Shattered (Anderson Special Ops #4) - Melody Anne Page 0,27
shudder. There was just something wrong with seeing parental figures kissing. It gave him the creeps.
“You’re such a silly boy,” Laysha said as she patted Smoke’s back. “You’ve always been horrified at the thought of people older than you kissing or having sex, but how in the world do you expect the population to continue if people don’t have sex?”
Smoke felt heat fill his cheeks as his eyes widened in horror at his mother’s words.
“Mom!” he gasped, too horrified to say anything else.
“These children think they were just magically conceived. If they knew the absolute pleasure we had in creating them, they might curl up into a fetal position and never show their faces in public again,” Bobbi said in a purposely loud whisper. The two women started laughing. Bobbi lifted her glass and cheered with her new friend. Both smiled, said cheers, and took in a small mouthful of the sweet liquid.
Smoke was open-mouthed as he gazed from his mother to Bobbi and back again. Then he looked at Green with pleading eyes. This conversation had to do a 180 fast or he was going to dig a big ass hole and bury himself.
Green seemed to take the hint, but Smoke realized quickly, he might hate this new conversation nearly as much as the last. “Ms. Rice, please tell us a story of when Smoke was a kid. Something ridiculous that we can laugh at for years to come,” Green requested over the noise of the group.
The other men on his team all nodded their heads in agreement with the request. They sat up a little taller, their attention turning to Smoke’s mom. Even the women were interested in hearing stories told about the man they thought was a human wrecking ball. They weren’t too far off, he’d broken through a few walls in his time.
“Hmm, let’s see,” Laysha said as she tapped her chin with her finger. She’d been doing that same thing since he could remember. It took some of his stress away for what she was going to tell them all. He truly loved his mother. “Oh, I have a good one!” Laysha said, an evil grin on her full lips. She took another sip of wine, gave a wink to Smoke, and then began her story.
Smoke wanted to object but knew it was useless. There was no telling what she’d say or how much detail she’d give. In the past he’d typically left a room when his mother began one of her story sessions, but he had nowhere to go right now, and even if he did find a way to escape, the special ops team would be more than happy to remind him over and over again of what his mother told them.
“During the summers I’d have Tyrell stay at my neighbor’s while I was working. The neighbor lady had two sons around the same age as Tyrell, and she didn’t let them run all around town like so many other parents did. Or at least that’s what I’d thought.”
“Ms. Darlene watched us,” Smoke said. His mother sent him a knowing look and he zipped his lips. He hadn’t minded being there while his mother worked because unlike his mom who had eyes in the back of her head, Ms. Darlene had always been high before his mother was around the corner in their neighborhood, and then the boys had total freedom.
“Yes, Ms. Darlene didn’t seem to watch those boys at all, I later found out,” Laysha continued. “One day Tyrell and one of the other boys, whose name was Cordell, were running around the neighborhood acting like fools. Well, my beautiful, innocent son, and his rebellious good for nothing friend, got in their nine-year-old minds that it would be a good idea to go play near the highway overpass.”
Avery gasped as she held a hand to her mouth. The group that were raptly listening to Laysha thought they knew where the story was going, and it was clear they figured it would have a tragic ending — but none of them were even close.
“The game, if we can call it that, was to get a handful of rocks and see if they could throw them up, over, and across the overpass. Until that day, neither of them had even made it to the overpass, let alone had enough strength to get it over the three lanes of vehicles traveling at sixty-plus miles per hour, and then to the other side.”