by Brandon Witt
“So?”
“So, you shouldn’t have to do that.”
I laughed and leaned over him to whisper confidingly in his ear. “Dude, I’ve been changing your sheets for weeks. I know all your secrets now. Who do you think cleaned up after your little orgy?”
The guy turned adorably red from the tips of his ears, down his neck and even across his chest. I wanted to kiss him better, but nothing would get you fired faster than making a move on a straight guy. I pulled his arm and helped him to his feet. “Shower,” I ordered. “And don’t come out for at least ten minutes so I have time to remake the bed.”
He stayed in bed for the rest of the day while I completed my chores. I dosed him with honey and lemon tea and gave him nose spray. I fed him chicken soup for lunch and gave him another two tablets. Then, as he was flagging, I tucked him into bed for a nap and passed him the Vicks chest rub.
“Here. This is Vicks. Rub it on your chest and it will help you breathe easier.”
I sat on the edge of the bed. “My chest?”
“Yep. Just grab some on your finger and rub it around your upper chest. I’d offer to do it for you and I’d enjoy the task immensely, but you’re such a fusspot I betcha you’d just deny me my jollies on principle.”
There was a pause as Patrick absorbed what I said. He didn’t disappoint with his reaction. His head swung in my direction and disbelief was obvious on his features. “You’re gay?”
“Sure. If you could see you would’ve realized straight away. I don’t hide it.”
“Oh. Why are you telling me now?”
“Just in case. I like to be upfront about it so any bullshit comes out at the beginning and doesn’t hit me for six later. So, do you have a problem with a gay, male housekeeper?”
Patrick appeared to think about it for a moment, then asked with confusion, “No. Should I?”
“Nope. Now give me your mobile phone number.”
“Huh? Why?”
I sighed at his incomprehension. “So I can ring you, arse wipe. Now, what is it?” He recited it to me and I programmed it into my phone.
“Why do you need my number?”
I patted his leg as I moved away. “Because you’re going to rub that stuff on your chest and then you’re going to take a nap for a couple of hours. It’s nearly two o’clock and I only work until three. So I’ll ring you at four o’clock and make sure you’re okay and that you’re awake. If you sleep all afternoon you won’t sleep tonight.”
“Oh.” He sounded disappointed.
“Cheer up, grumpy. I have to go and visit my sister after work or there’ll be hell to pay, but I’ll be back to feed you dinner.”
“You don’t have to. I’m not going to die.”
I smiled at him, even though he couldn’t see it. “Don’t worry. It’s not for your sake. I’m doing it for my own preservation. If no one comes back to feed Gregor or let him outside, he’s going to shit on the carpet and I’m the one who has to clean it up. Besides, I’m going to charge you for it.”
He opened the jar of Vicks and tried to smell the contents. “Yes. Make sure you inform the company of your extra hours and I’ll pay you for your dedication.”
I laughed. “No, man. I’m going to charge you a bowl of chicken soup and some bread. I’ll have my dinner here and make sure you’re good before I leave.”
“Fine.”
I waited, but Patrick simply began to smear the clear gel across his pecs. I needed to get out of the room before my cock embarrassed me, but I was a sucker for punishment. “I’m still waiting.”
“What?”
“Manners, man! Manners! I tell you I’m coming back here to check on you and you need to respond. I’ll give you a hint. It’s either please, thank you, or sorry.”
“Oh.” His blush was back. “Thank you for everything today and for coming back to check on me.”
“No problem. Now, stop fucking teasing me with that cream and get under the covers for a nap.”
I swear the man smiled at my predicament before he obeyed.
MY OLDEST sister lived two suburbs away in an old house that was rented from the government. She was the closest to me in age and my greatest failure as a big brother. And that “failure” was now running toward me shouting, “Uncle Jake! Uncle Jake!”
I always blamed myself that Ellie got pregnant before she was twenty. I wasn’t vigilant enough. Ellie called me all sorts of names—stupid being her favorite—for feeling this way, but I couldn’t help but think it was my fault. But no matter how much I blamed myself for the pregnancy, I loved my niece to death.
