Stranded with My Stepbrother Chapter 116

Will

Florida. We were in Florida. Specifically, Miami.

“You couldn’t have told us we were going to Florida?” I asked Hoot.

“Not if I wanted y’all to stay safe if we got caught. Y’all and her family,” he replied.

I sighed. I couldn’t argue with his logic, I supposed. “Well, we’re here now. Is this where Hank, Jeanie, and Sam live?”

“It’s Greg, Mindy, and Sam now, but yeah,” he said.

“I think I’ll call him Hank,” I decided.

McKenzie frowned at me. “Because that worked so well with my parents?”

I winced. “On second thought, I think I’ll just let Hoot take the lead.”

“There’s usin’ your noodle,” he said.

“Can we also stop at a mall and get some more clothes? Much as I love scrubbing these with hotel soap…” I requested.

He shook his head. “Cameras.”

“Great.” I looked at McKenzie. “How are you feeling about all this?”

“Nervous,” she admitted.

I took her hand and squeezed it. “Hoot and I will be there. Maybe Hank—or Greg, or whoever—won’t be hateful. It could happen.”

“You don’t make it sound very likely,” she responded nervously.

I shrugged. “I don’t actually know the man. And like Hoot said, people change. Maybe he regrets driving away your parents.”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah, I’m sure that has to be it. I mean, I’d feel terrible if I’d caused my daughter that much pain. He must regret it.”

It took everything in me to give her a reassuring smile and agree, “Sure.”

Hoot snorted. “You’re a terrible liar, Will.”

McKenzie wrinkled her nose. “You really are. But that’s probably a good trait.”

“Not in business. But I wanted to be a professional football player, so, I guess I wasn’t focusing too much on my ability to sham people,” I said.

“You’ve sure got the muscles for it,” she murmured.

The lust in her tone made my dick twitch. She hadn’t been able to take me yet, down her throat or up inside her wet pussy, but what we’d done last night was still, hands down, the best sex I’d had in a long time. My body would have happily dragged her into the very back of the Escalade and gone for a repeat, but my brain reminded me I might not get any for a while. That made me, and my dick, very sad.

Stupid Hank.

“What made you decide not to be a football player?” she asked.

It drew me out of my imagination where I was kicking Hank out of a moving car. “My grandfather. He wanted me to pursue business. He doesn’t really like when things don’t go his way.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” She gave my hand a supportive squeeze.

“It is what it is. Maybe he’s regretting not just letting me pursue football now. Now, I’m a threat.”

“The second he realized you had a soul, he shoulda given up on havin’ you go into the family business. But that’s family for you. Always thinkin’ they know what’s right,” Hoot said.

“And yet, we’re going to go see Hank,” I muttered.

He glared at me in the rearview mirror. “Just cuz they’re assholes don’t mean you leave ’em to die. Well, maybe your pawpaw, but he’s burnin’ the world.”

“I don’t know how I’d feel if he’d actually raised me, and I didn’t just see him on visiting days,” I admitted. “Maybe he would have succeeded in making me like him. Or at least I’d feel a lot worse about betraying him.”

“You would have turned out just as you are,” McKenzie insisted. “You just would have had a lot more fights.”

“Probably,” I agreed.

We fell silent while Hoot fought the busy Miami traffic. She and I were both tired and dozed in and out.

Finally, he turned down a very nondescript middle-class street where nondescript middle-class kids were playing in their yards, and older people were lounging outside on lawn chairs, watching.

I recognized Hank and Jeanie, sitting out in their lawn chairs, almost immediately. My grandfather had footage of them as well, after all. I think every time a squirrel pissed near the property a camera was activated.

I wondered how many hours of footage he’d watched of me and what I’d been doing at the time.

The thought made me shudder.

“You’re going in with an open mind, aren’t you?” McKenzie asked, frowning as Hoot parked the Escalade right in front of the Collins’ house.

“I’ll try,” I said. “But… I was thinking of something kind of disturbing. It didn’t even have to do with Hank and Jeanie.”

“Oh?” she looked up at me expectantly.

“I was just… wondering how many hours of video my grandfather watched of me,” I explained.

She made a face. “Oh, gross. You don’t think he really did, do you? I mean, you weren’t causing any trouble until recently.”

“I’m pretty sure he did,” I sighed.

McKenzie then shuddered as well. “Your grandfather is a freak!”

“Tell me about it,” I grunted.

“Y’all done? Can we get this show on the road?” Hoot asked.

We looked up. I’d forgotten he was there. Hell, I’d barely remembered Hank and Jeanie were there. “Sorry. Yes.”

He opened his door and hopped out.

McKenzie took a deep breath while Hank stood and eyed Hoot suspiciously as he approached. “I suppose we might as well get out, too.”

“Probably a good plan.” I opened the door and stepped out, holding a hand out to McKenzie.

“... Masterson,” Hoot was saying as she took my hand and came out after me.

I put a steadying arm around her shoulders. Jeanie’s eyes flicked to us, and a hand flew to her mouth.

Perhaps I looked like my grandfather? I’d always been told I took after my father, though, so I couldn’t quite explain her reaction.

“You came here to tell us Masterson’s on our tail? News flash, you old hick, he’s always been looking for us. Hasn’t found us yet,” Hank said.

Charming.

Hoot didn’t seem offended. Or, if he was, he hid it well. “He knows where y’all are. He’s just waitin’ on revenge ’till he gets outta prison. He was, anyhow. Now? Will the Third messed up his plans. He’s goin’ after everybody.”

