The 2014 R.L. Mathewson Chronicle Collection (4 page)

            “Oh my god, that is a good brownie, woman,” he said, closing his eyes in ecstasy as he devoured the brownie with-

            “I wanted that one,” she said with a slight pout as she shifted onto her knees to glare at the bastard devouring the fudge brownie with buttercream frosting.

            With a wicked grin, he wrapped his free arm around her waist and pulled her close until she had no other choice but to straddle his lap. Once she was there, he wasted no time getting back inside her, this time making sure that she took every last inch. The same time that she felt the pad of his thumb press down on her clit, he held the brownie up to her lips.

            “The first bite is free, sweetheart,” he said, moving his thumb over her clit. “But the second bite is going to cost you.”

            “They’re my brownies,” she felt obligated to point out even as she shifted her hips and slowly rode him the way that she knew would drive him crazy.

            “And if you’d told me about them, I would have shared them with you,” he said, pulling the brownie away and taking a huge bite out of it before he added, “but not now, sweetheart. Now you’re going to have to earn my forgiveness even if it takes all night.”

A Trip to the Grocery Store

A Trip to the Grocery Store Part I

              “You’re expelling my children?” Trevor asked, sure that he’d misheard the man shifting nervously across from him.

              “Well,” Principal Anderson started only to pause as he noticeably swallowed, “not exactly.”

              “Then they can return?” Trevor asked slowly, wondering when the man was going to start making sense.

              “Yes,” Principal Anderson said with obvious relief as he nodded enthusiastically. “Just not for a week,” he added with an apologetic smile.

              “So, you’re suspending them?” Trevor asked, wondering if that was even possible.

              “Well, no,” he said with a frown that only confused him more.

              “Then what the hell are you doing?” Trevor demanded, quickly running out of patience as he glared at the man who’d called him at work and demanded that he come to the school immediately.

              Thinking that his boys had been hurt, he’d rushed to the school only to find his oldest sons, Sebastian and Johnny, sitting on the bench in front of the main office, looking a little too innocent for his comfort. When he’d asked the secretary what was going on, she’d started trembling and muttering something about demon spawn and some other nonsense that he really couldn’t understand. The two women huddled in the far corner, holding onto each other as they sobbed hysterically hadn’t been much help either. For about thirty seconds he’d considered asking his boys what happened, but those damn smiles on their faces kept him from asking.

              “We’re simply asking you to keep your sons home for a week,” Principal Anderson explained, only to pause and add, “make that two weeks.”

              “There’s only two more weeks of school left,” Trevor pointed out, confused as hell and suddenly in need of a drink.

              “Yes, well,” the other man said, clearing his throat nervously before he continued. “We just feel that it might be for the best for everyone involved if Sebastian and Johnny spent the rest of the year at home.”

              “So, this isn’t a suspension?”

              “No,” Principal Anderson said, shaking his head as he pursed his lips up in thought, obviously looking for the right words. “Think of it as a favor.”

              “A favor?” Trevor repeated dryly, wondering how keeping his eight-year-old boys out of school for two weeks was doing anyone a favor. It sure as hell wouldn’t be doing his wife a favor since she was going to be the one stuck looking after the boys a full two weeks earlier than expected.

              Christ, she was going to kill him for this….

              “Yes, well,” Principal Anderson said, going back to shifting nervously as he explained, “the thing of it is, if you don’t promise to keep the boys home for the next two weeks, the teachers and all the staff have threatened to go on strike.”

              “On strike?” he repeated numbly, sure that he’d misheard.

              “Yes, so as you can see my hands are tied on this one. It’s either I send the boys home to finish out the school year or I face a strike.”

              He dropped his face in his hands, wondering how two little boys could push a school full of teachers to this point. Even for a Bradford that had been banned from restaurants, theme parks, churches, historical landmarks, counties, cities and whole states, that was unbelievably terrifying.

              “What the hell did they do?” he asked, even though he wasn’t sure that he wanted to hear the answer.

              “I think it would be for the best if we never spoke of this incident again. In fact, I’ve already arranged to have their records sealed,” he heard the principal explain while he struggled to make sense of this whole mess.

              “What about next year?” Trevor asked, wondering how the school was going to handle the boys next year when they returned.

