a fraction of a second, he made you kneel bare-legged on a bed of uncooked rice. For hours. And that was his easiest punishment.
No, he had to work the system, work April. Because otherwise the system would eat his brother alive.
“Matthew has a hard time in school, I’ll admit,” Brandon said. “He’s like me. Walls mess with his head.”
April turned her face toward him, flushing when she saw him looking at her. “Yes, but he has to go. It’s the law. Just because a child isn’t happy with school, that doesn’t give him the right to abandon his education.”
Straight out of the social worker handbook. April had all kinds of theories about life, didn’t she? She just didn’t have any experience living.
“Tell me something,” he asked softly. “Did you like school? Were you one of those girls who gave a shiny red apple to the teacher and put pony stickers on her notebook?”
Sure, he was baiting her. He wanted to see what she would do, even though a part of him knew better.
But another part of him wanted to see where that vanilla smell was coming from. His blood heated at the thought of grabbing her wrists and pinning them to the mattress. The triumph of feeling her part her legs for him. How soft her breasts would be when he cupped them in his hands and stroked the tips.
And now he was hard as a rock.
“Is this where you start insulting me again?” April asked.
“Insult you?” Her pink lips were very close. The longer he stared at them, the harder he got. Casually, he moved his forearm down to cover the worst of the problem. “No one’s ever accused me of being a gentleman.”
The space where he ended and she began grew thick and heavy, the way air felt before a storm. You could be standing outside and everything would go still, too still, and then the heat lightning would crackle through the sky and the thunder would boom and all hell broke loose.
Brandon had that same premonition now. Some ancient force was about to be unleashed. Now that it was here, he had no clue how to make it stop. Coming here had made things so much worse.
“You could homeschool Matthew,” April was saying, “but I think we both know you’re not homeschool material.”
Brandon couldn’t deny it. He couldn’t do much of anything, actually, except watch her lips move.
“We provide counseling services,” she went on. “Maybe your brother would benefit from grief counseling about his mother?”
Grief counseling. Brandon heard the words. He just couldn’t make sense of them. The urge to taste her made him sweat. He wanted to chase that brisk, impersonal professionalism out of her eyes and replace it with a look of delirious surprise.
But why her? Why an annoying, know-it-all virgin like April?
“Are you even listening?” she asked him. “It’s like I’m talking to myself all of a sudden.”
“I’m listening.”
“You were the one who wanted to discuss this.”
“I’m discussing.”
She waited, clearly expecting him to say something. He wondered if she wore sexy girl stuff underneath that skirt. Was she one of those women? Prim and buttoned-down on the outside, but once the bedroom doors were closed…
“Matthew’s great at motocross,” Brandon said. “He’s won some important races. I’m trying to get him sponsors.”
“Two-fifty cc’s or four-fifty?” she asked, shocking the hell out of him.
“Two-fifty,” he replied. “How do you—”
“My dad,” she explained. “Dirt bikes, muscle cars, vintage rebuilds, you name it. I grew up smelling motor oil.”
Man, it was weird having a conversation with a woman he had such mixed feelings about. Usually chicks wanted one thing from him. And it wasn’t friendly chitchat.
April looked at him with those big blue eyes, which made him lose his train of thought again. “Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Sure.”
“How did your mom die?”
He couldn’t tell her because he didn’t know himself. Matthew had been there, but Matthew wasn’t talking about it. When Brandon started getting in trouble as a teen, Celia had decided to let him rot in foster care. She and Monroe had just had Matthew, so it seemed as good a time as any to cut Brandon loose. For over a year, he was shuttled around. Then Celia let him come home, mostly because she needed a babysitter for Matthew. And Brandon had come home for Matthew. Also to get the hell out of foster care. But not because of his close relationship with his mom.
“I don’t know,” he said. “To be honest, there’s a lot I don’t know.” In fact, his brain didn’t seem to be functioning at all. Not with this tightness in his chest and this trapped yearning feeling because he wanted what he couldn’t have. Not with her looking at him. Not with those lips.
He launched himself away from the porch fast enough that she couldn’t see what she’d done to him. What better way to scare her off, to guarantee that she’d nail him in court for sexual harassment or being a shitty guardian or whatever the hell she wanted to. All because he had some sick craving for her that didn’t make any sense and wasn’t going any further than this.
“Wait,” she called to him. He looked over his shoulder at her, all radiant in the light of late afternoon. Her beauty was angelic. April was a window into a world he’d never known, not even in his dreams.
She moved closer, still a little wary, arms crossed. “I know you think I’m a lightweight. But what I really am is a messenger. Matthew’s school attendance is no laughing matter. If he won’t go to school, you should ground him or limit his motocross. Because the state of Texas will intervene. And I promise you neither one of us will like what happens after that.”
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