A Good Day for Chardonnay

by Darynda Jones

  A knock sounded on the window. She tried to look, but he kissed her again. Pushed deeper. Rubbed faster. She sucked in his warm breath, and he laid her back on the seat, parting her legs with the expanse of his shoulders. Then his tongue, like liquid fire, slid over her clit. She grabbed handfuls of hair, unable to keep the climax from rocketing toward her.

  The knock sounded again.

  “Mom?”

  Sun jerked awake and regretted it instantly. Pain exploded in her head, making her dizzy and nauseous. The bed dipped as her daughter sat beside her. Sun scooted back to give her more room, only to run into something beneath the covers. Something large and warm snored softly beside her, and since she didn’t own a dog, she could only guess who was still in her bed.

  She fought the urge to slam a hand over her face. Instead, she fluffed up her bedspread to camouflage the lump, pried open her eyes, and looked up into the adorable, angelic face of her child.

  “You’re going to be late for work,” Auri said, still in her pajamas. “But if you have a minute, can I talk to you?”

  “Of course,” Sun croaked.

  “When did you learn Klingon?” the child asked. Hilarious. Then she giggled and the sound burst inside the cavernous recesses of Sun’s mind like a claymore.

  Sun raised a finger to her lips and patted the tiny creature’s face.

  Auri giggled again. “Here.” She led Sun’s hand to something cool and round. A glass.

  Sun pushed it away until she heard two plops and a fizz. God bless her.

  “When will you learn not to mix red and white?” the little minx asked her.

  “How do you know—”

  “Can we talk girl to girl?”

  Sun struggled onto an elbow and took a sip of the bubbly liquid. Then she remembered once again who was under the covers with her and the adrenaline rush churned her stomach.

  She had to be cool. Maybe her one-and-only offspring couldn’t make out the huge lump in her bed. He was on his stomach, so he was semi-flat against the mattress.

  “How did you know you were pregnant?”

  Sun’s lids flew open and a loud gasp echoed in the room.

  Auri laughed so hard she fell back on the bed beside Sun.

  “Aurora Dawn,” Sun croaked. “You are evil.”

  “Duh. I inherited my evil ways from you.” Then, as nonchalantly as if Auri were reaching over to pluck a grape off a vine, she lifted the covers and peered at Sun’s bedmate.

  “Hi, Quincy,” she said.

  Sun saw a set of long fingers wave from under the blanket. “Hey, bean sprout. This isn’t what it looks like.”

  Auri tilted her head in doubt and leveled a calculating gaze on her mom. “I think now would be a good time to remind you what a great kid I am. And how I would never judge you for sleeping with your best friend.”

  “I didn’t,” Sun said.

  “We didn’t,” Quincy concurred.

  “Mm-hm.” She leaned in, kissed Sun on the cheek, then bounced out, yelling back, “I get the first shower!”

  Sun grabbed her head before it fell off, and sat up, horrified. “I’m going to kill her.”

  “You can’t kill her for being a mini-Sunshine.”

  She looked at the lump beside her. “That child is nothing like me. I would never have done something that evil to my mother.”

  “Oh, please.” He rolled over and sat up. “Ninth grade. Chainsaw. Ketchup. A package of hot dogs.”

  “No, no,” she said, trying to sit up as well, but the world spun. “That was totally different.”

  “Your mother had nightmares for months.”

  He had a point. “I can’t believe this happened.”

  “Which part?”

  “All of it. And now Auri? She’s totally going to tell my mom.”

  “I’m not a snitch, Mom!” Auri yelled from her room.

  Sun grabbed her head again and fought the Earth tilting on its axis to look over at Quincy. “Are you okay?”

  He shrugged a wide shoulder. “I have a great constitution. I can drink for days.” The second the words left his mouth, he bent over the side of the bed and emptied the contents of his stomach into the trash can there.

  That time, Sun did follow suit. Minus the trash can.

