I didn’t respond and pressed Play instead. The video was just twenty-four minutes long. Kit started yawning ten minutes in. Then he fiddled with his phone, giggled, glanced back up at the television screen, and concentrated for another three minutes before he yawned again. He had the attention span of a gnat.
“Is it over already?” he asked when the closing theme played.
I gnashed my teeth. “Yes, do you have any questions?”
“Maybe we should watch it again? I didn’t catch it all.”
Instead of reprimanding him like I wanted to do, I replayed the video. In the middle, he got to his feet and stretched.
“I need to grab a snack from the kitchen.”
“Do you want me to pause it?”
“No. I can hear from the kitchen.”
“But you need to see what they’re doing.”
“I’ll visualize it with my mind. I have an amazing imagination, you know.” He winked.
Of course he was referring to sex again, but not every job would require him to demonstrate that. He still needed to learn how to fit in with the sort of people who I did business with. The sort who would notice if he used the wrong fork.
Kit returned to the living room with a bag of Oreo minis. This time, he dropped down onto the sofa beside me and extended the bag. “You want some?”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
“Come on, Liam already knows you accept food from me.”
Jesus. I should return this package to Nolan and let him keep the twenty thousand. How much longer could I put up with him?
“I’m not hungry. Pay attention to the screen.”
“Yes, Daddy, sheesh.”
I needed to pay a visit to my dentist for all the grinding my teeth had been doing recently. The video ran out, and I shut it off.
“Any questions?”
“I don’t think so. What now?”
“We do a bit of demonstration. I brought some stuff over. Let me get them from the car.”
The little walk to the garage gave me the space to breathe. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Kit was riling me up on purpose with his behavior, but I wasn’t so sure. At first, I’d thought I had a good read on him. Sexy, uninhibited boy who was hard up for cash and would take pleasure out of toying with men. But…there was more beneath the surface. I grabbed the box from the trunk and walked into the kitchen, where he was puttering around.
“I’m in the dining room,” I said.
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
I had the dinnerware set out on the table by the time he entered. “You ready to show me what you learned?”
He scratched his head. “Why does it look so complicated? Are you sure all this is necessary?”
“It is. We have your first job coming up. Before you, I’d planned to go alone, but it will be the perfect opportunity for you to get a feel for what we do.”
“Umm, if you’re sure.”
I pulled out a chair for him. “Take a seat. Let’s get started.”
An hour later, I was at the point of pulling out every single strand of my hair. I should have prepared myself for the possibility of him being a slow learner, but I never thought it could be this bad.