by Bella Knight
Ace and Lily came over to show everyone how to train the dogs, and how to socialize them. Dog training became part of the rotation.
Shared Custody
Callie woke up slowly, delighted at the lack of sound coming from the girls’ room. She had gotten over the shared-custody sadness, as she was able to double-time her college work. She finished off classes as fast as she physically could, adding on a third and fourth. And, there were extra perks.
She turned over, seeing Ivy asleep on the bed. She gently kissed her with butterfly kisses and got up to work out. She sweated and grunted through a weight training video. Then, she showered, then prepared and ate a corn muffin with butter, two pieces of bacon, and a handful of strawberries for breakfast. Then, she edited and turned in a paper. After grabbing a cola, she researched and wrote a second paper, then switched to watching videos and taking notes. She used references from them for her new paper, then switched classes. She walked the dog and played with her before she sat back down to watch another video.
The automatic coffee machine turned on, and Callie prepared some chocolate mocha goodness for her wife. Ivy padded in, accepted the coffee, then tore a corn muffin to shreds with her fingers and ate it. Callie finished the paper, watched another video, and followed Ivy back to the bedroom after Ivy’s eyes opened. She took off Ivy’s cami.
“Hello,” she said.
“Good morning,” said Ivy. “How…”
Her words were cut off by Callie’s kiss, a scorcher, filled with vim and naughtiness.
“Mmm,” she said, as Callie kissed her down her neck.
Callie stroked her, pinching her nipples, gently rubbing them in between her fingers. Ivy’s back arched. Callie sucked each breast, one by one. Then, she kissed her way down Ivy’s stomach. Ivy cried out as Callie found her button with her fingers, and shook her fingers, bringing Ivy to a screaming climax.
“Feels good not having to be silent, doesn’t it?” asked Callie.
“Mmf,” said Ivy, reaching for Callie.
They kissed, Ivy nipping at the lobes of Callie’s ears, running her teeth down her neck. She slid her fingers over Callie’s backside, up her back, to her neck, and back down. She kissed and sucked her breasts, flicking her tongue on each breast. Callie arched and moaned. Ivy slid down, propped up Callie’s legs, and found her button with her tongue. Callie’s back arched, and she screamed as she came again and again. Finally, they laid together, holding each other tight.
“Damn,” said Callie. “Now I have to take a shower again.” They laughed.
Showered and dressed, Ivy went to Dirty Vegas to open up, and Callie took her laptop with her pick up the girls. They were making paper dragons out of shiny paper when she arrived. Hu kissed Bao and her grandmother goodbye, and both girls sang the flower song, skipping to the car. They loaded up, and Callie heard a running commentary on how Bao was learning to be a Chinese teacher online, and how they ate a special dinner with dumplings stuffed with seafood. They sang more songs, and soon they were at the Nighthawks Club.
The girls ran in to see Henry, who had set up the Math and Science Game Creator Kit. The students had to devise card, board, and online games and apps that taught math and science to other students at the same or a lower level than they were at. There were similar games designed for languages —English, Paiute, Spanish, Chinese and, now, American Sign Language. The babies were learning sign, as were their parents, to help non-verbal kids communicate. The older kids loved the idea. They devised a card game to teach fractions, then they studied the history of the Native peoples who had lived in Nevada.
They created their own fruit snacks, then ate them. Then, it was time for Math Wars, where the problems got increasingly complex. They got in teams, one older child, one younger, to challenge each other on the questions.
Hua Bao came in for her first Chinese lesson, and the girls taught everyone else the flower song. They also gave a report on their visit to pick up Hua Bao.
After their Chinese lesson, the children moved the chairs and tables and started on their balance lessons. Then, they created and ate their own lunches, banana-chocolate rollups, and strawberry-grape sticks. All with strawberry yogurt dipping sauce, and cucumber-and-tomato skewers. They read on the beanbag chairs, then it was time for Spanish and Paiute. They had conversations where one student spoke in Paiute and the other in Spanish, then they all translated the conversation into English and Chinese. Then, they took time to learn on their tablets.
