Sweet Dreams by Kristen Ashley
I felt rather than saw Tate’s head turn and his eyes lock on me.
“He tell you that?”
“Says he wants you to know but he can’t tell you. Says he’ll talk to the judge.”
“She finds out, she’ll give him shit. He can deny it technically without lyin’,” Tate mumbled.
“That’s what he said,” I affirmed.
“Throwin’ you under the bus.”
My head turned to him. “Sorry?”
“Someone’s gotta have told me. He said it, he meant it, he’d do it, it gets to that. She’ll know it, she’ll know he didn’t tell me but he told someone who told me and she’ll be pissed at me and that someone who told me. You’ve seen her pissed, Ace. So has Jonas. There it is. That’s you under the bus.”
“He didn’t mean –”
Tate leaned into me and the movement was sharp and angry. “I know he didn’t, Laurie but that’s what she made him do. My ten year old son is playin’ people. At ten... years… old. This is what she does to people. He didn’t like it but he needed me to know and he knew he was throwin’ you under the bus and he had to make that play. Fuck.” He sat back and repeated, “Fuck.”
“Tate, you’re doing what you can do,” I assured him.
“Right,” he bit off.
I reached out a hand and wrapped it around his forearm. “It’s all you can do. Do it. Get him home. He wants to be here. That says a lot. You have support. You just have to be patient.”
Tate looked at me and I knew he was going to mouth off. Then he turned away, took a sip of his beer, swallowed, pulled in an audible breath and on the exhale repeated, “Right.”
I stood and bent over him, my fingers sliding into his hair and he tipped his head back to look up at me.
“I’m going to go take my makeup off. You want me to come back out?”
“I’ll be in in a second.”
“You okay?”
“No.”
I aimed at his mouth in the dark and hit it, brushing my lips against his.
“I’ll be in bed when you get there,” I whispered when I was done.
His voice was less harsh when he said, “That makes me feel better, Ace.”
“What does Jonas like for breakfast?”
“Considering his breakfast is usually sugar clogged cereal or fast food, you make him a home cooked breakfast, he’ll like anything.”
“French toast it is,” I whispered, brushed his mouth again then lifted up and kissed him on the forehead.
I had straightened and started to move away when he caught my wrist, detaining me.
I looked back.
“You let on you knew he was playin’ you?” he asked.
“No. I told him I’d give him my number and if he ever had anything he needed you to know, he could tell me and I’d let you know.”
“Threw yourself under the bus,” he muttered.
“I didn’t think he was playing me, Captain,” I replied. “But even if I did, I’d do it again.”
He didn’t speak but he also didn’t let go of my wrist. Then he lifted it, turned it inwards and kissed the inside. His beard tickled the sensitive skin there. The gesture and how he did it touched a sensitive part of me you couldn’t see because it was deep on the inside.
He let my wrist go and said softly, “Meet you in bed, baby.”
“Okay,” I whispered and left him to finish his beer.
Chapter Twenty
Rollin’ in Her Grave
The next morning, Tate and I were out on the deck drinking coffee.
My chair was close beside his, his legs were up on the railing and he’d reached down and wrapped an arm around the backs of my knees and pulled my legs up on his. As we sat, silent and sipping our coffee bathed in the morning sun, my legs naturally and comfortably tangled with his.
As the time slid by I was thinking I could start every day for the rest of my life like this. I didn’t know what Tate was thinking but I hoped it was much the same.
I heard the sliding glass door open and I craned my neck back to look beyond Tate to the door.
Jonas was closing the door and then he turned toward us. He was wearing a pair of loose-fitting knit shorts and a t-shirt, both wrinkled with sleep. His hair was adorably tousled. And, I was alarmed to note, he was stumbling somewhat drunkenly down the deck toward us.
I felt my body tense, wondering if he was sick or something when Tate moved. I looked to him to see he’d stretched an arm toward his boy. Then I watched as Jonas walked straight into it, not stopping at Tate, instead colliding sleepily with him and then leaning into his side as Tate curled his arm around his son.
