“Definitely could eat.”
“Finger foods,” I whispered.
“What?” he asked.
I looked beyond him to the alarm clock then back to him. “We have four hours until my kids get here, around the same until yours get back. Finger foods we eat in this bed. No muss. No fuss. No preparing. No cleaning. So we have more time, just you and me. It’s no hunting cabin,” I grinned, “but it’ll have to do.”
His eyes warmed on me. “Sounds perfect, baby.”
It absolutely did.
I lifted up to touch my mouth to his and when I was done, he took his cue, rolled off and grabbed my hand to help me out of bed.
He pulled on his jeans. I pulled on my robe. We went into the kitchen, raided it and took back crackers and cheese, chips and salsa, grapes, sodas and napkins. We undressed, got under the covers, munched, kissed, groped, sipped, talked then set aside the food and kept talking but did it with more groping and kissing until we were making love.
And after we finished making love, tangled up together, we started whispering.
Me and Mickey, in bed all day naked, nothing I wanted more.
And the way he did it with me, I had a feeling he felt the same.
A flash of happy for me that lasted an entire day.
Then again, with Mickey, I didn’t get flashes of happy.
He gave that to me regularly.
* * * * *
“Okay, this place is crazy scary but these burgers are freaking amazing,” Pippa declared.
It was the next Tuesday evening and Mickey and I were at Tink’s with my children.
It was Mickey’s idea. So when the kids got to my place Sunday night, I chanced telling them Mickey had invited us all out to dinner, taking them to a place his kids enjoyed.
Delightedly, they’d been all for it. Both of them had heard of Tink’s but had not yet been (not surprising, it was not Conrad’s kind of place, though Auden could have given it a go since he had a car, he just hadn’t gotten around to it yet).
So now we were at Tink’s.
The night had gone great. The kids were very welcoming of Mickey and seemed comfortable with him. He was Mickey so he was comfortable back. Conversation was not lacking mostly because Mickey was interested in everything they said and because Auden was more than interested in talking about the fire at the jetty (something I didn’t like discussing but I didn’t let on). Pippa was equally interested in that but mostly in wanting to know when Mickey thought the shops would reopen.
That was to say it had gone great…until then.
“Jeez, Pip, can you be cool for once?” Auden snapped, clearly taking her comment as an insult to Mickey’s family’s favorite eatery.
“I didn’t mean anything,” she snapped back, but I could see the pink hit her cheeks.
She was embarrassed.
“Kids—” I started.
Pippa interrupted me by saying ardently to Mickey, “The burgers really are good. Like…the best I’ve ever eaten.”
“Glad you like ’em, darlin’,” Mickey said unperturbedly before he lifted his own burger and sank his teeth in, showing he was not offended in the slightest at her comment.
Pippa gave so there eyes to her brother.
When his face went hard, I gave him a gentle kick under the table, got his attention and mouthed, “It’s okay. Don’t worry.”
He drew in breath then looked to Mickey. “Uh…Mickey?”
Mickey swallowed and looked to him. “Yeah, bud?”
“I was talking to Joe and, you know, since we both know you’re seeing Mom, we were talking about how cool it was you guys were seeing each other.”
Hallelujah.
I didn’t call out my exultation because my son was not done speaking (and for other reasons as well).
“We were also thinking that maybe, it’s cool if it isn’t okay, but we thought it’d be pretty sweet if we could hang at the firehouse with you one night. Maybe, if you get a call, do a ride along with you.”
Oh God, no.
“First, it’s gotta be cool with your mom,” Mickey told him.
It absolutely was not. Having my guy out on a call was one thing. He was an adult. He was trained. He knew what he was doing.
He still was in danger.
Having him and my son near a blazing inferno?
No way.
“That’d be okay with me,” I chirped.
Mickey studied me, his lips twitched, he knew it wasn’t okay with me but he also knew—for me to give my son indication I knew he was growing into a man—it had to be.
He looked back to Auden. “Then all I gotta do is clear it with the chief, make sure the guys don’t mind, which they won’t, we’ve done it before, and we’ll set it up.”
“Totally cool,” Auden said like it was. Absolutely.
“Just sayin’, buddy,” Mickey started, his voice lower to add weight to his words. “We’d dig you hanging around. But we get a call and you do ride along, you gotta do what you’re told and stay clear. You might be there but only to observe. That gonna be okay with you?”
Auden nodded and he couldn’t quite inject the cool.
He was excited.
“Right, then, you want, you can give me your number and when I talk to the chief and clear it with the guys, we’ll plan,” Mickey offered.
“Okay,” Auden replied.
My phone chirped.
My bag was beside me on the nicked, warped, splinters-assured (though I’d never gotten one) picnic table (this being inside the ramshackle building). So I dug my phone out because we were at Tink’s and nothing was rude at Tink’s.
I glanced at the display and smiled.
I dropped the phone back in my purse to reply later and looked at my kids.
“Uncle Lawrie is coming for Thanksgiving,” I announced.
“Awesome!” Auden said excitedly.
“So cool, Mom,” Pippa agreed then asked, “Mercer and Hart coming?”
As the text said, I’ll be there Thanksgiving. Boys with their mom. That was a no.
“Sorry, honey,” I said as a gentle answer.
“Bummer,” she muttered.
“Pip,” Auden snapped again and with that, my attention became acute on them.
They could bicker. They could also fight.
But mostly, my son had a lot of patience with his little sister. She was a girl. Now she was a teenage girl. She could be flighty. She was admittedly a little spoiled (my doing, but she was also daddy’s little girl so Conrad had a hand in that too).
Mostly, she was sweet and kindhearted and her brother knew it.