The shock on Elodie’s face is picturesque. I try to hide the smugness from mine.
“Are you kidding me? He assaulted me in my sleep!”
Cade raises his voice to an aggressive authority that makes everyone go still. “Enough! We’re not getting off to a great start here, Elodie. I won’t have you making up bullshit about my boys.”
I can see the cogs turning in his head. I can see him holding back. He wants to discipline her. I want him to. I want to watch him make her squirm.
“I didn’t make anything up! He had his face shoved in between–”
“Enough!” Caden cuts her off.
Her mouth snaps shut.
His hands are clenched into fists so tight his knuckles are turning white, and his jaw is so taut I can see the muscle ticking at the back. He’s going to boil over. And I’ve got a front-row seat.
After long, stretched, tense moments of silence with Elodie scowling at him in disbelief, he deflates. “Just… go to your room. Now.”
Alfie eases her down, and the look of defeat and rage etched into her face is almost comical.
“I’m not staying here. This won’t ever work. I’m not living in a place where I’m going to be abused and assaulted.”
Cade closes the distance between them. Alfie stays behind her so she can’t back away. This is delightful.
He looks her up and down in that belittling way that has her shrinking from him. The disdain drips off his curled lips. “You have nowhere else to go. No one else wants you. I’m your best bet now. And if you don’t get back up those stairs in the next five seconds, I’ll show you what abuse looks like.”
Distress floods her delicate features, and she scurries away, hand clasped over her mouth. Her quiet sobs float back to us.
Once she’s gone, I turn to the boys. “Why the restraint, Cade? Why not let her have it?”
He shoots a finger out at me, eyes narrowed and cutting. “Don’t you dare. You clearly gave her enough. What the fuck did you do?”
I shrug, waltz over to the sofa and plop down. “I had to see.”
Cade bows down and grabs the collar of my shirt. “I told you not to. Why can’t you follow simple instructions? Always thinking with that tiny dick of yours.”
“It’s far from tiny and you know it. That’s why it consumes so much of my brain. I can’t help it, bro, I had to see.”
He lets my shirt go and drops down beside me. Alf goes back to his Legos.
“Unbelievable.” Cade rests his head back and looks up at the ceiling. Quieter, he says, “Did you make her come?”
I shake my head. “I was close. But she woke up.”
Alf spits a laugh. “Classic Fiz. Can never get a girl to finish.”
I throw Bob’s toy bone at his head and Bob leaps on him, sending them both crashing to the floor with a grunt from Alf. I chuckle.
Caden looks lost in thought beside me. Knowing him as well as I do, I decide to stir the pot. He’s always the most equanimous out of the three of us during The Cleanse, it’s only fair to even the odds.
“You should see it, bro. Tight little thing, right up your alley.”
He clenches his jaw.
I continue. “Pretty, pink, pristine. Doesn’t look broken in at all.”
Alf appears from underneath Bob and says, “But it obviously is, all those rumours…” Bob moves away, coming over to me, and Alf sits up again.
“Could be just that – rumours.” I shove my hands down my boxers, cupping my throbbing, aching balls. “Imagine, Cade, you landed yourself with the perfect woman. Petite, breakable, feisty. Compliant as well, apparently, with the right amount of threat.”
