidences would only make Bobby suspicious at some point.

“Banana!” Bobby exclaimed. “Can you believe that dumbass? But I got him to try some of mine, and he admitted it’s pretty good, and next time maybe he’ll get mango.” He tapped the aviators nestled in his blonde hair. “Oh, and he let me borrow his mom’s sunglasses for the ride over. Totally forgot to take them off, but I figure I can return them when we hang out tomorrow.”

Kimberly tempered her enthusiasm, knowing that Bobby would probably push back against anything she pushed too hard for. “So you guys aren’t, uh, enemies anymore?” she asked, hitting the perfect note of skepticism.

“I never really thought of him as an enemy, Kimmy,” her ex said, frowning. “It was just, you know, friendly competition. He’s actually really cool.”

Kimberly noted the transition from “pretty okay” to “really cool,” but decided not to remark on it. “Well, I guess that’s mature of you,” she said.

“Yeah, it really is,” Bobby said proudly. “I mean, he’s also really mature.” He paused for a second, looking oddly nervous all of a sudden. “You guys talk, right?” he asked. “Josh kind of let it slip.”

Kimberly’s satisfaction with a job well done was suddenly replaced by trepidation. “Uh, yeah,” she said, wondering exactly what lover-boy Josh had let slip. “A little bit. I never brought it up, because I thought you guys were, you know, friendly competitors.”

Now Bobby looked even more nervous -- in fact, he was downright blushing. “Does he ever, um, talk about me?” he asked. “It’s just that…” His face went bright red. “It’s just that last night, I noticed he was the only guy who wasn’t checking me out, which was great, of course, and the other day you said something about knowing this guy who thought I was a seven, tops, and I was just wondering if that was him.”

Kimberly could barely contain her glee. Whatever Josh’s faults when it came to wooing, the man clearly had some game after all. She put on a concerned face. “Barbie, I just don’t know if I should tell you that.”

“Why not?” her ex yelped. “I mean, I don’t care. I’m not gay, and Josh isn’t either, so it’s…all…” He trailed off, wincing. “Cool?”

“It’s great you have a boy friend again,” Kimberly said, carefully emphasizing the space between the two nouns.

Bobby flushed. “Guy friend,” he muttered. “Guy friend sounds better.”

Kimberly gave an innocent shrug. “Guy friend it is.”