Flirting With Chaos (3 page)

“Oh, yeah. Well, then I’ll pick you up in less than an hour. And about your virginity—”

“Not talking about this with you.”

“We are.”

“Not now.” I rushed off to the front door and dug my hand into my purse to get my phone.

“Fine. You won’t be able to escape this conversation later.” He raced up the stairs with my bag in hand. “I’ll pick you up soon. Please keep that sexy dress on.”

“Oh, be quiet.” I opened the door. “You’re not special anymore. I’m wearing sneakers and jeans.”

Kaden stood outside on the porch and wagged his finger at me. “Where are you going?”

I glanced over my shoulder and then back at him. “Umm…didn’t you go into the kitchen?”

“You’re avoiding me again. I figured you would sneak out without finishing our discussion.”

He’s just as insane as his son.

“I forgot.”

He tossed me a skeptical look.

“I did.”

Kind of.

“Well, then I’m glad I came around the house and got to the front door to remind you.” He wiped the sweat off of his forehead. “Which now seems pretty odd as I stand here.”

“Don’t worry. This night just seems to get weirder and weirder.”

“Hungry?”

“No.”

“Good. Let’s eat. I’m cooking.”

He hooked his arm around mine and tugged me back in.

“But—”

“Just dinner.”

Best. Evening. Ever.
I groaned and went back into the house.

Chapter 2

Uncle Hottie

K
ADEN
C
HOPPED
M
USHROOMS
. “Pour me a glass of wine, please.”

I walked over to the cabinets, pulled out two solid black wine glasses, and filled them with Pinot Noir. The whole time, Kaden watched me with his eyebrows raised.

“What?” I asked.

“I was going to tell you where everything was, but you already know.” He tossed the mushrooms into the hot pan. “Are you over here a lot?”

“I used to be when Jude and I were in high school.” I handed him his glass. “Now it’s only during the holidays, but not every holiday.”

“You mean, not the ones when I’m here.”

Exactly.

“No. Things just come up.” I displayed my most innocent smile.

“Did your grandma know you hung out here?”

“No.” And she still didn’t know I planned to be with Jude all summer. It wasn’t that grandma didn’t like Jude; she just didn’t like him hanging around me. He reminded her too much of my dad, the one who’d taken her little girl away. I’d planned on going to see her in Jamaica at the end of the summer.

“So, you were okay sneaking over here to see Jude but not your uncle?”

“My uncle?” I sipped some wine to hide my smirk.

An image of Kaden snorting coke on one of my Barbie tea set plates came to my mind. I’d been six and had begged him to come upstairs to my tea party. He’d obliged and, after a few lines of coke, had given me the coolest tea party of my young life. He’d mimicked my stuffed animals in various foreign accents, did back flips off of my bed’s headboard, and set a bonfire in my sink to teach me why playing with fire was bad. Mom had caught us right as we were trying to put it out. That was back when Jude still lived with his mother and Kaden hung around our house all the time. By the time I was a preteen, I unfortunately had a crush on Kaden. Thankfully, Jude’s mom dumped him with his dad. Because of that, Jude came around more, smashed away my unhealthy crush for Kaden, and shifted my infatuation to him.

“Uncle Kaden. I kind of like that,” he said.

I shook my head and laughed at him. “Uncle?”

“What? Uncle sounds weird?”

“Definitely. You never acted like an uncle should act.”

He stirred some more. “Well, the shitty thing about having a baby at twenty is that you grow up with your kid. Jack and I were never ready for children. Shoot, we weren’t ready for our band doing so well at such a young age. If my dad hadn’t already been a famous jazz musician, we would have never gotten that record deal so quick and with such a huge budget. Not to say our music didn’t break down barriers and rock the world, but fame and money rushed to us with just our first song. A month later, we’re on tour. When the girls starting coming around, we never considered using protection. Just having fun.”

“And having kids.” I sighed. Both Jude’s and my parents had had us in their early twenties. Their parenting skills provided the perfect example of why people should never have unprotected sex.

“If I could do it all over again, I would’ve waited until I was well into my thirties.” Kaden took a sip of his wine. “I made a lot of mistakes. At least I won’t be making any more.”

“You won’t?”

“Well, I’m done with…half of the things I used to do back then. Now I should look like a proper uncle to you.”

I snorted.

As he sautéed the mushrooms, he looked like many things, standing there with bare feet and wearing only tight jeans. He was a rock fan’s dream and the vision women focused on when they touched themselves between their thighs. In my darkest moments, even I had tipped over to the kinky corners of my heart and slipped my fingers inside of me while I thought of Kaden’s bare-chested movements as he strummed his guitar. It had been so wrong on so many levels. Afterward, I’d promised myself not to do it again, but I had done it a few more times before shifting my naughty thoughts to Jude.

“No disrespect, but I don’t really consider you my uncle.” I placed the glass on the table, sat on the barstool near him, and kicked off my heels. “How old are you now, forty-two?”

“I’ll be forty-two in a few months.” His gaze strayed to my legs as I crossed them. Again, he looked away and cursed under his breath. “So, you don’t think of me as your uncle. What do you consider me then, Rainbow?”

“I prefer Rain.”

“I prefer Rainbow.”

I sucked my teeth. “I think of you as my dad’s friend and Jude’s father, so you’re pretty much a friend of the family to me. Do you need any help? I’m a decent cook. I don’t burn things like Jude does.”