By the time they went home, all four of them were exhausted. Bao sent her daughter off with a kiss, and the girls slept at Callie’s place. Callie read them a story about a powerful dragon, and then she went to bed. Ivy was very late. She snuck in, kissed the children, received a dog kiss, kissed her wife, showered, and went to bed.
The next day, Ivy called Ace, after her coffee and round of songs with Hu and Grace. The girls had graduated from flower songs to Taylor Swift and Katy Perry. Bao came up for breakfast.
“This is putting a crimp in my style,” she whispered into Callie’s ear as she flipped pancakes. “I wanted shower sex this morning.”
Callie smiled a very dangerous smile and flipped the strawberry pancakes. “Wait ‘till tonight, love,” she said and kissed Ivy.
Ivy walked the dog with the girls and found out one of the boys at lunch had burped loudly, disgusting everyone. She also discovered that Henry had more dogs, thanks to his ever-growing menagerie of people he kept on the farm. Despite walking a dog, the girls wanted to see the new puppies at Henry’s house.
Ivy thought longingly of the duplex she had chosen with Callie, within walking distance to the restaurant on the other side of the park, closer to both their jobs. Despite the funding from the flight and hotel, flying halfway across the world had been expensive. Ivy also had a lot of people working for her that all needed things like getting paid. And there were taxes, insurance, the bands, and food costs. Should swing it in two months, she thought. Hope it stays on the market that long. She got them back and ready for school, tablets in their packs, hair braided. She kissed everyone except Bao, who got a hug, and she took off for the bar.
Ace was already there, receiving a delivery. “Where’s Lily?” she asked.
“Gestating our baby,” he said, matter-of-factly. Bob, the “beer guy” from their very large standing order, congratulated him. Ivy caught him in a bone-crushing hug.
“Hey!” he said. “Watch the threads!” She snorted, as he was wearing a leather jacket.
“She left a kiddie glove and ball next to my glove and ball,” he said, struggling with tears as Bob took his signature and left. Ivy drew him in for another hug.
“Boy or girl?” asked Ivy.
“Dunno. Six weeks.” She held him close. “I suck at being a dad. My own brother and my I’m not Bruce Wayne.” Ivy laughed. “Both my little brothers live in a fricking school far away.”
Ivy sucked in a breath and he said, “Ivy, I’m so sorry, I didn’t think.”
Ivy drew him inside, next to the two hand carts laden with beer just inside the door.
“They are there for the same reason my daughter is there. It makes a lot of fucking sense. My daughter can’t live my loud rock n’ roll life and is just learning to communicate. Visiting only every two weeks is killing me, but she is progressing so fast as long as I stay out of it. My presence at this point makes it worse, not better.” They each took a cart and pushed them into the cooler. “Same thing with your two. Didn’t you say to me last night that they are both taking college-level AP classes? That they have two new dogs to train? That four other kids show up to help with the new dogs?”
“Absolutely,” he said, as they unloaded the carts with practiced efficiency. “Here, they’d be distracted. There, they’re working their asses off. And, I’ve got so damn much Nighthawks business to attend to, it isn’t funny.”
They left the cooler. Ivy turned to him, glaring, as she shut the cooler door. “What the hell do you have? Why aren’t yo
u giving me stuff to do?”
“You’ve got the two girls…”
“We share custody, and you know it. Let me take up the slack, stupid, or I’ll hit you on the head with my own damn baseball bat.” Ivy’s eyes were snapping with anger.
He held up his hands. “Sorry, just got caught up in the busyness. My wife adopted and is training two more dogs, and now we’re pregnant, and there’s the club, and the mortgage, and the tuition for a very expensive school and extra classes. I am dipping into funds I shouldn’t touch, even with my trust fund.” His evil parents had left him a trust fund. “Still can’t get my hands on Keiran’s trust fund. The courts and lawyers have everything frozen.”
Ivy listened intently to her best friend.
He laughed. “Actually, that’s kinda stupid.” He went to the ice machine, and they both started shoveling ice into bar carts. “I was saving the money for college, and they’ll have two years of it done and graduate from high school at the same time. They took three classes each for summer session.”
