Sweet Dreams by Kristen Ashley
Then I went back to the bedroom, taking my Kool-Aid with me, and unpacked.
* * * * *
I would figure it out later, in bed, when it woke me up.
Tate was going to court the next day to battle for his son.
He had been hunting a fugitive and he’d lose time and money if he had to abandon that hunt so he was under the gun and lucky he found his prey before he needed to come home.
And he loved me and wanted me to move in with him, he heard I was looking at apartments and, like usual, when it all came at him at once, he got angry.
I’d have to see what I could do to shield him from that.
“Baby, you awake?” Tate’s drowsy-rough voice called.
I rubbed my nose against his back and pressed deeper, my arm going tight around his stomach.
“No,” I answered against his skin.
“Bullshit,” he muttered.
“Go back to sleep, Tate.”
“Laurie –”
I pressed in and held on tight.
“For me, baby?” I whispered.
His hand found mine at his stomach and covered it, his fingers lacing through mine, he rolled slightly forward, pulling my arm up so our hands were tucked to the bed and I was resting mostly on his back.
I liked this position, a lot, so I tangled my legs with his and settled in.
“Laurie,” he called but I didn’t answer even though I heard him.
I didn’t answer because, a second later, I really settled in, giving him all my weight when I fell asleep.
* * * * *
Ned, Betty, Shambles and I stood in the courtroom. Tate was at the desk with his attorney, a very pretty yet very pregnant blonde named Nina Maxwell. Neeta’s attorney was at the other desk with no Neeta. I was jittery as a cat but Tate looked hot, wearing a well-cut suit and looking unbelievably gorgeous in it, and completely calm.
I was fidgeting, rubbing my hands together and moving from foot to foot when Tate’s eyes came to me. They dropped to my hands then they came back to my face and that tender look was there. He gave me a barely-there grin and then his attention turned back to Nina. I took in a breath, my mind imprinted with Tate’s tender look and I settled.
I was wearing a pale pink blouse with cap sleeves, a skintight, pencil skirt in cream linen and a pair of rose colored, high-heeled slingbacks. I had pearl studs at my ears and my watch but no other jewelry. I’d pulled my hair back in a ponytail at my nape.
I found out earlier I was correct in thinking I was more milf than motherly when I walked into the living room, Tate, Stella and Jonas all looked at me in my outfit, Tate smiled sexy slow and declared, “Jesus, you look like a sex kitten school marm.”
I turned instantly on my heel and headed back to the bedroom while I heard Jonas cackle loudly and effusively which almost, but not quite, drowned out Stella’s laughter.
Tate caught me before I made it to the bedroom and led me firmly to the Explorer.
The doors to the courtroom opened, I jumped and Wood walked in.
His eyes moved through me to Tate and he walked right to the front where the little, shiny wooden partition separated the onlookers from the opponents.
Tate stared at Wood as did Nina.
“I said anything,” Wood murmured to Tate and then turned his attention to Tate’s attorney. “I was there both nights Neeta showed at Tate’s, includin’ the night she drove there drunk.”
“And you are?” Nina asked.
“Neeta’s brother,” Tate answered.
Nina Maxwell grinned.
* * * * *
We were all seated, me between Wood and Shambles. It was ten minutes after the time court was supposed to be in session, the courtroom personnel were looking impatient and Neeta’s attorney was looking harassed.
He was about to be more harassed for the doors opened and Neeta came in and it didn’t take a waitress at a biker bar to know instantly she was drunk off her ass.
“Lordy be,” I heard Betty murmur as I stared at Neeta making her intoxicated way down the aisle.
She was dressed about two steps up from usual. Short skirt (wrinkled) see-through blouse (no camisole, black bra, blouse also wrinkled) and high-heeled, strappy sandals (with scuffs).
She was followed by a dark-haired man in an ill-fitting suit, the suit clearly purchased in a time when beer wasn’t the main component of his nutritional intake. I found myself even more fascinated by him than I was the inebriated Neeta because I knew, I knew just looking at him, he once was beautiful. He could have been as beautiful as Tate but I’d need picture proof of that, but the indicators were all there.