My heart turned over yet again.
Tate and Jonas stayed this way for several long minutes without speaking.
Finally, Tate asked quietly, “You sleep okay, Bub?”
Jonas nodded, staring blankly into the trees, his body still heavy against his father.
“Bed all right?” Tate asked.
“Like it better than home,” Jonas mumbled. “Bigger.”
Jonas’s bed downstairs was a double. It was covered in light gray sheets and a forest green comforter both of which were far newer and better quality than Tate’s had been before I replaced them. There was a lamp on the nightstand, its base a football, its shade covered with Philadelphia Eagles emblems. The walls had posters of Eagles players on them. The dresser had t-shirts, shorts and underwear in it, the closet had jackets and jeans on hangers, some shoes on the floor. There was a TV with some video game player attached to it, a mess of controls and cords. There was a boom box with CDs scattered around. There was boy stuff laying here and there, on the nightstand, dresser, on top of the TV.
When I’d discovered and cleaned it, the bed was unmade, some clothes on the floor. I’d noticed that Jonas’s room wasn’t where he slept when he was here. He had clothes, he had things. It wasn’t his room at Tate’s house. It was his room in his home.
“You want Laurie to make you breakfast?” Tate asked.
Jonas’s eyes didn’t move from the trees when he muttered, “Unh-hunh.”
I leaned across Tate. “What do you want, baby?” I asked. “French toast? Pancakes? Eggs –?”
“Eggs,” Jonas said.
“Scrambled? Fried? Poached?” I went on.
“Fried,” Jonas answered.
“Gotcha,” I said softly, untangled my legs from Tate’s and stood. He looked up at me when I did. “You want a warm up?” I asked, tipping my head to his mug.
“Yeah, honey,” he answered.
I took his mug and looked into his beautiful eyes. That was when the spirit moved me and I didn’t know if it was right but I also didn’t care. A biker babe would act when the spirit moved her so I did.
I leaned down and touched my mouth to Tate’s. When I did, his hand came up and curled at my upper hip, his fingers pressing in firmly.
I lifted my head and saw his face soft and warm. Then I looked at Jonas to see he was not looking at the trees anymore, he was watching me with his father. His face was still sleepy but I knew he’d seen the kiss and he’d seen his father’s face after.
The spirit moved me again and I leaned into Jonas and touched my lips to his forehead, pulled slightly away and looked into his beautiful eyes.
“Eggs,” I whispered, straightened, skirted Tate’s chair and walked away.
* * * * *
“Do it again!” Jonas shouted.
I lounged in the lounge chair watching father and son playing in Ned and Betty’s pool.
“Again” meant Tate grasping Jonas by the waist and tossing him bodily through the air to splash in the deep end. This had been going on awhile and me, and two twenty-something girls in bikinis across the way from me, had been watching it avidly.
This was because Tate, slicked with wet, his eagle tattoo on show, his powerful muscles bunching when he tossed his son around the pool, was a sight to see.
It was late afternoon but the day was still hot. T
Jonas had swim trunks.
Tate didn’t. Tate hit the pool in a pair of faded, cutoff jeans shorts. Another reason to watch him avidly for he might pull himself out of the pool, his whole body slick and those shorts plastered on him was not a sight to see. It was a sight to prove there was a God and that God might just be Tate.
I watched Tate throw Jonas again and watched Jonas land with a splash. He surfaced laughing and shaking his head. As beautiful a child as Jonas was, and he was more beautiful when he was laughing, I noted the twenty-something girls kept their eyes glued to Tate who had lifted a hand to run his fingers over his wet hair, his eyes on Jonas, his lips smiling. All of this was fascinating and I was sleeping with the man. Those two girls probably thought they’d died and gone to biker babe heaven.
