Sweet Dreams

by Kristen Ashley

  “You’re Dad’s girlfriend. If a dad’s girlfriend is hot, she’s always a milf,” Jonas told me.

  “Is that a rule?” I asked.

  “Yeah, one I just made up,” he returned.

  “You can’t just make things up,” I told him.

  “Sure you can,” he retorted. “Anyway, a girlfriend could turn into a stepmom and a stepmom is a kinda mom so she can also be a milf.”

  Tate pushed the door open, held it for Jonas and I to precede him and he muttered as I went by, “He’s got you there, Ace.”

  “Tate, we’re talking about milfs,” I shot back.

  “He’s still got you,” Tate said on a grin.

  “Milf? What? Where? Who?” Shambles called from under the counter, he popped up and he looked at me then Tate. “Petal! Dude!” Then he looked at Jonas and shouted, “Groovintude! Is this Little Dude?”

  “Shambles, meet Tate’s son, Jonas,” I introduced.

  “Hey,” Jonas greeted.

  “Little Dude! Hey back, you want a smoothie?”

  Of course, Shambles had smoothies.

  I sighed. Tate chuckled again. I turned and glared up at him.

  “Yeah, can I have –” Jonas started and Shambles lifted a hand.

  “Let me rock your world,” Shambles requested.

  “Cool,” Jonas smiled.

  I walked to the counter. “When you’re done with Jonas’s smoothie, rock my world too.”

  “Got it,” Shambles said then his eyes moved from Tate to Jonas, he leaned in to me and advised in a stage whisper, “Petal, talkin’ about milfs in front of kids…” he trailed off and shook his head.

  I pointed at Jonas and exclaimed, “He brought it up!”

  Shambles leaned back, his eyebrows up. “He did?”

  I tipped my head back and asked the ceiling, “Can we stop talking about milfs?”

  Jonas ignored me by declaring, “She is one.”

  I tipped my head down to glare at Jonas.

  “Big Dude is right, he’s got you there,” Shambles muttered and went to the blender.

  “Where’s Sunny?” I asked in an effort to change the subject.

  “Bringin’ down the sun. We had a quiet afternoon so she headed out,” Shambles answered.

  “Lauren said you’re the master of Moist Factor Five Hundred,” Jonas put in.

  “Little Dude! I so am!” Shambles fairly shouted and looked at me. “Did you try it?” I nodded. “Was I wrong?” I shook my head. He looked at Tate. “You?”

  Tate’s arm slid along my shoulders and he tucked me into his side. “Outstanding.”

  I was pretty sure he meant the frosting, or, more like the mess created by the frosting and the way we cleaned it up.

  I didn’t inform Shambles of this.

  “You wanna try Moist Factor Five Hundred?” Shambles offered Jonas. “I got plenty.”

  Jonas didn’t even look at his father before he replied, “Nah, thanks. Lauren made me a cake and I don’t wanna ruin it.”

  My heart turned over again and my eyes flew to Shambles who was mid-scoop of something he was putting in Jonas’s smoothie and his eyes were on me.

  I didn’t know many children but I’d never known a child to turn down a treat, not even when their accepting might ruin something nice someone had done for them.

  Shambles tore his eyes from mine and went on scooping, muttering, “Good call.”

  I curled closer to Tate but my eyes moved to Jonas who was watching Shambles make his smoothie.

  Then in my ear, I heard Tate ask softly, “What’d I say?”

  I looked at him and nodded. “Just like you.”

  His arm gave me a squeeze and his hand lifted so his finger could slide along my jaw.

  “Yeah, baby,” he whispered, “just like me.”

  I melted deeper into Tate and Shambles broke the moment when he called, “What about you, Big Dude? Am I rockin’ your world too?”

  Tate dropped his hand and looked at Shambles. “Knock yourself out.”

  I felt something funny and I looked down at Jonas. When I did, his eyes darted away. I could only see his profile but, even so, I saw he was biting his lip to hide a smile.

  He’d seen Tate touch me; he’d probably even heard what we said.

