Sweet Dreams

  “Yep,” he answered instantly.

  “Tough,” I replied, caught him by the neck, pulled him to me and kissed his forehead.

  Then I let him go, pushed off the couch, gave Tate a “we’re going to talk later” look which only made him shake his head, still fighting his grin and I headed to the cooler outside.

  When I got outside, I saw, through the sea of people, Bubba sitting on top of a picnic table at the bottom end of the yard.

  I gave up on the beer, threw my bottle in an overflowing garbage bin and wended my way through bodies. When I got to him, I started to climb up carefully (my skirt was tight and I still had on my pumps) then Bubba’s hand came out and grabbed mine, holding firm and steadying me until I sat down next to him, hip to hip and he let my hand go.

  He’d looked at me when I arrived and kept looking at me as I sat down but he didn’t say a word. I let this go on for awhile before I bumped him with my shoulder.

  “You okay?” I asked quietly.

  Bubba didn’t answer so I turned to him.

  “Bubba?”

  “Miss my cloud,” he muttered then sat back, lifting a can of Coke to his lips, he took a deep slug.

  I stared at the Coke, a Coke that was not a beer and it was not a bottle of bourbon, vodka or gin, then I stared at Bubba.

  “You miss your cloud?” I asked.

  He leaned into his elbows at his knees and didn’t reply.

  I leaned into mine but did it twisted to him.

  “Bubba, honey, talk to me,” I whispered.

  “Motherfucker got Neeta,” he whispered back.

  I put my hand to his back. “I know.”

  “Krys was right, Laurie.” He was still whispering. “Coulda been anyone. Coulda been her and that would be on me.”

  “Bubba,” I said gently.

  His head twisted so he could look at me. “See her man?”

  “Sorry?”

  His eyes went over my back and he looked into the yard. My eyes followed his and I saw he was looking at Blake, standing apart from the crowd, a mostly empty bottle of bourbon in his hand, his face desolate, his manner removed, his eyes on the people in the backyard like he didn’t know who they were, even what they were, as if he’d been beamed to another planet to study aliens.

  “Blake, her man,” Bubba replied, shook his head, looked away and muttered, “Fuck.”

  “Honey –”

  “He feels it, that fucker, written all over him, and he should,” Bubba told me.

  “Bubba –”

  “Actually thought, long time ago, he’d be good for her. She wasn’t any good for Tate, too much shit between them, too much shit, but Blake, he was a good guy and he loved her. No shit there, he was solid, had a good job, had a strong hand with her. Don’t know what went wrong, don’t care. He fell down and she got raped with a –”

  I leaned into him and said quickly, “Bubba, don’t.”

  He looked to me and stated, “Coulda been Krys.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “Still could be,” he went on like I didn’t speak. “Fucker’s still out there. And here I am,” he threw a hand out, “I’m fuckin’ Blake. Whatever went wrong along the way, he ain’t even a man anymore, proved it true when his woman got murdered and that’s me.” He shook his head, looking away again. “That’s me.”

  “Honey –”

  “Miss my cloud,” he whispered and his head dropped.

  “She’s not dead, Bubba, and neither are you,” I told him, he didn’t reply and I kept going. “Nothing’s happened you can’t change.”

  “Got the check and paperwork two weeks ago, gorgeous,” he told his lap. “Signed it. It’s done. I’m out. The bar is called Bubba’s but I’m out.”

  “Then get back in,” I urged and his head twisted to look at me again.

  “What?”

  “You aren’t Blake,” I told him.

  “Laurie –”

  I jerked my head at his Coke. “Get yourself sorted out and get back in.”

  “She don’t want me,” he replied.

  “She wanted you once,” I reminded him.

  “She don’t want me now.”

  “Then remind her of why she wanted you then.” I got close to his face. “I don’t know him but I know this, I knew it the minute you walked up to the graveside today. You aren’t Blake.”

  “Laurie –”

  “You’re a good man, Bubba.”

  “Gorgeous –”

  “You’re a good friend, Tate said so.”

  “He did?”

  “Yes,” I smiled at him, “shit business partner, he said, but a great friend.”

