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“For the most part,” I respond, toying with the collar on his shirt. “Blake lost his shoe, naturally. And we were late leaving, like always. But we all made it to where we needed to without any tears.” He grins and tugs me down for a kiss, fusing his lips to mine. Kissing Jaxson Callaway is by far one of my favorite things to do.
“I’d call it a win then,” he says, sliding his hands around to my behind. “What do you have on under these?”
“Nothing.” I say with a wink, backing away and leaving his office to go get some work done. His deep chuckle follows me out the door.
“Tease!”
***
The workday passes quietly with not much to talk about. I answer phones and file paperwork all day long for a small-town accountant. The most exciting thing that has the potential to happen is a papercut.
My shift ends each day at three since I’m only part time and I always head straight to the school to pick Blake up. He has full day kindergarten three days a week. How does a twenty-two-year-old end up with a six-year-old, you might be asking yourself? It’s a fun story.
My mama is Dana Marks and she’s a piece of work. She has three kids by three different men, none that ever really stuck around. My daddy was a drifter that she fell in love with when she was seventeen and he was nineteen, just passing through town. He stuck around for the first three months of my life, but a baby with colic doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for the drugs and drinking that he was used to, so he drifted right out of town and out of our lives without so much as a look back.
I was six when she had Genevieve. Her daddy was the president of one of the biker gangs a few towns over. He stuck around the longest and played house for a little while. He was actually really sweet to me, gave more of a shit about me than my own mother, who’d been leaving me home alone since I was four so she could go out every night and party. He made sure I was enrolled in kindergarten, even if it was a year late. He’d walk me to school every day and let me ride home on the back of his motorcycle every afternoon. He probably would have stayed longer had he not left one weekend for a trip with his biker friends and was killed in an accident on I-95.
After that, it was just me taking care of Vie when I was just a kid myself. Getting her up and ready for daycare and dropping her off before I had to be to school. Mama would disappear for days, chasing her next boyfriend. I was a freshman in high school when she stopped coming home altogether. Genevieve and I made do with what little we had scraping pennies from my ice cream shop job to keep the lights on. And when we had just gotten used to it being just us, mama showed back up with daddy number three, Blake’s dad. He was a downright piece of shit, always slapping her around and taking her paychecks so he could go drink. So not only was I trying to graduate high school, but I was also raising a baby and a preteen.
Blake was three when mama left for good. I got home one day after work, her car gone and a note on the counter that just said she couldn’t do it anymore. She pops in occasionally, usually only when she needs money. It’s always been just me and the kids, well, until I started working at the bar and met Whitley who runs the place. She forced her way into my life like the Kool-Aid man, breaking down all my walls and all but insisting I be her friend. Which is really no hardship, seeing as she’s one of my best friends now. Always helping me with the kids, letting me miss shifts at the bar if Blake is sick, and just helping whenever I need a hand. That feels like it’s often these days.
I was working three jobs - the bar, Jax’s office, and at the grocery store. But I couldn’t keep up with all three plus making sure the kids were taken care of, so I quit the store. Now I work the bar on the weekends and one night during the week and the accounting office part time during the week, which still leaves me enough time to help with homework, and sports or cheerleading. It doesn’t leave a lot of time for much of a social life, but I have my friends and the kids and really, that’s all I need.
The back door of my old Subaru creaks open and Blake hops in, climbing into his booster seat and buckling up.
“Hey little man! How was school?” I ask, taking in his sweet little face in the backseat. He looks a lot like his daddy, the no-good piece of shit, but he also resembles me when I was little. His dark hair is longer on top, falling in his eyes, which reminds me that I need to take him in for a trim this weekend. His eyes are green, just like mine.
“It was otay. Did you bring me a snack?” I laugh a little and toss the pack of fruit snacks at him, which he happily catches and tears into. He has a hard time saying his k’s and c’s, but we’re working on it. “Tan we get Vie?”
