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A notification pinged. Did Dad really give me this thing without even bothering to sign out of his old accounts?

I couldn’t help but read the message that flashed across the top of the screen.

Last night was amazing. Can’t stop thinking about you…

Ugh. Gross.

I wasn’t jealous. Really, I swear.

I know that it was wrong. Well, morally wrong.

I’m nineteen. It’s legal. I can fuck her.

I mean, Delila’s my stepmom and I know it.

All she ever tried to do was be kind to me, like a real mom. But Delila never felt like a mom to me—I was already a teenager when Dad married her. When I think of Mom, all that comes to mind is the sad smell of antiseptics, the beeping of heart monitors, and the heavy gloom of the inevitable.

When I think of Delila, every inch of my body gets warm, as I try not to want her.

When can I see you again?

I’d had just about enough of that. I wanted to use this iPad to destress, not traumatize myself. Opening up the settings, I scrolled through the notifications section, trying to remember which combination of buttons would turn this stupid conversation off—when the next message made me freeze.

when that fat bitch is distracted

Something cold dropped in the pit of my stomach.

While I wouldn’t put it past my old man to call me a cock-blocking little shit, or something along those lines… Fat. Bitch? Dad bragged about my body weight and stats as if he were the one doing all the workouts. I was cutting now to hit welterweight and my body was chiseled. Not to brag, but nobody would look at my six-pack and dare call me fat. Even though I would have preferred it to the alternative, something in my gut already knew—he wasn’t talking about me.

But that meant that he was talking about…

No.

My stepmother wasn’t fat. She was thick and juicy, with a generous ass that had the slightest jiggle when she walked. And her chest—I couldn’t talk about her tits without popping a boner that would refuse to go down, so enough said there. But she wasn’t fat. Yeah, she had curves, but she also had an hourglass figure. She looked fucking good.

But why was my father calling her fat? More importantly, who the hell was he talking to? What the fuck was going on?

I clicked the notifications, watching as the messenger app popped open… and scrolled through months of betrayal.

Lies. Plans for hotel meet-ups. All those work trips and those last-minute plans Dad had to cancel—yeah, that wasn’t for work. It was all nothing but a cover for him to meet up with whoever the contact was that he had so cleverly labeled “Pizza Delivery.”

Why did my old man even think the name was a good idea? Like it wasn’t suspicious that he was trying to “order pizza” through his social media. Stupid-ass fucking boomer loser.

But worst of all were the casual insults that my dad and his… other woman… threw at my stepmom.

What a whiny little bitch.

She’ll cry about it because she’s fucking pathetic.

If that fat ass wanted to keep a man, she shouldn’t be letting herself go.

I couldn’t stop reading, even as the messages got worse and worse. I kept on scrolling, though something in my brain felt numb. Like, there was no way that this could have been real. One little notification on an old device shouldn’t be enough to rip my entire world wide open.

This wasn’t something that had just started. No, the two of them had been plotting against my stepmom for a very long time. No matter how much I read, the messages just kept coming, twisting and tearing at something in my chest.

Delila was too good for someone like my dad. Too sweet and trusting. She deserved none of this shit that the two of them were throwing at her.

But then I read the message that dropped a bombshell.