  Bubba shook his head and looked away.

  “He named his son after you,” I whispered and felt Bubba’s body stiffen at my side.

  He didn’t speak and I let the silence go for awhile.

  Then I kept whispering. “You don’t have to sleep by her side to be certain she’s safe.” My arm slid around his bulk and I gave him a squeeze. “Think about that, Bubba. She might not care, she might be done, but it wouldn’t be about what you could get out of it. It would be about keeping her safe. Find a way to do that until they find this guy. Then whatever happens happens. But in the meantime, keep her safe. Yes?”

  Bubba didn’t answer, just stared at the grass then tipped his head back and took another slug of Coke. I leaned into him for a second then moved away and hopped off the table.

  “Getting late,” I told him.

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  “See you later?” I asked.

  “Sure, Laurie,” he answered halfheartedly.

  “Bye honey,” I whispered.

  “Later,” he returned, not looking at me.

  I moved away from Bubba, wending my way back through the crowd and feeling eyes on me when I did. My head turned left and I saw Blake staring at me, not studying me like I was a Martian, but staring at me with his face tight, his eyes sharp. There was something about it that sent a chill through me but I didn’t get to process why when I ran into something solid, something that put two hands to my hips.

  “Babe,” Tate said when I looked up at him.

  “Hey,” I replied.

  “We gotta go, get Jonas home,” he told me and I nodded. “Can’t find his jacket,” Tate went on.

  “I know where it is. I’ll run and get it.”

  He nodded back but his head turned to the right and my eyes followed his.

  “Tate,” I said gently when I saw he was looking at Blake.

  They seemed to be locked in optical combat until I pressed up to his front and my hands curled on his biceps.

  “Baby,” I whispered and he looked down at me, “we have to go. Jonas.”

  “Right,” he muttered, his hands left my hips and he guided me in front of him toward the door.

  To keep it out of the way, I’d taken Jonas’s jacket to an upstairs bedroom and I headed straight there, Tate at my heels. We walked up the stairs, down the hall and I opened the door. I walked right in then stopped dead, Tate coming to a halt behind me, his hand coming to my waist as I stared at Wood who had Maggie pressed against the wall, his hands at her bottom, his tongue obviously in her mouth, one of her arms was tight around his waist, the other hand cupping the back of his head.

  Tate made a grunting noise that sounded like a swallowed bark of laughter and my body jerked at the sound at the same time Maggie and Wood separated, their heads swinging toward us.

  “Sorry, sorry… um, sorry!” I muttered, rushing to the bed and blathering. “Jonas’s jacket. I put it up here to get it out of the way. He was getting hot and you know kids, he just threw it anywhere and I was worried someone would get beer on it or something.”

  “Ace,” Tate cut off my chatter as I pushed aside some purses and other jackets and grabbed Jonas’s.

  I straightened and looked at them. “I don’t know how to clean a jacket like this, so it’d have to go to the dry cleaner,” I informed them stupidly. “
Not that it would, really, since he doesn’t wear suits on a regular basis and he’s growing so fast, he’ll be out of it in, like, a week, but, you know, it would.”

  “Ace,” Tate repeated, his hand closing around mine and he yanked me toward the door.

  “Right,” I mumbled, dipping my chin and avoiding Maggie and Wood’s eyes as Tate moved us to the door.

  “I’ll just,” Maggie whispered, Tate stopped moving us and my head came up to see her running her hand through her hair, her other smoothing her skirt down at the hip, her cheeks flushed bright pink. “Just… um…” she looked at Wood then Tate and me and finished, “go check on the kids.”

  Then she ran, actually ran out the door.

  Tate and I watched her then Tate and my heads swung to look at Wood.

  Wood’s eyes were locked on Tate.

  “Don’t,” he warned low.

  “Brother, I told you –” Tate started.

  Wood cut him off, repeating, “Don’t.”

  “She’s a sweet piece,” Tate remarked casually but his voice held a tremor of humor and at his words my head jerked back to look up at him.

  “Man, like I said, don’t,” Wood growled and I looked back at him.

