by Brent, Cora
“A long, long time ago someone invented a contraption called a car.”
“Syler.” She rubbed her eyes. “I definitely require at least twelve ounces of coffee before I’m ready to have a conversation with you.”
With one swift movement I retrieved the empty Santa Claus coffee mug from the counter. In a way I had deprived her of her morning caffeine fix so I filled the cup from the coffee pot and handed it over. She rewarded me with half a smile and then chugged her coffee like she was performing a keg stand. I waited until the Santa Claus mug left her face before speaking again.
“How are they doing?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
Katrina wilted and carefully set the mug in the sink. “Gem tries to maintain a brave front but she cried after the kids went to bed. Drew is furious. Chloe is hurt. And the little ones are just confused.”
I exhaled and peeled my jacket off because I needed to do something and throttling my brother-in-law was not an option at the moment.
“What a dick,” I said.
Katrina snorted and crossed her arms over her chest. “His dick is the problem. If I had one wish right now it would be to make Russell Reese’s dick stop working forever.”
“That would be a wish well spent.”
She made a face. “And then there’s Ophelia. Did you know that she was Gemma’s friend? And the high school principal for crying out loud. This is going to be the scandal of the year.”
“Try the scandal of the century. We’re in Maple Springs, after all.”
“True.”
A long, silent moment followed and we eyed each other across the kitchen. Two years had passed since we’d been in the same room. During my visit last Christmas she’d been working, hosting some pre-game football show in Florida. That reminded me of something.
“Tough break on that Chris Bath bullshit.”
Last night in my motel room I killed time by searching for details on the trouble Gemma had hinted at. Then I watched a few video clips of Katrina energetically interviewing a variety of pro athletes.
Then I jerked off. Hard.
I planned to keep that last fact to myself.
“Oh, that.” She raked a hand through her unruly curls. “Yeah, I was feeling all kinds of sorry for myself yesterday. And then Gemma called and it just didn’t seem important anymore.” She tilted her head and examined me. “What’s it like?”
“What’s what like?”
“Being despised by the world.”
“You should know. You seem to be getting a crash course in that subject.”
“I’m hoping in my case it will blow over.”
“Probably not. The Internet has a long memory.”
She was displeased. “I appreciate the positivity.”
“No problem. You want a bagel?”
She did want a bagel. I could tell by the way her eyes strayed to the bag. But she didn’t want my bagels. Aside from the errant coffee missile, we were having a somewhat civil conversation and yet she still preferred to think of me as the enemy. I noticed how she squirmed in the confines of her footy pajamas. I also noticed the way her eyes skimmed over my muscled forearms when I rolled my shirt up above the elbow.
“Thanks, but I’m not hungry,” she announced.
“I heard your stomach growling.”
Her cheeks reddened. “That was the dishwasher.”
“The dishwasher isn’t on.”
“Then it was a snow plow driving by.”
I rummaged in the bag and located a cinnamon raisin bagel. “Look what I found.” I tossed it. “Your favorite.”
The very lightly tossed bagel bounced off her shoulder and landed on the floor.
“You weren’t kidding about your slow reflexes,” I observed, taking a bite out of a sesame bagel.
“Was that revenge for throwing coffee at you?” she grumbled, bending down to swipe it off the floor.
“Absolutely,” I said, even though that wasn’t true. I’d assumed she was at least quick enough to catch a bagel being gently lobbed from eight feet away. Apparently not.
“Shit!” Katrina had frozen with the bagel fisted in her right hand.
I watched her face turn purple as she slowly straightened all the way up and let her other hand wander to her backside.
I chewed my bagel and watched her face contort. “What happened, did you cut the cheese?”
She was outraged. “Seriously?”
I grinned. “So you did. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
What was it about this girl that always conjured the inner preteen boy buried inside me?
“I did NOT cut the cheese,” she insisted. Loudly. She was going to wake everyone up. Her free hand was still fastened to her rear end and her eyes were flashing with irritation.
I’d almost forgotten how much fun it was to get her riled up.
“Hot outfit by the way,” I said making a show of raking my eyes over her fleece.
“You’re such a child,” she observed primly.
“As you stand there judging me in your onesie.”
Katrina took a step back. “Shut up. These pajamas aren’t well made.”
“Did they rip or something?”
“Or something. Now quit smirking and throw me a dishtowel to cover my fat ass.”
I set my bagel down and swiftly pulled my shirt over my head. I was going to fling it her way but there’d been enough bullets fired in the kitchen this morning so I walked over. “Here. Take it.”
She hesitated. “Um.” She averted her eyes this way and that, desperately trying not to notice how much time I spent at the gym now that I was bare chested and two feet away. She probably had to bite her tongue to keep from panting.
I grinned with triumph.
Her eyes narrowed with suspicion.
Then I reached around and swiftly tied the shirt around her waist while she awkwardly clutched the bagel, apparently too surprised to stop me. Katrina was all soft curves and warmth and my level of restraint was downright heroic as I tied the shirt in a loose knot and hoped my dick would quit throbbing before I groaned out loud.
“One more thing,” I said, enjoying the way she was forced to tilt her head back to meet my eye.
