Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 89535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
Hey, I may act like a dick, but I’m a decent human being deep down. They cancel each other out, right?
“I hate to ask,” I start, but Kole cuts me off.
“I’ll clean the kitchen while you go do whatever you need to do.”
“Thank you.” I don’t care if one of the kids comes in or West miraculously reappears and tears into me for kissing Coach’s son. I lean in and do it anyway. “I have to go try to pry a thirteen-year-old’s phone off him so I can make sure he’s not sexting with his girlfriend.”
“Good luck.”
I’m going to need it.
I run upstairs to Rhys’s door first on the right. My hand reaches for the handle, and I’m about to barge in when I think better of it. Thirteen-year-old. His own room. If he is sexting, I don’t want to see something I’m pretending he doesn’t do yet. Even though I think that’s all I did at his age.
I knock instead.
“Come in.”
Immediate response. That’s a good sign.
I open the door, and Rhys blinks up at me from where he sits on his bed. I hold out my palm. “Phone.”
“What did I do?” he complains.
“Nothing. I just want to check something.”
“What do you need to check?”
“The Wi-Fi.”
My little brother narrows his eyes but hands it over.
I open his messenger app and click on Charlotte’s name.
It doesn’t take long for him to catch on to what I’m doing. He stands and tries to take the phone off me, but I turn my back to him while I scroll through the messages. There’s only sweet “I miss yous” and “school sucks” and Rhys complaining about living with so many goddamn people.
Amen, brother.
“What are you doing?” he screeches.
I hand him his phone back. “Zoe said you were sexting with Charlotte. I wanted to make sure before sitting you down for a really embarrassing talk that would be awkward for both of us.”
“And you believed her?” The hurt in his tone is evident.
“After our talk a few weeks back about my virginity? Yeah. I wanted to be sure you’re not doing anything you shouldn’t be. You’re thirteen.”
Rhys looks like he wants to argue, but he doesn’t. “That’s fair. But you could have asked me.”
“Again, you’re thirteen, and I know how much I used to lie to Dad and your mom when I was your age. It’s not a trust thing, it’s a teenager thing.”
“First you believe Hazel when she said I was meeting someone online, and now you believe Zoe that I’m sexting? It sounds like a trust thing to me.”
“You’re forgetting one very big important element here.”
“What?”
I smile. “I was a thirteen-year-old boy once, and I know what I got up to. If I find you doing half the shit I did, I’ll kick your ass. Got it?”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Please, I’m not going to give you ideas.” I turn to walk out, when his softer, smaller voice stops me.
“Thank you.”
I pause and look over my shoulder. “Thank you?”
“You’re the only one who’s honest with me.”
I spin to face him completely. “You do realize I just lied to you to get into your messages, right?”
“You’re honest when it counts. I get the feeling West keeps trying to do what Dad would have done, and it doesn’t work. And by the way, West has already tried to give me the awkward sex talk, but I held up my hand and informed him Dad beat him to it. By about three years.”
“Yeah, but Dad also gave me his version of that talk, and it missed all the important things that he didn’t have to deal with as a kid. Like, don’t send nudes. Don’t ask for nudes. Social media changes things.”
“I’m smarter than that, and I actually like Charlotte. I’m not going to ask her to do anything like that. Not until we’re sixteen.”
“Eighteen,” I argue.
“You were sixteen.” The fucker’s got me there.
I relent, I guess. Fair is fair. Though it’s cute he thinks he and Charlotte will still even be together in three years.
“Do you know where West went tonight?” I ask.
Rhys shakes his head.
“Okay. Maybe we should all … go to bed. It’s been a day.”
“Goodnight.”
I make my way back downstairs, where I find Kole still in the kitchen, barely making a dent in the mess all around. “Damn. I was hoping I was up there long enough that I missed out on all the fun cleaning.”
“No such luck.” He holds up a saucepan. “I tried to salvage this, but I think it’s toast.” He shows me the charred black marks at the bottom.
“I’d say so.” I take it out of his hands and put it in the sink. “I’ll do the dishes in the morning. Come to bed.”
Kole presses against me. “I like that idea, but I can go if you’ve got family drama to deal with.”