  An hour later, Auri emerged from her room like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon as she headed for the coffeepot. “Is he gone?” she asked, perky as a Disney princess on Adderall.

  The little shit looked stunning in a mint-green summer blouse and black leggings.

  Sun squeezed her eyes shut. She had never even brought a man home to meet Auri. It was always just the two of them, no matter how serious she’d gotten. And now this?

  Way to mom, Sunshine.

  “Yes, he left, sweetheart,” she said over her shoulder as she headed back to her room. That most magic of elixirs known as Alka-Seltzer had done the trick. That combined with a hot shower and a little black coffee, and Sun was as good as new. Almost. Most of the cobwebs had been shaken off, at least.

  One thing the elixir didn’t shake off was the dream she’d had about Levi. Her dreams had been so vivid lately, and this one was no exception.

  Before she could ask Auri to come into her room—she had to explain—she heard the front door open. A scream quickly followed.

  “Mom!”

  Sun ran into the living room to see Auri stepping back, cowering from Elaine Freyr. She stepped around her daughter and gasped before grabbing Auri and folding her into her arms.

  “What is wrong with you girls?” her mother asked. “Ruby Moore sent over a basket of muffins.”

  A huge basket. A basket that made the one they got four months ago look like a Barbie DreamHouse prop.

  “I’m scared, Mom.”

  Sun smoothed her daughter’s hair, and whispered, “Me too, hon. Me too.”

  Elaine glanced down and studied the basket in her hands, her expression suddenly wary. As it should’ve been. “Are you girls punking me?”

  Auri giggled, giving up the game. “How do you even know what that means, Grandma?” She tiptoed over for a kiss from the woman.

  Sun headed for the microwave to reheat her coffee before heading out.

  “Ruby said to make sure you two got a few before that husband of mine finishes them off, so I thought I was doing you a favor.”

  “Don’t do me any more,” Sun said.

  “She’s so nice,” Auri said. “I wonder what horrible thing is going to happen, though.”

  Elaine took a look at her surroundings. The overturned table. The broken glass. The bra on the back of the sofa. She chose to ignore them. “What do you mean?”

  “Mom,” Sun said, dubious. “You have to know Ruby’s muffins are cursed. The whole town knows.”

  Elaine sighed. “You cannot honestly believe that ridiculous rumor.”

  “Yes, we can,” Sun and Auri said at the same time.

  “Because they are cursed, Grandma. Chastity Bertram’s mother slipped a disc after she got one. And Beatrice Morales’s cousin broke both her legs and both her arms exactly twenty-seven minutes after one showed up on her doorstep.” Auri picked up her backpack, then thought again. “Of course, that only happened because she and her little brother were fighting over it and he pushed her down the stairs.”

  “Good heavens.” She set the basket on the snack bar. “Why was Quincy’s cruiser parked in the drive so early this morning?”

  Sun sucked in a soft breath mid-sip and spent the next three minutes coughing up a spleen.

  “I would tell you, Grandma,” Auri said, heading out the door. “But snitches get stitches and wind up in ditches.”

  Elaine looked at Sun. “What does that even mean?”

  “It means,” Sun said, her voice strained, “I raised my daughter right.” She gave her mother a quick peck on the cheek, then left the woman standing in her kitchen, shaking her head. That happened a lot.

  “How are things going?” Sun asked Auri as she drove her t
o school. It was a short trip, so she didn’t have a lot of time.

  “Okay,” she said with a shrug. “Team Lynelle still talks behind my back.”

  That fact sliced through Sun’s heart every time she thought about it. “Honey, don’t worry about people who talk behind your back. They’re behind you for a reason.”

  Auri’s mouth fell open. “That’s really good. Did you just make that up?”

  “No. Fortune cookie.”

  “Ah.”

  “Honey—”

  “I know what you’re going to say.” She held up a hand to stop her. “It’s okay, Mom. According to the girls at school, Quincy’s a major hottie.”

  She couldn’t argue that. “Want to talk about it?”