I caught my niece as she jumped into my arms from the top of the steps. “Hey! Sweet pea! How was school today?”
“Good. I painted a picture for you.”
“Yeah? Great. Where’s Mummy?”
The door banged and I looked up to see Ellie standing on the veranda with a tea towel in her hand. “Hey, Jake. You’re a bit later than usual today.”
Ellie barely looked eighteen, despite her advanced age of twenty-four—and I knew that because she was forever complaining that she got carded every single time she went to a bar. We look nothing alike—I take after my father and she’s a fair mix of both our mother and her father, Alex. She has Mum’s blonde hair and Alex’s blue eyes, and a cute little nose that came from someone we couldn’t quite pin down. She’d passed on her blue eyes to her daughter, but Skylah’s dad took the blame for her dark-brown hair.
I dropped Skylah to the ground and told her to bring me her painting. She dashed off, allowing me to place a kiss on Ellie’s head as I moved past her into the house. “I’m not late.”
“You want a coffee? Coke?” Ellie asked as she followed me into the kitchen.
“Nah. Just some water, thanks.”
We visited while I played with my niece and raved over her paintings from Pre-Primary. I kept an eye on the clock and at 4:00 p.m. I excused myself before going out the back to call Patrick. He answered with a groggy, “Yes?”
“Patrick? It’s Jake. You need to wake up now, man.” He answered me with a long groan. I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Come on, now. Haul that beautiful body out of bed and go and sit on the couch or something. If you stay in bed, you’ll go back to sleep.”
“No. Go away.”
“Are you getting out of bed?”
“Yes.”
I waited two heartbeats. “Are you lying to me?”
“Yes.”
I laughed. “If you don’t get out of bed I’m going to label all your groceries wrong. And I’m starting with swapping the labels for salt and sugar.”
He groaned again. “You’re a sadist.”
“Yep. Now get up.” I disconnected the call and went back inside.
Ellie was cooking dinner—one of my favorites that I had taught her—shepherd’s pie.
“Who was that? A boyfriend?”
I sat down at the table once again. “No. My boss—the grouchy guy I clean for? Patrick. I met him for the first time today and freakin’ hell, Ellie. He’s beautiful.”
She giggled. “And you have his phone number already? You’re a total man slut, Jake.”
“Hush. Don’t teach your daughter words like that,” I teased. “Besides, he’s sick in bed with a cold, so there’s nothing kinky going on. There’s been nothing kinky in my life for months now, sis. I swear that Mum has sucked it all dry.”
That sobered us both. She frowned at me. “You shouldn’t have done it, Jake. Mum needs to pick up her own crap. You’re going to be paying off loans for years. Are you coping?”
I picked at a scratch on her table. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. Besides, Mum said she’d pay me back.”
She sighed and sat down next to me, not bothering even to point out that Mum had said the same thing before. “Are you really fine? Because if you’re not, I don’t wanna ask you for help.”
I groaned internally. Fuck! Ellie was going to ask me for more money. “How much do you need?”
; She looked to the side, not meeting my eyes. “It’s for Skylah. Swimming lessons at school. Just forty bucks, Jake. Can you spare that?”
No! “Have you asked Craig?”
Ellie scoffed. “Yeah, right. That man refuses to pay one cent more than his required parenting payment.”
“I thought I worked out the budget for you, Ellie. You said you were sticking to it.”
“I was!” she immediately defended. “But I was sick a couple of weeks back, remember? That gastro bug? Then Skylah came down with it too. I had to take four days off work and I only had two sick days left. They docked my pay.”
I sighed. “Did you bother adjusting your grocery money to compensate for that?” She just shook her head, and I reached in my back pocket for my wallet. “Here. Look, this is my last twenty. I get paid tomorrow and I’ll drop some more off then.”
“Thanks, Jake. I’ll pay you back, I swear.”
I just patted her shoulder. That’s what they all say.
