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"Or Romanian." I pull the door closed without checking the windows are locked, something that has been my daily routine before I finish each day.
"No. Nor the Russian bad words." He drops down to sit against the wall, not regretting his actions for a moment.
"Good boy."
His face lights up at my praise, as it has always done. He's a brat, but I'm probably the only person in the world who gives him praise. I'm not going to hold his irritating behaviour against him. He raised himself, even when his shitty mother had been alive.
"Porter has asked me to continue teaching you to read today, as he won’t be home in time."
I'm looking after the house and the boy while Knox and Porter are visiting Porter's mum. The house I can manage. Taking Gregory's calls if he needs help with the business I can manage. Controlling a boy I've been trying to resist for so long is going to be impossible.
"The onesie thing is important. Reading cannot happen without the proper clothing." He nods at me like he is expecting to read regardless. He is a free spirit, but still a creature of routine and the strain of living here is beginning to show. Still, this is good behaviour I really can praise. I drink him in, wondering when he went from cute kid to adorable brat. It's hard to tell in what he's wearing. Proper naughty imp clothing.
"Go and find your book."
I head downstairs to where Gladys is cooking dinner ready for Porter's ravenous return. I don’t think seeing his mum makes him hungry, I just think filling his mouth prevents him from talking about how she is doing in rehab.
Passing the hall, I notice the pool room ajar, and to keep the smell of chlorine from filtering into the house, I head over to close it.
"Yes, it's all going exactly as you predicted," Gregory's voice hisses from within the room. "You were dead right."
I can't hear who he is talking to, he must be on his phone.
"Yeah, no one suspects a thing. The kid? Putty in my hands. No issues with him."
It will break Knox when I tell him, he's just starting to surrender control of the clubs to this man and enjoy more family time. This will ruin everything. I need to be careful. There is a chance he could be throwing Nico a birthday party, but knowing who his father is and the circumstances he arrived under, I'd say we're all out of luck.
I'm drawn away from the pool room conversation by the imp in question skulking past. He clings to the shadows like he's turning emo on me, or whatever the cool goth term is these days. He'd get away with being completely unseen if he wanted to, but I know he likes me seeing him. Plus, he's wearing a slightly too big yellow onesie, and those were not made to go unseen.
I like watching him too, but he's eighteen. I can't do anything more than watch.
"I got the one with red swirlies," Nico mutters.
"Letters, Nico." I step away from the pool room, feeling Gregory's words need to be delicately brought to Knox's attention in the morning.
Nico shrugs and goes into the snug. I swear, if Knox was into Littles, he'd call this another playroom. Porter has taken over control of this space and it is filled with toys. I get why he calls them useful. Nico can't learn to write letters before he can colour. And Nico needs to start reading with picture books. But still, if Nico was mine…
No.
Never happening.
I'm forty-five, he's eighteen.
Nico lies on his belly, his socked feet rest on his plump arse, and alternate kicking up and down. I wonder if it hurts. I wonder if he wants it to hurt.
Kicking his backside, wriggling his cock against the onesie zip as he shuffles through his struggles.
"Ready?" I sit on the sofa above him, like I'm the daddy he can never have. I'm reading more into this than there is. He's just innocently trying to decipher English letters and make them into words.
"Cat," he declares, pointing to the large writing under the cartoon style drawing of a cat.
"Are you reading the words or the pictures?" I challenge.
"C-A-T." He points at each letter proudly. "Cat."
"Well done."
My praise has his breath hitching, and he shuffles awkwardly before turning the page.