  “About you and Quincy?” she asked with a snort.

  Sun pulled into the drop-off area and waited to move forward. “I know how it looked, hon.”

  “It looked to me like you have no room to talk,” Auri said, a satisfied smirk on her face.

  That got Sun’s attention. “Really? In what way?”

  “You had a boy in your room. I had a boy in my room. I say let bygones be bygones.”

  Sun turned to wave at Principal Jacobs, mostly to squelch a wayward grin. “I’d like to start by saying you have a very valid argument.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Thank you.”

  “I’d like to say that,” she corrected, “but I won’t, because you don’t.”

  Auri frowned. “Why? It seems logical to me. And Cruz and I weren’t even naked.”

  Sun pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay, first off, nothing happened.”

  “Nay-ked,” she reiterated.

  “I know.” Sun lost points in that area, but she needed Auri to know the truth. She eased forward and was about to piss off a lot of other parents, because she had no intention of leaving Auri with the idea that she and Quincy had gone all the way.

  Then again, that had been the original plan. She cringed at the thought. She risked the friendship of the most important man in her life besides her dad. She wasn’t including Levi since he wasn’t actually in her life. But seriously, how stupid could she be? “I just want to make sure you understand nothing happened.”

  “Exactly! We’re on the same page here, Mom. I can get out here.”

  “Oh, no you don’t.”

  “So close,” Auri said, collapsing dramatically against the door.

  “Now that you think you’re old enough to have boys in your room—”

  “One boy, Mom. One.”

  “—I think we need to have the talk.”

  “We had the talk, Mom. We’ve actually had the talk several times throughout my life and it never gets any less uncomfortable.”

  “This one is different.” The kid had a boy in her room. She had to know there’d be consequences.

  Judging by her daughter’s expression, panic was starting to take over. “You say that every time!”

  “Since we’re on the subject of you getting pregnant—”

  “What?” Auri screeched. “We weren’t on any subject.”

  “—I’ve realized I’ve been putting off this conversation long enough.”

  Auri paled. “You really haven’t.”

  “I feel now is the right time.”

  “It really isn’t.”

  “We need to discuss the devil’s doorbell.”

  Auri paused and tilted her head to the side. “The devil’s what?”

  “You know. The button of bliss. The pushpin of pleasure.”

  “Oh. My. God.”

  “Satan’s socket.”

  “I’m going to need so much therapy.”

  “Lucifer’s little darling.”

  “Have you been reading those pamphlets again?”

  “Now, for future reference, you can ring the devil’s doorbell any time you want to, sweetheart.”

  “I could run away and join the circus.”

  “You, and only you.”

  “Or go into witness protection.”

  “Cruz De los Santos is not allowed to ring that bell.”

  She put her hands over her ears. “Mom, I can’t hear this.”

  “Your button of bliss is off-limits to him and any boy until you’re thirty-five.”

  Auri dropped her hands and glared at her. “There should be a test to find out how unstable your parents are.”

  “Hey. I’m totally stable.”

  “So is nitroglycerin until you shake it.”

  Someone honked behind her, so she turned on her emergency lights.

  Auri’s head fell into her hand. The final nail in the coffin.

  “And for the record,” Sun said, planting an angelic smile on her little kumquat, “the next time you have a boy in your room, I’m going to put bars on the windows. Got it?”

  “Got it.” She glanced out the window, her demeanor changing like the gentle shift of a breeze. “Is he okay, Mom?”

  “I don’t know. That wine did a number on both of us.”

  “Levi,” she said.

  Ah. Sun rubbed her daughter’s shoulder. “He’s fine. He’s Levi.”

  “Cross your cold and bitter heart?”

  “Cross my cold and bitter heart.”

  Auri leaned over and hugged her, taking Sun by surprise considering the doorbell thing. Then she hurried out without another word.

  It would have ended there, except in her haste, she forgot her backpack.

  Sun grabbed it and hurried after her.

