His fingers gave me a squeeze and I looked at him.

“Isn’t this whole exercise ‘bout us livin’ our lives the way we want to live ‘em?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“So, you wanna write, write.”

I looked down at the box again, seeing mostly my older journals there, ones I’d written in when I was a kid, a pre-teen. Also, some from the last fifteen years.

Once I finished one, I never cracked it open again. I gave it the garbage in my brain hoping to release it. I’d been doing it forever but it was at that moment I realized that this never worked.

I stared in the box and whispered, “No. I don’t need to give my thoughts to a page when I can give them to you.”

His fingers tensed at my neck again, it wasn’t a squeeze this time, or not one he meant to give. This movement was reflexive and intense. Then he used his hand to curl me to his body.

My arms went around him as his other arm wrapped around me. I put my cheek to his chest and plastered my body to his.

“How much chance I got of you takin’ off a Saturday and spendin’ the rest of it alone with me?” he asked the top of my hair.

I thought this was a great idea. However, I part-owned a bar and Saturdays were our busiest days, not to mention these days we were even busier than normal. Already I was way late. I usually worked early on Saturdays so Morrie could have his game with Colt. Luckily, since Mom and Dad were here, they could hold down the bar while we had a lazy day. I could play on the emotional trauma Colt and me were living through to get the whole day off but it wouldn’t be right.

Again, I had to be mature and it sucked.

“Snowball in hell,” I said to his chest but I sounded as disappointed as I felt.

“That’s what I thought,” he replied before he kissed the top of my head and I tilted it back to look at him when he finished, “I gotta get to the Station anyway.”

“Can we get a Meems’s before we go our separate ways?” I asked.

“You wanna cookie for lunch?” he asked.

“No,” I answered, “carrot cake.”

He grinned but said, “Baby, I just played an hour of one-on-one. Carrot cake isn’t gonna cut it.”

“Mom bought enough deli meat and cheese to feed a battalion and we haven’t touched it yet.”

“You offerin’ to make me a sandwich?”

“I’ll make you two if you don’t argue about a convertible Beetle.”

His relaxed face became less relaxed.

I quickly offered an alternate choice, “Okay, I’ll amend the deal. I’ll make sandwiches if you take that journal box out to the garage and hide it in a place I won’t see it for about twenty years.”

I watched his face relax again before he said, “You’re on.”

He hefted up the box, I went to the kitchen.

My head was in the fridge and he was at the side door when I called, “So, ham and cheese?”

Colt stopped at the door, gave me a look and asked, “You want me to spank your ass?”

I considered this. Colt considered me as I did so. Then he laughed low and walked out the door.

I made him roast beef and swiss. I’d save the ham and cheese for when we both had a day off.

* * * * *

Colt and I walked into the bar. We both had our hands wrapped around the cardboard of a Meem’s white, takeaway cup and I had cream cheese from the carrot cake I’d hoovered through at the Coffee House on my lip.

I knew this because when I entered the bar Morrie shouted, “You got a Meems’s carrot cake and didn’t bring one for me?”

Morrie liked Meems’s carrot cake. It was his favorite. I didn’t get him one because the piece I had was the last slice of the day. Even though my favorite goodie in Meems’s inventory was her chocolate zucchini cake, I felt zero guilt about taking the last piece of carrot cake. Mainly because I had a psycho hacking up my ex-boyfriends and I was in a carrot cake mood. I figured the former meant I got dibs on the latter.

“It was the last piece,” I told Morrie after I’d licked my lip clean and while I walked down the bar.

“She have any chocolate zucchini left?” Morrie asked astutely.

“Nope,” I lied.

“Bullshit,” Morrie muttered and, as ever, I found it annoying I could never lie to my brother.

Colt followed me to the office where I stowed my purse in a drawer in the desk, sucked back the last of my Meems’s and tossed it in the trash.

When I straightened, I said to him, “Next time I have frosting on my mouth, tell me, will you?”

His arm shot out, hooked around my waist and he hauled me forward. Then he bent his head and licked my lip where the icing was.

My fingers curled into his thermal and they did this in an effort for me to remain standing because Colt’s tongue felt so nice it had a direct effect on the ability of my legs to keep me upright.

“Morrie ruined it,” Colt said when he lifted his head, “I was savin’ it for later.”

“Yeah, and I was walkin’ down the street with cream cheese on my lip,” I returned.

“How much you care about that?” he asked and he sounded weirdly curious.

Because he sounded curious, my eyes slid to the side as I mulled over his question.

Then my eyes came back and I answered, “Not much.”

He grinned.

I continued, “Then again, no one was on the street to see me and it’s only two doors down.”

“About fifteen cars passed us, baby.”

“Yeah, but they don’t count seein’ as I didn’t really notice them so in my head they don’t actually exist.”

He was still grinning when the door opened and Dad stood there. His expression was not good in a way that was really not good and both Colt and I got stiff simultaneously.

“Colt,” Dad said, “fuck, son, I’m sorry but I think you need to get out here.”

“What?” Colt asked and I watched Dad twist his neck, extending it in a way I’d seen before, not often but he did it when something happened he didn’t like, something that upset him or something that worried him.

His eyes hit Colt and he said, “Your Ma’s here.”

This was such a shock I felt my head move forward with a jerk as my eyes grew wide.

“His mother?” I asked.

Dad shook his head but said, “Yeah, darlin’.” Then he looked at Colt. “She’s askin’ for you and Jackie’s circlin’. Morrie and Dee’re tryin’ to get her to move on but she’s resistant and it’s workin’ Jackie up, I can see it, she’s gonna blow. We can’t get rid of Mary and we’re losin’ hold on keepin’ Jackie from goin’ ballistic. Sorry, Colt, wouldn’t ask you this if I didn’t have to, you know that, but I need you to come deal with your mother.”