16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

MILO

Rather than hunt around the floor and the mess of sheets for my clothes, I grab the comforter off the bed and drape it around my shoulders like a cape. I take back every grumpy, nasty thing I've said about the snow in my adult life. Snow is officially my favorite. The fact that I'm still wearing Piston's cum all over my belly and cock is doing wonders for my mood too, if I'm being honest.

I hurry out of the bedroom and run to catch up with him. He's already halfway down the hall, but he's shuffling along, still tired and muttering about needing to check the sump pumps in the basement before the thaw. When I reach him, I pinch his ass playfully. Piston yelps and I cackle, then race past him into the kitchen.

"This is why age gap relationships don't work. It's been decades since I've had that kind of energy first thing in the morning, let alone after an orgasm." He yawns, reaching around me to grab the coffee pot while I rummage through the cabinet trying to pick a flavor.

I scoff, but my smile tugs even wider. I'm going to choose to ignore his negativity and instead focus on the fact that he just used the word ‘relationship.'

"Well, from what I understand, relationships are all about compromise."

Since we're snowed in, I decide to go with the vibe and pick a peppermint coffee from the bottom shelf. I look over to find Piston's eyes glued to me while he fills the coffee pot with water at the sink.

"I didn't mean…" He shakes his head.

"No, you were just trying to add to your list of reasons you shouldn't be fantasizing about bending me over the counter right now and making me scream your name all over again."

Before he has a chance to respond, my phone vibrates. I finish pouring the coffee beans into the grinder, then I hit the button to turn it on and slip out of the kitchen so I can see who's calling without all the racket. My mom's name lights up my screen and I accept the call while I flop down onto the couch.

"Hey, sorry, I've had a reminder in my phone to call you for the past week, but I keep forgetting." She's heard the same greeting from me for years now, and her laughter echoes from the other end in response.

"Same," she confesses. "I enrolled in this tap dancing class a few weeks ago and every minute I haven't been practicing, I've been watching videos of people tap dancing. I swear, it's one of the more obnoxious fixations I've picked up. Then I woke up this morning and just the thought of all that clickety-clack gave me a migraine."

I snort a laugh and pull the comforter a little tighter around me, burrowing down into it contentedly.

"Like that summer I wanted to be a drummer?" I swear, I can feel her flinch through the phone.

"Worse," she says, and we both chuckle again. "I got a weather alert that there was some kind of blizzard there. You're not trapped at the motel with no way to leave or get food, are you?"

"Aw, you've got your weather alerts set for Wisconsin?" She may be flighty at times, but it's hard not to love her. Besides, it's hard to be mad about her quirks when I inherited most of them and I know just how tough it is to be the responsible adult you want to be when your brain has whole other adventures planned that you rarely have a say in.

I glance towards the kitchen and a warm feeling flutters inside of me. Really difficult to be mad about this adventure in particular though.

"Of course I do. I'm your mother." That was always her excuse for everything when I was growing up, whether it was good or bad, rational or irrational.

"It's a proper winter wonderland out there. It looks well past a foot, and I guess the city wasn't expecting it so the plows aren't running yet. I'm not at the motel though. I thought I told you I'm staying with one of Hero's friends." Maybe I didn't tell her, I honestly can't remember now. I definitely meant to tell her, which should count for something.

"Hero?"

"Kaiden," I correct. ‘Dad' is the part I don't say, because she already knows who he is, obviously, and it feels weird to call him that to her when she didn't even want to tell me about him in the first place.

"Oh, that's right. I forgot." She chuckles.

My phone beeps in my ear and I pull it away to see that Hero's ears must be burning because he's trying to call me too. I ignore it for now and give my mom my attention for a few minutes, answering her questions about how things are going, about Hero and my new job. When I told her my idea to come looking for him, she wasn't thrilled, to say the least, but she seems happier about it now that he hasn't turned out to be an asshole.

"Can I ask you something?" I interrupt her telling me about her snarky coworker to ask. "Why didn't you ever tell him about me?"

"Kaiden?" she asks. After getting used to everyone calling him Hero, it's weird to hear his real name.

"Yeah." I give an exasperated chuckle.

"I don't know. It just seemed like such a burden. Not that you're a burden," she hurries to correct herself.

"It's fine, Mom, I'm not going to take it personally. I just want to know."

