Page 191

Story: Tenderfoot

I shivered and got happier.
Suddenly, Dream was there, standing close to Shirleen.
Shirleen turned to her and instantly reared back, probably because that nightmare smile was on Dream’s face again.
“Anything I can get you?” Dream asked through clenched teeth.
Shirleen looked to the table, saw we’d broken the seal, and then she went back to Dream. “An appletini.”
“Any particular vodka you’d like in that?” Dream pushed out.
“Dazzle me,” Shirleen said.
“Sir?” Dream was addressing Moses.
“Just a beer,” Moses told her.
“Any preferences?” she pushed out.
“You got 405?” he asked.
“We do,” she gritted.
“That’d be great.”
Moses commandeered some chairs for him and his wife to sit down, and they joined us.
While he did this, I thought Dream was about to have a seizure, but then she controlled whatever was going on internally, nodded and walked away.
“I’m uncertain about the weekend crew,” Shirleen leaned in and whispered to the table.
Proving he had bionic hearing, Tex bellowed from the coffee cubby, “Me too!”
I turned to look at Tito.
He was concentrating very closely on his iPad, which he was poking at with a finger, so I suspected he was playing some game.
By the time I turned back, I jumped, because out of nowhere, Martha was there.
She was carrying one of Tex’s coffees.
“Good to see you’re alive,” she grouched at me. “You been gone so long, what with all the recent shenanigans, it’s a real unknown with you girls if you’re lying dead in a ditch or off on an impromptu joyride to Vegas.”
Sadly, and scarily, this was kinda true.
“I’m fine, Martha. I was just hanging with Javi,” I told her.
Her eyes bounced between me and Javi, regrettably landing on Javi.
“See you pulled your finger out,” she remarked.
Javi didn’t take any of that bait, but he did smile a smile I felt in my girl parts, and I knew he did because he very much liked to push his finger in, but he also enjoyed pulling it out.
“Boys,” Martha huffed then addressed the whole table, or specifically a certain subsect of the women at it. “So, officially, Jacob and Alexis are moving into the two-bedroom. Does this mean we’ll be getting another girl who’s mixed up in whatever crazy you girls have gotten yourself into?”
“No, all the crazy is already resident at the Oasis,” Jessie didn’t quite assure her.
Martha blew out an annoyed breath.

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