Chapter 3: The Tour and the Sophomore
The admissions office smelled like money and ambition.
Syren sat in a leather club chair that cost more than her monthly car payment, her heels clicking against the polished oak floor as she shifted her weight for the hundredth time. The financial aid counselor—a woman with severe bangs and a smile that didn't reach her eyes—had been droning on about FAFSA deadlines and merit scholarships for what felt like hours.
Across the lobby, through the floor-to-ceiling windows, she could see Kyle.
He was standing with the tour guide, a petite brunette named Jess who couldn't have been more than nineteen. Jess was animated, her hands moving through the air as she pointed at various buildings, her ponytail swinging with each gesture. Kyle stood close. Too close. Close enough that his shoulder brushed hers when he leaned in to hear something she'd said.
Syren's jaw tightened.
"—and if you submit the supplemental essay by January fifteenth, you'll be automatically considered for the Presidential Scholarship, which covers—"
"Excuse me," Syren said, not looking away from the window. "I need to use the restroom."
She didn't wait for a response. She stood, smoothed her skirt, and walked toward the exit, her heels announcing her departure with sharp, staccato clicks.
By the time she reached the hallway, Kyle and Jess were gone.
---
The tour had been endless.
Two hours of walking backward through manicured quads and echoing lecture halls, of listening to Jess recite statistics about student-faculty ratios and study abroad programs. Kyle had asked questions—good ones, thoughtful ones—but Syren had noticed the way his eyes kept drifting to Jess's mouth when she spoke. The way Jess laughed a little too hard at his jokes.
She'd told herself it was nothing. Kyle was charming. He was always charming. It didn't mean anything.
But then they'd stopped at the student union for coffee, and Jess had touched his arm. Just a light brush of her fingers against his bicep, casual and fleeting, but Syren had seen the way Kyle's posture shifted. The way he tilted his head, lowered his voice, gave Jess that slow, knowing smile that made women stupid.
"I'm just gonna grab a quick look at the rec center," Kyle had said, handing Syren his coffee. "Meet you back at admissions in twenty?"
She'd nodded. Twenty minutes.
That had been an hour ago.
Now she sat in the lobby, scrolling through her phone without seeing anything, the financial aid counselor having long since given up on her. The sunlight through the windows had shifted from gold to orange, casting long shadows across the oak floor. Her coffee had gone cold.
She checked the time. Again.
And then she heard him.
"—yeah, I'll definitely be back for the spring showcase. You should come."
"I'd love that."
Syren looked up.
Kyle was walking through the glass doors, Jess at his side. His hair was disheveled, the front of his shirt untucked and buttoned wrong—the hem hung crooked, one side higher than the other. His collar was open. And on the side of his neck, just below his ear, was a smear of pink.
Lipstick.
There was no mistaking it. The color was too bright, too deliberate. It matched the shade Jess was wearing.
Jess's cheeks were flushed. Her ponytail was slightly askew.
"Oh my God," Syren whispered, but no sound came out.
Kyle spotted her and grinned. Not his usual easy smile. Something else. Something smug and satisfied and entirely too knowing. He said something to Jess, who giggled and touched his arm again, then walked toward Syren with that same lazy, confident stride.
"Hey, Mom. Sorry that took so long. Jess was showing me the athletic complex."
"I saw."
"Ready to go?"
Syren stood, her legs unsteady, and gathered her purse. She didn't look at Jess. She couldn't. If she looked at that girl—that pretty, petite, nineteen-year-old girl with her smooth skin and her perky tits and her lipstick all over her stepson's neck—she might say something she couldn't take back.
"Sure," she said. "Let's go."
---
The car ride back to the hotel was silent.
Kyle drove, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the gear shift. He'd fixed his shirt, at least, but the lipstick was still there, a neon flag on his tanned skin. He seemed relaxed. Happy. Like a man who'd just gotten exactly what he wanted.
Syren stared out the window, watching the campus fade into the rearview mirror. Her hands were folded in her lap, knuckles white.
"You like Jess," she said finally.
It wasn't a question.
Kyle glanced at her, then back at the road. "She's cool. Smart. Knows a lot about the school."
"She's pretty."
"Yeah, I guess."
"She seemed to think you were pretty too."
Kyle laughed, low and unbothered. "What can I say? I'm a people person."
Syren didn't respond. She couldn't. Her throat was too tight, her chest too full of something that felt like rage and something else that felt worse.
She should have said something. Should have called him out. Should have reminded him that they were here for a reason—for his education, for his future—not for him to disappear into some broom closet or dorm room with the first girl who batted her eyes at him.
