Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Knightly
Thankfully, Rhodes was about as sneaky as a kid on Christmas morning, so figuring out his name, his interests in ageplay, and his interest in me hadn’t been as difficult as I’d imagined.
Getting him to bring it up had been another matter altogether, though.
He didn’t mind doing his best to brush up against me at every opportunity and watching my every move but talking about substantive things was another story altogether.
“Um, well, I don’t like having my family over, so I only did it once right after I moved in when just about everything was still in boxes.” He shrugged when I tried to keep a straight face. “That way they couldn’t see anything they weren’t supposed to.”
It’d actually been a reasonable plan, but it seemed his family hadn’t gotten the message. “But now you’ve been backed into a corner somehow and they’re descending on you?”
Rhodes pouted as he nodded. “They’re invading.”
From what I knew of Littles, he wasn’t exaggerating just for attention.
“Then we’ll fix it so they don’t see anything personal to you, and once they’re gone, we’ll put everything back in place.” He might’ve had things scattered all over the house, like the binkies in his junk drawer, but it wasn’t that much in general.
I’d only seen those looking for a screwdriver to tighten the legs on the patio chairs, but if I could find them that easily someone else could too.
“Your other option is to just ignore their comments and tell them to mind their own business.” I knew he couldn’t do that even before his face scrunched up. “Okay, Plan A then.”
As he nodded, he let out a shaky breath. “I don’t like talking to them about stuff. They’re…”
Not nice?
Admittedly, I didn’t have a lot of family outside my mother and sister, but his seemed insane and judgmental.
“Every family is different and it’s okay if you need space from yours to actually like them.” I’d seen that advice on a sitcom my sister made me sit through, so I was glad when it made Rhodes happy too. “You just might need help setting boundaries with them.”
“You’ll do a great job with that.” Shooting me a beaming smile, he bounced around the kitchen. “I need help with lots of boundaries.”
I still wasn’t sure how his boundaries had become my responsibility, but he couldn’t do it on his own and he’d been polite.
“Alright, but you have to give me the list so I know what to enforce.” Trying not to sigh as he bounced over and threw his arms around me, I hugged him back. “Let’s find your goodies first and then we’ll find where your boundaries have wandered off to.”
Then I’d figure out how to protect them all.
I couldn’t remember running into his family before, but his description of them sounded like they were chaos on two legs. They also seemed judgmental and nosy, so if he didn’t want to talk about his Little side with them, he didn’t have to.
“Thank you.” Nearly bouncing again as he stepped back, I could see his Little side taking over. “Now what?”
Now it was my turn to be even bossier?
“Let’s see where we can put your cups and plates.” They were red flags when it came to encouraging nosy people to ask questions. “And we need a small box to put the other stuff like your binkies in.”
“Yes.” Hurrying around the room, he was focused on searching for a good box, so I decided to rehome the plates.
Perfect.
Rhodes had incredibly tall upper cabinets compared to mine, but that meant the small cabinet over his fridge was damned near impossible for anyone under six feet to easily reach. It was the perfect place to put everything he wanted to keep private.
He thought so too because he nearly giggled as I put the last of the cups in the tall cabinet. “Yay. Good job.”
“Thank you.” Turning around, I chuckled when he held up a small box, still beaming at me. “You did a good job too. Let’s find your stuff.”
Binkies, weird keychains, and one naughty coffee cup later, we had the box packed and all his mail hidden above the fridge.
“One more thing…” It wasn’t quite enough, so I searched until I found a box with a small stand mixer in a closet. “This is heavy enough we’ll notice if they move it.”
As I set it on top of the fridge, he watched excitedly. “I don’t know where to put it so I put it in the closet.”
“We’ll figure that out later.” His kitchen was big enough it wouldn’t be a problem but he was the type to ignore it until it was impossible.
Like when his family started invading.
“You’re a good helper.” With his goodies protected, he looked like he was walking on air. “Now what?”
“Now we protect the rest of the house.” Reaching out my hand, I smiled as he giggled as he took it. “It’s time to show me around.”
The tour didn’t take long but we did find a few blankets and random stuffed animals that he said were private, so we took them upstairs and put them in his playroom.
I could see why he wanted to keep it away from his family. “You’ve got a nice playroom, Bouncy.”
Bright-colored toys were stacked on low shelves and he even had one of those rugs with a city on them. The walls were a bright yellow and he even had a big Daddy chair over in the corner, but there was no way to pretend it was anything other than a playroom.
“It’s fun.” He was barely holding back the urge to throw himself into playing and almost vibrating with excitement. “I did it. I made it pretty.”
“You did and I can tell you worked hard at it.” Setting down the random stuff we’d found on the oversized chair, I did my best to keep him focused on our to-do list. “We’ll come back and play later once everyone leaves.”
“You’ll play?” He didn’t wait for me to nod before pointing to his bookshelf. “You’ll read?”
“Yes.” I was just going to ignore how illogical all of this was. “But we’ve got to finish our plans first.”
Straightening his shoulders, he frowned like he was pretending to be a full adult. “Got to defend the castle.”
From the invaders.
“We can do it.” Mostly because he’d never made me promise to be nice about the invasion. He might want to make them happy but I didn’t have that drive.
Patting my head, Rhodes looked adorably sneaky. “You can do it.”
He and I were going to have a long conversation once the invaders were gone… and books were read. Okay, so eventually we were going to have a long conversation.
“You know how kids are.” Giving Rhodes’ brother a neutral hint of a smile, I herded him toward the kitchen… again. “Stairs are dangerous.”
Especially with baby gates at the top of them—and the bottom.
“The youngest is nine.” Indy frowned but let me lead him back toward everyone else.