She swallowed. “What?”
“Your ass isn’t fat.” I was being sincere. In fact if she gave me a sign I’d seize two handfuls of that ripe package and start grinding away like there was no tomorrow.
She was surprised, her face flushed, her breathing rapid. A small white zipper beckoned a few flimsy inches above the tempting swell of her tits. How I’d love to yank that zipper down. Slowly. She might not be wearing panties. She might already be wet. She might come on my hand if I touched her.
And I had to be one sick bastard for having all of these thoughts here in my sister’s cozy kitchen at eight o’clock in the morning.
In my defense, Katrina always made me lose my head a little bit. Finding her in the kitchen this early had thrown me for a loop.
The tip of her pink tongue flicked out to wet her lower lip.
My pants tightened. My balls ached so bad I might not be able to walk.
Katrina abruptly cleared her throat, dissolving the sexual tension.
“Are you staying?” she asked.
“I guess so. Took some effort to drive all the way here. Thought I might stick around for a while.”
“I have your room. I imagine you’ll want it back.”
“Nah, it was turned into a guest bedroom years ago. And I could always go sleep in the woodshed.”
“Gemma warned me there’s a family of rodents wintering in the woodshed.”
“Perfect. I’ll be among friends.”
She sighed. “Same old Syler. Never serious.”
“Same old Katrina. Never humorous.”
She was offended. “I’m highly amusing in the right kind of company.”
“I prefer being the wrong king of company.”
“I know.” Katrina patted her rear end to make sur
e I wouldn’t get a forbidden glimpse of her backside. Which I’d already seen. From all kinds of angles.
“Thanks for the use of the shirt,” she said, then paused before opening the kitchen door. “She’ll be happy to see you. They’ll all be happy.”
“Admit it, Katrina. You’re happy to see me too.”
She rolled her eyes. “You should go put some clothes on.”
I flexed and grinned. “Is the view not to your liking?”
“No. I mean, it’s cold out. No one should walk around half naked in this weather.”
“So that’s why you can’t stop staring. You’re concerned about my well being.”
“Knock it off.” She was flustered and trying to escape. “I’ll see you around, Syler.”
I watched the door swish closed and heard her scamper up the stairs.
“You won’t be able to avoid me, Katrina,” I said.
I smiled in the empty kitchen.
Then I located the suitcase I’d left in the foyer and rummaged around until I found a clean flannel to slip on while Florence inspected me with a judgmental expression.
“Uncle Syler!” Footsteps thundered on the landing above and I looked up to see my niece Chloe eagerly running down the stairs. The long, snowy drive was worth every second as she laughed when I picked her up and swung her around in a circle.
She grinned up at me after I set her down. “No one told me you were going to be here.”
“That’s because no one knew.” I tweaked her nose. “Surprise!”
“Uncle Sy!”
“Uncle Syler’s here!”
Everyone was awake all at once. I was buried in a scramble of nieces and nephews as the kids competed for my attention. Five-year-old twins Gretel and Evan insisted on being hoisted up at the same time, one in each arm.
“I should have known.” That was Gemma’s voice. She’d crept down the stairs behind her children. There were shadows beneath her eyes and her nose was red but she mustered a smile. “I should have known you’d come anyway, Sy.”
“Yeah, I got kind of lonely in Philadelphia. I knew I could count on this crazy crew to cheer me up.” I gently set the twins down. “You don’t mind, do you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t mind.” Her eyes filled with tears and she tried to hide them from the children by quickly approaching for a hug. “Thank you for being here,” she whispered.
I circled my arms around my sister’s thin ribcage and made a plan to ease her pain in any way I could. My usual feelings about Christmas were only a few notches above ‘Bah, humbug!’ but I could be the merriest goddamn idiot outside of the North Pole if that would entertain Gemma and the kids. I had a new mission and it was called Return of Christmas Joy.
It was the least I could do for the people I loved the most.
A creaking floorboard on the upstairs landing caused me to look up. Katrina was standing there watching. My shirt was still tied around her waist and she gave me a grudging nod of appreciation for cheering up her best friend.
I decided it was possible to have more than one mission.
I could be the supreme Christmas elf for Gemma and the kids.
And I could be the filthy Santa who would send Katrina to her knees.
She could pretend to hate me all she wanted if that’s what got her off.
But I knew the truth.
My sister’s best friend and I were long overdue for the dirtiest of showdowns.
5
The God of Flannel
Katrina
I just wanted a cup of coffee.
That’s all.
Just a cup of coffee to start the day before I embarked on heavier chores like calling my mother to clue her in to my presence in Maple Springs lest we run into each other somewhere on Union Avenue.
I hadn’t yet showered and I was still decked out in the adult footed pajamas I’d received as a gag gift in an office grab bag and liked to snuggle up in sometimes when it was really really cold. I knew that wearing it made me look like a weird stuffed animal with a human head but the only people I expected to run into this morning were Gemma and the kids.
Not the guy who’d come busting into the kitchen looking like a displaced, tatted up lumberjack with a bag of bagels and an attitude problem.
