Tate leaned forward too. “And I asked a f**kin’ question. You’re not much of a Mom but you’re still his goddamned Mom. He loses you, no matter you’re shit at bein’ a mother, it’d mark him. Fuck,” he hissed. “Neeta, you know that better than anyone.”

She leaned back too far, hitting the railing again and she snapped, “Fuck you!”

I was done and therefore I stepped forward to stand by Tate.

“It’s been too long,” I started.

“Ace, let me f**kin’ –”

I talked over him. “You don’t get that excuse anymore. Your Mom’s been gone too long, you can’t use losing her to behave this way.”

“Wad d’you know ‘bout it?” she sneered.

“Not one thing,” I replied. “My Mom’s still alive so I grew up with her around to teach me how to be a good person. So let me educate you on how to be a good person, Neeta, something I suspect from what people say about her, your mother taught you before she passed but you forgot.”

“Don’t choo talk about my Mom!” she yelled.

I ignored her. “You don’t take your pain out on anyone but especially not the people you love. Never do that. Not ever.”

“Piss off.”

“You lost the world,” I shot back. “I can’t imagine, I don’t want to and I dread they day I will. But she left you with gifts and you squandered every one of them.”

“She left me with shit,” Neeta hissed.

“She left you with your looks, you’re beautiful. She left you with a good Dad, a gentle brother, a kind aunt who stepped up –”

“Lauren the good,” she leaned forward again and spat. “You think you can win them? Take them all away from me? My friends? My family? My man? No f**kin’ way.” She shook her head, suddenly grinning drunkenly. “They’ll be back. They always come back.”

“Not this time, Neet,” Tate stated and she swiveled her head to look up at him.

“Yeah,” she was still grinning, sure of herself in her inebriation, “right.”

“I’m in love with Laurie,” Tate announced and the smile dissolved from her face. It seemed to take a long time to do it, almost as if she didn’t comprehend, she couldn’t wrap her mind around this concept. As the smile evaporated, her face went slack.

“The f**k you say,” she whispered.

“Her car’s in my garage, her clothes in my closet and they’re gonna stay there. Jonas digs her. You don’t shape your shit up, I’ll make it so you’re a bad memory and the only Mom he knows is Laurie.”

“The f**k you say,” she whispered again.

Tate’s arm slid around my shoulders and he pulled me into his side. I wrapped my arm around his waist, turned my front into his side and then wrapped my other arm around his stomach, holding him close but loose, natural, casual, exactly how I fit at his side.

“You had him so he could be a tool to manipulate me,” Tate stated. “Fought with that knowledge for awhile, couldn’t believe it, even of you. But today you proved it. You don’t get your head outta your ass, you’ll lose him.”

She wasn’t listening. Her eyes had glued on our stance, our closeness, moving slowly from my arms around his middle to his around my shoulders.

Then her eyes went to him. “You love her?”

“Outside Jonas, she’s the best goddamned thing to ever happen to me.”

I held my breath at this announcement, my stomach doing a little flip, but Neeta slid slightly to the side along the railing as if inching toward escape.

“No,” she breathed.

“Oh yeah,” he returned.

“I gave you Jonas,” she reminded him softly.

“Yeah, woulda thanked you, minute I saw him bawlin’ in the nursery. Since then you used him to make life a livin’ hell so now, knowin’ you have no good in you and knowin’ he’s all about good, I take total credit.”

“He’s ours.” She reached an arm out to him. “We made him.”

“You carried him but, lucky for Jonas, he’s all about Brenda, about Pop, about Dad and about me and he didn’t get even a trace of you. He’s all that but I brought out the good in him. He puts up with you and that’s it.”

“We made him,” she repeated, dropping her arm but leaning toward Tate.

“For you he was the result of an orgasm. For me, he jumpstarted my world. We made him, yeah, but I claim him.”

She closed her eyes tight and when she opened them, I knew her tactics had changed.

“You could show me –” she entreated.

“Tried to do that, Neet, never took hold.”

“I could be –” she went on.

“Tried to find out what you could be too, you never let go of who you are and I want nothin’ to do with that.”

Her eyes slid to me then back to Tate. “But you love me.”

“Never loved you, Neet. Thought I did, now I know what it feels like, know I didn’t.”

She winced, her eyes closing again, her head moving to the side and down. She lifted a hand to the railing as if to hold herself up.

“Callin’ Wood to come get you, take your ass wherever he wants but you’re leavin’ here and you’re not comin’ back. You come back, I call the cops. I’m not steppin’ out on this deck again when your feet are on it,” Tate finished with her and looked down at me. “Babe, go to her car, she left her keys in the ignition. Get ‘em, yeah?”

I nodded, let him go and moved away.

Neeta didn’t move a muscle to stop me. By the time I got to her car, pulled the key out of the ignition, figured out how to turn off the headlights, closed the door and returned to the deck, Tate was there, his phone to his ear. Neeta was now sitting on the deck, her knees curled into her chest, her arms wrapped around, the picture of pathetic but, studying her, I could call up not even a hint of compassion.

“Wood?” Tate said into the phone. “Sorry, bud, but Neeta’s at my place. She’s smashed and drove her car up here. I want her gone. Either you get her or I call the Station. You comin’?” He paused and held his hand out to me for the keys. I dropped them in his hand as he said, “Right. Later.” He flipped his phone closed, his arm curled around me again, bringing my front to his side but his eyes went down to Neeta. “Wood’ll be here to take care of your shit… again.”