I should have been worried about the twenty-somethings. They were thinner than me, prettier than me, younger than me, their bathing suits were a lot dinkier than mine and they were making it obvious that Tate could have one, the other, or both of them at the same time if he just crooked a finger.
Instead, I was wiped from boot camp and as much fun as it was to watch a wet Tate in cutoff jeans shorts horse around with his son in Ned and Betty’s pool, I decided I was going to take a nap. I decided this firstly because I was pretty certain Tate was into me. Secondly, because Tyler’s program that day had nearly killed me and if one, the other or both of them made a play, I didn’t have it in me to fight for my man (or do anything with him for that matter).
I readjusted the back of my lounge, flipped to my belly and closed my eyes.
I was deep in a boot-camp-hot-sun induced snooze when I was torn from my catnap by a multitude of fat, cold water droplets raining on my back.
I lifted and twisted to see Jonas standing beside me shaking the wet in his hair on me.
“Stop, Jonas, you rat!” I girlie screeched.
He stopped and grinned at me. “Quit bein’ lazy, Laurie, and come into the pool with us,” he demanded.
“I am not being lazy. I spent an hour sweating and wheezing and panting, running around a hot gym. I’m giving my body the break it needs,” I returned.
“You’re bein’ lazy,” Jonas retorted.
“Am not!” I shot back.
Then, in a sneak attack coming from the other side, I was suddenly rolled to my back, curled into Tate’s arms and lifted.
“Tate!” I shrieked. “Put me down!”
He didn’t put me down. He walked to the edge of the pool.
“Don’t you dare,” I warned and then let out a shrill screech when I found myself flying through the air. I had the chance to close my eyes and pinch my nose with my fingers before I hit.
I surfaced gasping, the water freezing cold against my heated skin.
“You jerk!” I yelled and saw both father and son were standing side by side, staring at me and grinning identical grins. “And you are a rascal!” I said to Jonas.
Tate’s knees bent and then he propelled himself off the side, his body in dive position knifing into the water. Jonas followed him much less gracefully by doing a cannonball.
Stupidly, I kept treading water and glaring at their forms under it instead of making my escape. Tate’s hand wrapped around my ankle, yanked and I went under. I kicked at him under the water and he let me go but came up, grasping me at the waist and we both surfaced together, face to face.
“You dunked me,” I accused but that was all I got out. I had a hand on the top of my head and one on my shoulder, Tate let go of my waist and I was down again, Jonas dunking me this time.
Thus it started. I was able to get Jonas under the water, not Tate, and the horseplay lasted awhile before Tate wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled my back to his front, taking me with him as he did an underwater back flip. We surfaced, Tate still holding me close.
“Do me! Do me!” Jonas shouted, Tate let me go and then he flipped with Jonas.
He let Jonas go and as both of them shook the water from their hair, I wrapped one of my arms around Jonas’s middle.
“We’re going front this time,” I said in his ear and then I tucked us into a ball and propelled us forward in a front flip. When we surfaced, I let him go and he drifted away.
“See, it’s better in the water,” he told me on a big know-it-all smile.
I agreed by challenging, “Bet I could beat you by doing the longest handstand.”
“No way!” Jonas shouted, already striking out for the shallow end.
“So way,” I replied following him.
We got on our hands and I poked him in the ribs underwater. He poked me in the belly. I could have stayed down longer but I let him win. I did this five times.
“Told you no way,” Jonas stated after his fifth win.
“Whatever,” I mumbled with fake disgruntlement and that bought me another smile.
Jonas turned to his Dad and declared, “Bet I could beat you too.”
“Yeah?” Tate, who was now sitting on the edge of the pool, his feet in the water, his eyes on us, asked.
“Definitely,” Jonas declared.
Tate used his hands to shove himself into the water and I drifted away, alternately treading water, crawling and floating, sometimes watching, sometimes trying not to gloat in front of the twenty-something girls. Tate let Jonas win twice and beat him the third go.
