Page 2 of Alec’s Dream

I glanced into the shopping cart and my heart literally hurt looking at the contents. There wasn’t much there and none of it would win me mother-of-the-year, but it would fill their bellies until next week when I got paid.

There had been a time when the cart had been full of good food and lots of it. We hadn’t been rolling in it, but we’d been far from hurting. That was until my fucking ex-husband decided he needed a hobby. Unfortunately, he picked one he wasn’t very good at, and in the process had lost all our money. After he lost what we had, he went into debt. And not with the bank—with not-so-nice men. The kind of men who knocked on your door at three AM looking for payment.

“Can we get hamburgers from the Freeze? Please, mom. We haven’t had them in forever.” Caleb’s pleading brown eyes—incidentally, my son got my eyes—came to mine and I couldn’t say no.

I quickly did a mental check of my bank account, deducting the groceries we already had in the cart and prayed nothing came up in the next seven days because after checking out and buying dinner at the Freeze, I would have approximately nine dollars left.

“Sure, baby—”

“I’m not a baby,” Caleb reminded me.

This was something new. It had started when he went back to school this year. Gone was my baby boy and in his place was a middle schooler and preteen. He no longer asked me to tuck him in, he refused to allow me to hold his hand in public—not even crossing a street, and he demanded I not call him baby anything.

“All right Caleb, the Freeze sounds good.”

He nodded then looked down at his sister. “Next time Larry says something nasty to you or your friends, tell him he’s answering to me.”

“Caleb—”

“It’s not right Larry and Peter get a free pass to be jerks,” my son told me. “I know you keep telling us to be kind and walk away, but it doesn’t work. It never works. The only way to make them stop is to teach them a lesson.”

“Not sure it’s your place to teach that lesson, Caleb.”

My son’s eyes turned hard and I hated that, too. Which made me despise my ex-husband even more. I wanted to ask the universe where my sweet boy had gone. But I didn’t have to ask. I knew. While Rory wasn’t old enough to remember, Caleb was. I’d tried my best to shield him from the arguments but when Doug was mad there was no shushing him. He let it fly. He did it loud and he did it ugly. Which meant my son had heard. The name-calling, the cursing, the doors slamming, and the fists being punched through the drywall.

Fucking Doug.

It didn’t lessen the guilt that it had never been me doing any of those things. It had been Doug calling me every ugly name he could think of. Doug yelling the house down and not caring his children were there hearing, fuck this, fuck that, fuck you, stupid cunt—the list of dirty names was endless. But it had been me who had stayed thinking I was doing the right thing trying to keep my family together.

I’d been wrong. I should’ve left three years before I did, but then I wouldn’t have Aurora and she was worth every ounce of pain Doug had caused. Except Doug’s bullshit hadn’t just affected me, my son had been caught up in it, too.

“Someone has to,” Caleb returned and I gave in.

Not for good, just until we were out of the grocery store and in private where I could explain to Caleb why it wasn’t his job to teach anyone a lesson.

“How about we checkout so we can go get dinner?”

“Can I have a milkshake with my hamburger?” Rory asked, going up on her toes.

“Of course, you can’t have a burger from the Freeze without a shake,” I answered even though my bank balance was in serious jeopardy of going into the negative.

The Freeze was packed, as per usual. It was the premier place in Kent County to get milkshakes. Though I’d never been a sweets person, therefore, in my opinion, their fries were the best around—and I’d know, I was somewhat of a French fry connoisseur. Sure, I liked all kinds, curly, beer-battered, even shoestring crispy ones, but the Freeze fried the best fries. They were perfect, and because of that and my lack of funds, they would be my sole nutritional intake for the evening.

We’d had to wait a solid ten minutes to order, standing nearly shoulder to shoulder with all of the impatient patrons. The Freeze was popular but it was small. There were two well-worn—okay they were actually worn out benches—for people to sit while they waited for their orders but there were no tables to sit and eat. The place was truly take-out only. In the spring after a ball game it wasn’t unheard of for the parking lot to be jam-packed with cars and kids of all ages milling about enjoying a shake. Most of the time still in their uniforms. The rest of the year, even in winter when it was twenty degrees outside, the place was no less packed.

I’d just finished paying and was trying to move out of the way so the next person in line could order when I heard Rory speak.

“Your baby’s really cute, mister.”

What could I say? My daughter was friendly.

“Thanks.” The man chuckled and my body froze.

I knew that voice. I’d dreamt of that voice. Deep, smooth, rich. I closed my eyes and behind my lids, I saw Alec Hall’s smiling handsome face. No, handsome didn’t do him justice—smoking hot, smiling face. Though the man didn’t smile often which was a crying shame because when he did, holy smokes—panty-melting. If anyone could make me come out of hibernation it was Alec.

Thankfully I’d sworn off all men.

Who the hell was I kidding? A man like Alec—tall, broad-shouldered, muscular build, (yes I’d checked him out and his forearms were to-die-for) gorgeous eyes, (yes I’d paid too much attention) complete with a smokin’ hot smile would never give me more than a cursory glance. And I’d be lucky to get that if I was dressed to the nines and spent five-hundred hours trying to look presentable. Which these days, I dressed for comfort and looked like I was auditioning for the part of a homeless person.