Page 50 of Moonshine Lullabies

“They don’t,” I said with a shrug, meaning “they don’t hurt my feelings” which I knew was a lie – but Tate didn’t need to know that. He took the other meaning.

“Well then, maybe you should tell ‘em.” He looked at me plaintively, waiting for my response.

“Yeah, well, maybe I should,” I said, and I sighed. We were all silent for a long time and I finally took a deep breath and said, “Boy, I can’t get nothin’ past you, can I, kid?”

He looked a little sad and a little proud at the same time and said the sweetest thing, “Well, I am my mother’s son and ain’t nobody get anything past you, can they?”

I glowed a little with pride at that and said, “You’re goddamn right.”

He grinned and we all just sort of sighed and sat in some introspective silence, winding down from all the excitement.

A little while after that, Collier asked, “You want to stay in the room with your mom while I take the couch?”

Tate shook his head and said, “Nah, I’ll take the couch. You guys go ahead.”

“I love you,” I told my kid. Hooking my hand around his neck, I pulled his head into my kiss.

“I love you, too, Mom.”

Collier and I wound up in bed a little while after that, the bedroom door wide, the blue from the television screen flickering along the ceiling and through the doorway as Tate watched something quietly in the other room. By the time we all got to sleep, I didn’t think a single one of us would get up before one in the afternoon the next day – or rather later today, with how late the hour had gotten.

I sighed heavily and Collier kissed my forehead in the dark.

“You trust me?” he asked.

“You know I do,” I replied in a chastising tone. Like, how could he even ask me that after everything?

“I’m going to handle everything,” he said. “I promise.”

I nodded against his shoulder because I could trust Collier. I could trust him and I believed him – until he gave me a reason not to, and I didn’t think he would ever do that.

He smoothed a hand over my shoulder in its oversized tee and I sighed in contentment, cuddling close and made him promise me, “Just be careful when you do. I feel like I only just found you and I feel like I’d die if I lost you.”

He pressed yet another kiss to my forehead, and I didn’t think I would ever get tired of that.

“I’ll be more than careful,” he said. “I reckon I have no intentions of doin’ to you what you been handed your whole life.”

“An’ what’s that?” I asked carefully.

“A raw fuckin’ deal,” he answered. “An’ those days are over.”

He said the last with so much finality that I couldn’t help but believe him.

I closed my eyes and sighed out, “Thank you.” He squeezed me a little closer.

It felt good.

We were woken up the next day by his phone buzzing across the bedside table. I groaned and glared at it but the glare smoothed to something like surprise when I spotted our book, just sitting there like it’d been there all along.

I hadn’t even thought to grab it.

“Yeah,” Collier answered the phone. A low voice came through it, but I couldn’t make out what it was saying.

“Yeah,” Collier answered it. “I’ll be right down.” He hung up the phone, and I groaned.

“Duty calls, baby,” he murmured.

I sighed and grumped out, “Be careful.”

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