Son for Hire: Chapter 34 (Patreon)

“Can I unlock it?”  My trouble-making sister asks as they near the door.

Alan hands the keys over as he glares at his wife for setting this meeting up.  He was just enduring it now, probably counting the seconds until he could get us off of his property for good.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he demanded they take the suite right off the market again after this.  I am shook when that same hard glare shifts to me.

At our side comes the jangle of keys being rattled.  “I think it’s stuck.”

“For the love of…”  Alan sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.  “It isn’t stuck.  You’re just…you’re doing it wrong.”

“Oh.”  She pulls the key out, looks at it, then puts it back in again and jingles some more.

“The key isn’t even all the way in!”

“Oh.”  Kiki giggles.  “At our old place you have to pull it back just a little to make it work.  It’s not like that here?”

“Give me that.”  Alan steps in and unlocks the bolt for her as if she were an invalid.  “There.”

“Thank you!”  She beams up at him.  Turning to me, that mischievous twinkle still shining bright, she reaches out.  “Come along my darling.”

“Of course my dear wife.”  I am cringing even as I say it, we were laying it on way too thick.  He was going to see right through this facade any moment.

I summon my courage, trying to act as casual as I possibly could around this well groomed gorilla named Alan, and approach the door.  Kiki opens the door and natural light floods down the wide flight of stairs.  Together we descend with Evelyn and Alan at our six.  Alan grumbles something which I can’t make out.  We come through the second door and out into the main room.  Kiki lets out a gasp.

“This is…wonderful!”  She hurries out into the center and spins around taking everything in.  “Ohhhh, it is just what we were hoping for.  Cozy and clean and perfect.”

Happy for Kiki to be the center of attention I fade off toward the kitchen, pretending to check the appliances and faucet for the first time.  “Real nice.”

Evelyn goes to join ‘Kitty’ and starts to run down some of the features of the place.  The pair talk in a jovial manner, doing a much better job than me pretending that everything was normal.  I am watching the kitchen faucet run when I sense a looming presence immediately beside me. I glance up at Alan and flash him a friendly grin.  There is no smile in return.

“Hey.  Sorry about my…uh…wife.”  I say.  “Kik…K-Kit can be a bit much when she’s nervous.”  Even as I talk to him all I am thinking is ‘please don’t crush me’.

“Hrm.”

“Once you get to know her she’ll settle down.”

“We have other applicants.”  He tells me.  “A lot of other applicants.”

“Oh…of course.”

“Applicants with good jobs.”  He leans in closer in a clear effort to intimidate.  It works!

“Yeah…jobs…uh…I’m…uh…I’m thinking…classes…um…”

Possibly because they sensed a raising of the tension in the room or perhaps because they simply heard my inane babbling but for whatever reason suddenly the two women are right there with us.  Evelyn is at my side and Kiki is at his.  My bubbly sister tugs at his sweater and breaks his train of thought as well as his focus on me.  He looks down at his sweater where she’d touched him as if it were some great offense and then to her about to say something when she interjects with a question.

“Are you a daddy?”  She asks with a syrupy sweet earnestness.

This gives him pause.  “Ex-cuse me?”

“A daddy.  Are you a daddy?  You look like a daddy.”  She asks again, eyes huge and innocent.  You could hear pin drop until she clarifies.  “Do you have kids?”

“Oh, well, yes.”  He shifts uncomfortably.  “One son.  Eugene.  He’s away at school right now.”

“Oh!  I bet he’s as handsome as his Papa.”  My sister says.

“He is.”  Evelyn says proudly, causing a pang of jealousy to shoot right through my heart.  A light brush of my hand signals to me that Mom hadn’t forgotten her other baby boy.  

“I knew you were a daddy!  Ha ha ha!  I could just tell.”

He looks at her like she’s crazy…and so do I.  “Why are you asking me if I have kids?”  He says.

“Donald and Kitty are thinking about children she tells me.”  Evelyn offers.  “That’s why they’re after a two bedroom.  She and I were just talking about it.”

“Alright.”  He says as looks back and forth between us clearly not liking what he’d just heard.  “You two want to have kids?”

“Yep!”  Kiki chirps.  “Donny wants to be a daddy too.”

He scowls at me.  “You?”

“Erm, right, what she said.”  I concur.  “We want children.”

“Children are…”  Alan starts.

“A blessing.”  Evelyn cuts him off pointedly.  “And absolutely none of our business dear.”

“They’re noisy.”  He mutters under his breath with a glance toward Evelyn that signaled that they would be talking about this later.  “And messy.  Anyways.  This is the place.”  He says curtly in an effort to wrap this up.  “Any questions?”

“So many!”  Kiki seizes on the offer and his hand.  Pulling a flustered Alan along behind her she hurries toward the washroom.  “I saw in the pictures that the bathtub has a door on it!  Ha ha ha!  I’ve never seen that before.  You gotta show me how it works.  Doesn’t it leak?  What if the tub is full?”

Alan looks back at us for help but Evelyn just smiles and waves as the pair disappear into the washroom.

“We’re doomed.”  I whisper.

“Probably.”  She says.  “It’s been a hoot to watch though.”

