I waltz into the dining room, and as predicted, Kenzie is sitting near the end of the table.
“Where’s your brother?” I ask, and my tone is cold, as though I don’t care. And it’s the way I want to come off because I dare not show my feelings for either kid, not with the promise I’ve vowed to my closest and dearest friend.
“Yeah, not sure. I’m not my brother’s keeper, you know.”
The snark in her tone awakens my cock. It’s typically not this responsive, since before both my heart and cock realized we loved Tanya Hanson. My best friend called dibs on her first, and as the once honorable man I used to be, I let Robert have her. It never stopped me loving her from afar or grieving a loss so deep as if she was mine. In my mind, she’d always be mine. But now, the same yearning calls for every part of Kenzie Hanson.
“I’d watch the amount of sass that comes from your mouth, little girl. You aren’t too old for a good fashioned spanking.” Oh, hell, now all I imagine is her bent over my knee. Shit, I shouldn’t have these reactions to Tanya’s daughter. But fuck, I’ve been having them for some time now.
“You’re a pervert enough; I’d say you’d almost enjoy it,” she snaps back. I don’t give her any indication that I most definitely would enjoy it. Every part of it, but then again, it’s just a fantasy that helps with my basic needs in the privacy of my bed.
I don’t have a response when River strolls into the room, a pair of holey jeans and a Pearl Jam t-shirt. He’s attempting to piss me off, but I won’t give him the satisfaction either.
“From now on, if you’re hell-bent on ignoring my rules, I’ll be forced to take it out of your allowance. Or take away the keys to your car.”
His eyes swing to me. I remember the type of heat that once filled his when I challenged him in the past. This is not the same kind of challenge, and thus, it’s not the same type of heat.
“You wouldn’t dare?” she asks.
I let out a haughty laugh. Unlike Kenzie, River knows precisely what sort of man he’s dealing with.
“Be thankful, Riv. He didn’t threaten to put you over his knee.”
There’s now more of a flame radiating in River’s orbs. And he’s pissed.
“Not yet, Kenzie,” I begin. “But if he keeps pissing me off, I sure as fuck will. Maybe you both at the same time.”
I don’t believe the comment left my lips, but I can’t take it back now. And because I want both over my knee, the arousal starts at my cock.
He’s around the table in less than two seconds, and I don’t miss how Kenzie follows his every move. River doesn’t have the muscle mass to bring me to my feet from a sitting position. He tries, and he fists my buttoned-up shirt.
“You touch one hair on her head; I’ll take you out, you understand, asshole?”
I brush him off. He’s not a tiny kid, but he’s still a kid, even if he’s eighteen.
“Oh, don’t get your panties in a bunch, kid. And remember, you don’t like your sister anyway. You’ve been a grade-A asshole to her if I remember, right?”
He walks back to his seat. His eyes on me in warning.
“Yeah, well, as you noted, I was an asshole, and since Kenz is all the family I have left, I won’t let you take advantage of her.”
This piques my interest. “You say advantage as if I’ve taken advantage of something or someone in the past. And we both know, River, it’s not how that went down, kid.”
Silverware gets thrown to the center of the table, and both of us whip our attention to Kenzie. “Someone sure as fuck better tell me what the hell you all are talking about? These innuendos have been flying around, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say there’s some sexual chemistry between you two.”
I swing my attention to River. The very noticeable shake of his head is telling me not to burden Kenzie with this. I’m an asshole, but even my asshole ways know their boundaries.
“Well, this was one fucked up family dinner!” she screams when she doesn’t get the answers she’s asked for. Pushing her chair back, she throws her napkin into the middle of her plate.
“You’re such an asshole,” River begins. He hasn’t raised his voice, and it’s a statement as though no one could ever figure it out.
“Um, if I remember right, you loved my asshole.” And standing up for Kenzie, as he had, was very telling and fucking hot at the same time. I love goading this kid, and when he follows suit and does the same thing Kenzie had done, I give myself an A for this parenting shit—sarcasm playing in my head. I’ve failed miserably, but then again, I’ve enjoyed this interchange between the three of us. I’m in trouble because the two kids have me jumbled up inside.
Chapter 6
Kenzie
Is this my life? First, I never know what side of Isaiah I’ll see. Then there’s River. He’s sticking up for me, and this is as uncommon as a unicorn. Honestly, if you were to ask me what would occur first, I’d swear I’d most likely see a unicorn.
The sexual tension between both of them is infuriating. It’s causing such a sensation in my body I’ve never had coursing through me. Sure, I could say it’s because I don’t know what’s going on, but my mind has vividly imagined what all their hostility is about.
Through this all, I miss my mom and dad in a way I can’t explain. I’ve seen friends and classmates lose grandparents, aunts, siblings, and parents. I’m living this hell on the inside, by myself—I have no one to grieve with.
I’m sitting against the bed I’ll call mine for the next several months, with a box of pictures and mementos I’ve kept through the years. Some of the items are my biological mom’s things Dad had set aside for me. When the woman I knew as my mom married my dad, she gave me this box to store them simply to remember Tanya. It’s not anything wild or expensive. It’s cardboard, with giraffes on them; a little thicker than most boxes. Tanya, my bio mom, loved giraffes. Between what my mom and dad have told me about Tanya, we’re so much alike. Dad kept a picture in his room of her in her early twenties. When Mom and Dad married, he moved it to my room so I’d never forget her. The only problem, I never remembered her. I’m the spitting image of Tanya. With the addition of items I’d been given by the mom who raised me, along with Dad, and tons of pictures of vacations and such, I live in the past where the two most important people still are alive.
I don’t hear anything and am in my own world, the music on low in the background. “Kenz?” The infuriating voice pulls me out of remembering Mom and Dad and the love they had for one another.
“River, what are you doing in here?” My tone is accusatory.
He gives me a shrug of his shoulders. “Dinner wasn’t quite like dinner with Mom and Dad, was it?”
A laugh leaves my lips, and it has to be one of the first moments I found funny since Isaiah dropped the bomb that Mom and Dad would never be coming home.
“Yeah, Riv. It was…” The words don’t form. “Well, fuck, I don’t have the words. Let’s start with what the hell you defending me was all about. We barely spoke in the same house, now you’re what, going to play the big brother?” Technically, this is true since he was born ten minutes before me.