More Than Everything (Family 3)

“You sure?” I asked as I moved forward.

He grunted his assent and tapped his hand again. I plummeted onto the mattress face-first, making us both bounce.

“Sorry,” I mumbled into the fabric under my mouth.

He raised his arm, dropped it on me, and landed a few halfhearted pats on my back.

“’S okay,” he slurred. Then he tossed his other forearm over his eyes and sighed.

We lay in silence for a while. I might even have dozed off for a little bit. Once my body had a chance to rest and recuperate, though, my brain kicked on and I remembered some questions I’d filed away throughout the day, intending to ask Scott for answers when we were alone. There were lots of voices and noises coming from the next room, but technically it was just the two of us in the tiny space. That counted as alone. I flipped onto my side, propped my elbow on the bed, and rested my head on my hand.

“Scott?”

“Huh?”

“What’s the deal with your parents?”

“My parents?”

“Yeah.”

He moved his arm off his face, rolled onto this side, and then mimicked my pose. “What do you mean?” he asked.

I chewed on the side of my lip, feeling uncomfortable all of a sudden, like I was prying or overstepping or generally clueless. But he didn’t seem upset, so I decided, what the fuck, and charged on ahead. “Well, your dad was helping us load the truck and stuff, right?”

“Uh-huh.” He bobbed his head.

“So then who was the other guy? The one, uh—” I tried to figure out the right words to ask about the man I’d seen groping his mom’s ass in the kitchen. She had been packing boxes. He had been feeling her up. I had been mortified as hell. I finally settled on, “—with your mother.”

“Oh!” Scott said. “That was Dave.”

Right. Okay, not helpful at all, then.

“Dave?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “My stepfather.”

“Your parents are divorced?”

“No, not divorced. Just not married to each other. Never have been.”

“Huh,” I said. “And that woman who was at your old apartment? The one packing up the bathroom?” And having a conversation about feminine products with Scott’s mother that made me wish I could plug my ears with supersize… damn it. Still thinking about those products. Horror.

“That was my stepmom, Julia.”

Since my parents split, I’d had maybe a couple of phone calls from my father. No way was my mother going to start dating one of his buddies or exchanging recipes… or other things… with whoever my dad was banging.

“It’s cool,” Scott said, making me realize I must have looked as confused as I felt. “My dad and Dave are, like, best friends or something. They all went to high school together: my mom, my dad, Dave, and Julia.”

“Oh, that’s, uh, nice.” Weird. Totally weird. But lying as close to Scott as I was at that moment, his scent seemed more important than his family dynamic. He smelled good. Seriously good.

“What’re you doing?” Scott asked.

I snapped my head up. I’d somehow managed to get my face oddly close to Scott’s chest. And by oddly close, I mean I was a tongue-length away from making contact with his skin. I hoped he couldn’t hear my heart beating louder than a conga drum and tried to come up with a viable excuse for almost licking the guy. My initial thought was to go with seizure, but Lord knew what they taught him in that Red Cross class, and I didn’t think a hard-on was a believable side effect of that particular condition.

So instead I rolled onto my stomach, propped my chin up on my hands, and said, “Nothing.” Then I chewed on my bottom lip and looked up at him from underneath my lashes, hoping against all hope that he wouldn’t call me out on the obvious lie or shove me off his bed.

Thankfully, he did neither. He rolled onto his stomach, mimicking my position once again, and continued our conversation from what seemed like hours earlier, even though it couldn’t have been more than a minute or two.

“So are your parents married to each other?”

I had never been more grateful for a distraction, even if it meant talking about my parents’ ugly divorce. Scott met my gaze the entire time I spoke. He looked sympathetic, nodded at all the right times, and asked follow-up questions. And suddenly, I realized he was listening, really listening, which was when I knew I was in big trouble.

Super-hot neighbor guy was enough to make my dick hard in close quarters. Add in nice and compassionate and an entirely different organ was on the line. After witnessing the pain that resulted from a crushed heart firsthand, I didn’t think that was a good thing. So I answered his questions and told him about my fucked-up family, but instead of thinking about how good it’d feel to have him wrap me in his strong arms and hold me tight, I thought about how good it’d feel to wrap my hand around his dick and stroke him hard.