Tate was forty-four and looked in his thirties.
Neeta’s man was likely close to Tate’s age but looked in his fifties.
Boy, she wasn’t just dumb, the woman was stupid.
It was bad manners to gloat so I didn’t and anyway, I was too startled by Neeta showing up drunk to her son’s custody hearing to gloat.
My eyes moved away from the spectacle of Neeta’s man attempting to guide her to the front and I saw Wood watching his sister.
I reached out and wrapped my fingers around his bicep. At my touch, he turned to me and showed me his pain.
“Honey,” I whispered.
“Stupid,” he whispered back. “Fuck me. So fuckin’ stupid.”
I squeezed his arm and my eyes went to Tate who was still standing, his gaze glued to Neeta. His jaw was tight and his eyes were cold.
He looked to me and shook his head in disgust. I shook mine back and squeezed Wood’s arm again before I dropped my hand in my lap.
Neeta’s man got her to her attorney and she didn’t look at anyone as she passed us. This was likely because she was concentrating on walking. Blake retraced his steps and sat across the aisle from Wood. He didn’t look at Tate, he didn’t look at Wood, he didn’t look at anyone. He just sat down and faced forward.
“Are you finally ready?” the bailiff asked Neeta’s attorney.
“If my client and I could have…” Neeta’s attorney started.
“You’re ready,” the bailiff cut him off and disappeared behind a door.
I looked back at Tate to see he was seating himself.
Five seconds later we were all standing after we heard, “All rise…”
When we were given the all clear to sit again, I did and held my breath.
* * * * *
Five minutes later, the judge cut off Neeta’s attorney mid-sentence and, eyes narrowed on Neeta, he asked her directly, “Mrs. Daniels, are you intoxicated?”
“Your honor, if we could –” Neeta’s attorney started.
The judge cut him off by saying sharply and impatiently to the bailiff, “Get a breathalyzer in here.”
Then he abruptly stood, the bailiff called out, “All rise…” we all rose and the judge stormed out.
* * * * *
“I bought this outfit for nothing,” I groused in the Explorer on the way home.
“Baby, it’s sweet,” Tate replied.
I turned to Tate. “The judge talked to me for five seconds. I told him about the snag in Jonas’s carpet and how I was going to fix it and he just said, ‘Good thinking, Miss Grahame, those can be dangerous, send the hotel people in here on your way out, would you?’ That’s it!” I ended on cry.
“Laurie –”
I crossed my arms on my chest and interrupted him. “I don’t think he’s a very good judge. How does he know if I’m a good person to have around Jonas?”
“Lauren –”
“He had Ned and Betty in there for fifteen whole minutes. I timed it and I heard them laughing. Fifteen minutes and they don’t even live with Jonas. He just goes to their pool. He had me in there less than five and he sent me out and I live with Jonas! I could be anyone. I could be a crazy woman who feeds him only cat food!”
“Honey –”
“I think you should ask for another judge,” I declared and Tate emitted a startled bark of laughter
“Babe, I got full custody. I’m not asking for another judge just so you can convince him you’ll be a good stepmom and knock him out with your sex kitten school marm getup.”
He was, of course, right and I was acting like a lunatic.
I took in a deep breath and looked out the side window.
“I got wound up for nothing,” I whispered. “Stupid.”
“What’s stupid is showin’ trashed out of your fuckin’ brain to a custody hearing. That’s stupid. Givin’ a shit enough to buy a new outfit, do your hair, look presentable and responsible even though you’re nervous as all hell and knowin’ there’s a snag in your kid’s carpet and worryin’ about it ain’t stupid. It’s the kind of person a judge can trust around a ten year old kid. You think he doesn’t see that?”
Tate was, again, right.
I turned to him and asked quietly, “Do you think she was nervous too?”
“Scared outta her brain,” Tate answered.
“But nervous to lose Jonas?”