“Well, Vie’s at cheerleading until four-thirty, so I thought you and I would go see Whit.” I say, referring to Whitley and the bar. I need to pick up my check and shamelessly feed my kids dinner on the cheap, so two birds with one stone. Blake does a happy dance in the backseat because he loves going to the bar. He gets to play pool and eat French fries, which are quite literally two of his favorite things.
I steer the car towards the bar on the edge of town. The Rustic Tavern is owned by Whitley’s fiancé’, Dean. Whitley has been running the place pretty much full time but I’m sure that will change soon, seeing as she’s pregnant with Dean’s baby and he’s gone all caveman on her. He said he doesn’t want her working long shifts anymore so she needs to hire a manager, to which she argued that sheisthe manager and nobody but her is running the bar. That led to a huge blowout that ended with Dean telling meIwas in charge and he picked Whitley up, tossed her over his shoulder, and carried her out of the bar the other night.
He must have gotten over his little snit because Whit was back at the bar the next day, working her usual shift. When I asked her about it, she just rolled her eyes and said he’d have to get over it. I’ve barely got the car in park before Blake is already unbuckling himself and climbing out of his seat. Thank goodness for childproof locks. I climb out and help him out of the car and he darts inside the bar, leaving me in the dust. Whitley’s new SUV that Dean got her for Christmas is parked outside, which means she’s probably working. Dean has been helping in the kitchen until they can find a new lead cook. Kolby was the cook until he had a psychotic break and kidnapped WhitleyandIndigo. It all took place in less than twenty-four hours, but it was still pretty terrifying.
Blake is already at one of the pool tables when I get inside, dragging a chair up next to it so he can reach and lining all the pool balls up in a line. I detour to the bar where Whitley is working and Lex, our other friend, is seated at the bar, a drink in front of her. Lex is new to town, showed up last year after leaving her no good ex-husband, but that’s a story for later.
“Hey babe,” Whitley says, sliding a bottle of water across the bar to me once I’m seated.
“How’s our mama to be?” I ask and a huge grin splits Whitley’s face.
“Excited, exhausted, and,” she looks around to make sure no one else is listening before leaning across the counter and whispering, “horny.” Lex snorts out a laugh and shakes her head.
“You’re ridiculous,” she directs at Whitley before pulling me into her for a hug.
“I’m serious, Lex. These hormones raging through me are ridiculous. Dean can barely walk through the house without me climbing him like a tree.”
“As opposed to before, when you were still climbing him like a tree?” Lex asks her, an eyebrow raised, and Whitley’s cheeks turn pink.
“I can’t help that he’s so hot,” she says, shrugging her shoulders unapologetically. Her and Dean were high school sweethearts, pregnant when she was seventeen and he was nineteen. But their baby was born asleep and Dean left town a short time later, only just coming back last year. He’s always been one of my favorite people, so I was thrilled when he rolled back into town. It took Whitley a little longer to get on board.
I order our dinner to go while Blake occupies himself at the pool table and the girls and I chat. Whitley is telling us what she found out about Kolby’s sentencing, her employee turned kidnapper, when the door to the bar creaks open and Jaxson and Ford, Lex’s boyfriend, stroll in. Jax is still wearing his dress slacks and his button up from earlier, but he’s undone a few buttons at the collar and he’s rolled his sleeves up, the cords of his forearms now revealed. I’m surprised to see him here because he doesn’t usually leave the office until five. Ford heads straight towards us but my heart skips a beat when Jaxson veers towards the pool table, his face lit up as Blake bolts towards him, flinging himself at Jaxson when he reaches him.
All three of us are head over heels for that man. Blake thinks Jaxson walks on water and vice versa. They’re quite literally best buddies. Jaxson flips Blake onto his back to give him a piggyback ride back to the pool table, Blake squealing the entire time. I let out a sigh and turn back towards the girls, who are both watching me with a smile on their face.
“What?” I ask, glancing between the both of them and then to Ford. He puts his hands up in surrender.
“Don’t look at me. I’m just here to eat dinner with my old lady,” he says, and Lex elbows him in the ribs at his comment.
