He grinned.

I stared at his mouth as it started to get closer.

“Is Jonas here?” I asked against his lips.

“Kiss me good mornin’,” he demanded against mine, ignoring my question.

“Tate.”

Both his hands tightened. “Babe.”

I gave in, put my hands to his abs and pressed my mouth to his.

Then I pulled back and reiterated, “Is Jonas here?”

Tate’s hand slid back to wrap around my neck. “He’s here, he’s still half-asleep which means we got about ten minutes to make out in the closet. So, like I said, kiss me good mornin’.”

“I just did,” I reminded him.

“You love me?” he asked suddenly and, at his question, my stomach flipped then twisted.

I stared up at him unsure of myself and back to shy.

Then, without me telling it to do so, my mouth whispered, “Yes.”

“Then f**kin’ kiss me good morning, Ace,” he demanded softly but firmly.

“Oh all right,” I grumbled because he was being bossy and also because he didn’t return the sentiment.

My hands moved to curl around the sides of his waist, I went up on my toes and pressed my lips to his, harder this time, my mouth opening under his. His hand slid to the small of my back, pressing in, the fingers of his other hand slid into my hair and his head slanted as his tongue glided into my mouth.

At the taste of him, I melted into him, my arms locking around him and we kissed good morning.

When his mouth detached from mine, he muttered, “Now that’s good morning.”

He wasn’t wrong about that.

“You went to get Jonas without me,” I took us full circle.

“You don’t get enough sleep, babe,” he replied. “You were out, you need to sleep when you actually can sleep so I let you sleep. I was gone twenty minutes.”

This was nice. I liked it when Tate was nice. I liked Tate all the time, even when he was a jerk, which made me slightly insane, but it was Tate and I had to admit, I liked all things Tate, even when he was a jerk. But I liked it when he was nice the best. So, since he was being nice, I pressed deeper into him.

“Is he okay?” I asked softly.

“No tellin’. He’s a zombie,” Tate answered. “We’ll know more when he pulls out of it.”

I looked over his shoulder toward the door. “I need coffee, honey, and I need to make Jonas French toast.”

“Ace,” Tate called and my eyes went back to see his were looking over my shoulder and down, toward my suitcases.

He didn’t speak for several seconds so I asked, “Tate, what?”

He looked at me and he muttered, “Nothin’,” let me go and moved to my side. “Coffee,” he finished.

I nodded and we walked out of the room, down the hall and I saw Jonas on a stool at the island, slouched into an elbow, head in his hand, staring blankly at Buster who was sitting on the floor in front of him looking up at him.

“Hey Jonas,” I called when I hit the dining area.

He didn’t lift his head from his hand but his body shifted so he could see me.

He blinked then mumbled, “Hey.”

I went to the coffeepot and saw Tate had already made coffee so I grabbed a mug from the cupboard over the pot.

“You need coffee, honey?” I asked Tate and turned to him to see he had his h*ps to the counter, his eyes on Jonas and his phone to his ear. He looked at me and nodded.

I prepared coffee as I asked Jonas, “French toast or pancakes today?”

“French toast,” he mumbled again staring at Buster who was now rubbing against Tate’s ankles.

“Right,” I replied, grinning because Jonas was cute when he was sleepy.

I walked toward Tate to take him his mug.

“Bubba,” I heard Tate say and I looked at his face to see he was speaking into his phone. “This is the fifth time I’ve called you. Comes a sixth, we got problems.”

He pulled his phone from his ear, flipped it closed, dropped it on the counter and took the mug from me.

“No answer?” I asked.

“Nope,” he replied and our eyes locked.

He didn’t look happy. I scrunched my nose. He watched my nose, the unhappiness slid out of his face, the ends of his lips tipped up then he shook his head once and lifted his mug to take a sip. I went to the fridge to get milk and eggs.

I had milk in my coffee, had taken a sip and I had a bowl out, the bread beside it and was cracking eggs into the bowl when Jonas spoke.

“After breakfast, can we go to the hospital?”

I was working at the island and my head came up from my task to look at Jonas. He was still slouched into the island but now looking at his Dad.

“Yeah, Bub,” Tate answered. “Not long, though. Shambles needs space.”

“Okay,” Jonas replied then went on. “After the hospital can we go back to the pool?”

“Maybe,” Tate said. “We’ll see.”

I figured this meant no because when my Mom or Dad said that, it meant no. I also figured that was why Jonas straightened from his slouch, because he was preparing to fight for his trip to the pool.

I walked the eggshells to the trash bin, dumped them in, rinsed my hands, dried them and went to the cupboard where I’d started to store the spices and baking ingredients I’d been buying. Tate didn’t have much in his cupboards and therefore I had plenty of choice as to where to store my cooking supplies.

During this time, there was surprising silence not filled with Jonas talking his father into a trip to the pool.

This silence lasted until Tate asked his son, “You want juice, Bub?”

“Why’s Mom’s car outside?” Jonas asked back and I stopped, my fingers around the little, brown bottle of vanilla and I turned slowly around, closing the cupboard as I moved.

I saw Jonas’s back was straight, both of his hands were flat against the top of the island and his eyes were glued to Tate. He didn’t look sleepy at all anymore and this was a strange position for him to be in so I knew something was about to go down. Something between father and son. Something the milf girlfriend needed to absent herself from so they could talk it through.

I put the vanilla by the bowl, muttering, “I’ll just –”

Jonas talked over me. “She come over last night?”