Sinclair
“Petulant little brat.” Refusing to react as the brat in question flipped me the bird as he climbed in the front seat of what seemed to be his friend Jason’s car, I kept a straight face as they drove off. “Children these days have no manners.”
“You sound like your eighty.” Rebecca scoffed, rolling her eyes as she waved at the dramatic brat. “You’re not even forty.”
I felt eighty so that was all that mattered.
Rebecca ignored the glare I shot in her direction and shrugged as she stared at the new empty street. “He’s angry, not pouting, and he’s not a child.”
Now it was my turn to scoff which had her rolling her eyes and lecturing me like I was the kid running around flipping people off. “First of all, he’s my son, so you should at least pretend to be polite. Second, he’s officially twenty-one and you just ignored it.”
Bullshit.
“I did not. I sent him a nice present and a card I even picked out myself.” Which was actually impressive because my assistant bought my mother’s last three cards and had even signed them for me because the old bat made me want to pull my hair out.
Rebecca laughed softly, knowing me well enough to realize it’d been significant for me. In the five years since she’d moved in, we’d gradually gotten to know one another quite well. There were just a few things we didn’t talk about…or at best, we talked around.
She was as vanilla as her son was rocky road, so there were some things best left unexplained.
“Besides, you did a family dinner to celebrate and I am not family.” Pretending to be Kent’s honorary uncle would be incredibly inappropriate for a variety of reasons, one of the most important was that incest fantasies were not my kink.
They weren’t his either based on the naughty tidbits he’d kept dropping ever since he’d turned eighteen.
The brat was going to be the death of me.
“You’re family.” She laughed as I shot her another glare, thoroughly enjoying torturing me. “Just not the type most people would expect…Uncle Sinny.”
Groaning at the ridiculous nickname her sister was doing her best to give me, I shook my head. “Never use that name again. Your sister is a monster.”
And a bitch because she was stirring up shit where I was trying to keep it calm.
He was only twenty-one.
I knew I should stay away from the brat but the way she’d been trying to force me into some weird quasi-relative status had only made things more awkward. Kent had gone from cheeky but patient to outright hostile.
He’d even stopped coming over to help me around the yard.
Just thinking that made me feel stupid but it’d been a significant change for us. Since he’d turned eighteen, it’d been the only way I’d allowed either of us to indulge in our kinks. But it’d been months since he’d come over to help, and I’d even found myself thinking about hiring a lawn company the other day.
That’d been the moment I knew something had to change…and it’d been the moment I’d finally gotten angry at my own issue and over the whole situation.
Rebecca chuckled but it was a strained sound that clearly wasn’t happy. Her smile was on the forced side as well, making me think she’d been under more stress than I’d realized. “She can’t help butting in. She thinks she was trying to save Kent from himself but now he won’t talk even acknowledge her presence and she’s being all dramatic. Dinner was a disaster.”
“Your whole family is dramatic.” That was an understatement that nearly had the ridiculous woman giggling, back to being genuinely happy. “He’s really not talking to her? Just over your birthday dinner a few months ago?”
Rebecca’s sister had been snide and approached the line several times but I hadn’t thought she’d crossed it. She’d just come close enough to it and made enough people uncomfortable that I’d stopped going to family events.
I was hoping that if she thought she’d won it’d take him and me out of her crosshairs.
Rebecca’s sigh as she went back to staring down the street like she could still see Kent said there was more to the story. “It wasn’t just about the dinner comments. The next weekend she came over to drop a few things off for Mom’s birthday and she saw Kent helping you around the yard.”
Refusing to squirm or look guilty, I huffed like I was offended. “There was nothing inappropriate about him helping me around the yard.”
I wasn’t going to point out the obvious, like that he was always perfectly clothed and we always stayed outside where no one could say I was going anything wrong, but Rebecca laughed anyway. “You both just have to be in the same room together for the sparks to fly. I’ve learned to ignore it but she gets her panties in a bunch every time she thinks about you two.”
“There’s no you two.” Just because I hadn’t dated anyone in the past year didn’t mean I had a relationship with Kent. “We’re just friends.”
Mostly.
Could two people be more than friends if they’d never kissed?
Hell, I didn’t even go anywhere with Kent where he’d be in a bathing suit. That had to mean there was no you two.
And if I kept telling myself that long enough, at some point I’d be able to sell it to Rebecca.
I’d have to wait until she’d finished laughing and caught her breath first, though. That took a while, but eventually, she waved her hands around like a lunatic and managed to control herself. “That’s…”
Okay, she’d almost managed to control herself. That took another moment, but before I’d figured out a good way to kill her, she was back to being a real person and shook her head. “You’re trying to kill me.”
She was just as insane as the rest of her family.
“You might not have done anything together but there’s been a you two since he was nineteen.” When I just glared at her, she sighed. “Sinclair, he’s watched you since we first moved in but I could see the moment when you finally saw him as an adult and there was this spark.”
Refusing to admit she was right, I just let her talk. “He lights up when you walk by the house. I’ve seen you turn and you just know he’s watching. It’s damned near creepy. I’d be the first one to chop off your dick if you’d hurt my baby, but you didn’t even know he existed when we first moved in.”
“I wasn’t that bad.” I just hadn’t noticed him beyond him being a fun kid. “I knew what shows he was into and I got him that video game he wanted for his birthday.”
She chuckled, confusing me. “I know. He pouted for a week that you told him he was a good kid for helping me around the house.”
When had I said that?
“See?” She waved her hand at me, still smiling and shaking her head. “That’s what I mean and that’s why I’m not burying your body in the backyard for making my kid think dirty thoughts.”