  “Sweetheart,” she called, weaving through cliques of kids, following the auburn glow of her daughter’s carrot top. “Aurora,” she said a little louder.

  Auri stopped and looked back at last. Sun caught up to her just inside the building and was surprised to see a wetness between her thick lashes.

  “Oh, baby,” she said, pulling her into a hug. “It’s Levi. He’ll be okay. He always is, right?”

  She nodded.

  Sun looked over Auri’s head at a couple of girls pointing at them and snickering. She recognized one of them as the girl who’d orchestrated a news program when Auri had first started school in Del Sol. They’d found out about Sun’s abduction, about Auri’s questionable parentage, and blasted it to the entire school before IT could shut it down.

  It left Auri devastated, and Sun had wanted nothing more than to arrest them for obstruction of justice, since her case was ongoing. But certain people of influence wouldn’t allow it. The families involved cried freedom of the press. Sun cried bullshit, but apparently money talks even in Del Sol.

  Sun also knew the girl had made it her personal mission in life to make Auri’s life a living hell. If not for Cruz and Sybil, Auri would be miserable at Del Sol High.

  She was about to quote their favorite motto—What would Lisbeth Salander do?—when she rethought it. Somehow cutting a bitch seemed a bit harsh in this situation.

  Until the girl looked straight at Sun, an adult in a sheriff’s uniform, and unleashed a cheeky sneer.

  Sun’s irritation skyrocketed. “Did that girl just sneer at me?”

  Auri looked over her shoulder. “That’s Lynelle. She sneers at everyone.”

  Sun drew in a deep breath. She couldn’t do anything that might get them both arrested. Thus, in lieu of doing jail time, she asked her daughter, “What would Hermione Granger do?”

  Wearing a Cheshire grin, Auri turned toward Lynelle, lowered her head, and said softly, “She would leviosa a bitch.”

  “Damn straight she would.”

  They fist-bumped, but Auri’s gaze didn’t waver. She stared until Lynelle’s sneer faltered and the girl turned away.

  “See?” Auri said. “She’s only as good as the sheep that follow her.”

  Sun hugged her again. “She’s vindictive, though. Be careful with that one.”

  “Thanks, Mom. I’m off to Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

  11

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  As soon as Sun got back to her cruiser, she grabbed her phone, clicked on messages, and scrolled until she found Levi. This was no longer just about the case or even about his health. If he wasn’t worried about the aftereffects of his being run down by a truck, she wasn’t, either. But Auri was a different story.

  She texted as fast as her fingers would let her. Listen asshat, you can either text me back or call me. I don’t care which, but if I don’t hear from you within the hour, I swear to God I’m calling in the dogs and hunting your ass to the ends of the Earth. Auri is devastated and worried and heartbroken and you suck for doing that to her.

  She almost felt better as she headed toward the station. Her phone rang, sending her pulse through the roof. She looked at the caller ID. It wasn’t Levi.

  “Hey, Quincy,” she said into the phone.

  “Hey, boss. What are you doing?”

  She pulled onto Main. “Praying my child’s sass helps her become the CEO of a large company someday and not a shot caller in prison.”

  “Word. So, Randy escaped.”

  “Seriously?” She slapped a palm against the steering wheel. “Damn it. That’s all we need. Put out a BOLO, coordinate roadblocks for both I-25 on-ramps, and call in everyone. Everyone. Who’s Randy again?”

  Quincy sighed. “My partner-in-petty-crimes. How can we partner up if he keeps escaping?” After a long silence in which Sun had no words of solace for him, he asked, “So, is everything okay?” The implications of that question were multifaceted, but now was not the time to go into their night of debauchery.

  “I really had my heart set on waking up rich today. Other than that, everything’s peachy. I’m pulling up to the office now.”

  “See you soon.”

  She walked into the building and headed straight into the bullpen. Besides Anita manning the front office, only Rojas and Quincy were in.

  “How are you doing?” she asked Rojas. He was sitting at his desk, going over the surveillance tape from the looks of his screen.