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“Is it like a fresh-out-of-the-box pasta situation you’re showing them or more of a limp noodle?” Sam asked as he stifled a laugh. Declan smacked him on the shoulder.
“Are you at least upcharging on what you think you’re worth?” Mom demanded. I dropped my head in my hands.
“Jesus Christ, Mom,” I muttered. Of course, Mom would be supportive and at least make sure he was getting paid what she thought he was worth for cooking with his fucking dick out.
“Okay, we’ll come back to this,” she gestured to the space between her and Finn, “because I have more questions, but this isn’t the time for that. Killian.”
“No, please,” I grumbled. “Don’t stop on my account.”
“This is a conversation we need to have.”
“Why do we have to talk about me? Are you really okay with him cooking with his dick out for anyone to watch?” I said instead. This conversation was much more entertaining.
“He’s happy doing what he’s doing with his penis,” Mom stated. Like the fucking children we were, we all fucking snorted or giggled under our breath at her saying the word penis. Some things never fucking changed. “Oh, quiet the whole lot of you. I taught you the proper anatomical terms when you were babies flapping them around like you were God’s gift to the pack.”
“Mom!” Lucas exclaimed, full-on laughing.
“You still do the helicopter, young man,” she retorted. “You should learn to shut your windows after you shower. Esther and Vera got quite the metal show from you and your pierced penis last year.”
“No,” he groaned. “Nol! You’re supposed to tell me if I don’t close my windows!”
“It’s funnier if I don’t,” Nolan said.
“Back to Killian,” Declan spoke over their banter.
“No, we don’t need to—”
“Killian, he’s happy doing what he’s doing while you’re clearly struggling,” Mom interrupted. “It’s time we talk. About everything.”
“And just what the fuck does everything entail?” Okay, I was fucking stalling. I’d agreed to this—initially—but now I didn’t want to.
“What happened between you and Genevieve, why you left, what’s happened since you came back,” she replied. “Do you need me to write you an itemized list?”
Damn, she was sassy.
“You have to promise me that if I fucking tell you, you have to leave Phillip Goodwin alone,” I said, staring hard at Mom. If anyone would intervene and start shit with him, it was her. And it’d fucking kill Genevieve. I wasn’t sure she could live with that shame. I couldn’t do that to her. “Promise me.”
“Killian—”
“Promise me or we’re fucking done,” I snapped.
“Okay,” she lamented with a small nod. “I’ll leave him alone.”
“All of you.”
“We all will.”
“Okay.” Fuck, I didn’t know where to start. I’d kept all this shit bottled up for so goddamn long. Maybe I did need that itemized list. “Phillip Goodwin is a bad man.”
“You’re going to have to elaborate,” Declan commented when I fell silent.
“I’m fucking thinking! Don’t interrupt me,” I snapped. I glanced at Mom and just knew from the look on her face that she was doing her best not to call me out on my language. “What I mean to say is the man is an abusive dick, and if I could put him six feet under, I fucking would.”
There. I fucking said it out loud. And damn did it feel good. Granted, from how they just stared at me, not a single one of them believed me. Why would they? He was a man of God, a pillar of the community. He was a fucking role model.
“The day Mr. Waverly had me walk Genevieve home, she said something to me that didn’t make sense at the time,” I began because going back to the fucking beginning seemed like the best idea. “She talked about how the pumpkin she picked every year had to be the perfect pumpkin because it was the one thing her dad let her have. It was hers. Which at the time I thought was weird, but I didn’t quite grasp just how much.”
I paused. There was a lot of shit I could say after that—weird fucking things leading up to me wanting to take her on a date. While they were things that stuck with me, it didn’t feel like something they needed to know. I wanted to preserve as much of Genevieve’s dignity as I fucking could. I already felt like shit for saying a fucking word.
