My Teddy Bear Ch. 06

"Mmm. Ok you can go now."

He laughs. "That's it? Dismissed?"

"Yes, mummy owed daddy for earlier," I wink, and put his cock back inside his pants. I shuffle his shorts back up, and gently turn him around with my hands on his hips. "Now go and make us some lunch."

Laughing, he looks back at me as he leaves the room, and his eyes sparkle.

***

The rest of the day passes quickly. I manage to finally rouse Joanie after hammering on her door for over five minutes and convinced her to come down and have something to eat. Even though my appetite has been growing, I am not yet at the level of the proverbial 'eating for two,' and Teddy is a generous caterer in any case. There is plenty of food for everyone. He made a large summery salad, using a load of mum's herbs from the garden, with some of yesterday's bread warmed in the oven and spread with cream cheese. It's not wildly complicated, but it is delicious, and I reflect as I munch on it that I'm lucky to have a man who isn't incompetent in the kitchen.


Joanie eats with much less enthusiasm, but at least she eats. I'd tried in the last few days to get her interested in exercise to improve her mood, but she dismissed my explanation that it would make her feel good, even if the first day after would be uncomfortable. I'd eventually resorted to near begging her to come out and keep me company, but this had also fallen on deaf ears. Instead she'd just - as she is doing now - walk out of the kitchen door in a strop and sit at the end of the garden out of the sun, smoking her edgy little cigarettes and listening to angry-sounding music on an absurd set of headphones designed to look like rock music amplifiers.

Well, at least I tried. For the rest of the day, with Joanie moping about, Ted and I have to be extra careful not to do anything out of the ordinary when we're anywhere even close to being in her zone of awareness. It allows us some time to get on with chores to make life easier for Mum, including a thorough sweep and hoover of the all the floors in the house. I even riskily venture into Joanie's room, knowing that she's outside, and gingerly clean what I can by stepping around the mess on the dark floor. It's too dark really to see much, and the funk of a person living mostly without natural light makes it an unpleasant place to remain, so I don't have the inclination to snoop for any clues about her life. I just do what I can and get out of there.

Teddy does a load of laundry - bless him, when I teased him about my discovery of Mum doing his laundry, he immediately became very proactive and started quite aggressively taking on the role for the whole house. While cycles are in progress, he hand washes his van and clears out some assorted debris from the back. At about 3pm I take a cup of tea out to him and hidden from our sister's view by the corner of the house, we indulge in a few frustratingly short minutes of making out. My arousal is immediate, with creamy knickers and hard nipples pressed against his solid chest, but we fight our urges and force ourselves to part, standing at arm's length in case Joanie moves from her sulking spot.

In the late afternoon, once we're finished, we reconvene in the living room to watch some telly. Ted has a beer, tactfully not offering me one as has been customary in the last couple of months. I put on some new Netflix exclusive, not knowing anything about it, but it seems like some kind of schlocky horror thing that we can both laugh and not have to worry about taking it too seriously. We try to sit a respectable distance apart on the sofa, but I inevitably gravitate towards him, and before long I find myself lying with my head in his lap, eyes getting drowsy with sleep.

***

"Oh my gosh this is too cute!"

Mum's voice wakes me with a start. I'm disoriented. I feel Teddy's warmth under my head, and his reluctant movement as he seems to rouse as well.

I look to the door to see Mum standing there beaming, still wearing her going out clothes.

"Don't move, I should take a picture. This is adorable. I haven't seen you two look like this since you were children." She fishes her phone out of her pocket and snaps a photo.

Ted and I look at each other, the flush of being caught fortunately indistinguishable from mere embarrassment at Mum's words. I glance over at the telly and see that it's timed out of the show we were watching and is just looping endless silent adverts at us. The sleep overtook me completely, but Ted must have had the presence of mind to mute the TV, meaning he didn't just spark out like I did, and probably should have thought to wake me to move elsewhere. Careless of him, although it seems like we've got away with it this time.

"I was looking for you two to say thanks for tidying up the house so nicely. It was so lovely to come home to. I was supposed to be doing it tomorrow! You've really helped me out, thank you my loves."

We nervously smile at her. I'm sitting back up now, trying to put a conspicuous amount of distance between him and me, feeling bashful and exposed. I'm not wearing anything scandalous, but it was a hot afternoon so it's my customary summer outfit of short shorts and crop top, leaving a lot of skin on display. And I hadn't bothered to put a bra on, so the thin orange fabric was stretched against my aching boobs. Hardly appropriate attire for innocently sleeping on the couch with your head in your brothers lap, so it's extremely fortunate that Mum has only read innocence from the situation.

I force myself to be normal. "I managed to drag Joanie out of her room long enough to get her fed and to hoover her room, but she disappeared back inside after a few hours moping around. It's been a beautiful day though. Did you and Dad have a nice time?"

Her cheery expression falters at my question, and her response is a non-committal 'Nyeh' sound. She doesn't quite shrug but her arms twitch in a peculiar way. I'm really mystified as to what is going on with them.

"I want to thank you for helping out, so I'll make dinner," Mum is forcing herself to smile again. "Should be about an hour. Going to change first though. See you in a bit my loves."

Once she's gone, Ted and I look at each other and breathe an enormous mutual sigh of relief. That could easily have been very bad. He risks taking my hand and pulling me in for a kiss, before standing up and gesturing upstairs with his eyes. I nod and follow him, a careful distance behind.

***

The rest of the evening passes fairly uneventfully. We spent a bit of time listening to music in Teddy's room as has been entirely routine for weeks, we leave the door open to force ourselves to behave appropriately, and troop downstairs with Joanie reluctantly in tow once Mum calls up that dinner is ready.

"Where's Dad?" Teddy asks, first to the table.

"Out," says Mum primly, in that tone from this morning that is laden with some kind of tension that I can't figure out.

Joanie is indignant. "How come *he* gets to go out when we have to stay here?"

"Because he has a car and earns his own money so can go and do whatever he likes with it," Mum replies, with a mixture of resentment and venom blended up with a patronising tone.

At this, Ted and I look at each other. Something very weird is going on.

"Anyway, my darling children, dinner!" Mum's brought a tray of steaming pieces of roasted chicken and potatoes out and follows it with some colourful summer veg, some of it I know is from the garden.

"This looks great mum, thanks!" I tuck in with relish, trying not to help myself to more than I normally would and betray my growing appetite. Teddy is similarly enthusiastic and even Joanie has a smile on her face a few times while eating the meal. After dinner, I insist that Mum goes to take a bath while Teddy and I do the cleaning up. Of course, Joanie's back to her room the instant she's finished eating, so it gives us a bit of time alone.

"What do you think is going on with Mum and Dad?" Teddy asks with concern.

"It's so weird isn't it. This morning she wouldn't tell me where they were going - in fact she quite specifically ignored my question about it. Tonight, he's nowhere to be seen and she's both touchy and over-sentimental." I think in silence for a little while, scrubbing the dishes as I do so. "It certainly seems like they are having some kind of dispute."

We finish the clearing away and head up to our rooms. I pop my head round the door to thank Mum for dinner and say that I'm getting an early night due to being pooped from the day. She looks like she's been crying in the bath, although she hasn't got all the lights on so I could be mistaken.

After locking my bedroom door, I sneak over the landing to Ted's room with my night things and climb into bed with him. We are both genuinely tired and so for once we don't immediately have our hands all over each other. We cuddle and kiss and doze off happily, basking in each other, and I sleep *so* well for the first time in over a week.