  “Never shoulda let her go,” Tate returned.

  “I’m tellin’ you –” Wood started.

  “Wasn’t speakin’ to you when you jacked that shit up,” Tate said, jerking his head toward the door. “Glad I got the chance to say it now.”

  “Jackson, seriously,” Wood bit off.

  “She’s a sweet piece?” I asked, butting in, and Tate looked down at me and grinned.

  “Yeah,” he answered.

  “A sweet piece?” I repeated.

  “Yeah, babe,” Tate replied.

  “She’s the mother of Wood’s children!” I snapped.

  “She’s still a sweet piece,” Tate, undaunted by my tone, reiterated.

  I yanked my hand out of his and crossed my arms on my chest.

  Tate’s arm hooked around my neck, he hauled me forward into his body and burst out laughing.

  With Jonas’s jacket bunched in one hand, I kept my arms crossed and turned my head to look at Wood.

  “I’m thinking nothing’s funny,” I told Wood.

  Wood took in my stance as well as Tate and he grinned.

  “I wasn’t, but I am now,” he stated.

  “Whatever,” I muttered, Wood walked up to us, put a hand right to my face, his thumb sliding across my cheekbone then his hand dropped, he glanced at Tate, shook his head and walked out.

  I kept myself stiff as Tate moved to my side and guided me to the door.

  “Let’s hope that shit takes,” he muttered when we were in the hall.

  “What shit?” I asked as we made it to the mouth of the stairs.

  “Wood back with Maggie,” Tate told me.

  “Wood said she was a bitch,” I told him.

  Tate looked down at me as we descended the stairs. “He would say that, babe, he was tryin’ to get in your pants.”

  “But –”

  “He’s not gonna say he acted like a dick which meant she acted like a bitch in return and that shit escalated because they didn’t talk about it and work it out and then it got so bad, neither of them could deal so they called it quits.”

  “What do you mean, acted like a dick?” I asked when we reached the bottom of the stairs.

  Tate stopped me and explained, “He was workin’ through some shit, primarily him killin’ my Dad and his sister bein’ a pain in the ass. Maggie tried to help with the first, had trouble puttin’ up with the last, seein’ as she didn’t like Neet around her kids. Neither of them handled it well and they split. It was stupid, she’s a good woman, great ass, sweet as hell and she loved him.”

  I looked beyond him, searched the room, couldn’t find Maggie or Wood and looked back at Tate.

  “She’s very pretty,” I noted.

  “She is,” he agreed.

  “Did he love her?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah,” he answered.

  “Do you think –?”

  “He gets his head outta his ass, yeah.”

  I sighed then informed him, “I sat with Bubba outside for awhile. He misses Krys.”

  “He would, she’s a good woman too, he had it all and lost it by bein’ a dick, same as Wood.”

  “Do you think –?” I repeated and Tate cut me off again, shaking his head.

  “Crapshoot, Ace, Krystal can hold a grudge.”

  I nodded then started to move around him but he caught me with an arm along my belly and pulled me back in front of him, his arm wrapping around my waist.

  “You pissed?” he asked, his eyes studying me closely.

  “No,” I answered and his head tipped to the side.

  “You’re not?”

  “I was…ish. I’m over it,” I informed him and he grinned.

  “That easy?” he asked and I shrugged.

  “You are who you are, Tate, and part of who you are is a guy who’d call a woman a sweet piece. Life’s too short to get pissed about stupid shit like that. And anyway, you’re right. I mean, I’m not a guy but even I can see Maggie’s a sweet piece.”

  His body shook with the force of his low laughter and I knew he would have burst out with it if we weren’t at Neeta’s post-funeral bash.

  I slid my arms around his waist as he burned out his humor.

  “You seem better,” I whispered when he was done.

  “She’s in the ground,” he whispered back.

  I nodded. “That gives you peace.”

  He shook his head. “What it does, watchin’ her search all her life, desperate for somethin’ she never found, is makes me feel she’s at peace.”

  I melted deeper into him, muttering, “Right.”

  His arms gave me a squeeze. “Gotta get my boy home.”