              The sound of a throat clearing, drew Trevor’s attention back to the man sitting across from him. “About that, we’ve decided after careful consideration that Sebastian and Johnny would benefit from skipping the fourth grade.”

              “They’re skipping a grade?” he asked, stunned.

              “Yes, we felt that based on their test scores that they would benefit from a more challenging environment,” Principal Anderson said, looking pleased with himself.

              “I see,” Trevor said, somewhat relieved that the school had given him a decent enough bullshit story to explain to his wife why the last two weeks of peace and quiet were suddenly being ripped away from her.

              “Good, good,” Principal Anderson said absently as he came to his feet and gestured rather impatiently for Trevor to do the same. “I apologize for rushing you out like this, but the teachers and staff gave me until one o’clock to have this taken care of or they walk,” he explained with a sheepish smile as he once again gestured for Trevor to leave.

              He opened his mouth to ask about his other children, but decided not to push his luck. Without the oldest boys here to keep the younger children in line, they’d probably destroy the school within the week. This man would figure out his mistake soon enough.

              Until then, he needed to figure out the best way to explain this to his wife, something that wouldn’t have her going for his balls would be preferable.

Part II

              “I’m pushing the carriage!”

              “No, I am!” Johnny snapped, shoving Sebastian out of the way only to get shoved back seconds later while Trevor stood there, grocery list in hand, staring off at posters promising boneless skinless chicken breasts at a “Buy One Get One Free” offer and not really seeing it.

              He still wasn’t sure how it happened.

              Once he’d managed to get the boys in the car without them “tinkering” with Principal Anderson’s car as they’d called it, he’d called his wife and hunted her down at Bradford Construction’s main office. Fifteen minutes later he was parking next to his wife’s SUV and looking forward to working the rest of the afternoon. Ten minutes after that, Zoe was giving him a kiss, an apology, slapping a huge grocery list in his hand and shoving him towards her car….

              With the boys in tow.

              Somehow, and he still wasn’t sure how this happened, Zoe had convinced Uncle Jarred to give him the next two weeks off with pay so that he could take care of the boys while she used that time to catch the office up on paperwork, payroll and a bunch of other bullshit excuses that she’d managed to come up with so that she could stick him with twin duty.

              “I’m pushing!” Sebastian snapped, grabbing Johnny by the arm and in less than a second, had his twin brother in a headlock that would make any Bradford male, and a few females, proud.

              Sighing heavily, Trevor reached over and pulled his boys apart. “Johnny is pushing,” he said, placing his now gloating son in front of the carriage and handing the list over to Sebastian, “and you’re on list duty.”

              As much as he knew how badly his son wanted to bitch, he didn’t. Not even when Trevor pulled a second carriage loose and pushed it towards the produce section. His boys knew the deal with his dyslexia and since they’d learned to read at the ripe old age of one, had taken their duty to read for their father seriously.

              “Ah, Dad?” Sebastian said, catching up with them near the apple section.

              “What?” he asked, holding a plastic produce bag while Johnny filled it with Gala apples.

              “I think mom’s on another diet,” Sebastian announced with a pained grimace as he handed the list over to Johnny, who quickly scanned the list and matched his brother’s grimace with one of his own.

              Closing his eyes and dropping his head back in defeat, Trevor asked, “How bad?”

              “Pretty bad,” Johnny murmured.

              “It looks like she’s planning on making all of us eat healthy again,” Sebastian said, confirming his worst fears.

              When would she learn? he wondered, rubbing his hands down his face.

              You couldn’t force a Bradford to do anything when it came to food, but his wife didn’t seem to understand that. Every now and then when she went on a health food kick, she took it as her duty to make them all eat healthy. It didn’t matter that there wasn’t a single Bradford alive that was overweight, had high cholesterol, or any other health related problems when it came to food. She let some book or television program convince her that their lives depended on her making burnt tofu and they all suffered.

              It also never ended well for her.

              “Everything on this list is either organic or all natural, Dad,” Sebastian informed him, all business now that his junk food was being threatened.

              He dropped his hands away and faced his sons, who looked ready for battle. “Is there anything on that list that we actually need? Like milk or butter?”

              “She’s asking for coconut milk and margarine,” Johnny answered with a snort of disgust.

