ClarenceBN Read Free

a kid. She lived with her mother. She had a job now, so that was good, but she was not the hot property she’d been a few years ago.  
    Five years ago, actually.
    She looked at Mikey, who was telling everyone he could corral about his awesome new car and how it was the best car ever and it was his favorite. Clarence hadn’t had to get him a car but . . .
    Mikey’s own father, Ezra, didn’t bring him presents. He didn’t visit. And most guys didn’t have a big interest in a loud, crazy three-and-a-half-year-old boy who wasn’t theirs.  
    “Miss Mewinda!” Mikey yelled when Melinda Mitchell showed up at eleven. “Look at my awesome car! It’s all mine—I don’t have to share it or anything!”
    “Mikey, I’m going to make you put it away if you can’t play nice,” Tammy scolded.
    “That is an awesome car,” Melinda agreed as she surveyed the room. “How’s the morning been?”
    “Good. Really good.” Although Tammy wasn’t sure if that was because the kids had been on their best behavior or just because she felt like she was floating. There’d been that moment when Clarence had touched her. And not because he’d made a mess or needed a boo-boo kissed or any of that. He’d touched her because . . .
    She didn’t know why. Maybe it was because she was messy and he couldn’t stand to see coffee on her lips. He was a nurse, after all. He was used to things being neat and clean and sterile.  
    Whatever the reason, he’d touched her lips in a gentle way and it’d done things to her. Things she wasn’t sure she remembered feeling. Things that had been hot and tingling and tight—so tight it’d hurt in the best way possible.
    “Yeah?” Melinda looked at her and suddenly Tammy was embarrassed. “How good?”
    Okay, so Clarence was a nice guy. A really nice guy. He had a good job. And he was good looking—he was like a tank. Plus, he wasn’t scared off by Mikey.
    But he was at least ten years older than she was. And nice guys like Clarence were hard to come by. No doubt, he could have his pick of women on this rez—or off of it, even.  
    He couldn’t really be interested in her, could he?
    “It’s nothing,” she said to Melinda and headed back to the kitchen to get started on lunch.  
    Tammy cooked the lunches every day. She and Melinda would feed the kids and get the littler ones bedded down for their afternoon nap, and then Tammy would head home. She worked the morning shift, Melinda the evening shift. It wasn’t a full-time job, but the Mitchell Trust, or Foundation, or whatever rich white people named bank accounts when they decided to give money away, was paying her three bucks more than minimum wage to watch kids. She didn’t even have to pay to bring Mikey along with her.
    Which meant that, after four months, Tammy was beginning to pay off some bills and have money left over. Not much—not enough to buy fancy coffee—but last week she was able to put fifteen dollars into a sock under her bed to save up for Mikey’s fourth birthday and she still had twenty dollars left over.  
    She had a job she was good at, a boss who liked her and—for the first time in her adult life—a feeling of stability. It was a great thing.
    Melinda let her go, which was nice. Tammy liked working with Melinda but sometimes, Melinda’s enthusiasm was a bit much . They were friends, but not the kind of friend Tammy could tell about Clarence wiping the coffee off her lip and then licking it off his thumb.
    Hell, she didn’t even want to tell her sister that. Once Tara got going, it was all over.  
    Instead, Tammy cooked. She enjoyed the break of cooking lunch. It was one of the few times when she was not watching Mikey. As she boiled the hot dogs and steamed the peas, Tammy thought over the morning again. What had Clarence said?  
    “It’s time I took care of you.”  
    Yes, that was it. That confused her. Had she been taking care of him? Well, she made the coffee. But that was because she got here