The Will

“Yeah,” Co

It was undoubted that Jake heard his son’s tone and this was likely why he let it go and instead queried, “Ellie know she’s the one?”

“Told her a week ago, Dad,” Co

At this, Ethan muttered, “Righteous.”

Jake ignored his youngest son and inquired of his eldest, “You think Mia’s still givin’ her shit?”

Co

Not good news.

“She goes to church Sunday mornings, Con,” Jake reminded his boy.

“At nine. It’s nearly noon. She’s been home for almost two hours,” Co

Jake had no response to that.

“Is Zoey gone?” Ethan entered the conversation.

“Just got off the phone with her,” Co

I bit my lip.

Jake looked at me.

I stopped biting my lip and stretched my lower one out to communicate my nonsensical “eek!” which, albeit nonsensical, I still felt said a great many things.

At seeing my gesture, Jake dropped his head and gri

He understood the great many things I’d said.

“Josie?” Co

I knew intuitively this wasn’t starting very well.

“I am, indeed, Co

“What’s her gig?” he asked.

Yes, this was not going in a comfortable direction.

All three Spear men turned their eyes to me.

“I’m afraid I don’t know her well enough to answer that, sweetheart,” I said gently.

“She always picks up when I call or calls back when she can after she gets my message,” he told me.

And it kept trundling down that prickly path.

It was then a question that Jake had asked me over a week ago came back and I asked it of Co

“How real can you take it?”

“I dig her, a lot,” Co

That was quite forthcoming.

And very sweet.

“In other words, you don’t want to lose her,” I deduced.

“In other words, yeah. I don’t,” Co

I moved to the island where both Jake’s sons were and laid a hand on it, my eyes to Co

“At the game, you were lovely with her. Very attentive. Protective,” I told him.

I liked the way his expression changed, showing satisfaction not only that I noted he was this way but that he gave those things to Ellie.

Unfortunately, I had more to say.

“However, it does not feel good to be one in many. Although she’s made the cut, which I will share now with your best interests at heart, that is not the terminology to use when referring to whether or not you wish to carry on a relationship, she could still be smarting about that. But I believe it’s likely Mia. She’s afraid of her and girls can be quite unpleasant. She’ll find her times to be this way to Ellie when you’re not around. Ellie knows this. So I advise you give it a bit of time and if she doesn’t call you back, you call her again. If she still doesn’t answer, seek her out.”

“I’ll do that,” Co

“Have you not already done that?” I asked back.

“I told her to lay off and I’d be pissed if she didn’t.”

“And if you get pissed that she doesn’t, what do you intend to do?”

Co

He was too much of his father’s son to hurt her in any real way so his getting pissed was no threat and Mia knew this.

“As that’s the case, if she still intends to harm Ellie, since she’s not frightened of your anger, she’ll do something to harm Ellie.”

Co

“Give her the chance to call you back,” Jake put in at this juncture. “A coupla hours. Then call her and, like Josie said, go over there if she doesn’t answer.”

Co

My phone still in my hand rang.

I looked down at it and saw it said “Unknown Caller,” but the area code on the number was local.

This concerned me, as it was a possibility Henry was staying somewhere close and could be using the hotel phone to call me, though I didn’t know why he wouldn’t use his mobile if he rang.

Even concerned it might be Henry, I took the call and put the phone to my ear.

“This is Josephine.”

“Josie, girl, you…are…legend!” a female voice shrieked in my ear.

I narrowed my eyes at the black granite of Jake’s island. “Pardon?”

“Babelicious, I heard about last night,” the woman stated.

It came to me it was Alyssa right before she kept speaking.

“You rock. You roll. You got it good and from what I hear, gave it better. Girl, I wa

“Um…” I mumbled but got nothing else out. Not that I knew what to say to her highly unusual compliments delivered with extreme enthusiasm.

“Ohmigod!” she shrieked. “I so hope Do

This was extremely insightful.

Before I could share that or, perhaps, walk out of the room, as it was likely, with the direction the mostly one-sided conversation was moving, I should take this call privately, she kept going.

“And who wants a twenty-something? Is she high? Every woman knows they gotta get a man who’s sowed his wild oats and, she’s lucky, he’ll have sowed his wild oats with her. She let that shit go and now she’s grasping at it to get it back ‘cause she knows no way Jake’s go

She took in a breath so deep, I heard her inhaling it over the phone and I thought I’d get a word in edgewise but I wasn’t fast enough.

“And don’t get me started on the way she is with her kids. My head might explode.”

This, too, I agreed with her on.

“Indeed,” I got in.

“You bet your ass, indeed,” she replied, sounding like she was doing it through laughter. “Now, babe, my shop isn’t open on Mondays but I’m opening the joint and givin’ you a mani-pedi tomorrow just because you’re the shit and already so legend that if I tell all my girls that the class-act who’s banging The Truck is a client, everyone will want to go there.”

Oh dear.

“But trust me, these lips aren’t loose,” she continued, again before I could utter a noise. “Don’t even think they are. Junior likes his BJs tight so I don’t ever go there. Come in at three. It’s called Maude’s House of Beauty. It was my mom’s before me. She’s Maude. Obviously, I’m not. We’ll go for a drink after I sort you out and that way I can be home in time to feed Junior and the hooligans I pushed out for him and you can get to Jake and rock his world.”

“I’m afraid I can’t,” I told her and I was actually quite disappointed I couldn’t. “I’ll have Ethan.”