“Don’t know about that but scared, fuck yeah. Scared of losin’ child support which is pretty much all they got. Scared of lookin’ bad because everyone in Carnal’s gonna know the outcome and she knew it wasn’t lookin’ good. And scared because she knew you’d come in there lookin’ like you look and makin’ her look even worse. Neeta’s the master of self-fulfilled prophesies and today she topped even her best efforts and there’ve been some really fuckin’ good ones.”
“But not scared of losing Jonas,” I whispered.
“Don’t know but if she was, she fulfilled that prophesy too.”
I looked out the windshield and murmured, “She’s beginning to make me sad.”
His hand reached out and took mine. “Yeah, baby, you spent time with Jonas. A mom losin’ that? It’s sad.”
I turned my hand in his and held tight.
Then I said, “She doesn’t get anything but supervised visits for a day every two weeks so you don’t have to worry anymore.”
“Yeah.”
“And you don’t have to pay child support anymore.”
“Nope.”
“We should celebrate,” I decided and his hand squeezed mine.
“We are. We got reservations at The Rooster.”
I turned to him.
I’d heard of The Rooster. It was a fancy steak place in the mountains about half an hour away. It was supposed to be fabulous.
“We do?” I asked.
“Yeah, babe, we do.”
He’d made those reservations while on the road, thinking about his son and hoping there would be something to celebrate.
I leaned across the seat and kissed his bearded jaw.
Then, in his ear I whispered, “I’m so happy for you, Tate.”
His hand tightened in mine. Mine tightened in his.
Then I sat back and looked out the windshield.
“At least, going to The Rooster, I have a decent reason to have spent money on my outfit,” I noted.
Tate chuckled and I listened contentedly while I watched the landscape roll by and Tate took us home to Jonas.
* * * * *
After the judge’s decision, Tate and I kept a close watch on Jonas.
He tried to hide it but he struggled with conflicting emotions of relief, guilt and worry about his mother.
In an attempt to counteract that and create a new routine for his son, Tate encouraged him to call her frequently.
Jonas didn’t call her frequently but he called her.
The conversations were brief, clearly confusing and equally clearly hurtful.
Therefore Tate stopped encouraging his son to call his mother.
* * * * *
It was four days after Tate got Jonas, I was on day shift, Tate was behind the bar and it was around three o’clock when Krystal and Bubba walked in.
I hadn’t seen him in ages and, in that time, I didn’t bring him up to either Krys or Tate because I knew both of them were feeling intensely unhappy feelings about Bubba. So intense, I steered clear from unleashing those feelings – not for Bubba’s sake, or my own, but for theirs.
Bubba looked rough, straggly hair, eyes red rimmed and bloodshot, face hangdog.
Krystal looked far more than her usual angry at the world. She looked fit to be tied.
My eyes moved to Tate to see his were on Bubba and his face was granite.
“Got it at home, Tate, don’t need it here,” Bubba muttered, his hand lifted, palm out, toward Tate and I pressed my lips together as I felt my belly start to burn.
“Laurie, darlin’, keep cool,” Jim-Billy whispered to me, sitting beside where I was standing at the bar.
Krystal didn’t say a word, she just disappeared down the back hall.
Tate headed down the bar our way as Bubba slid onto a stool beside Jim-Billy opposite from where I was standing.
“Hey gorgeous,” Bubba called quietly to me, avoiding my eyes.
I opened my mouth to speak but Tate had arrived.
“I want out,” Tate declared without preamble and Bubba looked up at him.
“What?” Bubba asked Tate.
“Out,” Tate replied. “You and Krys need to get it together and buy me out. You also need to put up the sign in the window. Laurie’s givin’ notice. She’s gonna work for me.”
My wide eyes moved to Tate.
I was?
“What?” Bubba repeated.
“You heard me,” Tate answered.
“You can’t –” Bubba started.
“I can,” Tate cut him off. “Sick of this shit, Bubba. Didn’t buy into this. You made me promises, a fuckload of ‘em, and you broke every fuckin’ one of ‘em.”
“Tate, man, you can’t –”
“I can and Laurie can. We got Jonas at home. We’re needed there,” Tate stated.
