Page 16 of Enemies with Benefits (Finding the Right Brother #1)

Micah shrugged, and I took that as a no and pulled the chair out.

From there, I could see him straight on and pay attention.

Sure, to me, he was pretty small, but I'd seen enough kids in my life to know that for an eight-year-old, he was actually a pretty good size.

That made sense because my family had always produced big men on both sides, and if Mason was evidence, Moira's family wasn't exactly popping out small people either.

He was probably going to grow up to be tall, but only time would tell whether he would end up weedy and tall or broad and tall.

This close, I could also see I’d been right about him getting my looks, for the most part.

Some parts were more like his mother. Of course, because he was a boy, some of his looks presented more like.

..ugh, his uncle. His eyebrows, while not thin, were strangely thicker toward the center, but faded toward the outside.

He had the high cheekbones of his mother, but I would bet when he lost the baby fat, they'd look less like his regal mother's and more like his more.

..eh, I guess roguish would be the word, uncle.

Well, the kid had lots of serious expressions, which he was doomed to have considering his parents.

Micah scrunched his nose. “You're weird."

I blinked, leaning back and snorting. “Wow, just...gonna throw that out there, are you?"

"What?” he asked, sounding slightly defensive. "You're the one staring at me."

"I'm watching you."

"Weird. Mom says only weirdos watch kids. Weirdos I should tell her about."

"Mmm, you can tell her I was watching you. She won't care."

"Maybe she will."

"She won't."

"You don't know that."

"I do."

"How?"

"Because I do."

He rolled his eyes. “Adults always act like they know that kind of stuff."

"Mm, maybe, but in this case, it's true. I know more about it than you do, so I know she won't care."

"You don't know more about my mom than me!” he retorted angrily, clearly having his pride pricked at the idea that anyone could know his mother better than him.

I chuckled, charmed by his spirit even if he was being a little dramatic and overly defensive. "Well, I think the only people who know your mom better than you would be your uncles and your grandparents."

He thought about that for a minute and then nodded. “Yeah, okay. You're right."

"Okay."

"But I know her better than you."

"True. But when it comes to whether or not she'll be bothered that I was watching you, I know her better."

"How?"

"Because I talked to her about some things, things you don't know about. And that's how I know."

"And why can't I know?"

"Because it's between me and her."

"Oh."

Hmm, interesting. I would have thought that would have driven the clearly nosy child into a fit of wanting to know more.

But apparently, the concept of privacy was not lost on this particular eight-year-old.

Either through personality or how he was raised, he clearly knew there were things he needed to keep his nose out of.

Either that or he was just like that when it came to his mother, which was a pretty good first step.

Moira had always been protective of her privacy.

I guess, in his own, weird and slightly hard to pin down way, Mason had always been that way too.

So many people thought the sun shone out of his ass, but I knew just how much of a bastard he could really be under all those theatrics and that bright smile.

More than once, I'd wondered what kind of other nasty shit he hid under all that charm, and then hated myself for describing him as charming.

Now, no less hateful but at least calmer and maybe a bit wiser, I wondered what sorts of things he had hidden under it all.

Ugh. I really needed to stop thinking about Mason. It was annoying how just seeing and talking to him after years was enough to make my brain latch onto him like a deranged animal, refusing to let go.

Micah looked up at me again, and already I knew when he was about to ask a question. “Why do you hate Uncle Mason?"

"I thought he was just Mason to you."

"He is. But Mom might still be around, and she doesn't like it much when I call him that."

"She was around earlier."

"Yeah. I'm glad she didn't notice what I said."

"She might still say something."

"Yeah...maybe."

"Maybe," I said in amusement. He didn't seem bothered by the idea that his mom might say something later. Again, it was a sign that he’d been raised in a good environment.

From my experience and my line of work, I knew kids as young as him, obsessing over the idea of their parents being mad about them in the future, was not a good sign.

God, I'd missed the chance to be a part of that, a part of raising a kid and proving that the fucked up shit my dad did, that his dad to him, didn't have to be passed down. That ugly, twisted chain could be broken by someone who had once been wrapped up in it and trapped. Damn you, Moira.