“Nope. Once the mushrooms are how I like them, then I’ll drop in the steaks.” He wiped his hands on a towel hanging over the oven’s handle. “I thought I remembered Jude mentioning once that you were a vegetarian?”

“When I was around my mom, I was.” I grinned. “Now, I’m a card-carrying carnivore.”

To Mom’s dismay.

“Love it.” He raised his wine in the air. “A toast to a long-awaited reunion and a budding new friendship.”

Our glasses clinked together.

“So, what’s up with this groupie, Vicky?” I asked.

“I met her at a concert. She interviewed me for her local newspaper and offered me a blow job afterward.”

“Wow. Does that happen a lot?”

“Enough to make me a happy man.” He set his glass back down. “She did a good job too. Real good. I asked her to come along with me. It’s no big deal. Every now and then, I ask a woman to spend a few days or weeks with me, and it’s no problem.”

“They just drop what they’re doing and follow you around from city to city?”

“Of course. Wouldn’t you for someone you idolized?”

“No.”

“That’s only because you’ve been around enough stars in your day to realize they’re just messed up people that happened to get lucky.”

“Not all of them are messed up.” I took another sip.

“So, you’re still a virgin?”

I choked on some of my wine.

Kaden rushed over, hitting my back until I calmed down.

“I’m okay.” I cleared my throat.

“Maybe I should have asked that after you’d finished drinking.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have asked me that at all.”

“Well, you said I’m not your uncle. Cool friends of your dad can ask things like that, right?”

“Nope.” I scrunched my face up. “I think your friend’s daughter’s virginity tends to be off the table for discussion.”

“Really?” He quirked his eyebrows. “Well, I’ll have to give Jack my apologies next time I see him.”

My body stiffened. I gulped some wine.

“That’s why I came back, you know.” He leaned on the counter. “I always check on him when I’m in town. Make sure there are fresh flowers out there, and Ned the groundskeeper is maintaining the space around his gravesite.”

“Ned told me.” I stirred in my seat.

“I never miss his birthday. It was so important to him.” His eyes brightened as he stared off in the distance. “You wouldn’t believe all of the crazy times we had on his birthdays. I mean, the man knew how to party, but the best birthday had to be the one we spent in the hospital.”

I tapped my toes on the floor.

“Only Jack, who loved birthdays so much, would be gifted with his precious little girl on his birthday.”

I slid off of the stool. “I’ll be right back. I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Okay.”

I escaped from the kitchen with my glass still in my hand. The downstairs bathroom flanked the right side of the kitchen’s entrance. I got in and shut the door. I knew Kaden would do this—bring up memories, go on and on about Dad, trudge through the past like it was a necessary journey to take. Kaden might’ve loved Dad more than any person walking this earth. Even me.

If he knew the last days of my dad’s life and the part I played in them, would he still want to get to know me?

I finished the wine. In the mirror, my reflection stared back at me. Water glazed my guilty eyes. My curls flailed out like a lion’s mane of blond streaks and brown strands.

Had Kaden seen my guilt? Did he realize I was nervous?

Those fake blue eyes stared back, mocking me. At least the tears didn’t show.
Thank God.
Instead, they ducked back into my eyelids as I tucked my sadness back into my core. Some things needed to be ignored and not dwelled on. The more my mind flew off in one direction, the more my sanity shattered into pieces that no one could sweep up and glue back together.

Someone started knocking at the door.

“Are you okay, Rainbow?” Kaden asked on the other side.

Dear God, I wish he would stop calling me that.

“I’m okay.” I stepped out of the bathroom, closed the door behind me, and gave him the glass. “I’m not really hungry.”

As he did when I was a kid, he put himself in my way, forcing me to duck under him if I wanted to escape. I leaned back on the door. He stepped closer. Too close. “Talk to me.”

“About?” I scowled at him.

“Why are you upset?”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m fine.”

“If you keep lying to me, I may have to do something about that.”

I laughed. “Like what, bend me over your knee and whip me?”

He leaned in closer, beyond the proper distance he should. Dad wouldn’t have liked it. Jude probably wouldn’t either. But the Kaden I remembered always skirted the line and tended to push the limits when he longed to make a point. His breath brushed over my skin. My body shuddered in response, and it wasn’t due to fear or nervousness.

Why am I so wrong?

Kaden moved in further as if not even noticing the effect he had on me. “You’re actually seconds from me bending you over and whipping you right here.”

“What?” I flushed with heat.

“Oh, wait.” He backed up a little but not enough for me to flee. “I guess in this context, with you now being…full grown—”

“Full grown?”

“Propped and stuff.”

I twisted my lips in confusion. “Propped?”

“You know what I mean. Breasts and other things.”

“Other things like what?” I giggled.

He stepped back once more. At this rate, I’d have him out of my way in no time. He ran his fingers through his hair. “What I’m trying to say is the whipping threat isn’t the same when you’re not a bony little knucklehead with braces and acne. Now that you’re…curvy.”

“Curvy?” I battled to hold in my laugh.

“Stop it and give me a break here.” A smile spread across his face as he held out his hands to his sides. “This is awkward enough with you in that tiny, little dress.”

“Fine, but you have to ease up on me too.”

“I’m not pressuring you.”

“You’re literally cornering me.” I did dramatic gestures to show his guarding of the hallway exit. “And besides, I was never bony.”

“You were a walking mold of sticks with a huge mop of hair. Either way, back to what I was saying. You should talk to me whenever you need to.”

I banged the back of my head against the door. “You and Jude are two of the most aggravating men I’ve ever known.”