Chapter Thirteen

Tate

We're in the car on the way back from the VFW, spitballing ideas for a late lunch, when I get a text from Ledger. He wants to know if I'm ready to take my turn at the registration desk this evening. When he mentioned working me into the schedule yesterday, I hadn't anticipated it would be so soon. I thought for sure he would give me a day or two to get settled. I have a feeling that the shift he wants me to cover tonight is his own, and that he has something or someone he wants to go do tonight.

As much as I want to protest, find a cheeseburger, and settle in for a long night with my laptop screen, and maybe a practice kiss or two with Piper, a promise is a promise. Even if the terms and conditions were decidedly unclear when it was made. I explain the situation to Piper, and we stop for a couple of sandwiches to bring back to the resort with us. When we part ways for the evening, Piper heading back off to the cabin alone, I can't help but notice that she seems almost relieved that I'm not going to be joining her tonight. I try to write it off as a lack of privacy the last few days, but I can't shake the feeling that I did something wrong earlier.

I'm always doing things wrong. And I hate it.

She seemed to enjoy herself. A lot. Repeatedly. But now I'm left wondering if she was faking it just as much as she's faking the relationship itself. That isn't doing any wonders for my ego or my masculinity, and I find myself completely distracted as I meet up with Ledger in the lobby. He breezes through his usual spiel about making sure things are balanced and accounted for, showing me how to access guest's booking and billing information, and telling me that nothing in the snack area behind us is complimentary, for the guests or ourselves. Everything floats in one of my ears and out of the other. I've worked the desk countless times, and all of this is old hat. I've been managing a multi-million dollar corporation for the last half a decade, how hard can it be to make a guest's two hundred dollar a night room charge stay balanced and accounted for? Sometimes I think that my parents doomed him by naming him Ledger to begin with. He's been obsessed with balance and fairness ever since he learned how to count.

"You're here. You're never here," he shakes his head with a disbelieving smile. "Tate is really taking a turn at the front desk."

"I'm a little busy right now for your misguided attempts at cheap flattery," I mumble, eyes locked to my phone screen. Ever since the thought that Piper might've been faking wormed its way into my brain, it's all I can think about. I'm hip deep in a Google search about trying to distinguish real female orgasms from fake ones, and have about a dozen tabs open on different tactics on how to please a woman. There's a Reddit thread of advice from lesbians, and it's so informative I can't seem to pull myself away. Now that I've discovered how much I love going down, I'm mentally cataloging all the new moves I can try out on Piper later.

If she lets me anywhere near her again.

"What's more important than my instructions right now?" Ledger asks, crossing his arms. "What's more important than helping your family?"

"Satisfying my woman," I mutter, the words spilling out before I have much of a chance to think about them, or my current audience. Regardless, I have to admit that I like the sound of it. Piper being my woman. Piper being satisfied by me . It sends a dangerous tingly feeling all the way down to my toes. The feeling is so thoroughly intoxicating that it distracts me from Ledger's movements, and before I know it he's wrenched my phone from my hand and is staring at the screen with a tired smile, sighing and rolling his eyes at my choice of reading material.

Caught between anger and embarrassment, I find myself unable to form coherent words, instead sputtering something that sounds like "How dare you?" but with about half the letters necessary to be intelligible. I let out a frustrated grunt, reaching for the phone, but Ledger lifts it over my head. I'm reminded of being a kid again, and I halfway expect him to put a hand on my forehead to stop me in my tracks and remind me that he's bigger than me.

"Why didn't you just ask me?" Ledger asks, before I resort to the old childhood move of headbutting him in the stomach. It's for the best. I don't think any of the handful of guests milling about the lobby need to see a grown man giving the other a noogie, especially when they're supposed to be working.

"Why would I ask you?" I give Ledger a once over, noting his wrinkle-free polo tucked into his creased khakis, his perfectly level name tag pinned to his chest, and his spotless deck shoes. "You look like you have as much experience as a priest, and you're about as easy to talk to as one too."

I'm not super keen to talk to my older brother about any of this, especially not this brother. I could've maybe handled this with Gibson or maybe even with Hudson, but not with Ledger. He's so stuffy and proper. I think I could process this better with an actual priest. At least we would be in the dark, and I wouldn't have to look at this face.

"Looks can be deceiving," he says with a shrug and a sly smile. "I have a hobby."

"Unless it's creating porn…" I trail off, reaching back for my phone. "And you've grown quite a bit since childhood in all areas." Opening the center drawer of the desk, he places the phone inside and shuts it firmly. Somewhere in the middle of this, that God awful bird behind us starts to get excited again.

"Porn." He repeats, Ledger and I sharing a look between us. "Po-po-po-po-porn."

"Popcorn." it's an innocuous little squawk, and I don't mind it, until he changes his tune. "Popcorn. Cop porn. Porn. Cop porn."

He's getting louder now, flapping his wings as he repeats the phrase he has settled on, and Ledger quickly reaches for a sheet they keep under the desk, slinging it over the top of the cage with a practiced movement. "Ledger makes cop porn," Captain Obvious mutters to himself a few more times, until he starts to believe the darkness in the cage and calms down enough to sleep.

"So he's still like that, huh?" I ask. Captain Obvious has been a problem since the day Dad brought him home. Mom told him no dogs or cats, and she thought that was enough of a blanket statement to exclude pets of any kind. Then, he shows up with this thing, not realizing that birds have a tendency to outlive their humans and be kind of a pain in the ass. As kids do, we taught him all the naughty words without a care for our long-term game. Now, we're less Captain Obvious's owners than we are his hostages.

"You have no idea." Massaging his temples, Ledger stares wearily at the covered cage. "Back to what we were talking about, before the abominable avian autocrat interrupted us. Listen up… I'm only saying this once, and I might regret saying it at all," Ledger says with a mischievous glint in his eyes, leaning back against the front desk of the luxurious resort. "So, you're eager to please Piper. Well, lucky for you, your big brother is here to give you a crash course."

I narrow my eyes at him, feeling a mix of annoyance and curiosity.

He gestures for me to lean in closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "First things first, Tate. Oral sex is an art form. It's not just about going down there and licking away like a puppy with a Kong. You have to tease, tantalize, make her squirm with anticipation."

I glance over at the covered Captain Obvious who remains blissfully quiet for once. "Pretty sure I already know that."

My brother scoffs and flicks his wrist, gesturing to my phone. I don't argue further, just listen intently as Ledger shares his wisdom, his words painting vivid images in my mind of Piper writhing beneath me in ecstasy. He talks about using gentle kisses and feather-light touches to build up desire, about finding her sweet spots and exploring them with reverence.

"And remember," Ledger adds with a grin, "light sucking when she gets close is always a crowd-pleaser. And none of that she comes first, b.s. She comes at least twice before you nut, got it?"

"I'm not even going to ask how you know all this."

It's amusing how much Ledger's tone changes when he's given the opportunity to show off. "It's probably better if you don't."

At first, he was all about me paying absolute attention to the desk, but now that he gets to sound like an expert, he couldn't care less if anyone looks like they need help. Somewhere in the middle of him drawing me a diagram and explaining a complicated maneuver with his hands, a kid sneaks by and grabs a pack of fruit snacks from the concessions area near the desk and skips off without paying. Giving the kid a conspiratorial wink, I focus on my overbearing brother, who is apparently overbearing in the bedroom too.

I'm not going to say anything about a petty theft. Because Ledger has so much to say on the matter of a woman's pleasure that I'm starting to realize I've misjudged him quite a bit. Maybe I'm not the only one who has a secret life they aren't sharing with the population of Sunset Lake.