Bond (Klein Brothers 1)

Canon’s head shot up. “That’s not a bad idea. We could get Nemi to color them in!”

I snorted. “They’re good, but not that good. If we start doing a ‘just for kids’ menu instead of smaller portion sizes for them, then we’ll think about it.”

He sighed and threw his pen on his desk. “You have a point.” When he lifted his hands to rub his temples, Cason looked at me to see if I knew what the problem was.

I didn’t. He’d been acting like this all week now, and I was starting to get worried.

“You okay? If you want me to order you some of the pens, too, I’ll do it if it’ll just make you fucking smile, man.”

Canon blew out a breath and glared at the top of his desk. “That woman’s driving me insane.”

Cason got comfortable in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest and waited for the story.

“Are we talking about Jacinda or Heidi?” Both could have been a feasible source of stress for anyone.

“Jacinda. Every time I talk to her, she either finds an excuse to leave, pretends she’s suddenly deaf, or just drives me crazy with her response.” That sounded about right. Those women weren’t normal, that’s for sure. “I went to the gym yesterday just as she was coming out, so I thought I’d be nice and ask her if she worked out. Know what she’d been doing?”

Cason rubbed his hands together. “Banging one of the managers?”

The look my brother shot him would have made most men cringe. Cason wasn’t most men, though, so he tried another guess. “Doing something dirty, it has to be. Oh, shit, was she trying out the new stripper poles in the back?”

Judging from the look on Canon’s face, he’d hit the nail on the head.

“She’s pole dancing?” I asked with disbelief. Then I remembered Heidi hadn’t answered her phone yesterday when she’d been at home working. At least, I thought she’d been at home working. “Hold the fuck on, did you see Heidi there, too?”

“Jacinda and Heidi?” Cason interrupted, holding a hand up. “Wait, you’re telling me both of those hot chicks were there sliding up and down a pole, and no one told me?”

If I wasn’t close to having a meltdown, I’d have hit him out of principle. Grabbing my phone, I shot off a text to Heidi instead of calling her. I knew I’d shout if she answered now, and sure we’d had our first, second, and third fights, but… Okay, I just didn’t want to yell at her. It was as simple as that. I didn’t have it in me to do it.

Me: You took up pole dancing lessons?

Her reply came through seconds later.

Heidi: Sure did. I’ve got a video. Do you want to see it?

Now, this was where a man could screw up. If he said yes quickly and it turned out there were other women in their underwear swinging around the pole, he was in deep shit. I wasn’t stepping on that landmine, no way.

Me: Is it just you in it?

Heidi: Duh!

It took me all of two seconds to come to a decision.

Me: That’s an acceptable apology. Gimme!

Heidi: Here you go. And once I get better at it, I’ll show you in person.

My mind went to all sorts of scenarios, all of them involving my woman wearing skimpy lingerie and dancing around a pole in the bedroom. We’d bought a new bed not long after I’d started staying over. This one was silent and solid, and the mattress was like sleeping on a cloud. I wouldn’t be opposed to her installing a pole to go with it.

Me: You’ll get a pole?

Heidi: I have a kid! Can you imagine coming home and seeing her spinning around on it? No, I’ll show it to you at the gym.

When she put it like that…

“Ask her if it’s a man or woman teaching them,” Canon ordered, pacing back and forth now.

“Oh, that’s a good question,” Cason agreed. “You definitely need to find out whose pole they’re sliding down.”

Shooting him a filthy glare, I replied to Heidi, including the question.

Me: Don’t even mention my sweet baby girl on a pole. It makes me twitchy. Canon wants to know if it’s a man or a woman teaching you? And now that he’s mentioned it, so do I.

Heidi: Woman.

“Sorry to disappoint you fucker,” I muttered as I typed my reply. “It’s a woman who teaches them.

“Damn,” Cason sighed. “The vein in Canon’s head is this close to exploding.”

“Give him five minutes with Jacinda, and it’ll actually explode.”

My brother stopped and glared at us both. “I’m so glad you find this funny. Not long ago, you were like this over Heidi, Bond. And you, Cason, you wait until you’re in my shoes.”

“Well, judging by the way Jacinda’s avoiding you, you’ll probably still be in the shoes when it happens to me, so I can just sit back and go ‘mwah ha ha ha’ at you.” Cason was loving winding my brother up, and I would have warned him to tread carefully, but I was too busy watching the first ten seconds of the video.