“Tell me about it,” said Ivy. “There’s the club, and two kids, and a trip to China, which I missed out on, I might add.”
“You could have gone. We would have held the fort here.” Ace broke up a clump of ice with the scooper.
“They were paying for the flights and hotel for Callie and the girls, not me.”
“Oh, fuck,” said Ace. “Sorry.”
“Then we found the perfect duplex. A fixer-upper, but that’s what we do. We violate child labor laws and get Henry’s kids to do stuff. He’s apparently got a new batch.” Ace snorted. They both checked to see if the carts were fully stocked. “It’ll take us two months to get the money in the pot for the high down payment we want to make, to push the monthly cost down to a reasonable level. By then, it might have gone bye-bye.”
They started pushing the carts towards the two bars. “I can front you the money, you can get the duplex, and you can pay me back over a few months,” said Ace.
“That’s… that’s sweet, but you have a new baby on the way.”
He snorted. “Sweet? Me?” They both laughed. He sidled his cart up to his bar and started scooping ice. “Besides, the baby isn’t coming for seven and a half more months. You’ll have paid me back by then, right?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “We literally cannot stock enough beer for this crowd. The tourists think it’s super-cool to rub elbows with bikers, and the bands rock big time.”
“So, shut the fuck up and take a short-term loan. You can even pay me interest.”
She raised her eyebrows at him. “You give me permission to pay you interest?” She laughed. “Alright. I’ll give you and Lily some numbers by the end of the night.”
Nina came up, and said, “What the fuck are you doing with my cart?” She wrested it away from Ivy and took off.
“Hey, aren’t I your boss?” Ivy called out to her. Nina flipped her off, then began filling up the ice in the bar on the other side of the room.
“Henry’s relative,” said Ace. “Every damn one of them is a warrior.”
Lily swept in. “I’m fine, and so are the puppies,” she said. “Vet and OB/GYN in one day. I’m worn out already.” The band filed in past her and began tuning their instruments.
“Good to know,” said Ace, coming out from behind the bar and kissing her.
Ivy said, “Congratulations. Um, I have something to do… over there.” She went to the pass-through to order something to eat from her cooks.
Ace looked at Lily. When he came up for air, Ace said, “I did something without telling you. Something big.”
“What did you do?” she said, giving him the side-eye.
“I offered to loan Ivy some money to get her and the girls a duplex before they sell it out from under her. I think she wants the Chinese and American families to stop living in separate buildings. It’s just for a few months, and she’ll pay us back with interest. She spent a lot of money on the trip to China…”
He was cut off by another long kiss. Bella walked by and said, “Get a room,” and kept walking toward her bar.
Ace and Lily laughed into each other’s mouths. “Maybe I should not tell you important stuff more often,” said Ace.
She smacked his shoulder. “Ivy’s family. Give her the fucking money, she’s good for it.” She sighed. “The Department of Education is making noises about the home school. We’ve got three certified teachers and two working toward emergency certifications, and we’re up to code, and we’re going way past their requirements.”
“Ivy wants more responsibility for the Nighthawks,” Ace said.
“You mean you haven’t told her about this?” She punched his arm.
“Ow. I’ll do it right now.”
“No, I will. I’ll lay it all out, and the two of you can divide your responsibilities like adults, not He-Man ‘I Will Do Everything.’”
He held up his hands. “Yes Ma’am,” he said.
Ivy and Lily came out of their meeting angry. Ace visibly cringed as he filled up every part of the bar with a surface with alcohol to ready for the coming rush. Ivy slapped a list down on the bar.
“This is your stuff. I have my own list. You ever keep me out of the loop again, I’ll prevent you from being able to have children again by removing your balls.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” said Ace. I was stupid enough to get two women angry at me, he thought. Flowers won’t do it this time. He texted Gregory to bring over a vat full of iced mocha coffee for Ivy, and baby booties for his wife. Maybe then they might leave him alive.
“Baby booties?” texted Gregory. Congrats, man. Got some extra right here. The babushkas think our child will grow up with no clothes, formula, bottles, or food. You can have half our swag.”
