“She’s Neeta, Jonas. I know what she is. Go change.”
“It’s just how she is,” Jonas said quietly.
“Yeah,” Tate answered. “Change your clothes, Bub.”
“She can’t help it, it’s just how she is.” Jonas kept at it.
Tate walked to his son, I held back and watched Jonas brace.
Tate put his hand on his son’s shoulder.
“I know. I know it’s how she is. Don’t make it right. That shit isn’t right, Jonas. All I can say now is, it’s over. Yeah?”
Jonas, his head tipped way back to look up at his father, nodded.
Then he whispered, “She’ll be alone, without me.”
He was struggling with his decision.
I closed my eyes, fresh tears forced themselves out and I clenched my teeth against the whimper gurgling in my throat.
I opened my eyes when Tate spoke. “Her turn. I get you now.”
“Blake isn’t –” Jonas started.
“He was her choice. You’re young, Bub, but I’m tellin’ you this because you gotta know, she coulda had me. I made that clear more times than years you been alive. She chose him. Bein’ free, that means I got to choose Laurie so now she’ll never get another shot at me. You live with your life’s choices. Your Mom, she’s an adult, she’s made choices, she’s gotta live with ‘em. You’re smart, you f**k up, you learn from that. She doesn’t learn. That’s her choice too. I spent years tryin’ to shield her from her choices, didn’t work. I’m not gonna let you do it and I’m not gonna teach you that someone’s gonna shield you from shit. You gotta learn too. You make choices, they’re yours and you gotta take responsibility for them.” He jerked his head to the house and his voice got quiet when he went on. “You made a choice in there, Bub. I know you struggled with it, probably been strugglin’ with it for awhile, but it was the right one.” Tate’s hand gave Jonas’s shoulder a gentle tug. “Trust me, it was the right one.”
Jonas stared up at his father for several long, agonizing moments before he nodded again.
“Now, Bub, do what I asked. Go get changed. Okay?”
“Okay,” Jonas whispered then continued. “You’re not gonna go –”
Tate squatted in front of his boy.
“No. I’m here with you and Laurie. We’re gonna have breakfast. We’re gonna go to the hospital to see Shambles. And, if you’re lucky, we’re gonna talk Laurie into makin’ you chocolate chip cookies like her Gram used to make.”
“We still have cake,” Jonas said like having chocolate chip cookies and cake in the house was a treasure trove of goodies that was too good to believe was real.
“I could do with a cookie,” I put in and both Jackson boys turned their eyes to me. “Or two,” I finished.
“Are they good?” Jonas asked me.
“She refrigerated the dough before she made them,” I answered like this would make any sense to him, which, from his small, confused grin, it didn’t.
The confusion left his face and he asked, “Can I have some dough?”
“No,” I lied and communicated that it was a lie by smiling at him.
Jonas looked at his Dad who was watching me. Tate’s head slowly turned to his son when Jonas spoke.
“She’s full of it. She’s so gonna let me eat dough.”
“Laurie’s full of it a lot,” Tate shared.
“I am not!” I snapped, only partly annoyed by this blasphemy, mostly I was just glad that the latest drama appeared to be over and I wasn’t crying anymore.
Tate straightened from the crouch, ignored my snap and commanded, “Babe, get your ass in the house and make breakfast.”
I crossed my arms on my chest and glared at him. “First, babe, don’t say ‘ass’ in front of Jonas and second, don’t tell me to make breakfast.”
Tate’s eyebrows went up. “You intend to starve my boy?”
“No, I’ll make breakfast for me and Jonas. You can make yourself a bowl of cereal.”
Tate burst out laughing, his hand snaking out to hook his son around the neck and pull him into his side. When he did, Jonas’s arms slid around Tate’s middle and he pressed himself to his Dad’s frame.
Tate was still chuckling when he looked down at Jonas and stated, “See? Full of it.”
I glared at them both but gave up glaring because this had no effect whatsoever on either of them and they looked sweet standing like that. As sweet as it was, I still stomped toward them, then by them, then into the house.
Then I made French toast.
Yes, for Tate too.
But I also made certain that, after I plonked Tate’s plate in front of him, he was clear I did it under protest.
This made both of them burst out laughing.
Tate was bossy and that was annoying but, after that scene, both my boys were laughing.
Therefore, my job was done.
* * * * *
“She ain’t talkin’,” Special Agent Garth Tambo said to Tate in the hall just down from Sunny’s hospital room.
I looked down the hall to see Shambles in a crouch in front of Jonas, Jonas was speaking and Shambles, looking like he had exactly three seconds of sleep, was nodding.
Tate, myself, FBI Special Agent Tambo and Arnie Fuller, Carnal Chief of Police, father to Tate’s crazy ex-girlfriend and Tate’s mortal enemy (and a man I did not like because he had beady eyes, a serious beer gut which was wrong in his uniform and a penchant for glowering ferociously at Tate) were standing about ten feet from Shambles and Jonas.
“Not talkin’?” Tate asked Tambo and Tambo shook his head.
“Not a peep.” He jerked his head at Shambles. “Not even to her man.”
“Man, right, that’s what he is,” Chief Fuller muttered with disdain and I caught both Tate and Special Agent Tambo’s eyes cutting to him before mine went to him. I noted Tate’s gaze was annoyed, Tambo’s was frustrated.
As for myself, I was angry.
“They’ve been together for six years,” I said to Chief Fuller. “And in those six years they spent two nights apart. One of those nights Sunny spent na**d in the forest oozing blood from stab wounds while Shambles nearly lost his mind with worry looking for her and the other she was in a hospital bed. Six years together, six years of every night but two sleeping in the same bed. If I was Sunny, that’d be the definition of Shambles being my man. Knowing what he went through and how he feels about her, that’s my definition of Shambles being a man.”