Page 93 of Dead Serious with Benefits
“It seems that way, to me at least.”
“And me,” Ward added.
Amelia leaned back. “Then why not simply cut out the waiting time and commit? It seems pointless to parade yourselves around like you were single but playacting at being in a committed relationship.”
“Oh,” Matilda said, chuckling after taking a drink. “That’s how a lot of people do things nowadays.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed, and some people take longer than others to make that commitment,” Amelia said coolly. “It certainly wasn’t how it was done when I was of an age to date.”
“Same as me,” Matilda said brightly. “But times change, and so does everything else. It’s hard to say what’s right and what’s not, but change happens, and I trust my children to get where they need to be. Honestly, I was worried for the longest time that my children wouldn’t find someone, yet in the past couple of years, they’ve decided to prove me wrong. In my experience, sometimes it’s best to let your children handle things. It’s usually not how we would handle it, or choose for them to handle it, but it’s their way and that’s the path they need to follow, their own.”
“If you wait too long, especially for particularly...difficult children, they will drive themselves into the ground so hard that they find themselves trapped in a hole that not even a parent can dig them out,” Amelia said. I thought the only thing missing was an indignant sniff to show how truly irritated she felt by the idea of personal freedom for her son.
“Oh goodness,” Matilda said with a laugh. “I thought the same thing about one of my oldest, Mason. I thought he would spend the rest of his life hopping from bed to bed, playing games, and driving all of us crazy. And then came Jace. I’ll never understand how they work, but what matters is that they do. And now Jace is a part of the family, to be a father to his son, Micah, and with him came Kayden.”
“Who is Kayden?” Amelia asked, sounding at least mildly interested.
“Jace’s partner on the police force before Jace decided on a new career,” Matilda explained. “And his best friend. He and my daughter, Moira, hit it off in a way that delights me. She can be so serious, that girl, sometimes too serious as she helps run the hotel and raise Micah. But Kayden is good for her; he adds that spark of life that everyone needs. The spark that reminds you that you aren’t just your career or a mother, but a person who is worth being loved, and enjoying the life you have. He brings that for her, and I’m so glad.”
Amelia’s head tilted, and I repressed the urge to stop the conversation before it went on. “Micah...is her son? I thought he was Jace’s son.”
“Oh,” Matilda said, blinking as if realizing what she had said. “Well, he is. He’s their child, biologically. He’s a little bit of everyone’s kid in their own way. That boy has more family than he knows what to do with, and his uncles have been just as good with him as his parents.”
That wasn’t strictly true, and I felt a twinge of guilt. Mason and Dom were both pretty active when it came to Micah, when they were around anyway. I had never been as attentive to him as he grew up, and now I realized it. I suppose it had been easy to ignore, considering he had plenty of attention.
Even more so now Kayden was in the picture. Not only had he taken to being a stepfather like fish took to swimming, but he had made sure to devote plenty of time and energy to getting Moira out of the house and enjoying herself. That meant Micah spent more time around the rest of the family, not just Jace. Lately, even Elijah and Milo had been spending more time around the hotel and with Micah. Everyone was pitching in, it seemed...except for me.
“Which means, your daughter’s ex-boyfriend,” Amelia said slowly, and I braced, “is dating your son? That seems?—”
“Awkward as hell,” Ward finished with a snort. “I thought the same at first. It’s an odd thing, that’s for sure.”
“Not the oddest,” Matilda began with a grin, and I tried my hardest not to react to what I knew was coming. “My youngest and Marcus’s son are now an item. That took me by surprise when I learned about it, let me tell you.”
Amelia stared, glass frozen in her hand. “Your...sons? Are...in a relationship?”
“Matty,” Marcus muttered in a low voice that I barely caught, but I could hear the regret.
“My biological son and his biological son,” Matilda explained quickly. “There’s not a drop of blood shared between them. I don’t even know if that would have mattered much to them, or us in the end. Those two...from the moment they met, they were inseparable. I’ve never seen two people who just...work. We all teased them so much about how they were always around one another and did everything together. But it was more than that; it wasn’t just that they could finish each other’s sentences, but the way they always knew what was going on with each other, not just in their minds, but in their hearts. Even when they didn’t know exactly, there was always an understanding between them. And now...now they work even more than before.”
“I...see,” Amelia continued in that slow voice as if she was searching her own internal data bank to figure out what should be said in light of that news.
“Again,” Ward said in an even voice. “It threw me off the first time I heard about it. Did I make a porn joke by chance?”
“You didn’t,” I said with a smirk. “And while I can’t recall if I thought it then, I wouldn’t have been surprised if you had.”
Amelia took a deep breath. “Andwhywould a porn joke be appropriate?”
“Appropriate in the context you’re thinking? Not in the slightest,” Ward said, cocking his head as the serving womancame back and began gathering up the plates and bowls. “But, and you wouldn’t know this, but there was a time when step-sibling porn was a popular ‘theme’ for porn websites.”
“Andwhydo you know this?” Amelia asked, unable or unwilling to hide the criticism in her voice.
“For professional research,” he said dryly. “Surely you know of my holdings and investments.”
I glanced at him, amused. “You invest in porn?”
“Why not? Even with the yearly discussions of banning or regulating it, porn will continue to generate revenue. There are many things about humanity that you can control or strangle, but you’ll never stop horny people from getting to what they want.”
“Warden,” Amelia barked even as Marcus and Matilda laughed, all while Eric stared at his drink and winced at her tone.
