Chapter 3

A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door, causing Aaron to look up from his reading. He’d been immersed in what Amber had read and his mind was blown. He also felt guilty and it showed on his face when the door opened and Amber appeared, followed by a teen who looked nothing like her.

Amber took one look at Aaron and joined some invisible dots. “You fucking snooped through my fucking tablet!” She accused fiercely in a whisper, careful to keep her voice down even as she was building up a good head of steam for another verbal assault.

“I read the part about privacy and that made me curious. You DID leave me in charge of it.” Aaron defended himself while wondering how she could possibly have known what he was up to.

“NO ONE snoops in my fucking tablet, ass breath!” She hissed, rushing over and snatching it off him.

“If you do this, your rules suggest that keeping your tablet private is the last thing you would worry about. Anyway, there’s nothing in there to be ashamed of,” he added, thinking that those words were the biggest lie he’d ever told.

Amber’s tablet was a cornucopia of porn, both commercial and amateur, the amateur variety both downloaded and self-made. It was all fascinating to Aaron!

“Sit down and introduce me to your daughter. Emily, isn’t it?” Todd asked, changing the subject and consciously choosing not to apologize, while looking at Emily instead of Amber.

“What’s it to you, freak? Don’t even look at me with that slimy expression. You disgust me!” Were her first words. Then to her mom, she continued, “You said we was getting the fuck out of here. I didn’t fucking think you meant we was just leaving the TV room, lard ass. Jeez you’re totally a dumb fuck ain’t you?”

“Just shut the fuck up you fucking pig nosed little shit! This guy is going to let us stay in his house so be fucking nice for once in your miserable life!”

Aaron was horrified, both at Emily’s attitude and that they spoke to each other like that. How had they survived so long without killing each other?

While Amber had been gone, he had continued reading through Amber’s Plan B - until getting sidetracked with the contents of her tablet - and had already made up his mind that there was no way he could survive in a house with the sort of rules Amber was proposing.

Right up until Emily went and opened her mouth, that is. Now all he could think of was stopping them from talking to each other like that OR dropping the F-bomb every other word. Maybe extreme measures were warranted after all.

“I didn’t say it was a done deal! I said you could move in if I approved your rules. From what I’m seeing now, I don’t believe you could begin to live by your own rules, even if I was comfortable implementing the deterrents. I mean really. Has Emily seen what you wrote?”

Amber was quiet for a moment, as if gathering herself for a major attack. Instead she said, as if carefully monitoring her thoughts before speaking, “No. Emily knows better than to touch my tablet. She values her life, for some reason.”

“What the fuck are you two jibber jabbing about? I’m missing fucking MASH and it’s a good one. And I had the god damned recliner that still works too!” She added, scowling at her mother. “Are we moving again or is this waste of breath fucking with me?”

“I MIGHT be moving in with Mr. Aaron here, if I can convince him that the rules I put together are worth his inconvenience. If I can and do, there’s a place for you as well, if you can abide the rules.”

Aaron was shocked. She’d actually listened to figure out his name, since he’d never actually given it to her, had used a bunch of words without a single F-bomb and had attempted to be polite!

Even Emily looked at her mom with a squint, not quite sure what to make of it. Perhaps she was playing a practical joke? They were always fucking with people’s heads.

“Well mom, if they’re your rules and you can convince him to accept them, then I’m all in. If you can live with whatever rules you came up with, then so can I!” She declared, deciding to play whatever game her mom had started.

“There are some pretty strong repercussions for screwing up, Emily,” Aaron admitted right off the bat. “Amber, can you give Emily a few examples?”

“Well, there’s the personal property rule, Amber started, after a pause to collect her thoughts. “We’re not even gonna fuc ... mess around with waiting to screw that one up. Everything we own is going in storage for the month, under his care, if Mr. Aaron agrees to take us in.”

“Yeah, everything but your precious fucking tablet, right?” Emily asked for clarification.

“Nope, that too. I will have to do without it for a month.”

“It wouldn’t be a month,” Aaron broke in. If we can’t make this work in a week, I’m certainly not going to commit to a month! But that’s assuming you can convince me to even try for a single minute.”