Page 57
I clear my throat before I slowly stand back up, discreetly checking the front of the basket, praying it’s not Sera’s name there.
Thankfully, it’s Kota’s.
What made her get that wet? Was it Guy? Or someone else? Someone who gets her heart racing and her juices flowing?
“Nice, huh?”
“The laundry room is nice,” I say, trying to play it off.
“Nectar of the gods, I like to call it.”
Fuck. I should’ve known he’d pick up on the same thing. I churn the top few pieces of Kota’s clothes to cover her thong so it’s out of his view—out of everyone’s view.
“That’s the nectar of your stepdaughter, so how about you shut the fuck up.”
He gives me an angelic expression I shake my head at before loading my clothes into the washing machine. Wandering around aimlessly somewhere behind me, he doesn’t get in my way again. As much shit as we talk, we don’t actually go toe-to-toe with each other. Not anymore. Not since my growth spurt hit and I surpassed him in every way. It’d be too easy to hurt him and hurting him is the last thing I want to do. He’s my dad, the only parent I’ve ever known since my mom left when I was a baby.
So I guess that’s three things Kota and I have in common. We both have a parent that didn’t want us.
“You ever eaten a woman’s coochie crust off her underwear?”
Nothing—fucking nothing—could’ve prepared me for hearing that sentence come out of my father’s mouth.
“Feel free to keep those kinds of thoughts to yourself.”
“There’s a certain trick to getting it off—”
“Pops, I swear to fucking God, if you finish that sentence…” I let the threat hang in the air as I shoot him a nasty glare over my shoulder.
“The problem with your generation is you’re all prudes.”
I snort. “We have a lot bigger problems than that.”
All of the detergents in the cupboard are unopened, so I choose the one without a scent because I’ve never been in a lavender field and I don’t want to smell like I have.
Back to his pacing, my dad muses, “Coochie crust is underrated.”
“So are boundaries.” I drop the lid and begin pushing buttons until I find the right setting.
“The interesting thing about boundaries is everyone’s are different.”
“Then let’s make your sex life ours.”
He waits a beat, one single beat, before continuing as if I said nothing.
“Sera is an older woman—”
“Whatever the fuck you and Sera get up to, I promise you I don’t care.”
“—so her basement takes more to flood but—”
Jesus. I jam at the same series of buttons just to tune him out. The only thing I want to know about my new stepmom is when her next work trip is. Based off the last week of living in the Rhodeses’ residence, it could be any minute.
Thank fuck.
As long as she takes my dad with her. This motherfucker’s getting on my last nerve.
“—she has—”