He was nosy and just smart enough to realize it was weird but not smart enough to understand why it was weird.
I wasn’t sure how he’d found three different women to marry him, but life was full of questions we’d never find the answers to. “He’s not going to fall.”
No, but Indy would fall right down the stairs if he upset Rhodes one more time.
“Yes, we’re keeping everyone safe.” Ignoring what he was trying to hint around, I kept my voice pleasantly neutral like I wasn’t imagining shoving him from the second floor to the first. “They’re very steep.”
That was actually true because they were some space-saving design the builder had put in all the homes in the neighborhood and they were one of the most dangerous things I’d ever seen in a house.
“Well… yeah…” He glanced back over his shoulder, but couldn’t figure out what to say fast enough.
“I’m glad you understand.” Shaking my head, I grabbed the pitcher of water off the counter that he’d come in to get and continued moving us out to the backyard. “Keeping them safe is a priority for Rhodes. Family is important.”
And his was insane.
Andi was going to be amazed when I came away from this actually appreciating her. I’d always thought having a sister was God’s way of punishing me for something I’d done very early in life but I was going to have to rethink that assumption.
“I… I guess…” He was still confused as I shut the back door behind us and called out to the mess of kids he’d brought over as I put the pitcher down on the table we’d set the food on.
“Indy said he wanted to play a game with y’all. What sounds fun?”
Ha.
Try and be nosy again and I was buying the little monsters water guns filled with glitter.
Indy’s groan said he knew he’d done fucked up and was willing to pay for it. “I’m not going to be it again. You guys left me last time.”
They were a fucking mess… mostly the adults, though.
The kids were learning quickly to be just as insane as their parents, but they’d realized faster that I wasn’t going to put up with crazy.
“That’s amazing.” Softly sighing out the words, Rhodes made me fight back a smile. “How did you do that?”
“Watching him through the windows.” His family wasn’t subtle enough to get away with much as long as I was paying attention. “And if you bribe the youngest with five bucks, he’ll tattle on everyone.”
Best five bucks I’d ever spent… the kid was going to be a millionaire before he was thirty at the rate he was going, but I wasn’t sure if that would end up with him on a top business leaders list or one for newly convicted felons.
It could go either way.
“Oh, that’s brilliant.” Rhodes didn’t seem to have an issue with my technique. “I need to go to the bank before they come over again, though.”
Yep, we were both going to have to start carrying more small bills around at family events.
“He also said that your mother is trying to fix you up.” Matt, thankfully a stepkid so he had a normal name, knew he’d needed to tattle right off the bat with that one.
“Based on what he said, it’s some kind of cultural or religious group.
He’s confused because you guys didn’t seem to fit it, but he likes you enough to be helpful. ”
“Oh… um, that’s nice.” Rhodes knew enough to keep his expression neutral but it was strained as he waved at his oldest sister-in-law who’d glared at him… again. “He’s very sweet and blessedly normal. I’m really not sure why his biological father lets him around my family so much.”
I had the same question.
I also wanted to know why Rhodes was so much younger than the rest of his siblings.
“They debrief after every event. It’s some kind of training thing for the kid to be able to identify danger but not get himself involved.” I wasn’t sure how the bribe was going to fit in but the kid’s bio dad seemed to work for the government, so it could go either way.
“That’s weird, right?” Barely frowning, Rhodes shifted so his back was to most of his family. It seemed to be an instinct learned from years of crazy. “I mean, even using my family as a scale, that’s still odd.”
“Incredibly so, but we’re not his parents and we’re not fucking him up worse.” That meant we weren’t going to get worked up about it. “He seems to be enjoying himself and that’s the most important thing.”
Well, that was what I was going to convince Rhodes was the most important thing.
“You’re right.” Looking brighter, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “They’re all watching us again, aren’t they?”
“Yep.” Every single one of them. “So kiss my cheek so they’ll know we’re serious about each other and then head inside to get the brownies.”
A neighbor wouldn’t have any impact on their behavior, so this castle guard had been labeled a special friend right off the bat. “So far so good, no one has found the hiding place. I’ll guard the door. Then it’s dessert, cleanup, and we send them home.”
It’d been a long fucking afternoon and I was tired of guarding the castle from the idiots who’d basically put it under siege.
“I get to kiss you?” Perking up, he smiled for a moment before his eyes widened as he thought about how that’d come out. “I mean, thank you for helping me?”
“Yes, you get to kiss me.” Thankfully, Rhodes was as subtle as a sledgehammer when it came to his attraction to me once we’d spent more than five minutes together. “You’ve been very good today and I’m going to read you books later too.”
“I’ve been good.” Barely holding back his obvious desire to bounce around like a ping-pong ball, he stretched up and brushed his lips softly against my cheek while we both ignored his family. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll save you from the invading hordes and do my best to keep them from setting up scaffolding to scale the castle walls.” No matter what Axel’s oldest thought, that trellis would not hold his weight.
Nearly giggling, Rhodes nodded and did his best to act seriously. “Thank you, Knightly.”
He was going to owe me a bigger thanks than that later and we were both looking forward to it. I’d not only defended the playroom but I’d also defended him from very strange questions on what dating between men looked like.
My “looking straight” was fucking up their ability to be rude to Rhodes and had actually put most of their nonsense on hold for the time being. They’d still done their best to nose around his house at every opportunity, but we’d held back most of the waves of attack.
It was actually more exhausting than I was expecting, so we were both looking forward to peace and quiet in the playroom after the castle and surrounding lands were safe and sound again.
Only then could we go upstairs and play, but that would come with all new issues.
Because I wasn’t completely sure what a Daddy did and I was pretty sure faking it would only work for so long.