by Jami Alden
Next to that was an open gallon of milk and a box of cereal that had tipped over to spill its contents on the floor.
The small table in front of Jordan held an empty bag of barbecue potato chips and a half eaten bowl of cereal left to congeal in its milk.
“What the fuck is going on in here?” he hollered as he dumped the dinner makings on the counter and stomped over to the couch, which he now saw was covered in potato chip crumbs and what looked like a smear of mayo.
Jordan sat bolt upright. “You said I should help myself to whatever I wanted.”
“I didn’t say you could eat me out of house and home and trash the goddamn place in the process.”
“I’ll clean it up.” At least Jordan had the grace to look guilty as he pushed himself up from the couch, Brady thought.
It was only when he got a closer look at his nephew that he noticed the red-rimmed eyes and the unmistakable skunky aroma coming off of his clothes and hair.
He snagged Jordan by the collar of his t-shirt when he would have sidled by. “Are you fucking kidding me? You fucking smoked pot in my house?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Don’t you dare lie to me.” Brady said in a low voice that was more menacing than any shout.
Jordan’s eyes dropped to somewhere around Brady’s throat. “I didn’t smoke that much, just a couple of bowls—”
“I don’t give a shit how much or how little. Do you have any idea what would happen if you get caught?”
“It’s not that big a deal. Pot’s legal in some states.”
“It’s not legal in Montana, and even if it were, it’s not for minors,” he said and gave Jordan a rough shake before releasing his collar.
“You gonna narc me out?” Jordan said, the jut of his chin and his defiant stare making Brady feel like he was staring at his own reflection, minus sixteen years.
“Maybe I should. Because it sure as shit looks like I wasted my time, paying for that lawyer and keeping you out of juvie not two months ago. Maybe I should just hang you out to dry, if you’re not smart enough to keep yourself straight after all that.”
Jordan’s mouth flattened into a hard line as he held Brady’s stare, trying to keep up his tough facade. But Brady could see the cracks, the slight tremble in his lip, the fear lurking behind the bold stare. The knowledge that if Brady turned him out, there would be nowhere left to go.
That fear pinched at Brady’s heart. Because he’d been there. And only because he’d been that kid, the kid who couldn’t help but fuck up because that was what everyone expected him to do. The kid who desperately wanted something different from his life than what seemed destined for him, but with no idea how to make it happen or any faith that it really could.
Only because he’d been that kid did he soften. “But I’m not going to. Because I know when you’re not acting like an idiot, you’re a smart kid, and you deserve a lot better than the life your mom’s given you so far.”
“So I can stay?” The defiance disappeared, replaced by cautious hope. In that moment Jordan looked so vulnerable Brady was reminded savagely of the sweet little baby who had first captured his heart.
Brady had been only fifteen when Jordan was born. Connie, older than Brady by three years, had been less than enthusiastic about motherhood. She’d leave Jordan at their parents’ house, often for days at a time. And since his parents showed about as much interest in being grandparents as Connie did in being a mom, that meant Brady was often the one getting the baby diapered and fed in the morning while his parents slept off the effects of whatever they’d done the night before.
He’d shake his mom awake before he left for school, offering up a silent prayer to the universe that she’d manage to keep the kid alive until Brady got home that evening.
He’d never been much for kids, especially not babies, but he quickly came to love Jordan’s gummy little grins and the way he’d eagerly stretch his arms out the second Brady walked into the room.
It had broken his heart to leave Jordan behind when he’d left for basic training only a few years later. But Brady knew if he wanted a life different from the one he'd been raised in, he had to get the hell out of dodge.
Since then he’d kept in touch with Jordan as best he could, but he felt no small amount of guilt that he hadn’t been able to be around for most of his nephew’s life.
Now Jordan needed him more than ever, and he wasn’t about to let him down again. “You can stay.”
“Thanks, Unc,” Jordan grinned and started to reach for the TV remote.
“Hold up a second. You can stay, but only if certain conditions are met.”
Jordan let out a resigned sigh. “Like what?”
“First of all, you have to go to school. And when I say go to school, you actually go to school and sit in class—none of this skipping shit that your mom lets you get away with.”
“It’s not like I don’t get the work done,” he said sullenly.
Which was true, and a problem in and of itself. Jordan was the type of kid who was smart enough to keep his grades up without having to work very hard or even attend class. “Anything less than perfect attendance, and you’re out. Got it?”
Jordan nodded, eyes rolling to the back of his head.
“Second, no drinking, no drugs of any kind. And you’re not allowed to trash my house,” he said, waving his hand in the direction of the table littered with empty chip bags. “You’re going to help out around here, and at the restaurant, and pick up after yourself. Starting now.”
Jordan gave another eye roll but shoved himself up from the couch and started picking up his dishes and empty wrappers while Brady started dinner.
As Brady was plating the steaks, his phone buzzed from his pocket signaling an incoming text. It was from Molly.
Can’t wait to see you tonight.
