“Just Okay?” I asked, and he gave me a somewhat plaintive look.
“I know you probably don’t want to hear that, but Claire is ... not doing too well. I’m sure you noticed how she looked when she and Mike showed up.”
“Actually, I didn’t. What do you mean?” I admitted, and he at least made an attempt to hide his disappointment.
“She doesn’t sleep much anymore. Or eats, for that matter. Danny thinks she’s a little depressed. It was even worse when they came back after meeting you.” he said, and searched my face for any reaction. I made sure he would not find any, causing him to let out another sigh before he continued. “Anyway, we were doing mostly Okay. Ava had spent the entire day telling us about her stay with you, and the more Ava told us, the better Claire got. Apparently, you did a really good job with your Sister. Despite hating her, you showed her more care than Aaron had in a long time, but still managed to satisfy her. That gave her a new perspective.”
“Dude, I’m long past hating any of you.” I injected, and he perked up at that. “It’s like I told Ava. I don’t care about you anymore.” He slumped down again. “Okay, most of you. Logan can eat a bag of dicks for all I care. What he did to me disqualified him as a brother indefinitely. And your parents should stop acting like I’m a stubborn child they need to force to behave. Ava and Danny seem to try, and you at least tried once, so I can be friendly with you. Only Aaron is probably going to need a pretty good dentist if I ever see him again.”
He suddenly laughed about that.
“If only you knew.” Then he saw the look I was giving him. “We’ll get to that. I can see where you’re coming from, though. I just hope that, one day, you can see that Claire is trying too. Aaron really screwed her over on this one. That’s also one of the reasons they’ve moved in with us.” He took a breath to steady himself, straightened up, and then fixed me with a stern look. “As I said, we were Okay until dinner was over, and we got together for some fun. Then Ava pulled out the condoms and told us what was what.”
“I take it the male part of the family didn’t like the idea?” I grinned evilly.
“Not funny, Tim! I’d never have thought this shit would happen!” This took me aback. I had never heard him swear before. “We all agreed to use them, although Aaron only agreed begrudgingly. And by that, I mean that he tried to use her submissiveness to let him go bareback at first. It was nasty, Tim. That was the first time I realized how far he was taking this crap, but Ava insisted everyone use them. That showed Danny how effective your plan was, despite being so simple.”
“I’m glad it worked.” I nodded, trying not to show how much that praise got to me.
“When Claire noticed what Aaron was doing, she got right in his face and told him to respect their daughter’s wishes. You know that she was already angry with him because of your money, and after noticing the change in Ava, she wasn’t going to let Aaron undo that. So, he agreed. Then...” he took another deep breath. “ ... after about an hour, Claire stormed into the room, walked directly up to Aaron, and punched him square in the face.”
“WHAT?” I wasn’t sure if I was shocked or happy about the development...
“Yeah. Apparently, Aaron stealthed Ava.”
“What?” This time, I was just confused.
“Oh, it’s when the guy stealthily takes off the condom to have bareback sex with a woman without her knowledge.”
I stared at him for a good ten seconds with a stupid look on my face.
“Honestly? I’m more surprised that there’s a word for that, than about Aaron doing it.” I said, matter of fact. “But I still wouldn’t have thought he’d do that to his Princess!”
“Tim ... did you expect that to happen when you told Ava to make us wear condoms?” he asked quietly.
“Fuck no!” He actually flinched back when I looked at him angrily. “Look, my grand idea was to kinda limit his access to Ava, like they limited mine. But I thought that, If I simply told Ava to not let him touch her, he would just get it from someone else instead. But if she made him use a condom, he would still have access to her, but finishing would be just that little bit less satisfying and keep nagging him. Especially if he knew that she wouldn’t make me wear a condom! I wanted to hurt his pride, and make him experience being excluded himself. Not the shit he pulled!”
John thought about what I said, and finally nodded.
“Yeah, I think I understand what you mean. Although I’m starting to think you’re a closeted sociopath.” he chuckled, but then turned serious again. “Well, Claire and Aaron got into a massive fight over it. In the end she decided to simply not go back into their house and made Ava stay as well, since she didn’t want her to be alone with Aaron and Logan.”
“There a reason you specifically mentioned Claire’s boy toy as well?” That caused him to wince once more.
“Well ... that was the other thing. While Aaron lied about accepting her conditions, Logan did exactly what you thought Aaron would do if Ava denied him. He couldn’t even be bothered with the condoms. He just took off with Maggie and didn’t look at Ava the entire evening. That hurt her even more than what Aaron did. She told Danny that, at that moment, she thought she understood a little how you must have felt ever since you found out about us.”
“Not like it’s a contest, but she had at least one parent stand up for her.” I dismissed Ava’s relayed statement, and immediately felt like an ass about it, though I would not admit that to him. It helped that he only gave me a mournful look and didn’t comment on it as well. “So ... what does all that have to do with you buying the houses, and what do you need my help with?”
“To answer your first question, we’re not specifically buying the ones you printed out. We plan on buying the Condo near campus, but we found another one that’s closer to us. It has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and doesn’t look as bad as the one you picked out. The price is about the same, though, so that won’t be an issue.”
“Okay. But whyyyy?” I asked, trying to make him get to the point again.
“We thought that, for now, we could let Claire and Ava live in it. I know, it’s not what you had planned.” he hurriedly added the last part after seeing my expression change. “But think about the possibilities! You could let her pay rent with your cash as well, which would mean that you could use the money even sooner! Rent for a house is much higher than for a room in a Condo!”
“Sure it is!” I said angrily. “Only I’d have to tell her about HAVING that cash, and when you collect more than ten grand a year in cash payments, your bank will notify the IRS, which will ask where that cash came from. If you point to Maggie, Ava, and Claire paying their rent with it, they’ll look into their finances and notice that they shouldn’t have that kind of money, considering how they’re all unemployed!”
“Not necessarily. You see, after what happened, Mom and Dad decided that they want to be closer to us and support Claire. Officially, I could rent out to them.” he said confidently. “And if Claire and Aaron reconcile and move back in together, the house would be free for you to live in and pay rent yourself.”
“You serious? So, Mike’s gonna be able to pester me every day from now on?” I asked.
I could see this was not something he had thought about, and his enthusiasm was severely diminished. Though, after some consideration, I decided to let him go ahead with his plan. If the grandparents had a place to live closer to all of us, maybe they would finally stay long enough to actually work on our relationships instead of going on another cruise. Also, John knew a lot more about money than I did, and he had access to people who knew even more about it than him. If anything, I believed that he had no interest in being audited by the IRS. Then I noticed something he had said.