I Called Dibs First, F.Y.I.

Chapter 1

I am such a n00b. Bear with me while I try to write a worthwhile story. Feedback would also be pretty cool :)

She just had to be Irish, charming, and pretty to boot. Her forty year old, M.I.L.F-y mother just had to have accounts on nearly every dating site on the goddamn internet. Lastly, my father just had fool around with said sites while my flighty mother fooled around with her much older, corporate bigwig boyfriend.

Now I'm stuck in the middle of this mess, as per usual.

But I should introduce myself before diving into something that's probably already too confusing to follow.

My name is Kat Stepanek. I'm sixteen, and live with my slightly overweight, fake-happy father. (He worships his Prozac and has been wifeless for about three years now.)

I'm relatively thin and 5"5.

My hair is that weird light brown, dirty blondish color. My eyes are brown. My shoulders are way too freckly.

I've been a told a few times that I look like Emma Watson before she grew up and transformed into this totally glamorous bombshell, which is all right. Mention Emma Watson and me in the same sentence and I'm super flattered regardless.

Anyway, it's about time to flash back to when this all started. Ahh, memories.

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"KAAAT! Breakfast tacos!" Yelled my dad. I'll call him Jerry, given that I only refer to him as my father in public.

"Mkay, be down in a second!"

I gracelessly stomped down the stairs, trying not to think of my previous experiences with breakfast tacos.

I sat down at the bar and Jerry slid me a plate of tacos and a Coke. We sure do eat like royalty in this household.

"Hey Kitty Kat?" asked Jerry.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah?"

"I need to talk to you about something important."

"Uhuh," I mumbled between taco bites.

He ran a hand through his thinning brown hair and nervously sucked in his cheeks.

"You know that lady I was exchanging emails with? The Irish one, Annie?"

"Yeah." Of course I did. Annie cost me valuable time on the communal computer chatting with Jerry. He even drove up to New York to see her a few times while she was there visiting her sister. Crazy middle aged men and their desire to have that last bit of fun before they develop raging arthritis and a penchant for golf and Reeboks...

"Well, things are getting pretty serious, and I invited her and her daughter to stay with us for the summer." He smiled sheepishly.

My fork slipped out of my grip and clattered onto the tile bar.

"You what?!"

"You heard me. Annie and her daughter. Summer. With us."

I sighed. "So I guess I have no say in the matter?"

"Not at all," said Jerry.

"But really, Kat, it'll be tons of fun! Annie's daughter Saoirse is about your age, so I thought that maybe you could introduce her to Phoebe and the rest of your friends."

"I suppose I don't really have much of a choice. She won't be staying in my room though, right? The couch has a perfectly good mattress, you know."

Jerry rolled his eyes and put on the famous "you're making me age faster" expression.

"Kat, seriously. It'll be like a giant sleepover! They'll be here in a week, so I suggest that you start clearing a space for the trundle bed. Your floor is practically an archaeological dig site anyway, so maybe you'll excavate some long lost board game that you two can play for some MATURE AND CIVIL bonding."

"Funny, Jerry. Really funny," I said, layering on the sarcasm pretty damn thick.

"I'm going upstairs to silently bitch. Don't bother walking within five yards of my room."

And with that, I left my half eaten plate of tacos on the barstool and stomped up the stairs. I could practically feel Jerry's eyes shooting daggers at me, but frankly, I couldn't care less.