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 f**kin’ 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 f**king clue why he was. Except for the fact that some ass**le was out there, some ass**le 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 f**k 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 c**k 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.