Page 97 of Rock Chick Bonus Tracks

“Alice?” He directed this at the back seat.

“She loves them,” Alice said.

“Of course she does,” Moses replied. “They’re her boys.”

“No, I mean, Julien, he’s obviously not hers, but if you were blind, you’d never know it. It’s like they’rehershers. Not like she adopted them.”

“It is like that,” Moses concurred.

“I noticed that too,” Judith said. “It was really sweet. I thought Julien was going to give us a talking to so we’d be nice to her when he first showed at the table.”

“They’re protective,” Moses murmured.

“I like that for her. Sons should be protective of their mommas. Like daughters are protective of their daddies,” Judith decreed.

“Exactly like that, sweetheart,” Moses confirmed.

They let it lie then, and Moses didn’t think it was a good idea to press further opinions out of them. It was one dinner. They all had a lot of getting to know each other to do. Shirleen was a beautiful, sharp, funny, kind-hearted woman with an enormous amount of love to give. His daughters were good girls to their souls.

They had time.

It was all going to be great.

That said, he was glad the first meeting was over. He loved his daughters, and Shirleen was the best woman he’d ever met, and although he didn’t show it, he was nervous too.

He got them home and got them settled, not that there was much to that. They had the switching houses thing down, something that nagged his gut every time it happened. But it was part of their lives. Nothing he could do about it, and nothing he would, because the alternatives were either not have them or to have stayed with their mother, which was not going to happen.

He was in his bedroom, about to call Shirleen to get her take on the evening, when there was a knock on the door.

“Yeah?” he called.

Judith opened the door and peeked her head around. “Can we talk a second, Dad?”

“Always,” he answered, throwing out an arm to invite her to sit with him on his bed.

As she came his way, he gave consideration to the consolidation of the households.

He liked his place in Stapleton. There was a ton of greenspace. It was small, a newish build, so upkeep was minimal. And he’d given Judith free hand in decorating it, so his girl was all over the place.

This included his bedroom, with the long, black headboard she’d selected that went well beyond the mattress on either side. There were also cubbies on either side for books and shit, free floating shelves in front of them for you to put other shit, and built-in gold lamps above the cubbies with swinging arms so you could aim them over your book, or out of the way.

She’d rested some cool African-inspired art on the ledge at the top along with some family photos.

And she’d found this dark-brown leather bolster she’d instructed him to rest his plethora of pillows against at the head when he made the bed. He hadn’t been big on that bolster at the time of purchase, but now he couldn’t deny, it looked good.

On the other hand, Shirleen had at least a thousand more square feet, and the place was stamped with her. Glamor and attitude and in-your-face-take-me-as-I-am style. He liked that style. He liked her. He liked being in her space.

It was going to be interesting to see what they decided.

“I gotta warn you about Mom,” Judith announced when they were both sitting on the bed, Moses with one bent leg up on the mattress, turned to her to give her his full attention, Judith cross-legged, angled his way.

He expected her to dish on her newly love-struck sister, not warn him about their mother.

Shit.

“What’s happening, sweetheart?” he asked, with practice, keeping his impatience for their mom out of his voice.

“Well, obviously, we had to dress nicer for Bastien’s, which we did, and she noticed, and she asked why, and…I don’t know. I don’t know why I told her. It was my decision. I figure I told her because, first, she gets stupid when we keep things from her.”

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