A thrill of anticipation shot through him, crushed as swiftly by a wave of disappointment, knowing he had to cancel. Jordan might have agreed to the rules, but no way Brady was trusting Jordan alone without some hard evidence that he was committed to following them.
He sighed heavily and quickly tapped a reply. Kills me to do this, but I can’t make it tonight.
Her reply came seconds later. Something wrong with Jordan?
Nothing I can’t handle. But I’m going to need to keep a close eye on him for a bit.
To that she responded with a frowny face.
Brady wondered if there was an emoticon for blue balls, which was what he would be facing for the foreseeable future.
Chapter 9
Molly waved in greeting as Brady walked into the restaurant, followed by Jordan, as he had been for the last three days. As usual, Jordan had a laptop case slung over his shoulder, which he set up at the bar and connected to the wireless network.
Turned out enrolling Jordan in the high school was not a simple matter of showing up and signing him up, Brady had explained, his jaw clenched in frustration the morning after he’d canceled on her. Turned out you needed things like a birth certificate, vaccination records, not to mention permission from his mother. Given the fact that Connie was still AWOL and all of Jordan’s documents were unaccounted for, Brady had enrolled Jordan in a bunch of online courses so he wouldn’t fall behind once he returned to school, either here or back home.
Brady hadn’t given any more details about what had gone down that night, but whatever it was it required keeping Jordan on a short leash.
In addition to dragging Jordan to work with him every day this week, Brady took him home every evening and, to the best of Molly’s knowledge, stayed there.
Which meant her contact with Brady was limited to working together and a few scalding hot make out sessions whenever they found a moment alone. Though it was torture, Molly never let it get any farther than that, no matter how quick and quiet Brady promised he would be.
“I can do quick but I can’t promise quiet,” Molly had said the day before when he’d pinne
d her up against the closed office door, kissed her until every nerve was screaming with need as his hands found their way up her shirt to cup and squeeze her breasts. “And I would die if my mom or my sister caught us having sex at work.”
“I’ve already caught your sister and Damon twice,” Brady said as he rained hot, sucking kisses down her neck.
“That’s different, they’re married,” she said, even as her hands tugged his shirt up his back. “They’re supposed to be having sex. We’re not.”
“Sure as hell feels like we’re supposed to,” he grunted as his hand skimmed down her stomach and dipped into her waistband.
“And Jordan’s out there,” she said, desperately clawing for her last shred of common sense. “What if he finds us? What kind of example is that setting?”
“That I have great taste in women?” Brady joked, but slowly eased his hand out of her pants.
Based on the hot look Brady shot her on his way to the kitchen, their involuntary celibacy was killing him as much as it was her.
Odd, she thought as she walked the dining room and helped Janelle set the tables up for lunch service, that she was suddenly so obsessed with sex.
When she and Josh had been together, there had been several long stretches when they’d gone without (probably, as Brady had once pointed out, because Josh was getting it elsewhere), but Molly had never missed it.
Now it was only five days since she’d been with Brady, and she felt like she was going to come out of her skin.
That’s because sex with Brady is like a thousand times better than anything you ever did with Josh.
From the bar, Jordan let out a low curse, snapping her out of her sex-obsessed thoughts. “Everything okay?” Molly said as she headed over.
“Sorry for swearing,” Jordan said sheepishly as he looked over his shoulder. He turned back to the computer. “I just can’t figure out this stupid problem and the help videos aren’t worth shi—uh, squat.”
“What is this? Trigonometry?” She asked as she peered over his shoulder.
“Pre-Calc,” he muttered. “I took trig last year.”
She nodded in appreciation. “You’re only a junior, right? You must be good at math to already be on Pre-Calc.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know how good I am if I can’t even finish the first unit.”
“Do you mind?” she said, indicating the notebook next to him covered in penciled calculations. She took his shrug for an assent and looked over his work. “Ah, here’s the problem,” she said when she spotted his error. “You missed the coefficient on the third indeterminate of the polynomial.”
He reworked the problem and turned to her with a little smile when he got the answer right. Molly smiled back, her heart pinching when she realized this must have been what Brady looked like in high school. “You look so much like your uncle,” she marveled. “You know, when you first showed up, I thought you were his son.”
“I wish,” Jordan said, as he went onto the next problem.
Molly took a seat on the barstool next to him, answering questions and explaining concepts as he worked his way through the rest of the day’s assignment.
“You’re really good at this.”
“Thanks. Math has always kind of been my thing.”
“You don’t look like someone who would be good at math.”
She rolled her eyes and gave him a playful smile. “Let me guess, it’s the blond hair right?”
“That and the rest of it.” He gave her a quick scan, his eyes lingering a second too long in the chest region. She felt her cheeks heat as she realized she was being thoroughly checked out by a sixteen year old. Her eyes narrowed, and the grin he shot her was so much like his uncle’s she had no doubt he was already leaving a trail of broken hearts that would one day rival Brady’s.