  And he liked it.

  I relaxed into Tate and bit my lip to hide my own smile.

  * * * * *

  I was making Rice-A-Roni when my cell rang. I went to the opposite counter, grabbed my phone, saw it said “Krys Calling”, touched the button and put it to my ear.

  “Everything okay, Krys?”

  “It’s Jim-Billy,” I heard. “And that’s what we wanna know about you.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Krystal, Wendy, Dalton, Nadine, Amber, Jonelle, everybody. So?”

  “Jonelle?”

  “Yeah, and… so?”

  “Jonas called me a milf.”

  Silence. Then a loud cackle of laughter.

  Then, not into the phone, I heard Jim-Billy saying through a voice suffocated with mirth, “Jonas called her a milf.”

  Then I heard more laughter in the background and Jim-Billy back at my ear.

  “Everything’s okay,” he declared.

  Then he disconnected.

  I rolled my eyes, touched the button and put the phone down. Then I smiled at it on the counter.

  Tate and Jonas walked in from outside and Jonas went right to the cake and stuck his finger in it, swiping off frosting and then putting his finger in his mouth.

  This was the third time he’d done this.

  “Keep doing that, honey, you’ll get cake and no frosting and what good is that?” I warned (also for the third time).

  “Maybe you can make more frosting?” Jonas suggested.

  “No, but I can cut the cake so you get the non-frosting bits and Tate and I get the yummy with frosting bits.”

  “Yummy?” Jonas asked, his eyes dancing.

  “You’ve tasted the frosting,” my head tilted to the cake, “and you’ve come back for more. You know it’s yummy.”

  “No one says yummy,” Jonas informed me.

  “I do,” I informed him back.

  “You’re hot but you’re also a little goofy,” he returned and grinned.

  I looked at Tate. “Can you ask your son to stop calling me hot?”

  “Calls ‘em as he see ‘em, babe,” Tate replied, grinning like his son.

  “He’s ten,” I reminded Tate.

  Tate shrugged.

  I looked between them both and I did this twice.

  Then I went back to the Rice-A-Roni and I did this wondering if Tate fathered a child or he’d been cloned.

  * * * * *

  Dinner consumed, we were eating cake and ice cream (and I hadn’t given Jonas the non-frosting bits because I was a pushover) at the dining room table when Tate’s phone rang.

  I noticed Jonas’s head twist quickly when it did and I also noticed his body get tight.

  My eyes moved slowly to Tate to see he was looking at the display on his phone, his face hard, then he looked at me.

  “A minute, babe,” he said, pushed his chair back, tousled Jonas’s hair and walked to the sliding glass door, flipping his phone open, putting it to his ear and answering with an impatient, “Yeah?”

  He slid the door open, closed it behind him, turned right and disappeared.

  I looked to Jonas to see he was no longer eating his cake like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted like he’d done his entire dinner. He was shoving it around and slopping melted ice cream on it.

  “You okay, Jonas?” I asked, his head came up and he straightened.

  “Yup,” he answered, the lightness of his tone forced.

  “You sure?” I asked.

  “Sure I’m sure,” he answered.

  “You want more cake?”

  “Nah.”

  “You want to help me with
the dishes?”

  He looked at the kitchen as if it and any activity you could do in it was foreign to him then at me. “All right,” he agreed uncertainly.

  We got up and took the plates to the kitchen. I rinsed, Jonas loaded the dishwasher. I did this while looking out the window to the deck about seven hundred times. I couldn’t see Tate and I also couldn’t hear him.

  “She does this,” Jonas stated and my eyes went from the window to him.

  “Sorry, honey?”

  “Mom, she calls Dad when I’m here. Rags on him.”

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  He knew that? How?

  The only way was for her to tell him (because I knew Tate wouldn’t) or for him to figure it out (which I knew Jonas could, he was a smart kid and kids noticed a lot more than adults gave them credit for, or at least that was what I heard).

  “Um…” I mumbled.

  “It’s okay, he’s used to it.”

