Page 7 of Moonshine Lullabies
“Son of a whore,” I muttered. Heaving a sigh, I went out into the hall.
I could hear Tate moving around his room and I went across to check on him. He was picking shit up and putting trash in a garbage bag.
Sure as shit, Collier was halfway up the ladder of my boy’s loft bed, making it.
“You alright, son?” I asked Tate, and he looked up, his lips thinning down into a grim and resolved line as he gave a nod.
“He’s doing good,” Collier remarked evenly, turning to fix me with a plaintive look before saying, “What about you?”
“Head won’t stop bleedin’. I’m about to have a look.”
Collier stepped down off the ladder. With both him and Tater in the room, it made it look small. I swear my kid got my brother’s genes through me somehow. Not that his daddy wasn’t tall.
I’d had Tate when I was fourteen. My family had been quick to judge, blaming me and my little boyfriend at the time for being irresponsible. The comments about me being the family disappointment never stopped coming since. They helped, but damned if I didn’t hear all about it, and the help when it came was grudging.
They didn’t know shit about it – not like I could tell ‘em when they already had their minds made up.
It was only after Tate was born and had started growing that the truth I’d dreaded came to life. It was a truth I’d take to my grave. Made me wonder how any of ‘em didn’t know. It was plain as day to me just lookin’ at my son.
“I’m okay,” I told my boy evenly. “I promise. Only thing that matters is thatyou’reokay.”
My kid’s shoulders dropped, and he looked so sad in that moment, but Collier stepped between us and put a hand on my shoulder. A gentle hand that I immediately shrugged off.
“Come on,” he said, paying me no never mind. “Let me have a look at you, see if we can’t get you fixed up.”
He was a handsome feller, with light blue eyes that reminded me of a husky. Bright and brilliant beneath his mop of dirty blond hair. He had a scraggly goatee that I could have lived without, but it had its own charms. At least he didn’t have just a ‘stache like a bunch of the men around here, including my daddy’s best friend. I couldn’t abide that. It looked so horrible.
“Fine,” I said and Tate looked like he was about to follow. Collier turned to him and said, “You keep up the good work in here. I’ll come back and finish helping in a minute.”
Tate nodded, but I had a feeling my boy was gonna try and sleep with his momma tonight. Truthfully, I wasn’t upset by that thought at all. He was gettin’ to where he was definitely too old for that kind of thing, but at the same time, I’d take it any chance he would give me. Those days were numbered by God.
I went down the hall and stopped in the archway to the kitchen. One, there were towels on the floor over the bloodstains in my carpet, and two, the first-aid kit was unpacked and laid out on the table neatly, with near surgical precision. If there had been any blood on the tile, it’d been mopped up. The smell of cleaner still hung in the air, and my floor in the kitchen and dining area sparkled under the dim light from over the stove.
“Sit for me,” Collier ordered gently. Usually I’d have some smartassed thing to say at being ordered to do anything, but his tone was… nice.
As in, he’d asked nicely.
Don’t get any ideas.
I sat in the chair he’d turned out from the table and he went and hit the switch on the wall to turn on the dining room light. I flinched and blinked, the light an almost assault on my eyes. He stilled and scowled slightly.
“I’m no professional, but I’m gonna do my best here,” he said. I jerked back when he tried to put two fingers under my chin.
“Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it, but I’m fine,” I spat out.
“Yeah, well, afraid I’m going to have to be the judge of that, honey. I’m gonna shine a light in your eyes.”
I rolled my eyes, but I looked up and cooperated as he shined a pen light in my eyes and judged for himself that I wasn’t fucked up – which I could have already told him.
“Pupils are equal and reactive, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a mild concussion,” he said. “The light hurt your eyes?” he asked.
“A little,” I answered honestly. “But I’m fine, really.”
“No headache?” he asked.
“Only from you asking so many damn questions and fretting over me like I’m some kind of toddler.”
He chuckled and took the towel from my head, putting the light in his mouth and sucking on it as he trained it on the area the blood was dripping from. He tilted my head, his hands gentle on my face, and I let him if only so he’d stop fussing quicker.