“Baby Will? What happened with him?” Hank asked, frowning.

I waved.

“You’re Baby Will?” Hank said, looking me up and down.

“I’m thirty, just like Sam,” I replied with annoyance. “It’s been thirty years.”

“And, what, you’re here to tell me Caleb and Jacey are in trouble, too? They in the SUV? You can tell them to go fuck themse—” Hank began.

Jeanie made a strangled sound. “Greg, stop! Just stop. Can’t you see they brought our granddaughter with them?!”

Hank dropped his gaze to McKenzie, who gave him a weak smile and a wave of her own.

“She’s the spitting image of my Caleb,” Jeanie went on, clutching her hands over her heart.

“She is not. She’s all Jacey. Except for maybe the hair,” Hank snorted.

Privately, from what little I’d seen of Caleb, I had to side with Hank. McKenzie’s fair features and wonderfully curvy body had to come from her mother.

“Hi,” McKenzie said tentatively. “I’m McKenzie.”

“Are Jacey and Caleb in the truck and just trying to soften me up with my granddaughter?” Hank growled.

It was official. I knew I was going to be punching this man in the face before we parted ways. “I’m afraid we can’t find them right now,” I responded for all of us.

“Well, they’re not here,” Hank sniffed. “We’d never harbor those disgusting little traitors, would we, Mindy?”

Jeanie looked stricken. “I…”

Hank rolled his eyes. “That’s what time will do. Make you go soft.”

“They’re our children,” Jeanie said softly.

“They could have gotten us killed!” Hank barked. “And our son. Poor Sam. May he never know about all this bullshit.”

“So… you don’t want me to meet Uncle Sam?” McKenzie interjected.

Jeanie and Hank looked at her.

“Well, sweetie, you see…” Jeanie stuttered.

“No. That would be a terrible idea,” Hank said gruffly.

I resisted the urge to roll back my sleeves and punch him right at that moment. It got even harder when I saw the crushed expression on McKenzie’s face. “You’re ashamed of me?” she whispered.

“I mean, not because of anything you did, sweetie…” Jeanie tried to placate her.

“You should never have been born. You were born out of sin,” Hank said. “But like your grandma said, it’s not your fault.”

McKenzie swallowed hard, and a tear trickled down her cheek.

My hands balled into fists, and I took a step forward, but she put a hand on my chest. “No, Will.”

I grit my teeth so hard I was sure I was going to crack a molar, but I did as I’d promised. I followed her lead.

“We can go now, Hoot,” McKenzie said softly.

“Reckon we can. We done the best we could. If these idiots want to stay sittin’ like fish in a barrel, ain’t nothin’ more we can do about it,” Hoot replied. He gestured for us to get back in the Escalade.

“Wait!” Jeanie cried. “Please, don’t just go. There’s so much I want to ask, so much I want to know….”

McKenzie shook her head. “No you don’t. Not really.”

“We got to go to Sam now,” Hoot murmured, low enough that Hank should not have heard a word.

But he did. “You leave our son alone,” the hard-headed fool hissed.

“Wish I could, Greg, but it’s his choice and his life. If he wants to save himself, I ain’t gonna deny him the opportunity,” Hoot said.

Hank drew himself to his full, seventy-eight-year-old beer-bellied height. “You listen here, you uneducated piece of trailer trash….”

“Greg.” Jeanie stood and grabbed Hank’s arm. “We’re not going to be able to stop them. I think the best plan is to go with them and try to explain things to Sam.”

Hank stared Hoot down, but Hoot was a stone cold killer. McKenzie and I both knew it. And I think, by the time the staring contest ended with Hank looking down and muttering at the ground, Hank did as well.

“I’ll pack some things,” Jeanie said, turning toward the house.

I heard the sound of an engine and the slow roll of tires. Just down the block, a black sedan with dark-tinted windows was crawling this way. When I looked at the windshield, the sedan suddenly sped up.

“Uh… Hoot?” I alerted him.

Hoot turned and saw the sedan as well. “No time. Everyone in the truck!”

Hank grabbed Jeanie’s arm just as the sedan’s passenger window rolled down, and the shooting started.

“Sonofa…” Hoot drew his gun and fired back while the rest of us hit the dirt.

It turned out, not only was Hoot a stone cold killer, but he was a crack shot. The windshield shattered and the sedan rolled right into a lamppost. Neighbors and children rushed for their doors, screaming, several with phones out and calling 911.

“GET IN THE TRUCK, DANGNABBIT!!!” Hoot screamed.

The passenger door of the sedan opened, but before the man in the suit could even get his bearings, Hoot shot him dead center in the forehead.

Jeanie shrieked and sobbed while Hank dragged her into the Escalade. I grabbed McKenzie and lifted her inside before she got her feet under her.

Hoot shot out the back passenger window as well, just for good measure, but the seat behind it was empty. He then put his gun back in a holster under his vest and got in the driver’s seat.

“I think Will is getting more legroom than I am,” Hank complained from behind McKenzie and me as Hoot tore down the residential street.

“Greg!” Jeanie bellowed.

We all looked at her, surprised by her authoritative tone.

“Yes, dear?” Hank asked, clearly startled and a bit scared of this new Jeanie.

“Shut up!” Jeanie ordered.

Hank swallowed. “Yes, dear.”