But she didn't. Because the truth was worse.
The truth was that she wasn't angry.
She was jealous.
---
The hotel room felt smaller that night.
Kyle showered first, scrubbing off the lipstick and the evidence. When he came out, he was wearing just his boxers, his hair still wet, his skin still radiating heat. He climbed into bed without a word, rolled onto his side, and was asleep within minutes.
Syren didn't shower. She sat on the edge of the mattress, frozen, listening to his breathing deepen. The image was burned into her mind—Jess's hand on his arm, the lipstick on his neck, his shirt buttoned wrong. She kept replaying it, dissecting it, imagining what they'd done in those missing sixty minutes.
Had he kissed her? Touched her? Pressed her against the wall of some empty classroom and whispered things in her ear while she moaned?
She felt sick.
She felt hot.
She needed air.
Instead, she lay down. Slowly. Carefully. On her back, one arm pressed against the mattress between them, a barrier she didn't trust herself to maintain.
Minutes passed. Maybe hours.
Kyle slept on.
And then, without deciding to, she turned onto her side.
Facing him.
His back was to her, broad and bare, the sheet pooled at his waist. The moonlight through the curtains caught the planes of his shoulders, the dip of his spine, the swell of his ass beneath the thin fabric of his boxers. She could smell him—soap and sweat and something else, something warm and male that made her mouth water.
Her hand moved.
It started as a single finger, tracing the air between them, an invisible line drawn by her own trembling need. Then it landed on his shoulder, light as a whisper. He didn't wake.
She slid lower.
His skin was smooth and hot beneath her fingertips. She followed the curve of his side, the ridges of his abs, the hard plane of his chest. She felt his muscles twitch under her touch, even in sleep, and her breath caught in her throat.
She should stop.
She knew she should stop.
But instead, she pressed her palm flat against his sternum, feeling his heartbeat, slow and steady under her hand. Then she moved lower, her fingers finding the edge of his boxers, the trail of hair that disappeared beneath the fabric.
And her other hand slipped between her own legs.
She was wet. Soaked. The slick heat of her arousal coated her fingers as she found her clit, already swollen and aching. She circled it slowly, her eyes fixed on Kyle's sleeping form, her breath coming in shallow, silent gasps.
She thought about Jess. About what it would feel like to be that girl—young and pretty and wanted. She thought about Kyle's hands on her skin, his mouth on her neck, his voice in her ear telling her all the things he'd tell a woman he was about to fuck.
She imagined him turning over. Waking up. Finding her like this, hand in her cunt, staring at him like a starving woman. She imagined his eyes opening, dark and hungry, and his voice.
"Need some help with that, Mommy?"
Her hips bucked. Her fingers moved faster.
She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood.
The orgasm hit her in waves, rolling through her body like thunder. She clamped her legs together, her whole body trembling, her mouth open in a silent scream. The pleasure was sharp and bright and over too fast, leaving her breathless and shaking and no less desperate than before.
When it passed, she realized her hand was still on Kyle's chest.
He hadn't moved.
She pulled her hand away, sticky and slick, and wiped it on her own tank top. Then, slowly, carefully, she shifted closer.
Her forehead touched his shoulder blade. Her breath warmed the back of his neck. She draped her arm over his waist, her fingers resting just above the waistband of his boxers, and pressed her body against his back.
He was so warm. So solid. So much more real than the fantasy inside her head.
She closed her eyes and breathed him in.
She didn't sleep.
---
Morning came gray and slow.
Syren woke to the sound of traffic and the smell of stale coffee from the courtesy machine in the lobby. For a moment, she didn't know where she was. Then she felt the heat of another body against her, the rise and fall of Kyle's shoulders, and everything came rushing back.
She was still pressed against him. Her arm was still draped over his waist. Her hips were still fitted to the curve of his ass.
She tried to pull away.
And then she felt it.
Something hard and warm, pressed against her thigh. Something that hadn't been there last night.
Kyle was hard.
She froze.
His breathing had changed. It was shallower now, more deliberate. Not the deep, even rhythm of sleep. The rhythm of someone who was awake.
And he was still calling her Mom, but the way he looked at her now, when he did turn, was different. It held a question, an electric charge, a step over a threshold they could never step back from. And then he spoke, his voice a low, gravelly rasp: "Mommy?"
She didn't answer. She couldn't.
"I know it's you," he whispered. "I know you've been touching me."
Her blood turned to ice.
His hand moved, closing over hers where it rested on his waist. His fingers were warm and strong, and he held her there like a caught bird, like something he had no intention of letting go.
And then, slowly, he turned to face her.