Chapter 15 – Knox
fifteen
Knox
“Knox,” she whispers my name as she pants.
“Knox.” Her arms wrap around my shoulder as I push her against the shower wall.
Her legs are wrapped around my waist, my cock buried inside of her.
The water cascades on my back. “Faster,” she begs me, “harder.” I move my cock out of her and then ram it into her again.
“That’s it.” Her mouth is by my ear, and I can feel her breathing into it.
“Right.” I suck her neck, tasting her and the water. “There.”
“Daddy.” I hear my name being called and I open my eyes.
“Daddy, can I sleep with you?” I feel the bed dip a bit beside me as Nora climbs into it with me.
“It’s not dark outside.” She comes to say in my face and my eyes finally focus.
I’m in the middle of my bed on my stomach, the dream floating away from me as Nora continues, “Daddy, after when you get up, can you make me pancakes?”
“Yeah,” I mumble, not moving because I’m not ready to fully wake up from my dream yet and have reality settle in. “What time is it?” I ask her and she looks over, grabbing my phone from the bedside table.
“Eight, four, and two,” she tells me the numbers. “Can I play on your phone?”
“Yeah.” I turn away from her as she lays down on the pillow beside mine. “You can.”
I close my eyes again and see Kylie’s face flash behind my lids.
But it’s not like it was a couple of seconds ago.
No, it’s the glare after I told her not to go near my kids.
I don’t even know why the fuck I said what I said.
I just know I shouldn’t have said it. I walked into the room and was taken aback by how she was on the floor with Nora.
As if sitting on the floor was something she did all the time.
I’ve never even seen Josephine get down on the floor with our daughter.
It shocked and surprised me, and I should have taken the time to count to ten or something before I spewed that shit to her.
Nora plays some video on the phone and I close my eyes, seeing if I can drift off again.
I’m having a hard time getting the images of Kylie out of my head, so instead, I throw the thick white cover off me and head to the bathroom.
“Daddy, are you up?” I look over my shoulder at Nora in my bed with a huge smile on her face.
“Yeah,” I tell her, “I’m going to the bathroom and then we’ll go downstairs.”
“Okay,” she chirps, turning her eyes back to her video as I walk into the bathroom. I walk over to the sink, turn on the cold water, and then splash some on my face. I brush my teeth and spend way too much time in the bathroom, grabbing a pair of shorts and putting them on over my boxers.
As soon as I walk out of the bathroom, Nora bounces up on the bed onto her feet and jumps twice. “I’m hungry.”
“Of course you are,” I say and she jumps another time before bouncing on her butt and then getting off the bed. She runs over to me, and I hold out my arms for her to jump into them. It’s something she does often, but I know it’ll only be a matter of time before she stops.
I walk out of my bedroom and see the doors of the boys’ rooms are still closed and we turn and walk down the steps to the kitchen.
I walk over to the family room, off the kitchen, and place her on the couch there.
She unwraps her legs and gets onto the couch, grabbing the throw blanket and reaching for her iPad and then the remote.
I grab a separate remote and open the shades in the kitchen, then the family room, before heading to the kitchen and starting the coffee.
“Pancakes?” I ask her, making sure she didn’t change her mind in the five minutes since she asked for them.
“Yup,” she confirms, not even turning around.
“Do you want to help me?” I ask her, stepping into the walk-in pantry and grabbing the ingredients.
“No,” she says, “my legs are too tired.”
“Then you should have stayed in bed,” I tell her as I place the mixing bowl and the pancake mix on the counter.
“My legs are tired, not my eyes.” Her comeback makes me laugh and shake my head.
“Let’s hope your arms aren’t tired or you won’t be able to eat.”
“No,” she states as the music starts on the television for one of her movies, “my arms are good.”
“Good to know,” I toss back sarcastically as I mix all the ingredients together.
I walk over, grabbing the cup of coffee and adding milk to it before I find the skillet.
I’m making pancakes when I hear footsteps on the stairs and then look over to see Westley walking in.
He’s wearing his boxers and a T-shirt, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Morning.” I smile at him.
“Morning,” he grumbles, walking straight for the couch and falling onto it. He reaches up to grab the other throw blanket to cover himself.
