Chapter 9

I found out how good things were between Amber and Joe later that afternoon. I had to run to the office for a bit and when I returned, neither of them were out in the main rooms. I got the files and things I’d needed put away at my desk and then headed down to the bathroom. The extra cup of coffee at the office was not a great idea. As I walked down the hallway, both the kids’ doors were closed, which wasn’t abnormal, and I didn’t think twice about it at first.

As I got close to Joe’s door, I heard the unmistakable sounds of those terrible production porn videos. It wasn’t all that loud, but you only needed to see one of those videos once to know what they sounded like. I noticed his door wasn’t really closed. The light from his monitor leaked out around the door, which hung open a good inch or two. That was plenty of room for me to peek in and see what was going on. I did exactly that and saw that both Amber and Joe were watching something on his computer. I debated opening the door to see exactly what they were watching, but I didn’t. The cheesy music told me all I needed to know. I chuckled inwardly and kept moving. I really needed to pee.

As I took care of biology’s call, I played back what I’d seen. My earlier concern that Amber was pushing Joe and making sure he knew he could tell her to stop for whatever reason seemed unwarranted. That said, even if he was a willing and active participant, which he obviously was, it had still been good to remind him that no means no, and that’s not just for girls.

Finding them watching porn was a bit of a shock. It wasn’t the first time I’d stumbled in on a similar scene. They had snooped on their mom’s laptop before and were busted watching porn videos she had saved to the hard drive. They hadn’t been at all ashamed of being caught. They’d just giggled and went back to the show on the screen. Once they started their hands-on lessons with my ex, their need for porn had diminished, if not completely vanished. Who needed porn with you had the real thing right in front of you?

The idea of Joe watching porn wasn’t at all a surprise. He was a teenage boy, after all. If anything, I would have been shocked if he hadn’t. Amber being there was what really threw me for a loop. She wasn’t the type to watch porn. At least I didn’t think so.

Now I was curious.

I finished drying my hands and stopped at Joe’s door again. I poked my head in. Joe sat in his chair stroking his cock with his eyes glued to the screen. Amber was on the edge of Joe’s bed with one hand between her thighs. She waved at me with the other hand before returning her gaze to the screen.

That scene didn’t seem to be anything special. An older couple and a younger couple were going at it on a large bed. Still, both kids seemed to be quite interested in what was taking place on the screen.

Neither of them were close to an orgasm and the movie didn’t catch my fancy, so I headed back to the living room. I debated on getting started on the work I had brought home but I just wasn’t in the mood to work. I was supposed to be taking time off while the kids were here and I found myself on my computer working far more than I wanted.

After about half an hour, while I was surfing through Netflix on the TV, Amber emerged and headed to the kitchen. With a glass of water, she came into the living room, a little sweaty and definitely glowing.

“Have fun?” I teased, raising an appraising eyebrow at her.

“Oh, yeah.” She grinned as she flopped onto the couch opposite me, drained her glass, and then opened up her Kindle.

I chuckled and continued my search for something to watch.

That evening, we had an early dinner, and, on a whim, we decided to head into town and go bowling. We hadn’t gone in years, and it sounded like fun. Amber loved it. She pumped her fists in the air when she got a strike and grimaced at a poor split or the rare gutter ball.

Joe didn’t take it as seriously as his little sister, even though his score was almost as good as hers. That didn’t stop Amber from letting him know after each frame how many pins she was winning by. She didn’t care a lick that Joe didn’t look like he was trying all that hard. She just loved to win, at any cost. Free wins and hard fought wins all equaled wins when all was said and done.

Of course, my age and years of experience gave me an edge over both of my kids. I used to love bowling when I was younger. I had a mean hook and if I could find the pocket, strikes came easy. It didn’t hurt that I could throw the ball harder, too. Tonight, however, I was just having fun. That doesn’t mean I didn’t get into it when I managed to get a Turkey. But as soon as I got that first open frame, the luster kind of wore off pretty quickly.

I won the first two games by a fairly wide margin. I just found my groove in those two games, but in the third game, I lost my groove and Amber found it! When the tenth frame came, she was in the lead by nineteen pins. I just needed to mark and get nine more to tie her. My first ball...

“Strike!” I pumped my fist and grinned, my natural competitive nature taking over.

“No!” Amber cried out.

Now I just needed nine pins to tie her. I looked over at Amber, who was sitting behind the scorer’s desk and grinned. She looked nervous but tried to mean-mug me. That only made me laugh, which only made her even angrier.

“One more strike and I win,” I said.

“Duh,” Amber crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t you think I know that?”

Joe grinned at his little sister’s obvious discomfort.

I grabbed my ball from the return and even hung my hand over the blower to ensure it wasn’t sweaty.

I made my approach and let her rip.

The ball drifted right, just like I had hoped and then the spin on the ball caught and it dove towards the pocket, hard. Too hard! The balls crashed through the head of the rack, throwing pins all over in a chaos of noise. Then the proverbial dust settled, and I was left with seven-ten split.

“Shit!” I cursed.

“Uh oh, Daddy,” Amber said in her most innocent voice. “What happened?”

I ignored her. She was baiting me, and I knew she had a shit-eating grin plastered on her face. I didn’t want to see it and just stood there focused on the split at the end of the lane and waited for my ball to get spit out of the return.

“You got this, Dad,” Joe called out as I grabbed my ball and readied my throw.

I hate splits. I suck at them. Mainly because I can’t throw a straight ball with any kind of accuracy. A seven-ten split, that’s the worst of the worst. The only hope I had was to sling that bowling ball as hard as I could and hope that it hit the pin with enough force that it would carom off the back or side of the lane and somehow manage to careen over and take out the other pin.

I was tempted to just go after one pin. If I did that, it would be a tie. I would normally be fine with that. But Amber had started goading me and going for the tie was not an option. I was going for the win.

In hindsight, that was completely and utterly the stupidest thing I could have done. I gave that ball every ounce of power I could manage, and, on release, the ball rocketed down the wood lane, spinning like mad, but kept tracking right at the outside edge of the ten pin. Time slowed as the ball got closer and closer. I held my breath—it was going to be close!