THE SUN was going down as I pedaled my way back to Patrick’s. Peak hour traffic had started, and I kept to the footpath instead of the road. It made for a rougher ride and I had to keep stopping at each side road that intersected, but it was a lot safer than the road with cars on it.
The house was in darkness when I arrived, and for a moment I thought that Patrick had gone back to sleep. Then I remembered the guy was blind. Why would he bother with lights?
“Patrick? It’s Jake. Are you awake?”
I fumbled for the light switch and heard the clicking of Gregor’s paws as he came to greet me. I patted him roughly, thumping him soundly on the shoulders and playfully rubbing his belly. “Hey, boy. Did you miss me? It would be nice if at least one of you missed me.”
“I missed you.” I looked up and saw Patrick coming down the hall. He was dressed in trakkies and a T-shirt.
“You did?”
“Of course. I had to fetch my own drinks.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Dickhead.” I looked him up and down. “You look better.”
He stood uncertainly against the wall. “Yes. The nap helped me. Then some idiot rang me on my mobile and told me to get out of bed.”
I smirked. “I wonder who that was? It didn’t sound like a nice thing to do.”
Patrick smiled sunnily. “Whoever it was, I think he enjoyed doing it.” His grin transformed his face and my heart jumped in my chest. The man was stunning.
I turned away and opened the fridge to hide the arousal that was starting in my pants, but then realized that he couldn’t see it. “So, you hungry? We’ve got chicken soup or chicken soup. What do you feel like?”
The scrape of the chair let me know that Patrick was settling down at the kitchen table. “Chicken soup sounds nice. I didn’t say so at lunch, but it was delicious. Where did you get it?”
I busied myself pulling out the containers and plates to prepare our meal. “Get it? I made it, man. The best tasting things are made from scratch. You need to look at your diet. Way too much salt going on there from all the canned shit and premade stuff you eat. You’ll turn into a preservative.”
“How do you know how much salt I consume?”
I patted his shoulder as I walked to the microwave, lamenting the clothing draped over it, stopping me from touching bare skin. “Who do you think does your groceries?”
He gave a wry smile. “Mrs. Huntley?”
I snorted at his joke.
“You think I don’t know that Mrs. Huntley left? I do. I know exactly when you started too. I can smell your perfume when I get home. I just pretend that I don’t know I have a new housekeeper. Then I don’t have to remember a new name of someone who’s only going to stay a couple of weeks.”
I found placemats and set glasses on the table for us to use. “Have you ever thought about being nicer? Then they won’t keep leaving.”
“I am nice!” he cried.
“Dude. Fussy, anal, and arrogant are the nicer words I’ve heard people use about you.”
“Fussy? What? I’m freakin’ blind, in case you haven’t noticed. I need to be fussy and anal about my house because I can’t see. I had one woman rearrange all the plates and dishes in the house because she had a bad back and didn’t want to lean down. Well, nice for her, but I couldn’t find a bloody thing! Then there was one woman who never dusted, and when I asked her about it, she told me that what did it matter to me? I couldn’t see it. Huh!”
“I guess that sounds pretty terrible.”
“Terrible? Some people think that blind means stupid. This is my house and I’m paying them to do a job. They should do it properly.”
“True. But you could try putting a couple of pleases and thank-yous in your notes if you want to be nicer.”
“Why? I’m paying them good money, not the other way around. Why should I go out of my way to say please?”
I plonked his steaming bowl of chicken soup down in front of him. “Why? Because your housekeeper is a bloody human being, Patrick. Manners don’t cost anything. But your lack of manners has cost you several housekeepers by the sound of it. Now eat! Your spoon is on your right and there are two pieces of buttered bread on your left.”
I took the chair across from his and picked up my own spoon. I saw him tilt his head as if listening for something. “You’re eating with me?”
I was starting to get angry with his lord-of-the-manor act. “Yes. Where do you want me to eat? Out on the veranda like a good servant?”
He frowned. “No. It’s just that not everyone wants to eat with a blind man. I can be messy.”
Just like that, my anger deflated. “Patrick, I practically raised my younger sisters. As long as you don’t need to be spoon fed and I don’t have to wipe your mouth with a wet cloth afterward, I can put up with a bit of mess.”