"We didn't even know each other. We met at a bar, went home together, and then bam, a month later I was looking at a positive pregnancy test." She's told me all of this before. "I was young, and everything was already confusing enough trying to figure out my future, getting ready to go to college. I thought it would be easier to just do it on my own."

I guess I can see the logic in that. I nod, even though I know she can't see me.

"I never regretted it," she says firmly. "You were the best thing that ever happened to me."

"I know." I sit up and put my feet back on the floor. "Listen, I need coffee and a shower, so I'm going to let you go. I love you, Mom."

"Love you too."

We say goodbye and I end the call. There's a text waiting for me that I expect will be from Hero, but when I open it up, I sputter a laugh.

JAG: Wow, you and Piston snowed in with your hookups. It's gotta be an awkward morning over there, huh?

Ass.

We're not fooling him for a second, but I'm not about to admit to anything. I send a sunglass guy emoji for him to puzzle over, then I toss my phone onto the coffee table and get back up. I can smell the coffee brewing, and the cum drying on my skin is no longer sexy, it's just gross.

"I need a shower now , and I'm really going to need those big, strong hands of yours…"

Piston waves frantically to cut me off as I skip into the kitchen. I skid to a halt, taking another second to register that he has his phone pressed to his ear and a panicked look on his face.

"What?" he says to whoever's on the other line. "That was the TV. Yeah, Milo's fine, still sleeping off a hangover after Jag's field trip to The Grind last night."

I can't make out the words, but there's a booming response from the other end. Piston smirks.

"I said the same thing. The Grind is a cesspool. If I were you, I'd talk to Jag about more appropriate ways to bond with him than clubbing and trolling for skanky ass." If it weren't for the self-satisfied look on Piston's face, his sage tone might convince me that he's the Boy Scout he's pretending to be right now.

I roll my eyes, making sure he can see it, and he bites back a laugh.

"No, we'll be fine. I have a generator and plenty of food." He shakes his head at whatever Hero says and I wait for the guilt to creep into his expression, but so far he seems relaxed this morning. It's like now that he knows it's not his fault that we're stuck here, he can't blame himself for whatever happens.

I'm more than happy to let him have that loophole, and we'll deal with the rest as it comes. He hums and ‘mm-hmms' along to the one-sided conversation. I hold his gaze for a minute, and then with a wicked grin, I drop the comforter, letting it pool on the kitchen floor at my feet.

Piston's eyes go wide. He drags his gaze over my bare body like he didn't just have his hands all over me half an hour ago.

"I'll be in the shower," I whisper, leaving the blanket on the floor and sauntering out of the room with a little extra sashay in my hips.

"Hey, man, I just realized I need to go make sure the generator has plenty of fuel, so I'd better let you go," he says in a hurry. "Stay warm and I'll see you on the other side of this damn blizzard."

Then his footsteps thunder down the hall behind me, catching up right as I reach the bathroom. He wraps his arms around me from behind and nips at the shell of my ear.

"You were saying something about my hands?"

PISTON

A fire crackles in my fireplace, casting flickering shadows through the living room while the wind continues to howl outside. Our empty coffee mugs and a small stack of plates with nothing but crumbs on them sit on the coffee table. The furniture is all pushed aside, and the living room floor is scattered with couch cushions and pillows that were meant to be a fort but turned into a makeshift nest instead, along with all the sheets off both our beds.

"Go fish," Milo says, narrowing his eyes and giving me a wicked grin over his cards.

"Bullshit," I huff. "You asked for twos three rounds ago, I know you have one."

"Yeah, and three rounds ago you made me ‘go fish,'" he counters.

"I didn't have a two then, I just picked it up."

He clucks his tongue against the roof of his mouth and shakes his head. "Cheating at a children's game. Is that the kind of man you are?"

"I am not cheating." A smile twitches on my lips. " You're the cheater." I reach for his cards, and he yanks them back.

"Wow, the levels you will stoop to."

"If you don't have a two, then let me see," I demand, getting up on my knees and crawling across the uneven surface of our bedding and cushions towards him.

Milo falls back onto his elbows, awkwardly holding his cards over his head and scooting away from me as fast as he can. I grab his ankle before he can get far though. He shrieks with laughter, trying to kick out of my grip. I crawl on top of him, abandoning my own cards in a messy heap. He bucks and squirms under me, playfully biting my hand in a last-ditch attempt to keep me from seeing his cards.

