Page 20 of From Nowhere

“We have to talk,” he mumbles, but it sounds more like a grumble.

I reach for my watch on the nightstand. It’s not quite seven. So much for sleeping in this morning. With a deep sigh, I swing my legs off the side of the bed and stretch before twisting my back from side to side. “What do we need to talk about?”

“Have you had the talk with Lola?”

“The talk?” I stand and stretch some more.

“The sex talk.”

I step into a pair of jeans and wait for something real to wake me up. There’s no way Amos is in my room, this early on a Saturday, asking me about the sex talk.

“If not, today might be a good time to bring it up,” he says.

Shit.I’m not waking up. This must be real. It’s the 2.0 version of “What are your intentions with my daughter?” Men joke and brag about sex; we don’ttalkabout it.

“Not gonna lie, Amos. I was planning on doing yard work today. So, sadly, I’ll need you to elaborate on why I should talk about sex with Lola.” I give him my dead eyes after pulling on a T-shirt.

Amos adjusts his Texas-size belt buckle. He’s always in Wrangler jeans with a big-ass belt buckle and a western button-down. “There was an incident last night,” he says. “Lola forgot to take a glass of water to sit by her bed. So she woke up a little after midnight and came upstairs.”

I don’t like where this is going.

He glances behind him and closes the door. “I was watching TV.”

“Porn?”

He clears his throat. “Sexually explicit.”

“Porn?”

Amos frowns and nods several times. “I’m not sure she saw much. She was rubbing her eyes when she stepped into the living room and said, ‘Hi, Pa.’ I immediately turned off the TV.” Again, he adjusts his belt buckle and sniffs, as if throwing back his shoulders and acting all manly will make this less awkward.

Staring at the gray carpet, I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Were you just watching it? Or were youparticipating?”

“I was under a blanket.”

He was participating.Fuck my life.

“I asked her what she needed, and she said a glass of water. So she got it and headed back downstairs with nothing more than a good night. I don’t think she saw anything. But in case she did, I thought I should mention it.”

My hand falls to my side as my whole body deflates. “This is yours, Amos. Your actions. Yours to clean up. I don’t have an issue talking to her about sex,” I say, even though that’s not entirely true. “But pornography is not a conversation I’m ready to have with my ten-year-old daughter.”

“What am I supposed to say to her?” he asks, narrowing his eyes until every line on his old face collapses into a deep wrinkle.

I hold my hands out to the side. “I don’t know. This is your lesson to learn, not mine. As a rule, we shouldn’t do things in this house that we’re unwilling to explain to the resident child. There’s a reason bedrooms and bathrooms have locks on the doors. I guess you can start with the sex talk that usually involves two people falling in love. Now, how you get from that to an old man on the sofa jerking off under a blanket to two strangers on television having sex ... well, that’s a complicated bridge to build.”

Before opening the door, I slap a hand on his shoulder, giving him a firm squeeze (which I have never done nor ever imagined having the upper hand to do). “Good luck.” I stop short of saying “buddy” because Amos has a locked gun chest in his bedroom. I only have a crossbow because Brynn never wanted guns in the house with a child, despite her father having an armory on the property where she grew up.

“Tia doesn’t know. And if Lola doesn’t say anything, I won’t broach the subject. I just wanted to give you a heads-up in case she mentions it to you,” Amos says with a dismissive headshake while following me upstairs.

I pause midway for a moment. “Thanks. I guess.”

“How was your evening?” Tia asks the second I step into the kitchen, which smells of burnt toast. “Did you get caught in the rain?” She takes her toast to the kitchen table.

“I did,” I say, reaching for the coffeepot.

“I heard you come in a little before ten, so I assumed you spent the evening in wet clothes.”

“I did.” I face her, leaning against the counter while sipping my coffee.

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