A hoot?  Ha!  I just loved Evelyn’s old-timey expressions.  Reaching down Evelyn grabs my hand…and brings it to her ass.  I grip onto her full soft booty and let out a sigh.  God it was so nice to feel her again.  That said I am ready to pull away from her like she were red hot if her muscular husband stepped back in.  She then does the same to me, groping my tush as she shifts closer.

“Your sister is…interesting.”

“You could say that.”  I sigh.  “She’s having fun with us.  All of us.  She can be a real brat when she wants to be.  It’s been a long time since she’s been this, erm, spirited though.”  It would have been awesome to see Kiki reclaiming some of her lost verve had this not been so important to me.  “I should have warned you she could be like this.”

“Too late to change course now.  I’ll do what I can.”  She sneaks a kiss to my cheek.  “How’s my little prince today?”

“Better.”  I grin.  “Although…”  I thumb toward the washroom.  “…he’s humongous!  Alan could squish me between two fingers!  Geez!”

Mom chuckles strokes her hand up to rub my back.  “Don’t be scared of him.  I told you, I won’t let him hurt you.”

“And what is with this marriage idea?  She’s my sister!”

“This is going to be a lot easier with a married couple than a couple of single younger folk.  Less parties, less trouble, etcetera.”

“It’s so weird.”

“Are you regretting it?  We still have time to…”

“No, no, no.  I’d do anything to be here.  Anything.”

She smiles and ruffles my hair.  “That’s my boy.  Have faith.  Nothing’s decided yet.”

With only one footstep’s worth of notice Alan reappears, Evelyn and I barely have time to separate when his big head pops back into the room.  “Something’s wrong with your wife.”  He says urgently.

Oh no!  I rush forward, Evelyn close behind, and squeeze past Alan’s bulk to find my sister sitting on the toilet holding the side of her head.  She’d lost the color from her cheeks and a very fine sheen of sweat had broken out across her face.

“I’m okay Donny.”  I hear a familiar weakening tremor in her voice.  “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.”  I say softly as I hug her head to my chest.  I knew we’d rushed this.  We were all so eager to make this happen quickly that we had been fools about it.  We should have waited another week.  A shiver starts up in Kiki’s now cold hands which she does her best to hide.

“What is wrong with her?”  I hear Alan whisper from just past the doorway.  “She nearly passed out.  Something’s wrong.”

“I don’t know dear.  Let’s give them space.”  Evelyn says.  “Do you two need anything?”

“Something to drink please.”  I say.

“Is she sick?”  Alan asks, his deep voice surprisingly compassionate.  “Is it a blood sugar thing?  Is she diabetic?”

“Just a bit under the weather.”  I say.

“I’ll be okay.”  Kiki says with effort.

“Take your time.”  Evelyn says as she closes the door to give us privacy.

“They’re trying to have a kid.  Maybe she’s…”  Alan’s voice fades away as the pair head upstairs to get Kiki a drink.

My sister looks at me with apologetic eyes.  “I think I overdid it kid.”

“Ya think?”  I say.  “You gonna throw up?”

She shakes her head and swallows hard.  “Just give me a minute.”  She leans into me and just focuses on slow deep breaths.  “I was doing so good too.”  She swallows.  “Evelyn is beautiful.  I see the way she looks at you.  You’re a lucky guy.”

“Thanks.”  I say as I stroke her hair.  “Just relax.  We’ll finish this up and get you home soon.”

“I like this place.”  She says weakly.  “It’s as nice as you said it was.”

“Yeah.”  I reply.  I couldn’t completely hide my disappointment at how this had gone.  I sense the final nails going into the coffin of what was probably always a hopeless scheme.  This had been a unfolding disaster from the moment Kiki scolded Alan at the door to her nearly passing out here in the washroom.    There was no way Alan was going to agree to take us into his home after everything.  God damn it!  This was not the time to berate her though.  I hold her and rub her back as she fights through this spell.  It isn’t long before a very quiet knock comes to the door.  “Come in.”

The door swings open and in walks Evelyn.  She had an iced tea in one hand and a glass of water in the other, both half full of ice and wet with condensation.  She sets them on the counter.  “I wasn’t sure what she’d prefer.”

“There’s a doctor who lives just down the road.”  Alan says, surprising me that he’d returned with Evelyn to check on us.  The reality of who Alan was wasn’t matching my unflattering assumptions of the man.  “I could run down and see if he’s home.”

“It’s okay.”  Kiki says as she takes the water and, with my aid, takes a sip.  “I’m so embarrassed.  Causing all this trouble.  I’m sorry everyone.”

“No trouble my dear.”  Evelyn says in that warm maternal voice I knew so well.  “Would you like to come up and lay down for a few minutes?”

“No…I don’t want to be a bother.”

“No bother.”

Kiki closes her eyes, swallows, then nods her head.  “Maybe just a few minutes then.”  She takes another sip and I help her to her feet.

After a couple of wobbly steps with me supporting her Alan exclaims.  “Oh, for God’s sake man!  Help her!”  He’d seen enough of my help though.  Stepping through the rest of us Alan scoops up my diminutive sister as if she were no heavier than a pillow.  Cradling her in his thick arms he turns and marches back out the door again.

Evelyn and I stand a moment looking at each other before hurrying to follow.

Chapter 35