  It was not okay. Of course, this was not my place to say so I kept my mouth shut.

  “I’ll tell the judge I wanna live here,” Jonas announced unexpectedly and my eyes shot to him.

  “Sorry?”

  “Can you tell Dad that?” he asked.

  I took in a breath and wondered what to do in this situation. Then I decided most parents probably wondered what to do in a variety of situations that occurred daily and they went with their gut. So I decided to go with my gut, grabbed a kitchen towel, wiped my hands, tossed the towel on the counter, leaned down and shoved the drawer into the dishwasher then closed the door. Then I curled my fingers around his shoulder and moved us both so we were leaning sideways against the counter.

  “Do you know –?” I started.

  “About the papers?” he asked and I nodded. “Yeah, she talks about it all the time. She’s pretty pi… I mean, upset.”

  I bit my lip.

  Then I went with my gut again and cupped the underside of his jaw with my hand, tipping his head up to me and leaning slightly down to get close to him.

  “Yes, baby, I’ll tell him,” I spoke gently. “What I’d like to know is, why won’t you?”

  Jonas stared up at me, his eyes wide, his lips parted and something about his astonished look set me on edge. He acted old for his age, held intelligent conversations (when he wasn’t talking about milfs that was). He was young but he wasn’t stupid or childlike.

  He looked like a child right then, vulnerable with a hint of innocent wonder.

  Then I figured out what set me on edge.

  I guessed that Neeta didn’t talk gently to her son and she didn’t touch him gently either. He’d never felt it, at least not from a woman or, at least, not on any kind of normal basis. The other night, when she referred to him, she called him her “kid”. I’d thought nothing of it at the time but now it seemed detached. She didn’t call him “my son” or “my boy”. Just “my kid”.

  This beautiful child was just her kid.

  My heart turned over again as my stomach clenched and I had to take a cautious breath so he wouldn’t hear it and I could still control the tears that threatened.

  He recovered and whispered, “She finds out, she’ll freak.”

  “Finds out you want to live with your Dad?”

  He nodded.

  Of its own accord, though I didn’t do a thing to stop it, my hand slid from his jaw, across his soft cheek, over his thick hair and then down to curve around the side of his neck.

  “And she’ll freak if she knows you’re willing to talk to the judge?”

  “That and that I told Dad. But if she finds out and I say I didn’t say it to him, she’ll believe me.”

  “She will?”

  “I don’t lie to her.”

  I thought this was likely because she lit into him if he did.

  Still, I asked, “You don’t?”

  “No. She’s not… she’s… Blake… she’s used to getting lied to. She knows when someone’s lyin’. She told me that Dad and me, Grandpop, Uncle Wood, we were the only ones never lied to her. She always believes me. I just gotta let Dad know and I gotta do it so I don’t hafta lie to her.”

  I studied him.

  Then I nodded. “Okay, honey, I’ll tell your Dad.”

  He looked visibly relieved and I instantly wished I’d gotten into a catfight with his mother so I had a chance to get my licks in.

  “Thanks, Lauren,” he said quietly.

  “Laurie,” I corrected.

  “Laurie?”

  “What your Dad and my friends call me.”

  He smiled a small smile. “Okay. Laurie.”

  “All right, baby,” I whispered. “And Jonas?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Before you leave, I’ll give you my number. You have anything you need, anytime, call me. And if you have anything you need to keep from your Mom but you need your Dad to know and you feel you can’t tell him, you let me know and I’ll tell him for you. We got a deal?”

  His smile got a bit bigger. It wasn’t his normal, broad, confident smile but it was better.

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  “Now, one more chance, you want more cake?”

  The smile came back full force.

  “Yeah.”

  “I rinsed your plate, honey, get me another one.”

  I was cutting Jonas’s second slice of cake when Tate came in. Both Jonas and I looked at him and I noted his face wasn’t hard anymore but he didn’t look happy.

  “Jonas is having more cake, honey. You want another piece?”

  “No, Ace. Thanks,” Tate answered and I lifted my brows to him. His answer was to close his eyes slowly, tilt his chin in a subtle negative then open them and look at Jonas.