“I heard about that but Pops and Stell –”
“Can’t count on them all the time, that’s not cool. They got lives and I got work. I don’t need to be on the road, worried about Jonas, Lauren and the bar. Gotta scrape somethin’ off and it’s the bar.”
“But Krys –” Bubba began.
“Krys knows what’s good for her, she’ll scrape somethin’ off too,” Tate returned.
We all knew what that meant, Bubba, Jim-Billy and me. Bubba’s back went up and his face got tight. I looked at Jim-Billy, he felt my gaze and he looked at me, his eyes wide.
It was then Krystal joined our group.
“What’s goin’ on?” she asked, instantly feeling the bad vibe.
Everyone looked her way.
“Tate wants us to buy him out,” Bubba answered and Krystal’s gaze shot to Tate.
“What?” she whispered.
“We’ll get the accountant to look at the books, decide what’s fair,” Tate answered and I watched Krystal’s face pale.
At that, I thought it was time to intervene so I said softly, “Captain –”
Tate spoke over me to Krystal. “Lauren’s givin’ notice. Got work, Jonas and Laurie, don’t need to be on the road half the time, in the bar the other half and havin’ to deal with paperwork. Lauren’s gonna take care of that for me and the half of my life I free from the bar, I spend with my family.”
Krystal’s eyes then shot to me and I saw instantly her guard was down. There was pain in her face, and betrayal.
“Krys –” I whispered.
She tore her gaze from me and looked back at Tate. “We had a good summer but part a’ that is because Laurie’s here. The boys love her. She goes, they ain’t gonna come in and hang with Twyla.”
“Not my problem,” Tate stated.
“Captain –” I tried again.
“I lose Laurie, I lose the drinks she sells, I buy you out, I’ll be hurtin’,” Krystal pointed out.
“Again, not my problem,” Tate reiterated.
“Tate, honey –” I tried yet again.
“I don’t believe this shit,” Bubba muttered
“You don’t?” he asked curtly. “How? Christ almighty, Bubba, I told you once, I told you a thousand times, you don’t pull your shit together, I’m gone. Now I’m done tellin’ you. I’m gone.”
“I know shit’s whacked around here and heard about Neet and Jonas, Tate. I shoulda sorted my shit out and it was a crap thing to do, leavin’ while you all were in the middle a’ that but, bud, that’s done. Krys and I talked and –” Bubba explained.
Tate interrupted him. “Heard this before, don’t believe it anymore.”
“But, Tate, swear to God –”
“Don’t believe it.”
“But –” Bubba pushed it.
“He’s gone,” Krystal whispered and everyone looked at her to see her gaze pinned to Bubba.
“What?” Tate asked and slowly her head turned toward him.
“Bubba, he’s gone,” Krystal said.
“What?” Bubba shouted, coming off his stool but Krystal didn’t tear her eyes from Tate.
“Would you help me buy him out?” Krystal asked and my belly stopped burning but I felt my heart start beating wildly.
“What’re you talkin’ ‘bout, woman?” Bubba demanded to know.
Krystal ignored Bubba. “Whatever you want, Tate, I’ll sort the bar, I’ll make the deal you need, but Bubba’s gone.”
Bubba started rounding Jim-Billy and me to get to Krystal but Tate also ignored him and spoke to Krystal.
“We buy him out, you find another bartender, we make Lauren a manager and she gets a pay hike. She handles the schedule, she handles stock, she handles payroll, personnel and orders. You hate that shit anyway and she’s good at it. Frees your time to be front of bar. She works the floor, only days, shorter shifts, ten to five. Office work before opening, five days a week, every other weekend off,” I stared at Tate in shock because he seemed to have this all thought out and hadn’t mentioned a word to me but Bubba had made it to Krystal and lifted a hand to latch on her arm. Tate’s eyes cut to him and his voice was an angry growl when he warned, “Touch her, Bubba, I won’t fuckin’ like it.”
Bubba glared at Tate then threw up both his hands and shouted, “This is whacked!”
“This is consequences,” Tate shot back. “You live your life not worryin’ about ‘em and everyone else deals with ‘em for you. I’m done with that.” He looked at Krystal and demanded, “Well?”