“Thanks, brother,” texted Ace. Swag would sway his wife away from homicide.
“What did you do to piss both of them off that bad?”
“I took on too much Nighthawks business and didn’t give things to Ivy to do.”
“Now I’m mad at you,” texted Gregory.
Great, thought Ace. At this rate, the entire club will want my head.
The mocha coffee, and an entire carafe, went over very well. Ivy poured it into a shot glass. She held up the baby booties, climbed up on the stage after ZZ Top’s Sharp Dressed Man played, and announced Ace’s baby. She raised her glass, and the servers went insane trying to keep up with demand.
She said, “To Ace and Lily’s baby!” They all drank, and the band went into a stripped-down, heartfelt version of Daughters, which everyone sang along. Ivy threw Ace out of his bar to dance with his wife. She poured herself shots of mocha coffee and wiped away tears at the heartstring-tugging songs. Lily got up and sang Kelly Clarkson’s Piece by Piece. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Then, the band went into Guns N’ Roses’ Sweet Child O’ Mine, The Pretenders’ I’ll Stand by You, and Bon Jovi’s I’ll Be There for You.
Ivy thought about it. It was insane. It was stupid. They already had two shared kids. She had to borrow money for the house. Lily was in school, working on her emergency teaching credential, taking things hard and fast. Damia was in school and, what was going on with her genetics? What about autism? But, just for a moment, looking at those baby booties, she wanted a baby.
She texted her real estate agent to make the offer as lowball as possible, but to make it happen. Ace came back to replace her behind the bar, and she danced with Gregory on the dancing plinth when one of the dancers had a break to Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark.
“Where’s your wife?” she asked.
“Getting in trouble,” said Gregory. “And, I’ve got to help her soon.”
Ivy hopped down from the plinth, stole the mic from the band, and did a sexy rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s Fire.
When they finally got the last people into taxis and out the door, Ivy laid against the locked door. “My God,” she said. “Anyone else unable to stand?”
“I would say ‘Stand
in line,’ but that would just be silly,” said Lily, counting out Ace’s drawer as he restocked the bar.
“We’re going to need nine cases of whiskey and two of bourbon,” said Ace. “I’ve already sent in the liquor order.”
“Nine cases?” asked Ivy. “You should knock up your wife more often.” They both threw napkins at her.
She went back to prepare the deposit for Lily. She had to fill up two bags.
“If I didn’t have to pay the liquor supplier, I wouldn’t need a damn loan,” she said.
They locked up. Ivy went home, and Ace swung by the bank to guard his wife as she stuffed the full bags into the night deposit slot.
“Damn,” he said. “Ivy doesn’t need a loan now. Or, I’m in a better position to give it to her.”
Lily came back and kissed him. “Take me home, loan boy,” she said.
“On it,” he said. He followed her to the house.
When they got home, the house had lights on. “Did you leave lights on, honey?” asked Lily.
“Not that I can remember,” said Ace. “After I found out we were having a little slugger, I kind of went into a weird state.”
They walked in the front door, and Jake the pug, Maude the Yorkshire terrier (that was supposed to go home with Callie) jumped. She had ended up with Ace and Lily because she warmed to them. They loved on her every minute. Two more dogs, a corgi named Valor and a tan-and-white greyhound named Slinky (the actual racing name was much longer), came out of the kitchen, tails wagging. They gave doggie kisses. Ace and Lily took off their boots and leathers.
They went deeper in the house. The dogs followed behind, padding softly. Ace gave them each a snack, which they took delicately in their mouths and then went to lay down on their beds.
They went to the shut door to the second bedroom; the light was on. Lily opened it up to turn off the light, and they both gasped. The crib was a lovely carved thing in white, a mobile of colorful little birds hanging overhead. There was a changing table, a chest of drawers, and a little low shelf in a pale lavender. Tiny diapers were already on the diaper shelf along with baby powder and diaper rash lotion. Then baby books were on the bookshelf. There was an infant carrier in one box and a matching child safety seat in the other one. Lily walked inside, touching everything with the tips of her fingers.