“I’m making pancakes, sausage, and scrambled eggs,” I tell him and then move to the fridge to grab the carton of eggs and the breakfast sausages.
I mix the whole carton in a bowl before adding them to a frying pan, scrambling them while I flip the pancakes.
Taking another small pan, I add the sausage into it.
It takes me twenty-five minutes to have it all done, but I know they’ll demolish it in half the time.
“Come and eat,” I say, and Nora is the first one off the couch.
She walks over to the stool she always sits on, pulling it out, and climbing onto it.
“I want two,” she instructs me, and I place two on her plate, adding the syrup myself.
The last time she had syrup to the rim. I cut her pancakes into pieces as Westley grabs his own plate and goes over to the stool.
Vincent walks in at that very moment. “Just in time,” I inform him, and he goes to the fridge, grabbing a bottle of orange juice before talking to me.
His hair is sticking up all over the place.
He’s dressed exactly like I am. He finishes the small bottle before turning to me.
His breathing comes in pants from drinking the whole thing without stopping.
“Morning.” He walks over and tosses the plastic bottle in the recycling bin before looking at what I made and grabbing a plate.
I wait until they finish grabbing their stuff before making myself a plate, which is mostly the eggs. Instead of sitting down, I stand up on the other side of the island, looking at the kids. “So,” I grab some eggs on my fork, “did you guys have fun yesterday?”
“Yeah,” Vincent says out loud, picking up a breakfast sausage on his fork and biting it. “I really liked the beginning.”
I smile at him. “Kirby’s sister is really cool,” Westley adds, and my ears perk up, as if I’m a dog and I just heard the mailman arrive.
“Kylie,” I say her name and my stomach tightens at the same time my cock stirs.
“Yeah,” Vincent agrees while Westley nods his head, “she showed me a cool high-five handshake.” He smirks. “She said we should do it every time you guys scored.”
“A high-five handshake?” I ask him, not sure I understand. He turns to Westley and they give each other a high-five then a side-five palm to palm, before doing it knuckle to knuckle, then fist bumping each other before turning and chest bumping each other.
“That’s cool.” I try not to make it seem that I’m really impressed with it. “It was nice of her.”
“She also helped me beat my level in my game,” Westley says, getting back on his stool to stick his fork in his pancakes, “but it took her like twenty tries and she refused to give it back to me until she did it.”
I laugh at his tone. “She smells nice,” Nora cuts into the conversation, not looking up from her plate, “and she’s pretty and she colors good.”
“Yeah,” I say, not adding in that she’s really fucking pretty and she smells even better.
“She’s cool,” Vincent repeats, before changing the subject. “Do we have to go to Mom’s house today?”
“Yeah, buddy,” I confirm, and he looks down and I wait for the other two to get up and put their dishes away before I turn to him.
He must know that we’re going to have a talk because he doesn’t bother moving from his chair.
“You two,” I tell Westley and Nora, “go get your teeth brushed and get dressed, and make sure you bring down all food items.” Nora skips to the stairs while Westley runs ahead of her.
I look back at Vincent. “What’s going on? ”
“Nothing,” he says, avoiding my eyes and then he must sense me staring at him. “It’s just…”
“Vincent,” I say his name, “whatever you have to say, you can say it.” He looks unsure. “Nothing is going to happen, I promise.”
“You won’t get mad?” he asks me and I have to lie to him.
“No,” I reply, knowing I’ll probably be pissed, but I’m going to have to push it aside for him.
“We were at Grandma and Grandpa’s,” he starts off and the back of my neck tingles.
“We were going over for Sunday lunch and when we walked in, Auntie Claire was there.” He mentions my sister.
“She saw Mom.” I inhale and I hold my breath.
“She told her to stay the F”—he doesn’t say the word fuck—“away from her husband.”
“Buddy,” I start to say, not sure how the fuck I’m going to even spin this.
“Mom turned and left us there and then came back to pick us up after.” I exhale as he says it. “But then I heard Auntie Claire with Uncle Jeremy in the kitchen, and he said he hasn’t seen her in over a month.”
“Stop.” I hold up my hand. “That’s grown-up stuff, you shouldn’t have to even hear it.” I stop him before he continues what he heard. “I’m sorry you heard what you heard.”
