Christ. Uncle Cal was worse than Mr. Callahan.

“Can we go? If we don’t, we’ll miss the movie or we’ll have to cut the shopping short,” the older girl asked, resignation in her tone and impatience then she shoved into the backseat and pulled the passenger seat back into place.

“Yeah, or we’ll miss the chance to have cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory,” the younger one said, her eyes were on him as she finished, “obviously, that’s the best part.”

Cal looked at Violet.

“Get in, buddy.”

“But –”

He leaned into her, she reared back into the door but he ignored that even though he felt that in his chest too and repeated, “Violet, get in.”

She glared at him then slid by him, careful not to touch him as she did so. Then he watched her stomp around the hood of the Mustang and get in, slamming her door.

Cal folded himself into her car and had to adjust the seat, the wheel was practically in his crotch. Violet was tall, like her girls and unlike any woman he’d ever had but she wasn’t nearly as tall as him.

He closed the door and settled in. The new Mustangs were sweet, not as sweet as his ’68 GT but still sweet. Violet, he found, had as good taste in cars as she had in clothes, shoes, underwear and nightgowns.

He slid the key in the ignition and fired up the car, it roared to life, he threw it in reverse and pulled out of her drive.

“Hey, Cal, do you know any of the Buckley Boys?” the younger girl, Keira, asked from behind him.

“Just because he does what he does, Keira, doesn’t mean he knows everyone who’s famous,” the older girl, Kate, informed her sister.

“I know ‘em,” Cal said and heard both girls pull in their breath.

He did know them. They were all little shits, a boy band of five brothers, thought the sun shone out of their asses. They’d paid huge and he’d taken a special job, leading a detail of bodyguards again, covering them for an event. They were individually and collectively such a fuckin’ pain he turned down the next job their manager offered him.

“Really?” Keira breathed.

“Yep,” Cal replied.

“What’re they like?” Keira asked.

“You don’t wanna know,” Cal answered.

“No, really, I do. I do wanna know,” she told him and she sounded like she did really want to know.

He tried to find a way to explain it without using the words “assholes”, “fuckwads” or “dickheads”.

“You met ‘em, you wouldn’t think much of ‘em.” This was met with silence, so, since he was stopped at a stop sign, Cal asked, “I might need to know where I’m goin’.”

“Keystone at the Crossing,” Kate answered and Cal looked to his right to see Violet had her purse in her lap, her fingers clutching it so tightly he could see white at her knuckles and her head was turned to look out the side window.

She didn’t like him there, in her car, with her girls, with her. He knew it just as he knew he shouldn’t be there.

But he was, even though he had no fucking clue why he was. Except for the fact that some asshole was out there, some asshole who had killed her husband but wanted her and Cal didn’t like the idea of Violet and her kids going to the mall, to dinner, to a movie, without protection.

So he was there.

“Right,” he muttered, put the car in gear and turned toward Keystone at the Crossing.

“Mawdy, you goin’ to Lucky?” Kate asked her mother.

“No, baby,” Violet answered softly and Cal felt her two words in his chest too and his gut. This wasn’t unpleasant, it was nostalgic and it was so strong, his hand tightened on the wheel.

He remembered his mother using a voice like that with him a long time ago. Her girls were lucky they had that, Violet’s soft voice, her calling them “baby”.

The fuck of it was, however their Dad talked to them, they didn’t have.

“Why not?” Keira asked. “Not my thing,” Violet replied. “You’d look hot in Lucky clothes,” Keira announced and then asked, “Don’t you think, Cal?” He had no idea what she was talking about.

But he didn’t have to answer, Violet spoke. “It’s Mr. Callahan.”

“They can call me Cal,” Cal stated.

“They’re not gonna call you Cal,” Violet returned.

He looked at her to see she’d turned her head to him then he looked back at the road. “Why not?”

“They need to respect their elders.”

“I don’t like Mr. Callahan,” Cal told her.

“Then we’ll call you Uncle Cal,” Keira put in.

“Keira –” Violet started.

“Cal’ll do,” Cal cut Violet off, not about to be called Uncle Cal either.

“Joe, they’re not gonna call you Cal,” Violet repeated.

There it was. Joe.

He didn’t feel that in his chest or his gut, he felt her calling him Joe in his dick.

His Dad’s name was Joe too, so, since birth, everyone had called him Cal. According to his Dad, his mother had come up with the nickname.

But Bonnie’d called him Joe. She was the only one who did. It irritated him the first couple of times that Violet called him that then he started to like it, mainly because she was moaning it when his cock was inside her, her nipple was in his mouth or his tongue was at her clit. And he still liked it because it reminded him of those times.

“You call him Joe?” Kate asked, entering the conversation. “I thought everyone called him Cal.”

Kate, obviously, had been hearing about him at school, something which Cal didn’t care much about, it wasn’t new.

Violet didn’t reply. She’d looked out the side window again.

“Can we call you Joe?” Keira asked.

“No,” Violet responded.

“Sure,” Cal said over her and for the life of him, again, he had no clue why he did.

“Cool! Then it’s Joe,” Keira decided.

“I like Joe, Joe’s a cool name,” Kate muttered.

Violet sighed. This meant she was giving in and it also meant she was a pushover with her girls. He wondered if this was the way it always was or if this was in response to their father being dead. He reckoned it was the last.

