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Uncle Curtis chuckled and said, "I warned you, son."
I dropped my head to the desk and banged it a few times. "Uncle Curtis, you have generators and satellite television and DSL… how can you not have a computer to go with any of those things?” I leafed through the ledger sitting in front of me and shook my head. "I didn't even think these things still existed."
Uncle Curtis dropped the box on the desk and said, "I can't go missing my shows now, can I?" He motioned to the ledger and added, "Besides, Del said the ledger was a good way to be connected to the money you were givin’ away. He never complained about not having one of them computer thingamabobs."
"Oh please, lay off the old thingamabobs talk. I heard you asking Siri yesterday to give you a reminder to check your stew after an hour. And that smart TV you’ve got is bigger than mine." I lifted the top off the cowboy hat box and groaned. "This just can't be real," I said with, admittedly, just a bit too much whining in my voice. But after three days of going through box after box after box of receipts and invoices and other scraps of paper that I would've needed a supercomputer to decode, I was nearing my breaking point. I'd expected to be wrapped up with all the bookkeeping stuff and on my way back to New York by now, but from the moment Uncle Curtis had handed me the first box, I'd nearly ended up ripping my hair out when I realized that the boxes really were his "system."
"So now might not be a good time to tell you I've got three more boxes that I found in the back of my closet?"
"Are you—"
That was all I got out before Uncle Curtis began laughing and left the room. I glanced at my own laptop where I'd been trying unsuccessfully to enter all the information into some bookkeeping software, but at the rate it was going, it would take me a good week just to enter a year’s worth of data. And without that data, I couldn't make any headway. There'd be no way to figure out where the business was bleeding money.
Well, there was a way… I just didn't want to take it.
Uncle Curtis had suggested many times that I go talk to Xavier about some of the business expenses that the ranch had on a monthly basis because "Xavier knows more about that stuff than me."
I glanced out the window and saw that the late afternoon clouds were rolling in. I hadn't been for a run since I’d left New York, and with Uncle Curtis’s fattening food, I felt like a lump. I’d been sitting for three days straight. I'd also been dodging phone calls and texts from my father for nearly as long.
While I would always love sitting in front of a computer or notebook struggling through a math problem, I hadn't even gotten that far yet with Uncle Curtis’s documents. Add in the fact that I’d spent the last several nights lying awake in anticipation of Xavier doing something to me or my uncle, and I was running on little sleep and even less feelings of progress.
Thunder rumbled in the distance and I quickly checked my phone to see what the weather would bring. I groaned when I saw that it was expected to rain for the next several days.
Which meant I’d be cooped up in the house with no relief in sight. It wasn't like I could go to the barn and do something there to work off all my excess energy and frustration. There wasn’t even a gym in Eden because the last thing hardworking ranchers and cowboys needed was a place to go to work out.
"Brooks!" I heard my uncle call from the other room. "Good news, I just remembered there are some boxes in the basement too."
I dropped my head to the desk again as I heard my uncle's footsteps retreat down the stairs.
"Nope, nope, nope," I repeated to myself. Mind made up, I got up and hurried upstairs to change into my workout clothes. As soon as I slipped my running shoes on, I felt my energy return and anticipation coursed through my body.
Twenty minutes.
That was all I needed.
If I got a little wet, even better. I’d come back after my run and be renewed and ready to tackle however many boxes Uncle Curtis wanted to bring me. And I’d also get the image of Xavier out of my head.
The second I had the thought, my dick reacted. I cursed because there was no way I was going to miss out on my run for another jacking-off session in the shower. I'd already spent mornings and evenings trying to convince my cock that my hand was as good as Xavier's. Never in a million years would I have thought I'd be reduced to jerking myself off in a tiny shower stall in the very bathroom I also happened to be sharing with the object of my desire. Worse, my uncle was staying in the only downstairs bedroom, so it was just me and Xavier on the second floor, sharing a bathroom.