  I wouldn’t find out what had happened on the deck until after Jonas ate his cake, after Jonas and I finished the dishes and after we watched a movie that was so gory, I spent the vast majority of it with my face in Tate’s chest which Jonas thought was amusing, considering he’d seen that movie a gazillion (his words) times and he thought the gore factor was average (again his words). It was also after Jonas went downstairs to his bedroom (one of the rooms to which I didn’t open the door when Tate first went away but had since seen and cleaned).

  When Jonas was off, Tate went straight to the fridge and got a beer. I followed him to the kitchen, his hand came out of the fridge and he lifted up a bottle in silent question. I shook my head. He twisted off the cap, tossed it into the garbage and then led me out to the back patio where we sat in wrought iron chairs. I suspected he took me here because the front deck was just over Jonas’s room and, if he had his windows open, he could hear.

  “Well?” I asked when we’d settled.

  “She’s off on one,” he told me, taking a pull of his beer.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Said she was comin’ tomorrow to get him.”

  “Why?”

  In the dark, I saw his head turned to me. “You.”

  “Me?”

  “You’re here. She’s got one of her posse spyin’ and they said you’re still here. So she says she doesn’t want him here if you’re here.”

  “I’ll go to the hotel,” I offered. “I’ll do it tonight.”

  “The fuck you will, babe.”

  “Tate –”

  “She doesn’t control your life. She doesn’t control my life. And, when my son is with me, she doesn’t control his life.”

  He sounded pretty angry, in fact, his voice was vibrating so I said softly, “Okay, honey.”

  “You went to the hotel last night, Laurie and one of those bitches saw you with Ned and Betty. She thought you were out.”

  Darn, darn and double darn.

  How could Neeta have a posse? Who could even like her? And why did I lose it and walk out on Tate?

  So stupid.

  I stopped mentally kicking myself and asked, “Would she have given him to you if she knew I was still here?”

  “Nope,” he r
eplied then took another pull of his beer. “She wasn’t home when I got there anyway. Neither was Jonas. But Blake sure was. She rolled in half an hour late. That whole time I sat in my truck at the curb.”

  “Oh Tate,” I whispered.

  He shook his head and said, “I called Pop after I hung up on her. He’s gonna see what he can do.”

  “What if she comes?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care.”

  “You can’t have Jonas see a scene like last week.”

  He sighed. Then he tilted his head back and took in more beer.

  “Jonas and I talked,” I told him and his head turned to me.

  “Yeah?”

  “He knows about the papers,” I started but stopped when that scary energy started to flash off Tate.

  “Christ,” he whispered then repeated, “Christ.” He shook his head. “Can she once act like a goddamned Mom and shield him from shit? He’s fuckin’ ten. We started this shit when he was born and since he could understand words, she told him we were battlin’ every time we were doin’ it. Is it that hard to let him be a kid and let his parents deal with their own shit?”

  I thought this was a good question but I didn’t have an answer to it.

  “Sympathy?” I guessed.

  “Damn straight, Ace. She’s been tryin’ to turn him since I could remember. Hell, she probably talked trash about me when he was in the womb.”

  “You weren’t together then?”

  “Fuck no,” he answered.

  This surprised me. “You weren’t?”

  “No, babe,” he answered firmly.

  “But, don’t you kind of have to be together to make a baby?”

  “Yeah, and you have to be together to trap a man into marrying you.”

  I gasped. Tate nodded.

  “She pushed the marriage card the minute after she skipped her first period. The bitch has been on the pill since she was fourteen. Not even a scare. Religious about it. All of a sudden, she’s knocked up. All of a sudden, that is, after she’d been naggin’ me about gettin’ hitched.”

  “Why didn’t you?” I asked gently.

  “Unconscious self-preservation,” he muttered, took a sip of his beer, swallowed and finished, “thank fuck.”

  I drew in a soft breath. Then I sat back, looked into the night and let it go.

  Then I told Tate, “Jonas wants to live with you.”