"I knew it," I gasp, wrestling his cards away and holding up the two of diamonds that was in the stack.

"My eyes must have skipped right over it. Honest mistake."

I toss his cards aside. They flutter through the air and land among the rest of the mess.

"Do you always cheat at kids' games? Keep an extra set of dice up your sleeves when you play Sorry!? Mark the cards for a friendly game of Uno?" I lower myself until our noses are bumping. He's warm and pliant under me, still struggling, but clearly just for the pleasure of feeling our bodies move against each other.

Milo doesn't try to defend himself or even apologize, he just cackles and slams his mouth into mine.

There's zero chance I'm going to manage to rally for a fourth round in less than twelve hours, but my cock twitches with lazy appreciation anyway as our tongues sweep playfully into each other's mouths, muffled laughter still rumbling between us. Something deep inside me swells and pulses, something bigger than lust, something I refuse to acknowledge.

I roll onto my side next to him and he stays splayed out right there in front of the fire. The living room is a warm cocoon around us while the wind outside continues to rattle the windows, desperately trying to bring winter inside.

"Can I ask you something?" Milo asks.

I arch an eyebrow. "Sure."

I'm starting to learn that a question like that from Milo could be anything from ‘Why is the sky blue?' to ‘Do you resent your mother?'. There's really no way to guess until he spits out whatever is on his mind.

"What's the deal with the whole motorcycle club thing anyway?"

"What do you mean?"

He rolls onto his side facing me, less than an inch of space between our bodies.

"I mean, you're not the Hell's Angels."

"No, we're not." I shrug. "We share a love for our bikes, and I think we all liked the idea of having a sense of purpose tying us together. We do charity rides and we're there for each other when one of us needs anything."

The guilt I've kept at bay all day burns the edges of my words.

"Oh, well that's pretty cool then." He hums thoughtfully. "I went on one date with a guy who was a biker, and he was more of the stereotypical asshole most people think of. You're not like that."

I laugh. "I'm glad you think so."

He rolls his eyes. "You know you're not. You worry too much about other people to be an asshole."

I hum, looking past him at the dancing flames and doing my best to ignore the tightness in my throat. I do care too much about other people, but apparently, I don't care enough about Hero to keep me from giving in to my primal urges with his son.

"Have you always been like that? The guy who takes it upon himself to look out for everyone else?"

The urge to brush off the question is familiar. No one wants to hear your tragic backstory, even if they say they do. But for some reason, I want to tell Milo. I want him to know me, even if that's only going to dig us deeper into this hole.

"I didn't have much choice. My mom had a drinking problem, so I had to grow up pretty damn fast. She would be fine for a while, but then she'd meet another guy, lose another job, have another shitty day, and it was right back to the bottle for months on end. I guess I just got used to taking care of shit. Her, the house, myself…"

"I'm sorry. That had to suck." He scoots closer, erasing that last breath of space between us and reaching for my hand.

"It did, but I'm here now. I'm fine."

He makes a noise in the back of his throat that has me raising my eyebrows.

"What was that?" I ask.

"Nothing, I just… yeah, you're here, but I don't think you're fine ."

I frown. "I'm not an alcoholic. I hardly drink at all. I have my shit together, I own a house and a business, have a healthy social life," I say, rattling off all of my accomplishments.

"I know." He squeezes my hand. "Believe me, I'm not going to argue that you're a hell of a lot more together than I am. I just meant that trauma shows itself in a lot of ways. You didn't fall into addiction, but you are clinging to the idea that if you step off the ‘right' path, your life will fall apart, and you'll become like her."

His words hit me right in the chest and I want to argue, but I don't know what to say. Is he right?

He leans closer and brushes a soft kiss over my lips.

"Thanks for sharing with me," he says. "For what it's worth, I think all of our parents fuck us up in their own special ways."

I laugh gruffly around the tightness in my throat. We stay like that for a few minutes, just breathing the same air and listening to the crackle of the fire. Eventually, Milo grins at me and the heaviness of our conversation melts away.

"I saw Monopoly in your game closet. Want to play?"

"You have some of those little plastic houses stuffed down your pants already?" I scoff.

"No, but you're free to check." He waggles his eyebrows.

I can't remember the last time I had this much fun trapped in the house. It's almost a shame that the plows will clear the roads eventually, but that's tomorrow's problem.