“Fucker,” he rasped, rolling to the side and holding his stomach when I got to my knees beside him.
Standing up, I turned to Canon now. “I haven’t had a woman back here, man, not one. I’m not sure what she’s heard…” and then it hit me. “Oh, fuck!”
Still in pain, Reid rolled to face me and only just managed to ask, “Is it porn?”
How to answer that. Technically, no it wasn’t, but on another technicality it was word porn, so if I said no was that a lie?
“Dude, if you’re doing porn in your home, that counts as having a woman back,” Bond said as he got to his feet beside me. “Either way, Katy deserves better than that.”
Walking over to the couch, I flopped down on it and covered my face with my hands. This was such a monumental fuck up. I didn’t want to explain it to these three, but I was going to have to say something.
Unfortunately, the only thing I could come up with was, “It’s not what you think, or what she apparently thinks.”
Jesus, a line of women in the hallway? What the fuck?
“Well, what is it? If you explain it to us we can help you translate it into words that’ll work with a woman like Katy,” Reid suggested as he crawled across the floor to one of the recliners. I wanted to say he was being dramatic, but I’d been in his predicament many times and that shit took a while to get over. He’d be feeling it for days.
Groaning at the prospect of telling them what I was doing on the side and thus ending the dream of having something that was just mine, I tried to stall. “She really thinks I’ve got women here every night? In the room next to hers?”
“Yup,” Bond said seriously as he joined me on the couch.
“But that’s my study.”
They all looked at each other, but it was Bond and Reid who had the ‘what the hell does that matter’ looks on their faces.
Not losing focus, Canon leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Well?”
In for a penny… “I narrate books and this week I had a dual narration job, which means that I was reading my parts while a woman called Karen was reading hers. That’s what Katy must have heard.”
Sitting back, he crossed his arms and glared at me. “Well, if you’re not going to tell the truth then your fucked. I like Katy, I’ll take her.”
“I’ll fight you for her,” Reid snapped, bracing for Canon to say the word go.
“We all know she’s into me,” Bond shrugged. “And she gave me her number earlier.”
And this was why I wanted peace and quiet. This was why I wanted something that was just mine. I’d spent the last twenty-seven years with this shit, and as much as I loved my brothers, I just wanted less of the crap that came with it.
Standing up, Canon started walking to the door. “Y’all are such amateurs. You don’t text a woman like Katy, you court her. Courting means treating her like a princess, making her feel appreciated, giving her the time and attention she deserves – all of which none of you can do.”
As soon as he got the last word out, he swung open the door and I realized I had to move now. For once I let my age drop so that I was at the same level of maturity as them, and I hurdled the recliner that Reid was getting out of and pushed Canon out of the way. Once I was outside, I did the same with the little fence and got to Katy’s door.
Not knowing what to say to explain it didn’t matter at all, what mattered was getting Katy. So I knocked on her door, doing my best not to sound like a maniac. Fortunately, she was the one who opened it with Elodie on her hip.
In a split second I knew what I had to do, and I did something I’d never done before. I put myself out there big time and leaned in and kissed her, doing my best not to crush the baby. Initially Katy froze and her mouth was unyielding against mine, but the second I lifted my hand to the back of her neck with my thumb on her pulse, she melted and it opened, giving me access which I took advantage of. As soon as the taste of her hit me, I wanted to take it further, but… Elodie.
In fact, she’s why I pulled away in the end, seeing as how she’d grabbed onto my ear and was tugging on it as hard as she could. It was hard, but I managed to do it even though I didn’t move too far away from Katy.
“It’s not what you think,” I whispered, watching as her eyes opened slowly and she looked at me in confusion. “Tomorrow, I want to take you out, just you and me so I can explain. Can someone babysit for you?”