Bond (Klein Brothers 1)

“Are you okay?” Heidi asked, and I assumed it was to her daughter.

“I don’t think she can answer right now,” I rasped, swallowing loudly to try and persuade the contents of my stomach to go back down to where they were meant to be.

“I was talking to you. You’ve gone pale.”

A loud snuffling, wheezing noise next to my leg startled me. The ‘thing’ was now sitting in a prime viewing location for poor Nemi’s puking problem. I didn’t hate the dog, I just didn’t appreciate the tennis shoe laces it kept producing and the amount of spit and drool it had in general. Plus, it looked like someone had crushed its face.

And it also had no boundaries. The number of times I’d sit down, and it’d stick its fucking head in my crotch, even under the dinner table, was unreal. It also snuck into the bathroom while you were peeing and stared up at you. Now, I don’t know about other men, but a dog staring at my dick while I pissed? That was just a whole new realm of fucked up for me.

“Bond?” Heidi asked, just as her hand began rubbing my back.

Taking my attention away from the girth of Hooch’s ass wiggling around, I admitted, “I don’t handle puke well. If someone does it next to me, I start doing it, too. It’s like I’ve got a sympathetic gag reflex.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, that, too. If someone has diarrhea near me, I’d probably puke then. Although, I haven’t tested that since I moved into my own apartment.”

A bark of laughter burst out of Heidi. “I meant, shit because you’re looking after my daughter while she throws up, and it’s making you feel sick.”

If it weren’t taking everything I had to hold back, I’d have been embarrassed by my stupid admission. Unfortunately, I’d have to deal with that later, because right now, it really was touch and go.

And then it changed to go.

“Take her,” I croaked, only just managing to wait to let go of Nemi until I was sure Heidi had her. Then I was running out of the room and up the stairs, only just missing tripping over the beast. Like Nemi, I made it to the bathroom… just.

When it was over, and I knew I had nothing left in my stomach, I sank onto the floor and waited for the spasms in my gut to go away. You’d think people would outgrow shit like this, but I never had. Mom liked to say I was an empathetic sympathizer who’d make a good husband because of it, but I can’t say that was true. Who wanted to be feeling shit because they had a stomach bug, and their man was too busy puking to look after them?

“Bond?” Heidi called through the door. “I’m just putting Nemi to bed, but she wants you to read her a story, if that’s okay?” She sounded so unsure of the request, whereas I felt like a king because of it.

Well, a king who was curled up with a toilet of puke beside him. Did that count?

Reaching out, I flushed it and got to my knees. “I’ll be two minutes.”

Using the sink to get to my feet, I looked around for toothpaste or mouthwash so I could clean the awful taste out of my mouth.

“Oh, there are spare toothbrushes in the cabinet. Help yourself,” she shouted through the door, and then I heard her footsteps moving away, taking Nemi into her bedroom, which was next door to the bathroom.

Opening the cabinet, I grinned when I saw the toothbrushes in question. They were designed for little kids and their tiny teeth, but they also had different characters from Nemi’s favorite movie on them.

As I brushed my teeth—making a mental note to get the bubble gum toothpaste she had next time I needed some—I thought about her obsession with Pirates Of The Caribbean for what was probably the thousandth time.

She’d be three soon, and that was kind of young to be moving away from cartoons, wasn’t it? What was it about the franchise that got to her so much? Was it psychological, like a feeling of abandonment from not having her biological dad in her life? I had no idea what a small kid’s psyche was like and what the warning signs were for impending problems, so I’d been watching her like a hawk since the possibility occurred to me. So far, she acted and seemed like a normal almost-three-year-old, though.

Mom and Dad had said every kid was different when I’d asked them about it. They’d also told me it was likely she just enjoyed the plot and the special effects in the movies. I had to agree they were well done, and the storylines hooked me from only two minutes into each film.

Did Heidi have these concerns, too?