Sweet Dreams 2(25)

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.