Chapter 2
Kason
It’s been nearly two hours since I last texted Corinne with the photo I had taken earlier in the day.
Me: Missing home. Can’t wait to see you and Declan when I get back.
She still hasn’t responded, though her read receipts show she saw it immediately, which isn’t like her to do.
It’s absurd how high my spirits lift when the ring tone reserved for her finally chimes, and I hurry to finish toweling off after my shower, pulling on a clean pair of blue boxers.
Crossing my extended-stay motel room to pick up my phone, I jump onto my bed.
Corinne: Miss you too!
Corinne: Oh & UD says to tell you not to message me so late.
Me: Is that why you couldn’t answer before?
Corinne: Yeah. We were watching that docu-series I was telling you about.
Me: You tell him I said he needs to mind his own business.
As much as I love and respect Declan, I don’t like that he thinks he can dictate when Corinne and I can talk.
It’s bad enough that she and I aren’t as close as those two are, since I’m not around that much, though I’m working on changing that soon.
I don’t need him thinking that just because they’re living together, he can police the few minutes I manage to catch with her, what with me working sometimes sixteen hours a day, dead to the world most nights.
Corinne: He’ll love that haha
Me: Bet he will. You free to talk now?
Corinne: Yeah.
Unprovoked, Corinne sends me a selfie, smiling shyly, lying on her side in bed beneath the floral quilt my mama had made for one of her birthdays.
Soft lighting spills across her sweet face from the LED string lights I helped hang up along the edges of her ceiling.
I try not to notice her cleavage with her large breasts pushed together, her tiny white tank top strap loose and almost hanging off her shoulder, the hard buds of her nipples visible through the fabric. It’s difficult, my blood rushing south.
Corinne: When are you coming home?
Me: Three weeks. Not soon enough.
She sends me another selfie, jutting out her plump bottom lip. My cock plumps right along with it, and I crack my neck side to side, flexing my thighs as hard as I can to get my boner to go down. It doesn’t work.
Corinne: If I promise to make a hummingbird cake just for you, will that get you to come home sooner?
Me: I would if I could, hon.
Turning on my flash, I lie back and rest my hand on my bare stomach, flexing my abs, and snap a photo.
It’s sickening of me that I don’t fully crop out the bulge visible in my boxers before I send the picture to my niece.
I’ve been doing that more and more often, sending progressively riskier photos, though I doubt she’s noticed.
Me: I think I might miss your cooking as much as I do you. This roadside diner food isn’t cutting it.
Corinne: You poor baby. You’re practically wasting away.
She includes another selfie of her lying on her back, rolling her hazel eyes back, her lips slightly parted the same way they’d be if I were eating her pussy.
The picture is obscene, at least in my eyes, and that does it.
I shove a hand under my waistband, pulling my cock out of my boxers.
I scrape my fingernails down the length of my shaft the same way I’d accidentally caught her scratching Declan’s scalp late one night.
I’ve had a key to my best friend Boyd’s house for as long as I can remember, free to pop in whenever I wanted.
Man oh man, I was so jealous—though I hadn’t wanted to admit it, not even to myself—when I surprised Declan and Corrine with a visit six months ago.
I’d walked right into her sitting behind Declan on the couch, both of them all comfy and close while watching TV.
It was the first time I’d realized that Corinne wasn’t the girl I remembered but a stunning woman, dressed in a revealing pajama set that highlighted her generous curves.
Half-naked, Declan had jumped up like his ass was on fire to greet me, which I’d thought was odd, but I was too excited to see them after months away on a job to take much notice. I do now as I drag my nails back up to my crown, hissing at the sensation.
My pleasure fizzles out when Corinne sends me another text, reminding me I have no business touching myself while talking to my niece.
Corinne: I have to get up early for work tomorrow morning. Night night, Uncle Kason. Love you.
Me: Love you, too, honey. I’ll see you soon.
I set my alarm and toss my phone on the nightstand.
Wrenching the scratchy comforter over my body, I think of anything other than my gorgeous niece…
like my dead best friend and how he’d skin me alive for having such nasty thoughts about his innocent baby girl.
Sleep is the only thing that gives me a few hours of respite from the crushing mountain of guilt whenever I think of her or Declan.