They surfaced and Tate was done with handstands. I knew this because he ordered, “Get the ball, Bub.”
“Cool!” Jonas shouted and headed to the steps that led out of the pool.
I did a slow crawl to the side, happy with handstands, back flips and dunking contests but not about to participate in anything that required dexterity, which any activity with a ball would suggest. I put my hands on the side of the pool, prepared to let the boys play boy games and ready to get back to my lounger.
I didn’t make it.
I was mostly out when two big hands gripped my hips and pulled me back in. Before I knew it, those hands became arms wrapped around me tight and my front was plastered to Tate’s.
I tipped my head back, opened my mouth to say something but his head was already coming down. Then he was kissing me.
We were mostly to the deep end but Tate was tall enough that he was standing, his neck above the water lapping gently against us. He held me close and kissed me deep. It was a hot kiss but getting it after horsing around in a pool with him and his son, it was also sweet. Very sweet. In fact, it was sweetest kiss I’d ever had.
Which might have been why, once his mouth released mine, I looked into his handsome face, his spiky-with-wet-lashed eyes and, without thought, dipped my face to his, veering to the right at the last minute and sliding my smooth cheek against his rough one.
When my lips were at his ear, I whispered, “Love you, Tate.”
The instant the words came out of my mouth, his body went solid against mine and his arms around me tightened to the point I found it hard to breathe.
Not that I was breathing. I was staring at the water beyond him wondering what on earth I’d just done and why on earth I’d done it.
My arms moved from around his neck so I could plant my hands in his chest and I pushed off, gaining about three inches before he hauled me back in.
“Ace,” he called softly when I kept my eyes averted.
I was saved from having to answer when Jonas shouted, “Dad, quit making out with Laurie, go deep!”
I turned my head to look up at Jonas standing at the side of the pool, avoiding Tate’s eyes as I did so.
“Go deep, Dad!” Jonas repeated.
“Laurie,” Tate called.
My head turned again, my eyes flitted across his and I pushed at his chest as I stared over his shoulder at the sun sparkling off the water.
“Go deep, Captain,” I whispered.
<
“Dad!” Jonas shouted.
“Go deep,” I said again when Tate didn’t let me go.
His wet hand came to my jaw and he forced me to look at his face. It was soft, it was warm and his eyes were searching.
Then he bent his head, touched his mouth to mine and let me go. I immediately twisted and put my hands on the side of the pool. Hefting myself up, I bent my knee, placed it on the edge and dragged myself out.
I heard a strong surge of water as I got to my feet, my entire body trembling and not from cold. I turned and watched Tate power backwards through the water thinking how stupid I was. How very, very stupid.
I’d told him I loved him.
I did, of course, love him. Though I’d only just figured that out and then blurted it out, but it was true.
I was in a pool in a Nowheresville town with a man who preferred to watch me doing handstands with his son than check out twenty-something girls. A man who called his son Bub and held him in the curve of his arm as he shook off sleep. A man who called me Ace and talked to me or made love to me when I woke up in the middle of the night, even if he was sleepy. A man who flew home with me to make sure I got to my sick Dad. A man who noticed new sheets, spoke his mind, put me on the back of his bike, was nothing but himself and was great in the shower.
After years of searching, years of longing, years of hoping and then giving up, I’d found special in Carnal and in Tate. Special wasn’t exactly perfect but, even so, it was pretty fucking spectacular and it was finally, finally mine.
So I loved him.
But I shouldn’t have told him. It was way too soon. It was way too open. And it put me way too out there.
Because he didn’t say it back.
Stupid!
I looked down at Jonas and saw his arm was up then he threw a mini-sized Nerf ball at Tate. I watched it sail through the air with astonishing accuracy straight at Tate’s raised hand. Tate tagged it and brought his arm down, my eyes went beyond him and my body stilled.
Neeta’s Chrysler convertible, the top down, a sunglassed, big-haired Neeta behind the wheel, was turning into the hotel.