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Worse, that experiment had been preceded by an eerie silence just like this one.
“I need to find them.” Chess rushed out of the kitchen and straight up the stairs. Just as she got to the top of their stairs she heard their voices.
“You think he’ll do it?” Frankie asked.
“He’ll do it,” Jay said. “I’ve taught him well, and he knows I have money on the line.”
“Can I bet some money too?” Chris chimed in.
Frankie shook his head. “You’re too young to be gambling, pipsqueak.”
The three boys were standing at the open door that led to Chess’s and Tazeem’s bedroom. Presumably, there was something very interesting going on inside the room because the three didn’t even hear Chess coming up behind them.
Whereas Frankie was slender, Jay had inherited his father’s more muscular genes. However, both teens were tall enough that Chris looked like a hobbit between them.
Chess noted that her youngest, five-year-old Keith, was nowhere to be seen.
“Please!” Chris continued pleading, “Please, please, please. I want to bet too.”
“Fine!” Jay surrendered with a kiss of his teeth. “Gimme a dollar.”
Grinning like a Cheshire cat, Chris hurriedly pulled the money from his pocket and handed it to his older brother. “I bet he won’t do it. His hand is shaking.”
“Whose hand is shaking?” Chess finally made her presence known.
Startled, the three boys turned. Upon seeing Chess, they traded looks of mutual horror then made the silent yet unanimous decision to run. One second they were standing by the door, and the next they were racing to the other side of the hallway.
Chess didn’t stop them. Why bother when their bottomless hunger would drive them right back to her den?
Shaking her head, she moved towards the bedroom to see what had held their rapt attention.
Apparently it was her youngest son, Keith.
Keith clearly wasn’t aware that his brothers had been caught. If he was, he wouldn’t be seated on the bed, next to his sleeping father, with a marker pen in his hand. The little boy was so focused on his task that his tongue was sticking out of his mouth as it usually did when he was concentrating. Slowly but surely, he lowered the pen toward Tazeem’s face.
“Keith Alim Khan,” Chess yelled just before the pen reached its destination. “I know you’re not trying to draw on your Daddy’s face.
Keith immediately looked up. When he saw his mother, guilt and fear suffused his expression.
“I’m- I’m not-” he blubbered while hiding the pen behind him. “I’m not drawing on his face.”
“Out!” she ordered sternly. “Out.”
“Yes, Mommy.” He clambered off the bed then raced to the door.
He hesitated for a second when he was a few feet from her, probably fearing that she’d grab him if he got too close. But when she stepped to the side, he quickly slipped past her, dropping the pen as he went, and ran off, probably to find his co-conspirators.
“Thank God you stopped him,” Tazeem called from the bed.
Chess immediately turned to him only to realize that he didn’t look like a person who’d just woken up from deep sleep. He was too bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.
Disbelief coloring her tone, she asked, “You weren’t asleep, were you?”
“No, I wasn’t.” Tazeem grinned. “I just wanted to see if he’d do it. I had ten bucks on him chickening out.”
His grin was enough to make her heart pitter patter like a rogue drum, which was crazy.
After nine years, you’d think that she’d stop reacting to him with so much desire. But no! If anything, she was more attracted to him than ever, and he could awaken her senses with just one smile.