* * *
I might as well be fourteen again, throat dry, voice hoarse, hands clammy and shaky as I wait for the girl I have a crush on to show up for our date.
Except, I’m not a teen, I’m not supposed to have a crush on Corinne, and her coming over to my apartment the night I show back up in town is not a date.
“Get it together, man.” I slap my cheeks a few times to snap me out of my delusions when there’s a knock at my door, and I question my poor choice of loose pajama pants, having foregone a T-shirt.
What was I thinking? Always of her, duh, and what she might think to see me so dressed down as she usually does Declan.
“Uncle Kason!” Corinne thrusts her rounded cake pan into my stomach with an oomph, almost smashing it between us when she throws her arms over my shoulders after I open the door.
“Hold on, hon,” I say with a chuckle that ends up sounding a lot like a giggle.
I set the hummingbird cake on the card table my roommate, Arjun, and I are pitifully using in place of a dining table, then pull Corinne into a bear hug, my arms low around her back so I can lift her.
Only a few inches shorter than my six-foot-two frame, she bends her knees, kicking her feet up so they don’t drag on the floor when I spin her around.
In her presence, that feeling of being home finally settles in since my apartment is merely a place to lay my head. Tension eases from my shoulders with an exhale of relief to see her sweetheart-shaped face in person and not just over a tiny screen. A picture could never do her justice.
“Sakes alive, hon, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” I tell her when I set her down, one hand lightly gripping the back of her arm so she can’t move away too far.
“You, too, Uncle Kason.” She leans in for another hug, her rounded cheeks pink when she lays her temple over my heart, her loose hair so soft against my skin.
With her nails lightly scraping my lower back, making me shiver, she asks, “When are you going to find a job in town so I don’t have to keep on missing you so much? ”
It’s a question I’ve received on repeat—one with an answer I’m saving for the surprise of a lifetime, laying the foundation of our futures together.
Deflect, deflect, deflect is my go-to, which is why I finally let go of her and pick up the cake, carrying it into the small galley kitchen with Corinne trailing after me.
“I’ve been hurtin’ for a piece of you—” I cough. “Your cake. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about sinking my teeth—” I pinch my eyes closed. Every sentence out of my mouth is an unintentional, dirty innuendo that, thank heavens, she never catches, her mind not in the gutter like mine.
Corinne hugs me from behind, her breasts pillowy against my back, while I cut two slices of cake, dropping them on paper plates with plastic forks since Arjun and I don’t have much by way of dishware or utensils.
Our apartment is a bona fide bachelor pad with the only real furniture being our beige tweed couch we found at the thrift store where Corinne works, a ridiculously large TV that rarely gets used, and our lonely beds.
Corinne and I lean against opposite yellow laminate counters as we eat our cake. “Why is your face so red?” she asks after sliding her spoon out of her mouth to clean it like I wish she’d clean my…never mind. “Sunburn?”
I must have slapped myself harder than I thought. I bob my head. “It’s brutal out west.”
“So come home.” She drags the last word out with a sexy whine.
I finish wolfing down my slice of cake, grabbing seconds. “Working on it.” That’s as much as I can say without spoiling anything.
“Really?” She does a little hop on her tiptoes that of course draws my gaze down to her breasts bouncing in her vintage band T-shirt, the outline of her dark bra teasing me through the thin, white material, the hem dangerously short on her long, bare thighs, mid-calf brown boots on her feet.
Thinking of a good excuse for checking her out, I ask, “Where’s the rest of your clothes?”
“You sound just like my dad,” Corinne says with a bratty roll of her eyes. She lifts her shirt to her cute little navel, and my heart just about stops beating when I think she’s going to flash me her panties. To my disappointment and relief, she’s wearing a tiny pair of skin-tight black shorts.
“Darn tootin’,” I say. “You shouldn’t be leaving the house all nekked-like.”
“I’m not naked,” she says, giggling. “And besides, it’s late. No one saw me.”
My cock swells. Arjun isn’t here, and no one saw her show up at my apartment with hardly a stitch of clothing on at ten at night. Oh, the things I could do to her without anyone finding out. I turn my back on her quickly, clenching my jaw while I take my time cutting a third slice. Down, boy, down.