“Did Mom cheat on you with Uncle Jeremy?” he asks me. I can either trash-talk his mother or I can be a man.
“Doesn’t matter,” I tell him. “What matters is that your mother and I love you guys.” Even saying the words, I want to pick up something and throw it across the room.
“It sucks, buddy, to have to go back and forth to Mom’s house and to my house.
I get it.” I smile at him sadly. “I hate when you guys aren’t here, but that’s the way it is. ”
“What if I want to live with you?” I shake my head.
“Come on, your mother would miss you like crazy, and she needs you.”
“I’m mad at her,” he finally admits and wipes away a tear that escapes from his eye. “If it wasn’t for her, we would still be a family.”
“We don’t know that, buddy,” I say honestly. “What we do know is we love you. It’s hard for everyone, including your mother.” I walk around the island and pull him off the stool, and he wraps his long legs around me. “I’m here for you whenever you want, buddy,” I say into his neck. “I love you.”
“Love you too, Dad.” He dislodges himself from me. “I’m going to go and get dressed,” he mumbles low.
I nod at him. When he walks out of the room, I have to look up at the ceiling, knowing I’m going to have to have a conversation with Josephine. I really don’t want to, but it needs to be done.
I follow the kid upstairs, getting dressed in jeans and a shirt, grabbing my phone and heading out toward Josephine’s house.
We pull up and the kids get out and, unlike all the other times with me hugging them outside, I walk up the steps with them.
I ring the doorbell at the same time the kids open the door and walk in. “Mommy,” Nora yells, “we’re home!”
I don’t move from the front porch as she comes into view, wearing workout clothes, her eyes going big when she sees me standing here. “Hey,” I say to her.
“Hey.” She walks to the door, giving all the kids hugs before turning to me. “You want to come in?”
“No, but if you have a minute,” I tell her, and she looks over her shoulder at the kids.
“I just took some banana muffins out of the oven not long ago. You can have a snack,” she announces, and they walk back into the house. “What’s up?” she asks me.
“You went to my parents’ house last week?” I don’t know if I’m asking her or not.
“Am I not allowed to have a relationship with your parents?” She becomes defensive.
“You can have a relationship with the fucking UPS driver, for all I care.” I put my hands on my hips. “But Vincent was not okay with it.” Her face goes white.
“Well, you can blame your sister for that one.”
“Yeah, because I’m sure she pushed Jeremy to fuck you,” I retort and then I hold up my hand. “Anyway, needless to say, Vincent knows about you two.”
“Great, you told him.”
“I didn’t have to, he heard my sister and Jeremy fighting about you.” I point at her. “I think we should have him talk to someone about all of this.”
“That’s ridiculous.” She rolls her eyes.
“It’s not ridiculous,” I snap at her. “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you that I’m going to have him talk to someone. You can either agree to it, or I’ll take him when it’s my time.”
“People get divorced all the time,” she states. “My parents are divorced.”
“I don’t think that is going to win your case,” I tell her. “He was scared to talk to me about it and it was festering in him for a whole week.” She doesn’t say anything. “So you can either help me find someone for him to talk to, or I can do it on my own.”
“I’ll talk to his pediatrician and let you know.”
“Thank you.” I turn to walk down the steps to my SUV.
I open my SUV door and pull out of the driveway. “That was a very mature thing for you to do,” I tell myself. I’m almost tempted to call my father and tell him about it, but since all this has happened, things with us have been strained and I don’t want it to be even more.
I get home and walk into the quiet house, going to clean the kitchen, distracting myself from the most recent Josephine drama. But as what seems to be normal recently, my thoughts drift back to Kylie.
She’s really cool. I hear Vincent’s voice in my head. Taking out my phone, I pull up the email she sent me this week about my winning bids for the items.
Her cell number is on the bottom of the email. I click on the number and copy it to text.
Me:
Had a dream about you last night.
I press send and then close my eyes. “What the fuck?” I mumble to myself then go back to the text.
Me:
It’s Knox.
“Maybe you should have led with that.” I shake my head and see the two messages have been delivered.
Me:
You were moaning out my name.
I press send and then look down at the three messages all in blue.
Me:
In the shower.
It’s the last text I send her before I toss the phone on the counter. “You need to stop what you’re doing,” I tell myself, too bad I don’t listen.