I really wasn’t going to comment on that so I did the gentlemanly thing instead. “You’re insane.”
He’d been dirty before he’d met me.
I wasn’t going to get blamed for that.
“You’re a dick.” She sounded so much like her son that I almost sighed. “But I’ll drop it. I’m just going to be intrusive and obnoxious one more time. He was watching weird shit online before we moved here so nothing you did started any of this…this whatever.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
Not really.
And I wasn’t going to tell her that he’d already shared that interesting tidbit.
She made a very unladylike snort and rolled her eyes. “Aside from learning a few things about my kid I didn’t need to know, I learned how to ask him questions and listen. You might want to do the same.”
Thank God my mother hadn’t been this much of a parent when I was growing up.
I wouldn’t have survived it.
“Okay, one more thing, then I promise I’m going to go home and finish off the last piece of his birthday cake before he comes home drunk and tries to steal it for himself.”
I refused to point out that piece should’ve been mine…because that would’ve made me sound like more of a child than Kent was being.
Wait.
“Drunk?”
She looked at me like it was a stupid question as she stood up. “What planet are you on? He’s twenty-one? They’re taking an Uber from Jason’s place and going out.”
Fuck.
When I just sat there stupidly, her opinion of me just got worse. “He’s an adult now, moron. There’s only so long he’s going to wait. I just hope he doesn’t do anything too stupid because we both know who he wanted his first to be.”
Throwing up her hands she let out a frustrated scream. “And I shouldn’t know that. I really shouldn’t know that. Fucking kids these days. Back when I was young, we knew how to keep our parents in the dark. You two are going to make me go gray.”
I knew better than to comment on any of that, but as she stomped down my porch stairs and across the grass just to be a pain in the ass, I decided to wait until she was a bit less feisty to point out that probably meant she was doing something right…even if it was going to give her a heart attack.
As she muttered about how stupid men were all the way to her place, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
I wasn’t sure she was right but that didn’t help me to figure anything else out.
The only things I really knew as I opened my eyes and poured the rest of my now warm beer over the side of the rail was that I was an idiot and Kent was getting drunk for the first time without any fucking supervision at all.
I turned into the one muttering as I headed in, refusing to sit out on the front porch and pout. I’d known Rebecca was going to drive me fucking nuts when she’d come over earlier, but I had no idea how thoroughly she was going to do it.
Mothers were a pain in the ass no matter who they’d given birth to.
Those grumbling thoughts kept me company until I was inside and heading toward the living room but they didn’t stay around long. Entirely too soon, I was back to thinking about Kent and wondering what the fuck the little troublemaker was up to.
Drinking?
Really?
He was too mature to spend his birthday getting plastered. He should’ve been out at a fancy dinner or even doing something ridiculous like laser tag. He’d kept saying he was too old for that now but I’d seen how excited it used to make him.
He might’ve been a sub in a relationship but on the battle field he was ruthless.
He thought he was a sub.
Just because he’d found interesting porn online hot and liked it when I gave him orders didn’t necessarily mean anything. It might’ve been why he’d been so distant lately. There was probably someone much more age-appropriate he’d started to find interesting.
There was probably someone less kinky he’d found interesting.
Someone much more reasonable.
“You need a distraction, old man.” No matter what Rebecca had said, I felt like I was eighty some days…and this was one of them. “He’s—”
Stopping myself, I shook my head. “No. He’s living his life and that’s what I’ve always wanted for him.”
Well, that might not have been exactly truthful but it was what I was going to tell myself from there on out.
“Alright, it’s Friday night. What are you going to do?” The first things that came to mind were laundry and reruns. “Yep, eighty and just getting older every second.”
Soon I was going to start yelling at kids to get off my lawn.
It didn’t help that I hadn’t dated in so long there wasn’t even anyone to take to dinner. When I found myself wondering if I knew anyone to call to go grab a drink this late in the evening, I knew I was fucked. “Someone I know is getting drunk and watching a game. I should know who’s doing what.”
But digging through my bleak-looking social media pages to figure out what everyone was doing sounded painful…and frustrating. I wouldn’t be good company for anyone and I didn’t have a reasonable excuse for my mood.
Okay, I had a few friends who were on the more interesting side of life who’d completely understand but they were all happily settled down and probably deep in a scene. I was not so pathetic I’d fuck up someone else’s night.
“Food. Another beer. A movie.” I had a plan.
And I had steaks somewhere.
Possibly even thawed.
Hopefully thawed.
To say I’d been distracted before I’d left for work would’ve been an understatement. Seeing what was in my fridge would be an adventure but I set off for the expedition and hoped that would distract me. I almost made it to the kitchen with a half-baked idea of what I would have if somehow steak wasn’t an option when the doorbell rang.
Fucking Rebecca.
If she thought I’d let her go at me with another round of why I was an idiot, she was an idiot. I was working on the best way to explain that in the most interesting and concise language I could, when I stomped up to the door, mumbling like she had earlier. “If she wasn’t more fucking—”
Oh.
The wind went out of my sails as I saw Kent standing in the doorway, glaring at me like he was ready to take my head off.
It took him a lot to get to that point with me so I knew it wasn’t the right time to tell him he was sexy as fuck.
But he was twenty-one.
And his mother had given me permission.
Fuck it.
“Happy twenty-first birthday. Legal and everything now.” That just made his eyes flash, and I had to admit it just made him more enticing. “You’re sexy when you’re angry, but don’t think I won’t turn you over my knee, so choose your words carefully.”
It nudged him just off balance enough that he sucked in a breath and he stood there staring at me.
If he didn’t kill me, the silence definitely would.
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