Page 37 of Rock the Cradle of Love
Everyone laughs.
“Taylor, we’ve kicked Peter out of his room,” Suzan tells him. “Come on. I’ll get you that charger.”
* * *
After a boisterous dinner with Mom and Dad, Suzan and Gary, and their three menaces, Taylor climbs the stairs and collapses on Pete’s bed. Between leaving behind a clusterfuck, traveling drunk/hungover, and four hours of family and conversation, as well as the reality of Uncle Bud’s death now that he’s home--he’s tuckered out, he’s wrung out. Physically and emotionally.
Screen dark and mocking him, his phone sits on the bedside table. He needs to let Noah know where he is, at the very least. He presses the power button and sets the device down to let it do its thing. He blinks against the heaviness of his scratchy eyes and sighs. Might be time to clean his phone up, download his pictures, clear out some apps he no longer uses, it takes so long to boot up if it gets turned off, which, granted, isn’t often, but still.
“Oof--” Taylor wakens with a jolt.
“Mom says to get up.”
Taylor blinks at the blurry kid in front of him. Seven-year-old Sebastian grins down at him with bright blue eyes and a gaping smile.
Taylor shakes his head. He registers that it’s light beyond the mini-blinds andfuck, fuck, fuck. He was gonna text Noah last night and he’d fallen asleep. He slaps his hand around the mattress in front of him and closes it around his phone.
“I’m up, kid. I’ll be down in twenty.” He needs to text Noah.
“Mom says there’s coffee and Nutella.”
Taylor groans. He loves Nutella. Pushing Sebastian out of the way, he swings his legs over the side of the bed. “Twenty minutes.”
“Mom says I’m not supposed to show my face in the kitchen without you.”
Taylor tamps down the urge to say, “fuck your mom.” Definitely inappropriate no matter how you look at it. He eyeballs his nephew. “I need to take a piss and a shower. I’ll be down in twenty.” Sprinting past Sebastian, he shuts the bathroom door hard, although it’s not quite a slam.
Flipping the toilet seat up, he pushes his sleep shorts and underwear to the floor and steps out of them. Unlocking the phone, he ignores all the alerts and notifications although some of them are surely from Noah—he just wants to get his own text sent. Pulling up his messaging app, he selects Noah’s contact.
Uncle Bud died. Flew home to MN. Will call when I get a chance. I’m s…
The urge to piss is strong now, so he shifts his phone to his right hand and taking hold of his dick in the left, he aims at the target painted at the bottom of the bowl; he finishes tapping outsorry. He shifts his thumb to hit send.
“Mom says you have ten minutes, not a minute more,”Sebastian yells as he bangs on the door with both fists.
Taylor startles so bad, he loses his grip on his phone and watches with immediate knowledge that it’s going into the water. He flails to grab it before it achieves splashdown. Instead, he smacks the phone with the back of his hand and the device crashes hard into the edge of the toilet bowl. The splinter of the screen happens in slow motion. The phone drops unceremoniously into the water with a plop.
Taylor punches the wall. “God fucking dammit!” His words echo in the small space. He snatches the phone out of the water, letting it drain, water trickling into the bowl along with his chances of making things right with Noah. If only he’d gotten his message sent. He grabs a hand towel and rips open the door.“Sebastian—”
Sebastian’s thudding footsteps indicate he’s heading downstairs and Taylor follows.
“Where the hell is the nearest Verizon store?” he hollers, skidding into the kitchen, heart thumping, brain in a panic. He needs to contact Noah. Likenow. Some way, somehow. Everyone has a fucking cell phone—if only he knew Noah’s cell number by heart. But he doesn’t. Which means getting a new phone ASAP.
Sebastian is hiding behind Suzan, eyes big and scared. Taylor points. “I told you twenty minutes. You scared the hell out of me and I dropped my phone in the crapper.” He waves around the phone grasped in the towel. He’s not quite yelling, but it’s a close thing. He glances at Suzan, holding a spatula, and whose eyes are also huge.
Gary snickers from his seat at the table. Taylor glances at him, but has no idea what’s so funny. Pete’s jaw is dropped behind the hand over his mouth.
“Verizon store?” he demands, looking from his sister to his brother-in-law and back.
“Uncle Taylor?” Pete says trepidatiously.
“What?” His gaze snaps to Pete.
“You’re naked.”
Taylor doesn’t even need to look to know that he is indeed standing there in front of God and everybody in the raw; being bare registers in an instant now that his attention has been brought to it. He doesn’t care. He spends enough time walking around locker rooms and communal showers with his junk exposed that he’s inured to it. Getting a new phone and letting Noah know what’s going on takes precedence over anything at this point. Propriety be damned.
A smirk curls Suze’s mouth but she pointedly keeps her eyes on his face.
