Needless to say, they’re no dummies.
To help ease the coming separation, and since Kendall’s mom and stepdad are going to be traveling all summer, I offered to have Kendall stay with us all summer. I mean, it’s just Amy and I in a fucking fourteen-thousand square foot house. I’m fairly confidence we have the room. That and Kendall’s a really good kid. Kind, gracious, smart as a whip, and funny. Which is even more impressive if you’ve ever met her pushover of a mother and her skeezeball of a stepfather.
I can hear the girls giggling it up downstairs, so I finish getting ready in the bathroom, and then it’s off to my wardrobe to change. Dark jeans, a white button up, Armani jacket, Cartier watch, and a very, very hard cock at the anticipation of what’s to come later tonight in the city.
Namely, Cherry, on my cock.
I jog down the stairs, spotting Kendall’s bags in the foyer by the side door, and then following the trail of destruction back through the house, into the kitchen. Two discarded Starbucks iced-coffee cups sit on the counter—almond milk, one sugar for Amy, and regular black with a smudge of pink lipstick on the straw for Kendall. There’s giggling from outside, and I grab the two coffees, taking swig from Amy’s as I head back through the kitchen, out to the back door that leads out to the pool.
“Hey, dad!”
“Hey, pumpkin.”
I smile as Amy pokes her head around from the lounge chair facing the pool she’s sitting in. An instant later, Kendall’s long blonde locks tumble into view as she swivels her head around as well.
“Hey Mr. B!”
I grin. “Mr. B.” is our compromise. Kendall won’t call me Marshall, because I guess it’s weird to call your friends’ parents by their first names. And I think “Mr. Bane” is entirely too formal for having known her since she was five. So, Mr. B it is.
“Pack enough for two months, Kendall?”
Amy rolls her eyes. “Dad.”
I stick my tongue out at her as I step out onto the back patio. Amy whistles.
“Well well well! Guess someone’s going out tonight!”
This time, it’s me who rolls my eyes at her.
“Just a work thing in the city, calm down.”
“Well, it looks like you’re dressed up to get lucky.”
Kendall snorts, blushing bright red. I just roll my eyes again.
“Calm down, kiddo.”
Amy sighs. “I’m allowed to be worried about you, dad. It’s not healthy to be single this long.”
“And who says I’m single?”
The girls eye each other before giggling all over again.
“Har har. Here. I’m assuming you still want these seeing as you haven’t sucked the cup dry.”
I gesture with the coffees as I step over towards the two of them.
“Thanks.”
Amy jumps up in her jean shorts and t-shirt, snagging her coffee from my hands.
“So, what are you two up to toni—”
Kendall gets up, and my fucking mouth goes a little numb.
Fuck. Me.
My jaw tightens as the lithe little blonde uncoils herself from the pool chair and stands on her coltish long legs, toned from track and swim team. And Jesus Christ, she’s wearing tiny army green bikini bottoms that tie at the sides, and a slinky tank top that barely falls over them. My jaw tightens even more, and I force my eyes to stay level and appropriate, all the while shaking my head at myself.
Don’t be a fucking creep.
I’d be lying if I said Kendall isn’t, well, gorgeous. It’s fucked up, and all sorts of wrong to even put her in that context, seeing as I’ve watched her grow up. But basic biology is basic biology. And stripped of social niceties and decorum, I’m just a red-blooded man, looking at a fucking stunning girl who makes that red blood goddamn boil.
But I shake it away, clearing my throat and doing my damnedest to pretend little Kendall Shaw hasn’t grown up in a very, very distracting way.
“Uh, what are you girls doing tonight?” I grumble out, clearing my throat again.
Amy beams wickedly.
“Well, we were going to have a Party of Five marathon, but someone decided to go ahead and get themselves a date, in the city.”
Amy wags her brows at a very blushing Kendall, who quickly drops her gaze to the ground as she’s pokes at a tuft of grass sprouting through a crack in the paver stones with her bare foot.
“It’s nothing, Amy,” she mumbles, blushing furiously. “It’s just this… this thing.”
“Yeah, a date.” Amy snorts. “She met him online.”
Kendall groans and I chuckle, shaking my head. And yet, for whatever fucked up reason, on the inside, there’s a flash of… fuck, what is that. Fury? Worse, jealousy? The idea of Kendall going off into New York all by herself, all blonde and innocent and waifish—basically prey—to meet some prick she met online makes my blood run hot.
“Do you know this guy, Kendall?”