Page 72 of Moonshine Lullabies

I sighed and slid into Tate’s vacant seat.

I shook my head. “Nah, some of it’s just plain Tate. I was just a dumbass kid raisin’ another kid… what did I know?”

Alina and Cor exchanged a look.

“My mom was young when she had me,” Alina disclosed and I cocked my head. “She got heavy into drugs and pretty much dumped me off on my Boomer grandmother.”

“Same here,” Cor said, “Except my mom hung onto me and tried. By the time she died, my grandparents were so infirm with their own health problems I ended up permanently placed in the foster care system until I aged out.”

“Well hell,” I said. “Sounds like out of the lot of us I had it good.”

“No, I’m not saying that at all!” Alina said shaking her head almost violently. “Sorry if I gave that impression. That wasn’t my intent at all!”

“We all have our damage,” Corliss said coming around to the table with two steaming mugs and setting one down for me. “Here, give that a try. I made it how Alina and I like it but if you hate it, I can try again.”

I took it up and blew on it and took a careful sip.

“That’s damn good,” I declared. “I like it.”

Tate went past us and into the bathroom down here, shutting the door.

Alina came and sat down with me and Cor, and she was grinning pretty big. I smiled.

“What is that, anyway?” I asked.

“A vanilla rooibos tea sweetened with rock sugar.”

I nodded, “That’s nice. Where’d you get it?”

We talked tea and the warm liquid worked its magic. About a half an hour after my boy had gone in to bed, I was ready to call it quits.

“I sure look forward to seeing your art tomorrow,” Alina said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Cor said. “It sounds really cool.”

I chuckled. “Collier tellin’ stories?”

They exchanged a look. “Nah, Cypress showed us some pictures a while back,” Alina said.

I raised an eyebrow at that. “My dumbass brother?” I asked and they traded another look and giggled.

“Yeah,” Cor said. “You know he’s really proud of you.”

Whaaaaat?

“Yeah,” Alina agreed.

“I’m dreamin’ or there’s somethin’ in that tea,” I said and both of them laughed.

“As Hex likes to say, let’s stick a pin in it until tomorrow,” Cor said.

I nodded. “G’night, y’all.”

“Night!” they chorused, and I went into the closet of a guest room and shook my head at my kid who was sprawled out across the whole damn bed. With a sigh, I changed quietly into some leggings and one of my oversized tees and shoved him over. He groaned but made room and I fell asleep with a smile on my face thinkin’ yeah, he was definitely gettin’ too old to share a bed with his mamma…

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