Standing before the fogged up bathroom vanity I chewed on my bagel and grumpily fought to run a comb through my freshly showered hair.
I couldn’t deny that the confrontation with Syler had left me rattled. At least I couldn’t deny it to myself. I’d gladly sew my lips together before admitting to Gemma’s brother that he looked like an earthbound god in flannel.
Speaking of which, what the hell had that boy been doing lately? Syler had been more than capable of turning heads since his rowdy teenage years but from the looks of him these days he must spend half his waking hours pumping iron and perfecting his sexy smirk.
And his abs.
I couldn’t think about his abs without drooling out of the corner of my mouth.
I’d be disgraced beyond repair if Syler ever suspected how badly I’d wanted to rub various parts of my body against those hard muscles when he unveiled them in the middle of the kitchen.
He would have laughed.
He would have reveled in the victory.
And then he probably would have let me do it.
I gnawed another bite of bagel and reasoned that my messed up mind frame must be due to sex deprivation and nothing more. Syler might be a creep but he was a hot creep and I hadn’t had sex since…
I counted off on my fingers.
Wow. You know it’s been a long time since your last non-masturbatory orgasm when you start counting off on your fingers.
I stopped counting.
The number of months was becoming humiliating and there were plenty of things worth being humiliated about this morning.
Like the fact that my ass had busted through my sexless fleece pajamas and threatened to wave my hip hugging Christmas tree panties right in the gloating face of Syler McKnight.
And then he had to go catch me off guard by gallantly wrapping his shirt around my waist while exposing his perfect chest and accusing me of being happy to see him. His arrival wasn’t all bad news. In a way I was happy to see him because Gemma was definitely happy to see him and anything that made Gemma smile these days was worth enduring.
Even that freak show she called a brother.
I heaved a sigh, broke the remaining remnant of my bagel in half and was jolted by the realization that after all these years Syler had correctly remembered what flavor of bagel was my favorite. Perhaps that was because one time when I was staying over here he’d sliced open all the raisin bagels, painstakingly plucked out the raisins in a manner that must have required serious commitment, and replaced them with chopped olives.
I hated olives.
Syler knew that I hated olives.
Just like he knew that I loved raisin bagels and Boston cream donuts.
He knew other things too. Extremely personal things. Syler knew too much.
I’d left his shirt hanging on the back of the bathroom door during my shower and now I grabbed it with the intention of folding it neatly in order to return it later. Unfortunately I became sidetracked when I pressed it to my face and inhaled, becoming lost in the musk of pine trees and cedar. My legs nearly gave out. My ovaries sighed.
My god, this was a dangerous shirt.
And Syler was a dangerous guy.
Certainly never violent dangerous. More like ‘Whoops, there go my panties’ kind of dangerous. Although I wasn’t about to let that happen. I had terrific self control. Sometimes.
I dressed with haste and decided it was time to dwell on a subject even more messed up than my sordid history with Syler McKnight. This morning I had to go see my mother. I decided a direct visit would be better than a phone call. Annika disliked talking on the phone anyway and texting remained a mystery to her.
My cranberry colored cardigan contrasted beauti
fully with my glossy black hair. And I was aware that my boobs looked stunning. I twisted this way and that in the mirror to make sure. With dark skinny jeans, knee high black boots and a fringed grey scarf I was like a stock photo. Girl In Winter Ensemble. I took more care than usual with my makeup and told myself I was only making the effort to look good for my mother and no one else.
But when I made my dramatic entrance downstairs, Chloe insisted on snapping a picture of me with her mom’s cell phone and Gemma exclaimed that I was ready for a high fashion runway. Which was absolutely untrue on every level but bless her for having such a generous heart.
Syler was seated on a sofa beside Drew and looking at something his nephew showed him on a tablet. He paid no attention to my arrival.
“Are you going somewhere?” Gemma wanted to know from where she was cozied up in a window seat with a bagel-eating twin on each side.
Drew laughed at something his uncle said. Syler finally glanced up at where I stood on the first stairwell platform. His dark eyes flared with interest as he looked me over and I felt a surge of warm satisfaction even though I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like I was trying to catch Syler’s eye.
“I was planning to go see Annika,” I said, gracefully taking the last few stairs and imagining that I really was on a runway with my shoulders thrown back and my chest out. Then my boot heel caught on the edge of the last step and I pitched forward, grabbing onto the sturdy newel post for dear life.
The audience gasped.
“Be careful,” Drew warned after I barely managed to stay upright. “The board on the bottom step is loose.”
“Daddy was supposed to fix it,” Chloe declared and crossed her arms with a frown.
“I can fix it,” Syler said and nudged his oldest nephew. “You can help me.”
“I know Annika!” Gretel cried. “She’s the egg lady.”
Gemma noticed my puzzled expression and explained. “Sometimes your mother stops by to bring us fresh eggs. It’s nice of her.”
I was surprised. I had no idea my mother did that.
“Remember that Annika is Aunt Katty’s mommy,” Gemma reminded her children.
“I think she’s a queen,” Evan piped up. “Chickens follow her. She’s a chicken queen.” He howled at his own kindergarten humor.
