Page 33 of Moonshine Lullabies

“Breakfast?” she murmured.

I smiled at her and said, “Sure. What can I do to help?”

“I don’t know, yet. Let’s see what we’ve got out there.”

“Sounds good.”

I grunted as I turned onto my back and stretched as she threw back a triangle of blankets and rose.

My morning wood twitched in my sweats when she reached up to take down her robe. The hem of her oversized tee she slept in rode up, giving me a glimpse of her perfectly rounded ass cheeks, peeking naughtily out from under the cover of her simple white-cotton panties anddamnwas that hot. Hotter than fucking lace and expensive sheer hose. Hotter than a garter or a teddy or whatever lingerie that you could think of… not that I would complain if she ever got to a point that she would wear those things for me. I’d like that, too. There was something about the simplicity of what she wore now. The fact that she could and would look good in anything…Mm.

She put on her robe and tied her belt, stopping in the bedroom doorway. Looking back, she asked, “You coming?”

“Yeah!” I said, “Right behind you, just uh, gimme a minute here.”

She smirked back at me and said, “You know I have a fourteen-year-old kid and I’ve clearly had sex before because of it. I’ve seen erections before. I’m not that big of a prude.”

I laughed some and nodded before shaking my head as her smirk grew into a grin. One that she bit her bottom lip to try and suppress.

“Keep doing that, it ain’t fixin’ to go down anytime soon,” I told her.

“Would if we had more time before Tate got up,” she remarked plainly before disappearing up the hall.

You little minx,I thought as I got out the bed and made it up right quick, noticing it was something she liked to do in the morning.

I made a pit stop in the bathroom on the way to the kitchen, which she’d hit up first, leaving the light on for me.

It was a bit chilly in the house, but not too bad. There was a small woodstove between the dining area and the living room and I asked her, “You want me to get a fire going? Knock the chill out?”

She stood up from where she’d bent to retrieve eggs out of the fridge and said, “Uh, yeah, if you don’t mind makin’ the coffee first so I can get some eggs and some bacon going.”

“Ooo, sounds good, and you bet.”

I made the coffee. She and I pretty synchronized moving around the kitchen, talking quietly about the day ahead as I went through the motions of loading the coffeemaker up to do its thing while she cracked and beat some eggs while the bacon got going in a pan.

“Okay, let me get this fire going,” I said, and I went to do just that.

I hadn’t realized how much I fuckin’ wanted this. The domesticity. The peace of having a good woman to come home to and a family. How much I wanted what I’d watched growing up that my papaw and memaw had.

Did I know that this might not work? Yeah. I did. Jessie-Lou wasn’t wrong about club life and the way it’d crashed into hers and Tate’s life like it had. That the danger was always a moment away and wasn’t as always on the periphery as we liked to believe and that some of us dumb fucks livin’ that life had fooled ourselves into believing.

Nothing in life was as free as we liked to believe. Everything had its cost. I just firmly believed that life was all the sweeter when you carved out times like the ones I was sharing now – the happiness that much more rich, vibrant, and makin’ this life that much more worth living, making all the bullshit worth it, you know?

We had breakfast together. Talking and joking, Tate and I makin’ plans to game again that night while I traded furtive looks with Jessie-Lou aboutafterthat. Talking without words, saying with eyes and meaningful looks thatyes, there would be more of that. Of the intimate little moments that were building between us and the peace that they seemed to bring with the understanding of who each of us were on the deepest level.

I loved learning who she was when she wasn’t wearing the mantle of “mom” or “sister.”

Tate got himself out the door, a piece of toast in his mouth, hustling his ass to the bus stop out front just in time to make it on.

I locked the front door behind him and turned to find Jessie-Lou staring at me with a sparkle in her warm brown eyes, her smile hidden by the rim of her coffee mug.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re good with him,” she said.

I gave a shrug, kind of at a loss for what to say about that.

“I wish I could say somethin’ like I’ve always been good with kids, or something like that to sound cool or whatever, but I’m glad you think so. I ain’t have much practice.”

---