Mac couldn’t be more different.
She lived life large and loud.She was sexy, but not brash,instead ballsy.She had an opinion, she stated it.She loved you, she showedit.You were toxic, she scraped you off.She identified a goal, she worked toit.
If she wanted it, she got it.
Except a man.
She was a serial dater, not because she liked to play thefield, but because most men were motherfuckers and she had zero tolerance forthat.
Not that she should.
She just didn’t.
As far as Smithie was concerned, that Rock Chick posse hadlucked out.Found the best men there were in Denver.Claimed them (or gotclaimed, whatever).Game over.
Then again, Lee Nightingale had essentially vetted them forhis woman’s friends, so he’d already taken the guesswork out of it.
“Havin’ a kid is a lot easier when you got someone to help,”he pointed out.
“Havin’a kid is all on the woman,” she retorted.
“Okay then, smart girl,raisin’a kid is a loteasier, you got someone to help,” he revised, and before she could get anythingout of her mouth, he went on, “and you can’t argue that.You had a singleparent home and who raised you?”
That mouth closed.
“Your sister’causeyour mom wasworking,” he answered for her.“Now what’s your sister got?”He again answeredfor her.“Pointin’ out the obvious, I didn’twannahear this shit, but I heard it when you bitches weregabbin’, and from the first, if he wasn’tworkin’ a case, Eddie got up with Jet for every feeding.Everydamned one.Went and got his boy and brought him to his wife.Took him back and laid him down.Same with the next one that came along.And soon.Jet didn’t even have to get out of bed.”
He had a point to make but he took that too far and he knewit when her chin wobbled before she got control of it.
“Mac—”
“I want a baby,” she whispered.
He believed her.
She also wanted an Eddie.
“Give it time,” he whispered back.
She threw up both hands.“How much?”
“As much as it takes.”
“Sadly, I can’t Mick Jagger thissitchand make a baby when I’m seventy.”
Jagger shouldn’t even be doing that shit.
“Honey, you’re still in your thirties,” he reminded her.
“They’re all gone,” she declared.
Now he had no idea what the woman was talking about.
“Who?”he asked.
She bopped forward on her seat with agitation.“Them.The good ones.The Hot Bunch.The only ones left are Roam and Sniff and they’retoo young for me.Not to mention, if Shirleen thought I’d even spoke theirnames in a conversation like this, she’d cut me.”
She was not wrong.