  “Right,” I repeated.

  He let me go, we went to Jonas, rounded up my family, Stella and Pop followed us out to the Explorer (Wood and Maggie both had disappeared) and we gave out long hugs. Jonas, Tate and I climbed into the SUV and Mom, Dad, Carrie and Mack climbed into their rental.

  They went to Ned and Betty’s hotel.

  Tate and Jonas and I went home.

  * * * * *

  Amber called while we were in the SUV on the way home, Ned and Betty phoning five minutes after we walked in. I hadn’t even taken my shoes off.

  I was barely off the phone when Sunny and Shambles came by. They didn’t know Neeta so they didn’t go to the funeral but they wanted to check we were okay. Jonas talked them into staying for a cupcake. Shambles was Shambles, seeming a little less buoyant but mostly his regular self. Sunny was timid around Tate, avoiding his eyes and getting too close to his body. Clearly big, masculine men frightened her and Tate read this instantly, talking in a softer voice and making it easy to avoid him by giving her a good deal of space.

  They took off and weren’t gone a minute when Wendy phoned on her break at Bubba’s and talked the whole way through it. When she was off break, she handed the phone to Twyla, who I was surprised to discover could jabber on the phone like a total girl and she only handed the phone off to Jim-Billy when I informed her of that fact. Jim-Billy had left the funeral bash earlier to go to Bubba’s. Since Neeta, I’d noticed that Jim-Billy drank less and stayed a lot more alert. He also walked the waitresses to their cars after shift and had taken to following Amber, Krystal or Jonelle home, even if it was three thirty in the morning.

  By the time I got off the phone with Jim-Billy, Tate had long since taken Jonas downstairs to watch TV with him in his bed. I was still in my funeral black and I decided it was time to take off the black at the same time I decided I might never wear black again.

  I was in the closet, having taken off my black blouse and thrown it in the direction of my wicker hamper when Tate came in. I was wearing nothing but my skirt, a lacy black demi-bra and the black, lace-topped thigh highs.

  “Hey,” I said sof
tly and pulled down the zip at the back of my skirt then bent to shimmy out of it. I stepped clear, twisted my torso and tossed it toward the hamper.

  My hands were at one of my thigh highs when Tate’s finger wrapped around one of my wrists and I heard him mutter, “Unh-unh.”

  My head came up so I could look at him and I saw he had his suit pants on but he’d taken off his shirt.

  “Sorry?” I asked.

  His hand slid to fold around mine and then he tugged it, and me, out of the closet.

  “Tate –”

  He flipped off the switch in the closet and headed to the bed.

  “Honey, Jonas –”

  “He’s out,” Tate said, sat on the bed, his hands went to my hips and he pulled me toward him in a way I had no choice but to straddle him so I did.

  “He’s not sleeping too well,” I reminded Tate as my bottom came to rest on his thighs and my hands went to rest on his shoulders.

  “He comes up, I’ll hear him,” Tate muttered and his hands didn’t rest, they slid up the sides of my back.

  I looked down at his face which I couldn’t really see since he was looking at my breasts in my bra, watching his hands move forward along my bra line and cup them.

  One could say Tate and my sex life was regular, healthy and active but since Neeta died Tate gave new meaning to regular, healthy and active. If we weren’t looking after Jonas or I wasn’t working, Tate had me as close as he could get me, literally.

  I didn’t know if he was proving to himself I was alive, he was alive or he was determined to suck as much out of life in general as he could get but I didn’t question it or him. If that was what he needed, which it obviously was, that was what I’d give to him.

  Therefore, I whispered, “Okay,” but I did it beginning to get worried about his state of mind. He’d stayed strong for Jonas and he seemed okay but this behavior concerned me. I didn’t mind the intimacy; I was just troubled at his driving need for it.

  His hands moved back, pushed in so my back arched and his lips trailed the lace at the cup of my bra.

  One of my hands slid into his hair while the other one glided down his neck.

  “Mom and Dad are staying a week,” I told him.

  “Yeah,” he said against my skin, his lips moving between my cleavage then mounting the swell of my other breast.