Page 36 of Beckon

The room was well lit so he knew she could see every detail. Not that he doubted it when the shadow on the screen moved as if she threw her head back and her voice cried out with a drawn-out, “Yeeeeeeesssss.”

“Fuck, angel. You wrung me out.” Chandler heard her muted giggle and he didn’t mention it. Clearly, this was embarrassing for her, although he was proud of her for stepping outside her norm, especially for him.

“Thank you for sharing that with me.” Her words took him by surprise. He half expected her to say good night and end the call.

“Thankyou, for sharing it withme. Hold on really quick.”

Chandler set the phone face down on the bed and went to clean up. He turned off the lights and crawled into bed, grabbing his phone. He was pleasantly surprised to see that she’d turned the soft light on that he knew she slept with.

Aside from a little blush, she seemed to have gotten over the embarrassment of it all. She had nothing to be embarrassed of, but Chandler almost felt as ifhedid. Would she see him differently?

“So, I was thinking about tomorrow night. You come for dinner, bring your cologne. We’ll grill out and that way, Chester is occupied in the backyard playing while I sneak the jacket to the wash. Then after dinner, but before he begs to make s’mores, I’ll pop it in the dryer with a spritz of your cologne, and hang it in the bathroom before he heads upstairs.”

“You are a sneaky one, aren’t you? I better keep my eyes on you.” He laughed at the absurdity. Tamitha didn’t have a dishonest bone in her body, but he also knew she’d lie to God himself if she had to for her son.

“The jacket needs to be washed. Any day now an army of ants will smell Mom’s red sauce and come marching forth to walk the jacket out the front door.”

“I highly doubt it’s that bad.” Chandler realized his mistake and corrected it immediately. He didn’t want to dismiss one of her oddities as she called them. “But it’s possible and no one wants ants. I’m in. So, what’s my code name for the mission? Yours has to be Bandit. So, does that make me Smoky?”

“Well, considering you’ll be doing the grilling, that works.”

“Oh, just because I’m the man, it’s automatically my job to run the grill?” He watched her scrunch up her nose. It was all innocence and sex kitten rolled into one.

“Well, duh. You literally just flaunted your manhood for me, and since grilling isman’s work,I am assuming that yes, you are on grill duty.”

“Fine, I’ll be Smoky on the grill to your dirty-jacket Bandit. But I demand a price. A price to be paid for my participation in your great deception.”

“Oh really, and what price will that be, Smoky?” It was on the tip of his tongue to demand something a little naughty as payment, but there was something he’d been wanting to do for some time now. Since she allowed him to be a voyeur in Chester’s life every night practically since they’d met, he hoped she’d say yes.

“I want to tuck Chester in and tell him a bedtime story. That is if he is okay with it, of course.”

He’d fallen in love with Chester right along with Tami. A few nights, he’d asked her to leave the phone with him. Tami did, but she stayed until Chester fell asleep and then took it to her room.

Little Buddy would chatter away about his grandma and Harold, who he called Gumpy. He told Chandler all about his friends at school. He even mentioned how his mom got all weird when he called, that her face got soft, and she got cartoon eyes. Chandler tried to ask more about that, but Tami took the phone back before he got any good intel.

His new mission, win over her son.

A mission.

That was where he excelled. Chandler was focused and determined. He’d win over Chester and Constance and Harold. Before Tami knew it, he’d win her heart too.

Chandler waited patiently, watching the screen as the wheels turned over in Tami’s mind at a furious pace. He understood her and kept the silence while she thought. He stared with rapt attention as her lips moved and her head went from side to side. It was like she was having a discussion with herself and arguing back.

She actually was.

Chandler thought it was endearing, Tami hated that particular quirk about herself.

The longer it went on, the more he admired her. She was a great mom. Even with as close as they’d grown, she was weighing every detail against what was best for her son. Not what anyone else wanted, but what she thought served Chester.

Finally, she looked into the camera.

“Okay. But only if he wants it and if you promise not to be a better storyteller than me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, and you know, I mean, I wanted to do it with you. Not in place of you.”

That was when he noticed the look Chester had told him about. The soft face and cartoon eyes. It was on the tip of his tongue to drop thelword on her, but he held back. Fear, yes, but also uncertainty. He was falling for her, but did he love her, or was it the aftereffects of a great orgasm that amplified it?

Deep down he knew it had nothing to do with the orgasm or seeing so much of her amazing body or even the cartoon eyes, but he panicked. If he said it, she might think it was and then he would start to second- and third-guess himself too.

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