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5
Kit
Rollin On
In the three weeks since my night at the club, I’ve gone to bed twenty-one times battling mortification and an almost emotional breakdown at the memories of a dark parking lot.
I’m embarrassed for how I acted in our last moments together. I was a snarling idiot to Jack, and I left Bobby standing there all alone. I’m fairly sure he thinksgood riddance and dodged a bulletafter the mess he was witness to.
Layering on top of the embarrassment is thick sexual frustration at what could have been. The kiss we shared shook me to my core, and I swear, my lips still tingle when I think of him.
And I do.
I think of him often.
My breakdown swiftly thrusts me back to embarrassment that Bobby’s probably already forgotten me, or at least filed me away in the ‘could’ve been fun, but so glad I didn’t get involved with that craziness’file.
Then back to a sexual ache when I remember his hard chest against mine, his hard thighs against mine, those delicious biceps under my fingers. His tongue stroking mine.
Ugh, I need to stop. I need to let it go.
Then I move into red hot anger at Jack and his friends and the fact they were supposed to be tucked up at Michael’s house for the night. I drove the boys back to their houses straight after leaving the club, and when I woke Callum’s parents up, I wasn’t the least bit apologetic.
Once they realized what was going on, they turned their anger on him, too, and they promised to speak to Michael’s parents the next day. Climbing back into my car and moving across town with two sullen boys cowering in the backseat, I pulled into Michael’s driveway.
Jack begged me to be cool. I begged him to shut the hell up before I beat him with a flashlight.
Dropping Michael off to a set of sleepy parents who swore the boys were inside in their beds –obviously not, assholes– and dragging Jack back to my car, we drove home in almost complete silence.
I took a few minutes of the silence to collect my thoughts and cool my temper. I was on the edge of what might be considered child abuse to some, so instead I flexed my hands on the steering wheel, cracked my knuckles, and counted my breaths.
“Listen, Kit–”
“You’re grounded.” I turned to him in the dark. “And you’ve lost all sleepover privileges until I say otherwise.”
He snorted at that. “You can’t ground me. You’re overreacting to dumb shit.”
“Wanna bet?” I turned onto my street slowly. “I’m not kidding. No sleepovers, not until I can trust you. Once your grounding is finished, you can have friends sleep atourhouse, where I can keep an eye on you. No parties until further notice. When that ban is lifted, you can go, but I’ll be dropping you off and picking you up, since you can’t be trusted to return by curfew. This isn’t a negotiation, Jack. It’s law. My law. If you have a problem with it, if you argue or backtalk, you’ll also lose phone privileges.”
He rolled his eyes and turned to watch out the window as we moved down our street. “Yeah right, Kit. Keep believing your power trip bullshit. You can stop talking now. I’m ready for bed.”
I may be his sister, and I may be young to be a ‘parent’ to a teenager, but I’m not stupid. I didn’t need to physically remove his phone to suspend phone privileges, I just needed his charger cable, which was on my kitchen counter at home. He’d get maybe another twelve hours of battery life, if he’s lucky, then with no charger, voila, no phone.
The next day he came searching for his charger. It took him that long to realize his loss and that my silence on the matter wasn’t conceding defeat. He was pissed, royally, loudly, annoyingly pissed, but that was fine with me, because I was pissed too.
A week later, once his attitude cooled and he stopped being a shit, I returned his charger and he actually thanked me. It was a nice week; no phone, no visitors, and no social outings.
We hung out, we talked, we watched TV.
Now three weeks later, he still has his phone privileges and I’m ready to lift the grounding. He’s still a bratty teenager who literally seems to enjoy arguing and rolling his eyes, but he’s stayed out of trouble. That’s all I asked for. We’ll work on the eye rolls another year.
After walking in on him one evening as he sat frustrated at the kitchen table, I learned something new about him, something he’s kept from me since he moved in.
Jack seriously struggles with math.
For the first time since our dad died, I found a way I could help him that was more than basic human necessities. Food and a bed are expected. Help with his homework is something else entirely. He was surprised by my offer to tutor him, but I was so much more surprised by his polite acceptance.
As a reward for good behavior, and the fact it’s a Friday night, I’ve allowed Michael and Callum to sleep over tonight. They’re eating pizza and watching a shitty action movie in the living room, and I’m sitting at the kitchen counter with my laptop open and a stack of folders that contain mind numbing-numbers.
