“I can’t believe you did that for your team.” I shake my head and reach for his thigh, giving it a squeeze. “Actually, you know what? I can believe you did that for your team.” I stare up at him. “You’re incredible.”
We eat, and we laugh, and all the while, I hold such amazement in my heart for him. After a shower, and Dean eating me out in that shower until I came three times and nearly passed out, Dolly knocks on the door, returning a happy and blissed out Archie.
Archie and I climb into my car—only after Dean walks us there, of course, and he gets in his truck, and the two of us drive behind the buses all the way back to the high school. Tanner jumps in, and we head to Riley and Jake’s to pick up Rawley, and once all of us are in the car together, we decide tobarbecue chicken and make a peach pie (Archie’s idea) to celebrate a great game.
While we’re perusing grocery store aisles, Rawley drops a can of baked beans into the shopping cart, then stops. “Does Dean like ribs?”
I shrug. “Sure. Who doesn’t?.”
Rawley rolls his eyes. “Well, call him and ask so we don’t make a whole dinner that he doesn’t like.” Then he’s gone, catching up to Archie to prevent him from unwrapping and eating a taffy from the per-pound bin.
Rawley both wants and expects Dean to be at dinner tonight. I hadn’t invited him. I figured after a weekend together, after how much time he’s spent with us, he’d want to go back to his house for a night or two. For some space. After all, Troy hasn’t called or posed an active problem, and that was the whole reason he was staying with us.
Tanner comes back to the cart with the bag of frozen corn cobs, and drops it in. I push his hair back and ask, “You feel like having company tonight? It’s okay if you don’t.”
He gives thatugh! what now?look that he’s perfected over the last two years. “Who? We only have five chairs, so if you invite aunt Jackie, she’ll have nowhere to sit.” He’s already counting Dean, the same assumption that Rawley made.
“Okay,” I tell him. “No one else then.”
I get my phone out and call Dean after telling the boys to grab a case of water, and to grab the chicken from the meat department. Chewing the inside of my cheek, staring at a wall of dish soaps, all offering softness on hands while murdering grease, Dean answers.
“Hey, mama,” he greets sweetly, sending a surge of wet heat to my core, which seeps into my cotton panties.
“Hey. The boys and I are gonna have a cookout tonight. Iknow we just saw each other last night, and it’s completely fine if you are busy or just don’t want to or?—”
Dean’s voice cuts mine off. “It wouldn’t be fine if I was busy and it wouldn’t be okay if I didn’t want to come over tonight, Clara June. I told you before, I want to be there, even if it means on the couch. I don’t like that ex of yours calling. And even if he wasn’t calling, taking care of you, spending time with you and the boys are my first and only focus.”
Wow. “Okay.”
“I’ll hang up, and you can call me again,” he says, making me laugh.
“Okay.” I hit end, smiling at the phone, smiling at his words, smiling at how lucky I am. He answers again.
“Hey, mama.”
“Hey,” I reply. “When are you coming over? Just wanna know so I can leave the front door unlocked, since me and the boys will be in the yard.”
He rushes out a breath, a cross between a sigh and something more sinister, like a moan. “I just unloaded the bus. I’m gonna grab some clothes and head over. See you in twenty. I’ll catch a shower at your place, after I barbecue.”
We get home just as Dean is arriving, and he and the boys carry the groceries inside, and get started on the meal. For the first time in my life, I take a shower, hot and long, while dinner is being made, and I don’t worry about the safety of the boys… or the food. And when I get out and lotion my body, slipping into leggings and a tank top, I enter my kitchen to find it cleaned and spotless. Laughter roars from the backyard, and I peek out the window above the sink to see my four guys, around a table, sauce on their fingers and faces, swapping jokes, sunlight at their backs.
My hand is on the door handle when my phone rings from somewhere deep in the house. I run to the bedroom,answering it before it goes to voicemail, still wearing a love drunk smile. “Hello?”
“You know blocking my number isn’t gonna work right? I can always use a different number, Clara June, come on. And quit trying to keep me from my son?—”
“I have sole legal custody. That’s been the case for years. The judge granted me that and you signed off on it, remember?”
“I changed my mind,” Troy states.
“But I haven’t. And neither has the court. And Tanner doesn’t want to see you, and you know what Troy, honestly, screw you. Screw you for showing back up because you think he may be rich or famous in a few years. Screw you for showing interest in one son but not the other two. Screw you, period.”
His chuckle is dark. “Screw me? Screw you, you vindictive little bi–”
I hang up. I tap around until this new number is also blocked, and I return my phone to my nightstand, and plug it in.
Everything is going so well, if I choose to ignore the phone call, then I take away Troy’s power. I fix my face into a smile, and join my guys out back.
Dinner was excellent, and Archie’s pie was incredible.Rawley and Jo Jo went out for a late movie, Tanner’s asleep—exhausted from the game, and Archie is sleeping too, overwhelmed from his sugar crash.