“Thanks for helping me,” he said after he finished the last problem. “Brady says I have to get at least a B average if I want to keep living with him.”
“Have you two always been close?” she said, burning with curiosity about this nephew and a family whose existence she’d never known of until recently.
“I guess. He took care of me a lot when I was little.”
Brady as a babysitter? She couldn’t even picture it.
“I haven’t seen him a lot since he joined the army though. But he calls and emails and stuff, and a couple times he bought tickets so I could visit him. That was pretty cool.”
“He didn’t come visit you?”
He shook his head. “Uncle Brady doesn’t really get along with the rest of the family. Except for our cousin Erin. He thinks she’s okay.”
She tucked that bit of information away, to do what with she wasn’t sure. All she knew was she was inexplicably hungry for any information about Brady, about his past. Information he kept so close to the chest.
Information she shouldn’t care about if the only thing between them was sex.
She shoved the thought aside. “In all the time I’ve known him, he’s never talked about his family.”
Jordan’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Our family’s not something he’s going to talk about with someone he wants to impress.”
“And you think he wants to impress me?” she said with a grin.
“I don’t see why he wouldn’t.”
###
Damn, the kid had game, he had to give him that, Brady thought as he caught the last of their conversation.
A conversation he needed to nip in the bud before Jordan spilled any more of the family dirt Molly was clearly fishing for.
“Hey, Molly, can you come in here so we can go over the happy hour specials for tonight?”
“Sure.” She slid off the bar stool and started walking toward him.
“And you need to get back to work,” he said to Jordan.
“I already finished my math. Molly helped me.”
“Then start on your American History assignment.”
Jordan pulled a face but turned his attention back to the laptop.
“Molly seems pretty cool,” Jordan said later that evening as they ate dinner in front of Brady’s TV.
“She’s all right,” Brady said as he forked a bite of chicken into his mouth.
“I got a perfect score on the math unit she helped me with.”
“She’s a smart girl.”
“Pretty hot, too.” Jordan said.
Brady let that one go.
“You should totally tap that.”
Brady turned to Jordan with a glare. “Don’t you talk about her like that—or any other woman for that matter.”
“What, I’m just saying she’s a good looking woman. I would totally be all over that if I were you.”
And I would be too, if you hadn’t shown up on my doorstep. “You’re sixteen. Given the chance, you’d be all over anything with a pulse.”
Jordan shrugged. “I’ve seen the way she looks at you. You could totally get her if you wanted to.”
Brady felt the back of his neck heat. “Yeah, how does she look at me?”
Jordan shrugged. “You know. Like she’s running a porn in her head and it’s starring you.”
###
Brady waited until an hour after Jordan shut the door of his bedroom before he left, closing the door soundlessly behind him. Call him stupid, call him irresponsible, but after all that talk about Molly he couldn’t get her out of his head.
The days of unrelieved lust were building to a head, until he felt like he’d break with reality if he didn’t get to sink himself in the tight heat of her body, feel her naked skin sliding against his.
Which was why he was sneaking out of his house like a teenager—though, to be fair he hadn’t had much experience with it as a teen himself. Not because he hadn’t done his share of running around at all hours of the night, just that he hadn't had to sneak because his parents hadn’t given a shit what he was up to, as long as it didn't interfere with their nightly agenda of getting wasted.
He put the
truck into gear without turning on the engine and rolled it down the drive, waiting until he hit the pavement to start the ignition.
Ten minutes later he was parked in front of Molly’s house. All the windows were dark, which made sense given the late hour. She must be asleep, which would explain why she hadn’t answered his call or the text that followed.
He tried the front door, grimacing when he found it unlocked. Big Timber wasn’t known for violent crime, but he still didn’t like the idea of her sleeping alone in an unlocked house, vulnerable to someone with a lot worse intentions than him.
Still, it made his job a lot easier as he slipped silently through the front door. He let his eyes adjust to the darkness before he made his way down the short hallway. He’d never been to Molly’s house, but he was guessing she was behind the door at the end of the hall.
He turned the knob and pushed it open. Her blinds were drawn, but streaks of moonlight spilled across the bed, showing her shadowy form. She was sound asleep, curled up on her left side, one arm tucked underneath her pillow.
He quietly kicked off his shoes and shed his jacket and went to kneel by her bedside. “Molly,” he whispered and reached out to stroke her soft cheek in a feather light touch. She snuffled adorably and shifted in her sleep.
“Molly, wake up,” he said, a little louder this time.
In the shadows he could see her eyelashes flutter, then freeze as she let out a gasp.
“It’s okay, it’s just me,” he said quickly before she fell into a full-fledged panic.
“Brady?” she shoved herself up and reached out to click on the lamp sitting on her bedside table. Her gorgeous tits strained against her black tank top. His mouth practically watered at the sight of her.
Squinting against the light, she looked like an angry cat that had been startled from its nap. “You scared me to death.”
“Sorry,” he said. “But I figured this was better than stripping and crawling into bed with you naked, which was my original plan.”
