Page 54 of Space Balls: Houston, We Have Liftoff
Even I can hear the foreboding silence emanating from the phone.
“Flynn?” Vance repeats.
A deep rumble, but one I can’t decipher, comes through the other side.
Vance’s smile gets bigger. “She’s fine, she’s with me.”
More rumbling. I’m impressed by how unperturbed Vance is over my brother’s posturing. Flynn’s newfound brotherly protectiveness can be intimidating.
Vance laughs. “Rosie will be with me all day, so don’t worry about it.”
I will? Sitting up on my stool, I frown at him in question.
Vance winks at me.
What the hell doesthatmean?
I have an odd sense of the shoe being on the other foot.I’musually the one keeping people on their toes, calling the shots. How did I get myself into this, this…situationwith Vance?
My eyes travel down to his crotch, where his big-ass dick rests behind a fine netting of sports shorts material and silky, athletic boxer briefs. I shift on my stool, uncomfortable now for another reason.
“Talk later. Tell Jackie I said hi.” Vance hangs up.
I try to mask my arousal with an amused tone. “You know, he might have let you live until you mentioned his wife.”
“Jackie?” Vance mulls it over. “Nah, him saying good-bye after I mentioned her was the only time he didn’t sound like he was going to castrate me.”
I quirk a brow at what he thinks is an exaggeration. “He knows how, by the way.”
“How what?” He pauses with his spoon halfway to his mouth.
“To castrate you.” I take a sip of water. “Part of growing up on the ranch.”
Vance cringes and lowers his spoon back to the bowl. “Thanks for that.”
I chuckle. “Relax, I’m just messing. Flynn’s all talk really. He just acts that way out of guilt.”
Vance frowns, taking a bite of his Mueslix. My lips curl as it crunches. He might as well eat twigs and dirt, in my opinion.
He swallows. “What guilt?”
My next bite of oatmeal is mostly brown sugar, so I try and stir it. It’s hard to do as I like my oatmeal near paste-like without much milk. “He just feels bad that he wasn’t around when I got back from boarding school. He doesn’t mean it when he gets like that. You’re safe.” I finally get the spoon going, but Vance’s silence stops me.
He’s looking at me like I’m crazy. Which is not an unusual look for me to receive, but one that I don’t think I deserve at this particular moment in time.
I put my spoon down. “What?”
“I think you underestimate your brothers.” He pats his cereal into the bowl with the back side of his spoon, probably trying to get his cardboard breakfast to soften in the milk. “They both really care.”
“Yeah, sure.” I shrug, my skin feeling tight again. “I know.”
His penetrating gaze intensifies for a sec, but thankfully switches to his gross, healthy cereal again. We sit in silence for the rest of breakfast, me wondering how much side-eye I’ll get if I add more maple syrup to my bowl, him staring down at the counter as if lost in thought. We finish our breakfasts at the same time, and before I can hop off the stool, Vance takes our bowls and rinses them in the sink. He needs a sponge to clean the sticky syrup and sugar off mine before he can put it in the dishwasher.
It’s very domesticated. And new to me. I’ve never just shared space with someone in silence like this. It’s a simple thing, compared to me having previously deep-throated him, but somehow more… intimate?
“Want to watch TV?Price is Rightshould be on soon.”
I perk up, my musings forgotten. “I loveThePrice is Right!” I jump off the stool and move over into his small living room area, flopping onto his overstuffed leather couch. “I’m so good at this game. You’re gonna go down, old man.”
