“Come here,” he said quietly.
“I don’t think I want to.”
“I don’t think I care,” he countered, reaching over and picking up a paper napkin to wipe his head with. “Come here.”
Shaking my head, I pulled Liv’s chair closer to me, scooping up more fruit for the hangry kid. “I’m ok here, thanks.”
There was silence as I fed her the next three spoonful’s, and it could only be described as an unnerving silence. You know in a scary movie when everything goes silent and you’re just sitting there waiting and knowing that something’s going to happen? That was this silence.
And then… “I dare you.”
Dropping the empty bowl on the table, I swung around so that I was facing him. “Oh, you shithead.”
Suddenly, just like that, he dropped it. “You’re right, that was wrong of me. Forget I said it.”
When he followed it by getting up, I sat watching every movement he made, just waiting for him to do something back to me, but he never did. He picked up Liv, blew a huge farty on her tummy, and then kissed me on the cheek as he walked past with her. “We need to go to the store; princess is running low on diapers and wipes. We also need more bananas and shit for her food because I saw this baby banana bread I wanna make her. I was thinking of doing it with that stewed apple stuff on top.”
Looking around the empty room and quickly running my hands over my hair to make sure he hadn’t dropped something on it, I whispered, “What just happened?”
There were no answers, none whatsoever. Jesus Christ, this was worse than the silence in those scary movies, this was like when they’d just run for their lives and thought they’d found the perfect place to hide.________________
One hour later…Ellis didn’t have any clients until three o’clock today, so we had him all to ourselves, apparently. That’s why we were walking around the store together at ten o’clock, doing the whole domesticated bliss thing with me pushing the cart and him carrying Liv. “You want a binky with a unicorn on it?” he asked her, holding up the package. “My daughter has one that looks like a unicorn horn,” a deep voice rumbled behind us making me spin at an ‘unhealthy for a hangover’ speed to see Cole Townsend standing there. “Morning, Jose. How’s the head?”
“How does everyone know I had alcohol last night? I know we live in a small town, but…”
“Ethan owns the club,” he interrupted just as I was building up steam about small town living. “You pushed the singer of the band off the stage last night so that you and Tabby could have a turn at karaoke. Video’s on YouTube.”
On the inside I was looking for a place to die, but on the outside, I went immediately for the denial phase of my defense. “No, we didn’t, that’s a lie.” Although, it really wasn’t. Hearing him recount it had brought back a memory of the two of us singing He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother to each other, pointing and nodding at the crowd when we said the word ‘brother’. We were total losers!
Shaking his head, Cole shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Nope, it’s not. And it’s also not a lie that if I was you – totally just a word of advice on this one – I wouldn’t give up my day job to become a singer.”
“Told you,” Ellis muttered, turning back to look at the pacifiers. “I sing like an angel,” I snapped, wondering if I should check YouTube now or when I got home, or maybe never acknowledge its existence again. Holding his hands up in front of him, he took a step away from me. “Just my advice.”
Just then, the most awful wailing sounded from beside us in the form of two voices that I recognized as mine and Tabby’s. “Jesus Christ!” Ellis groaned. “It’s even worse than when she was singing with Jarrod.”
“Heard about that, too,” Cole mused, grinning when he looked back at me. “You want him to poop you out?”
Rubbing my face, and only just remembering about my mascara at the last second, I sighed, “I was drunk.”
“Would that make him your poop daddy?”
“Good one,” Ellis snorted, wincing when Tabby and I built up steam on stage. God, it really was fucking terrible.
“Speaking of poop,” Cole drawled, leaning to look behind me. “You need a wet wipe? I’ve got some in the car.”
Turning to see what he was looking at, expecting to see that Liv had been sick or something, I frowned when there wasn’t anything there. “What do we need a wipe for?”
As I looked back at him, I was just in time to see his eyes snap from Ellis back to me, and he directed the most angelic look toward me. “Nothing, thought I saw something. Anyways, y’all have a good day, enjoy yourselves, um… do shit, or don’t, just in case you already have. Laters!” He waved, walking off down the aisle, his shoulders shaking.