Page 27 of Rebel Obsession

“What exactly are we searching for, do you think?” Bliss squinted around at Kian’s perfectly tidy bedroom. She trailed a finger along his bookshelf, then held it up to her face, inspecting it. “Damn, it’s neat in here. He even dusted.”

I rifled through a stack of PlayStation games, sitting on his bedside table. “I don’t know. A murder confession would be great though.”

Bliss sniggered and pulled open Kian’s top drawer. “Money maybe? Or something else inappropriate that might prove he was more than just friends with your mom and Bart?”

I lifted the corner of his mattress to peer beneath it. “Inappropriate like these, you think?”

On the slatted bedframe was a couple of porn magazines.

Bliss turned around and wrinkled her nose. “Oh, ew. Who still uses magazines to get off? That’s so seventies. Get a Pornhub subscription, Kian.”

I didn’t disagree, but part of me was curious. I picked up the little stack and let the mattress drop back.

Bliss smacked the magazines out of my hand. “Oh my God, what are you doing? You know what he was doing while he was looking at these, don’t you?”

My mouth went dry thinking about it. Kian sprawled out on his bed. Magazine open to a centerfold of a naked, big-breasted woman staring poutily at the camera.

His hand around his shaft, slowly moving up and down while I was in the room next door.

Bliss snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Where did you just go in your head?”

I blinked. “Someplace very, very dirty.” I knelt to pick up the magazines, knowing I couldn’t just leave them there on the floor, even if they did have traces of Kian’s spunk on the pages. I closed the first one, ignoring the lewd position of the couple, and reached for the second that had slid partially under the bedframe.

There was a bright-yellow Post-it note stuck to the cover. Handwriting scrawled across the front.

In an instant, my heart sank.

“This is my mom’s writing,” I said quietly.

Bliss paused, mid rifle through Kian’s underwear drawer. “How do you know? Why would Kian have a porno with a note from your mom on it?”

I shook my head. “She puts love hearts above her i’s like I do sometimes. I picked that up from her. More disturbing though, is what the note actually says.” I peeled it off and handed it to her.

Bliss read it aloud. “Thought this might help. Come to my room when you’re ready.”

Her eyes went huge, but she tried to cover up her initial reaction with a more diplomatic one. “That note might have originally been stuck on the vacuum cleaner. Maybe he was cleaning his room with a…broom? And she brought him the vacuum and she just meant to do her room next…”

I looked at her.

“Yeah, okay. That’s weak.”

“Anyone our age wouldn’t have a porn mag, Bliss. You said that yourself. But Mom’s generation…”

“She wasn’t that much older than you.”

“Old enough. I remember finding pornos all over our house when I was a kid. Still no idea if they were hers or her boyfriends’, I didn’t want to know, but that generation was raised on magazines.” I screwed up my face and tossed the offending items onto Kian’s bed. “Oh God. She gave him those, didn’t she? As a come-on? Go get horny then come to my room!” Bile rose in my throat, and I made a choking noise as I gazed at the ceiling. “That’s sex predator behavior, Mom! He’s young enough to be your son. So gross!”

Bliss fingered the note, then sat on Kian’s bed. “Kian isn’t a kid. He’s well over twenty-one. Let’s not taint her with the sex creep brush. For all we know, Kian was the one who started it.”

I squeezed my eyes shut tight. “So you think they were sleeping together?”

“I’m not sure when else you’d give someone porn and an invitation to your bedroom.”

I sank down on the bed beside her, the mattress dipping beneath my weight. “Do you think Bart knew?”

She shrugged. “Seems like it would be pretty hard to miss something going on right under your own roof. Maybe he liked to watch…”

I gagged. “Oh, gross. I do not want to think about my mother and Bart and a guy I might want to have in my bed in a threesome.”

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