              He leveled a look on Sebastian. “You know what to do.”

              Sebastian hesitated with the list in his hand. “Are you sure?”

              “Yes,” he said with absolutely no hesitation since there was no way that he was going to force his children to endure another one of their mother’s health kicks. He was a grown man and could easily grab some real food anytime he wanted it, but his children were at the mercy of their mother.

              “She’s going to be mad,” Johnny said even as he nearly sagged with relief as Sebastian tore the much hated list to shreds and tossed it in a trash can set up near the corn on the cob table.

              “I’ll handle it,” he said, not really sure that he’d survive the hell that his wife was going to put him through over this, but for his children, he’d endure it.

              “What should we buy then?” Sebastian wondered out loud as he gazed around the large store with anticipation.

              “Oh, I’m sure we’ll think of something,” Trevor drawled as his boys shared a look that only Bradfords could pull off.

Part III

              “Dad, can we get lunch meat?” Sebastian asked, shifting impatiently in front of the ticket dispenser that would reserve their place in line.

              “Processed meat,” Johnny murmured, looking thoughtful as he shot a warning glare at the middle-aged woman trying to step past Sebastian to grab the next ticket. “That might be pushing it.”

              “She’s not going to buy the story that we’ve lost the list,” Sebastian murmured with the same thoughtful expression on his face as his brother’s.

              “We’ve used that excuse before,” Johnny pointed out.

              “Which means that she’s going to know that we know better than to bring processed food into the house right now,” Sebastian added with a worried frown as Trevor reached past his boys and grabbed a deli ticket.

              “Let me worry about that,” he said, holding up the ticket when their number was called.

              “So,.......,” Johnny said, standing by his right side, rocking back on his heels.

              “Yes?” he said, cocking a brow in question as he looked down at Johnny to find his son staring back up at him with that damn innocent smile that was really starting to freak him the fuck out.

              “So, since we’re bringing processed food in the house does that mean that we can bring carbs in the house as well?” Sebastian asked, dragging his attention back to his left side where his other son stood, looking equally innocent as he asked for the one thing that would guarantee his ass sleeping on the couch for the next week, or until Zoe gave up trying to lose weight that she had no business trying to get rid of.

                He loved her curves, fucking adored them and he’d be damned if he allowed her to alter a single curve on her delectable little body.

              Not again.

              He was still pissed about the weight that she lost a few months ago. She’d put all of them through hell for two months straight. It had left the children on the verge of mutiny and had robbed him of several inches of her delectable curves. He swore that he’d get them back one day….

              And perhaps today was that day, he thought with a wicked smile.

              “I think we can handle that,” he said, looking around as he made a decision, one that would guarantee that Zoe went for his balls and one that would bring those curves that he loved so much back.

              “Grab all of your mom’s favorites,” he told the boys as he reached over and grabbed a bottle of cranberry mustard sauce, Zoe’s favorite sandwich condiment.

              “All of them?” Johnny asked, sharing a look with Sebastian that he couldn’t quite read.

              “All of them,” he confirmed with a nod.

              “Do you want us to split up?” Sebastian asked, making Trevor wonder if they really thought he was that stupid.

              “No, just use that carriage for your mom’s stuff,” he said, turning his attention to the deli clerk.

              “Okay, we won’t split up,” Johnny said in a tone that sent chills down his spine. He turned around to find out what the boys were up to only to find the carriage and the boys gone.

              “Oh……..shit……,” he said, swallowing nervously as he glanced around the deli, but there was no sign of them.

              Abandoning his carriage, he moved his ass to find his boys before they did something that a lawyer and their savings account wouldn’t be able to fix. He’d barely taken two steps before the voice that he loved more than anything, especially when it was screaming his name at the top of her lungs, spoke up from behind him.

              “Hey, sweetie, where are the boys?” Zoe asked.

              He opened his mouth to answer, to tell her some bullshit story that would save his balls, but before he could get so much as a syllable out of his mouth, the only Bradford on earth that could turn this little fuckup into a catastrophe, spoke, “Aren’t we already banned from this store?”

              He turned around to remind the bastard that the store ban only applied to him only to find Jason gone by the time he turned around and Zoe standing there, frowning as she glanced around the store, no doubt wondering where the bastard had gone.