“Oh.” I could tell he was surprised but pleased I was staying. I’d never thought of how hard it might be for him to be blind in public. He fumbled for the cutlery and we were both silent for a while, eating with gusto. Finally he said, “So how many sisters do you have?”
“Three. Ellie, Lizzy, and Maria.”
“And they’re all younger than you? What do they do?” He seemed genuinely interested, not just making conversation, so I gave him a bit more of their personalities.
“Yeah. Ellie’s twenty-four, two years younger than me. She has a little girl, Skylah, who’s five. They live over in Palmyra. Ellie’s a good sort—she’s got a decent job now, answering phones in an office or something like that. She’s closest to me, I guess. We shared a room for most of our lives. She’s got a fireball of a temper and is as stubborn as heck, but I love her still.
“Lizzy’s twenty-two and she’s the smarty one of the family. She’s got another three weeks until she graduates from university. God, that’s been the longest and shortest four years of my life. She lives over near the Murdoch Uni where she’s studying. I’m glad she’ll hopefully be earning some decent money soon and I don’t have to help her out anymore, but I can’t believe she’s nearly finished. It seems like yesterday I was driving her to her first class.”
I shook my head, not that Patrick could see. “And then there’s Maria. She still lives with Mum, but there’s nothing much I can do about that. I live in a three-bedroom unit with three other people and Lizzy’s the same. Maria could go and live with Ellie, but they just butt heads all the time. Ellie insists on being in charge, and Maria never listens to anyone but me. She’s in her final year at school and wants to go to university. Her exams start next week.”
Patrick nodded. “What does she want to study?”
I sighed. “Chemistry. I don’t know where I went wrong with her.”
It was a joke but Patrick didn’t laugh. He had an affronted look on his face. “I have a degree in chemistry. What’s wrong with that?”
I chuckled. “It was a joke, man. I’m as proud as any big brother could be that Maria has her head screwed on straight.”
He looked abashed and scooped up s
ome more soup. “This is really good soup. How did you learn to make it?”
“I read a recipe book and then practiced.”
“Well, it’s great.”
“Thanks. Did your mum teach you how to cook?”
“Hell, no. Did your mum teach you?”
“Ha!” I snorted. “The only thing my mother taught me to do is how to fetch another can of beer from the fridge, and how to pick up men who are the love-you-and-leave-you type.”
I saw Patrick roll his eyes. “It sounds like she’s on par with my mother. Maybe they’re sisters?”
“Yeah? What was your mum like?”
“I only knew her for two days. Then she walked out of the maternity hospital and left me there.”
“What?” I was flabbergasted.
“Yeah.” Patrick was matter-of-fact about the issue. I guess he’d had his whole life to get used to it. “Apparently she wasn’t really in a position to look after herself, let alone a baby who was blind.”
So that answered one question I had. “So you were born blind?”
“Yeah. They think she did drugs or something when she was pregnant, and it caused my blindness.”
“Shit! So what happened to you?”
Patrick shrugged and patted the area next to his bowl until he found the plate with bread on it. “I was adopted by Max Stanford. He was a bachelor in his fifties who wanted a child to pass on his money and property to. They wouldn’t let him adopt a perfect baby, but a blind baby?” Patrick trailed off suggestively and shrugged again. “He never cared about my eyes and I’m pretty sure there was some sort of large donation made in order for me to be placed in his care. So I was raised by a large contingent of nannies and private tutors until I was old enough for Max to mold into what he wanted. We both ended up with what we wanted—so it was a win-win situation. I was given the name of my birth mother so I could look her up, but I’ve never bothered to track her down. She could be dead, she could be living next door, she could be cleaning my house. I don’t care.”
I laughed. “Nope. Not cleaning your house—that’s my job.”
He smiled at me. Gosh, I thought, I could spend my life gazing at that smile. I had to readjust myself in my pants. I coughed slightly and gathered my plates to take to the dishwasher to hide my embarrassment. “So is Max still around?”