"So," Micah said, looking at me with wide eyes and wiggling his head like he was trying to shake something from me with his mind.

"So?"

"Ugh," he groaned in an eerily perfect replication of his mother showing her frustration and disgust with someone's bullshit. "Why do you hate Mason?"

"Who said I hate Mason?"

"I mean, I heard you guys. You don't talk like that to someone unless you don't like them."

"We were just joking with each other, some people joke like that."

"Well, yeah, Mason jokes mean all the time. He does it with Mom, and Dom, and Milo, and Elijah, and Arlo. But it's not the same. It's not...mean like that. Like, really mean. It's joking mean."

Clearly, he had not learnt how to express himself completely, though whether that was because of his genes or just because he was eight was hard to tell.

He'd also neatly and efficiently caught me out in a lie, which was uncomfortable.

I knew it wasn't the best thing in the world to lie to a kid when it could be avoided, but how the hell was I supposed to tell him that his uncle was a bag of dicks sometimes and I'd always hated that about him?

He clearly thought the sun shone out of Mason's ass, and I doubted he would take the idea that his uncle was anything but wonderful well.

I cleared my throat. “Well...your uncle and I just...we've never really gotten along."

"Okay...but why? Was he mean to you? Or...were you mean to him?” he asked, eyes narrowing at the last part, and God, apparently having a protective streak, had managed to find its way into his personality.

"Both," I said with a shrug. "We were mean to each other."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"How don't you know?"

"Because sometimes people just...don't know things. Not even when it's stuff they've done or did before."

He thought about that for a minute. "Yeah, okay. Sometimes I get really mad. And sometimes I yell at Mom when it happens, and I don't really want to, it just happens. I don't want to yell at Mom, I'm just...mad."

God, please tell me anger issues weren't genetic and he'd gotten that from me. “Right...well, that happens sometimes. Do you tell her that you didn't mean it and you're sorry?"

"Yeah, and she says she loves me and accepts my apology."

"Mmm, that's good. But just being sorry isn't enough. You've got to try to do better next time you feel like that, or you weren't really sorry."

"She says that too...and I try. I'm just not...very good at it sometimes."

I let out a sigh. “Well, we agree on that. It can be really hard."

"Do you get mad like that too?"

"Sometimes. I used to get mad like that a lot when I was younger."

"When you were a kid?"

"And when I was older than a kid. Got me into a lot of trouble too."

"Like, with the police?"

"Mhmm. And at school, with my friends, and the girls I dated."

His eyes widened. “Did you yell at them?"

"Sometimes. And sometimes I said some...not very nice things too."

"Did you hit them?"

My hands flexed roughly against my leg, and I bit out a harsh groan. “No. Never."

He didn't jerk away from me, but he definitely flinched at the harshness in my voice, and I had to take a deep breath and remind myself that he was just a kid and he didn't understand.

..well, a lot of things. But he definitely didn't understand just how horrifying a question that had been or how badly it stung.

"Sorry," I muttered. "No, I never hit them when I was angry, no matter how mad I got."

He nodded. “Did they hit you?"

I raised a brow, now following the train of thought, and nodded. “It happened a couple of times."

"Did you hit them back?"

"No."

"Mom says that I shouldn't ever let anyone hit me. Not even girls."

"That...sounds exactly like the kind of advice your mom would give," I said with a snort I couldn't hold back.

Moira had always despised the idea that anyone should hold back with her if she was putting that kind of energy out there.

She'd told me more than once that if she was ever bold enough to hit a man, then she wouldn't pretend to be horrified when they turned around and hit her back.

Of course, she'd never felt that bold as far as I knew.

I was glad about it because I didn't want her to find out if someone she hit was willing to put her beliefs to the test. "But she's right, hitting people just because you're mad at them is not good.

It's something I wish I'd learned a lot sooner than I did.

Maybe it would have saved me a lot of trouble. "

"Were you a bad kid?” he asked with all the bluntness and innocence of a child who had no idea what kind of ground he was walking all over with zero grace or consideration.

"Some people thought I was."

"Okay, but were you?"

"Are you asking if I thought I was a bad kid?"

"Yeah," he asked, and the 'duh' was unspoken.