For the rest of the drive Keira carried on the conversation with Kate interjecting occasionally but Cal and Violet contributed absolutely nothing. Then again, Keira didn’t even need Kate’s input. The girl was a talker.

They made it to the mall, Cal parked and got out, pulling the seat up for Keira who scrambled out with that enthusiastic grace only teenage girls seemed to have. As he slammed the door behind her, he looked across the roof and saw Violet and Kate were also out. He beeped the locks when Violet closed the door and Keira ran to her sister, linking arms with her and they hustled to the mall. Obviously shopping was a favorite pastime. It was like the girls were made of metal and the mall was a high-powered magnet pulling them in.

Violet didn’t look at him and she walked more calmly toward the building.

Cal fell in step beside her.

“Buddy –”

Suddenly, she stopped and tipped her head back to look at him.

“I saw you talking to Colt.”

Her voice was quiet but not soft, it was an accusation.

Before he could say anything, she kept speaking.

“I know you know.”

“I know,” he confirmed.

She stifled a flinch and went on. “It isn’t your job to look after us.”

“Violet –”

“It isn’t your job.”

She was right, it wasn’t, but that didn’t mean dick because he was going to do it. He didn’t tell her that, he just kept looking at her.

“You’re here because Keira’s making it her mission to befriend everyone within a twenty mile radius. She misses home, she had tons of friends and family at home and she’s social. She’s trying to recreate that,” Violet informed him though she was wrong. He was invited by Keira because her daughter loved her and knew Violet missed her husband and Keira was looking for a replacement to take away her mother’s pain. He’d done the same thing with his Dad after his mother died. It didn’t work but he’d done it.

Cal didn’t tell her that either.

“We’ll get through this…” her hand lifted and she gestured at the mall, “and we’ll go home and you’ll disappear like when we first moved in. You’ll be a shiny, Ford pickup in your drive and that’s it. Yeah?”

“No.”

He watched her upper body jerk and she stared at him.

Then she repeated, “No?”

“What Colt tells me, your situation is extreme.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“You live next door.”

“It’s still none of your business.”

“You got two girls.”

He watched her swallow as something crossed her face before she hid it.

Fear.

Cal felt that lock in his chest too.

“This is my business, buddy, people pay me a lotta cake to keep them safe,” he told her.

“It might be your business, Joe, but this is not your business.”

He leaned into her and she held her ground, glaring up at him.

Quietly, he reminded her, “I’ve had my dick in you.” He watched the color hit her cheeks, she opened her mouth to speak but he kept going. “That makes it my business.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she hissed.

“No, it sure as fuck isn’t.”

“I don’t want your help.”

“Too bad.”

“Joe –”

“Too bad.”

“Dammit, Joe –”

She stopped speaking because he grabbed her hand and started walking, hauling her along with him.

Her girls were standing inside the mall doors looking out at them and when they hit the sidewalk, Violet twisted her hand out of his.

Cal allowed this. He was there looking out for her and her girls. He wasn’t there to give them any ideas or start anything up again with their mother.

They walked into the mall and even though Violet said she wasn’t going to Lucky that was the first place she directed them.

She stopped just inside the store, looked at her daughters and stated, “You both have one hundred and fifty dollars to spend in here.”

Cal thought this would be met with shrieks of joy but it was not. Both girls looked at their mother and didn’t move nor speak. Keira even turned her ankle to the side with sudden discomfort.

“Hello?” Violet called. “Did you hear me?”

“That money’s for you,” Kate said to her mother.

“Yes, and I’m giving it to you,” Violet returned.

“Granddad gave that money to Uncle Sam for you to use,” Keira put in.

“He gave it to me to do with what I wanted and I’m doing that,” Violet told her daughter.

“We already spent our money,” Kate replied firmly.

“So now, spend more,” Violet responded even more firmly.

Neither girl responded nor did they move.

They all looked at each other, locked in silent mother-daughter combat. Cal wondered who’d win but if he had to put money on it, his money would be on Kate and Keira.

As he watched the silent showdown, he decided he liked Violet’s girls.

“I know!” Keira suddenly exclaimed, breaking the tense silence. “I’ll be your personal shopper!” She jumped forward, grabbed her Mom’s arm and, yanking on it, turning to Cal and Kate. “You guys, go get coffees. I’m gonna find Momalicious some kick butt Lucky!”

“Keira –” Violet began but Cal turned to Kate.

“Let’s go,” he said, jerking his head to the doors of the store and he waited while she glanced at him then headed out.

Cal followed her then walked beside her as she headed to the coffee place, making a bee-line straight to it. She knew this mall like the back of her hand and she obviously drank coffee.

She didn’t speak and acted like she was uncomfortable though she wasn’t awkward. Cal was wrong that they didn’t get anything from their mother. They had a hint of her attitude and they had her natural grace.

When they got to the front of the line, Kate ordered three complicated drinks and then glanced hesitantly up at him.

“Coffee,” he said.

“Americano?” the clerk asked.

“Whatever, just coffee.”

This seemed to confuse the kid then he rallied and asked, “Room for cream?”

Cal just stared at him, he grew flustered, bent his head to the cash register and started pressing buttons. Then he grabbed a paper cup and wrote something on it and set it by the big coffee machine with the other three cups.

He heard Kate laugh softly and he looked at her, seeing he was wrong again. Violet’s daughters weren’t just pretty. With Kate’s face relaxed and smiling, she was more than pretty. She wasn’t a knockout but she was something else and it was all good.