A Ballad For Beulah

Beulah didn't have to look at a clock to know that it was well past noon when she woke up.

She was lying in the king sized hotel bed, immersed in its gold, satin sheets that felt cool to the skin, and she wondered how it was that the old adage was true.

One door closes, another one opens.

Dressed in nothing but a pair of underwear and the T-shirt she'd worn since the day before, Beulah laid beside a sleeping Mike, who's body was curled up against hers in such a tender way that it made her think he was the kid and not Bailey who was in the adjoining bedroom that was a part of the presidential suite.

She couldn't help but smile.

Mike was on his side, and facing her, snoring lightly, looking ever so peaceful. Lifting her left hand, she touched his sideburns softly before trailing them up toward his hairline, biting her lip as if the breath from her lips would wake him up.

Watching as his eyes moved underneath his closed lids, Beulah smiled a little more, wondering what he was dreaming about.

Wondering why he was always so nice to her.

And then he stirred.

Jerking her hand back, she waited as his eyelids fluttered open and she was staring into his groggy blue eyes, smirking at him.

"How long you been staring at me?" he mumbled, burying his face slightly into his pillow to avoid her seeing his elated grin.

"Not long," she replied simply. "What were you dreaming about?"

"You."

"Bull."

"Okay, fine. I was dreaming about sitting on a roof and talking about eggs with my sister, but in my heart," he remarked, tapping his chest with a laugh. "I was thinking about you."

"If you say so," Beulah snickered as her smile went from contemplative to curious. "What were you planning on doing for this...delayed Christmas?" she asked after a moment's thought.

Scooting a little closer to her, Mike's right hand gently touched down on her left arm which had long since retracted to her hip. "Well, I was planning on going out later for a bit of shopping, if you wanted to come. And I'd really like to take you out to dinner. Just us."

"What about Bailey? I mean, I can't just drop him off to someone else on Christmas, last minute---"

"I didn't say dinner had to be tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the day after. Maybe next month. Who cares." Mike leaned his face toward hers, ran his hand up to her shoulder and cupped her face. "I'm in no rush."

Touching his lips down to hers, he growled just a tad at the cooing noise he elicited from the depths of her throat. When he pulled his face back, watching as her eyes reopened rather languidly, he wondered what she was thinking.

Their noses nudged together for a moment while Beulah stared down hers to study Mike's face.

It was like they were doing just that.

Studying each other.

Small, intricate glances. Calculated touches. Considerate kisses.

Then, accessing the situation, only to 'study' some more.

"You have a freckle on your cheek, right here," Mike commented, touching a finger to her face. "Right next to your nostril."

"Yeah. It's always been there."

"Maybe. But I just noticed it." The feathery smile he kept on his face, contained a hint of rue. "I'm just noticing a lot of things lately it seems. Makes me wish I weren't so behind."

Beulah narrowed her eyes. "I don't get it."

"You don't have to," he snickered. "I'm just...rambling."

Propping herself up with her elbow, she leaned over him a bit, with him looking up at her, catching his breath in his throat. Swallowing back a lump, Mike lifted his hand to snake it amongst her hair to grasp the back of her head in order to pull her down so that they could kiss.

Slowly, Beulah crawled up on top of Mike; a leg on either side of his waist as they laid with him underneath her body.

"Beulah," he spoke in-between kisses. "I lo---"

Before Mike could finish his sentence, a light knocking on the bedroom door pulled her attention away as she turned her head in time to see Bailey's little head poking through into the room, biting his lip.

"Mommy?" he whispered.

"What--oh. Hey, honey," Beulah acknowledged, a little embarrassed by her son peeping in at an intimate moment.

Granted, the two adults were fully clothed.

"Can I come in?" Bailey inquired.

Beulah nodded, rolling off of Mike and sitting up, as her son came bouncing into the room and helped himself onto the bed with a smile as big as Texas on his face. And despite hating how his second attempt to tell Beulah how he felt had been interrupted, Mike couldn't help but smile at the offspring of his best friend who he was growing more and more attached to every time he saw him.

"Hey, buddy. D'you sleep better in that big bed?" Mike asked, ruffling the boy's wavy brown hair.

Bailey bit his lip and nodded as he crawled up into his mother's lap, looking at his 'Uncle Mike.' "Mmhmm," was the child's response.

Wrapping her arms around Bailey, Beulah rested her chin down on her son's right shoulder and kissed his cherubic cheek before glancing at Mike with a light smile on her lips and in her eyes.

"Is Santa gonna come tonight 'cause I got no presents today?" Bailey asked Mike, who bobbed his head in assurance.

"Of course he is," the bassist insisted. "I talked to him, personally, remember? He said he'd do me this favor because he knows what a good boy you are for your mom."

Bailey's face lit up ten fold as he looked up to his mom to see if Mike wasn't lying. "Really?"

"Yep," Beulah agreed. "Santa sees everything."

"Like God?" the nearly five-year-old questioned.

Mike nodded. "Like God, and Buddha, and...the Easter Bunny. And, uh, just like your grandparents."

"Mommy's mommy and daddy?"

"And your daddy's daddy," Mike added. "You know your daddy was a little boy when his daddy went to heaven with all the angels."

"Why?" Bailey pestered, very intrigued by this new information, leaning his head back into his mother's chest.

"Well, your grandpa Armstrong got really sick and the medicine he had to take made him feel a little better, but...um, God thought he would feel better in heaven with him."

Mike met Beulah's gaze; the two of them sharing a brief moment before Bailey's inquisitive mind continued to find out more.

"Does Santa know him?"

"Definitely."

"Does he get presents too?"

Mike laughed and nodded again. "Just like everyone else."

Bailey just grinned. "And I'll get presents when I wake up tomorrow 'cause Santa's coming tonight?" he asked, as if making sure; his little face a shade of uncertainty.

"Yes, honey. That's what Uncle Mike said," Beulah assured her son, giving his cheek a ravenous kiss. It's not that she was biased because he was her offspring, but he was so damn cute, she couldn't help but want to munch his little face all the time.

Something of which Mike noticed and smirked about as he laid on his side looking up at her.

Bailey smiled a little shyly as he twisted in his mother's lap and cupped his hands over her left ear to whisper something to her, which caused her eyebrows to raise, her eyes to widen and her mouth to form a perfect circle.

"Honey..." she simply muttered, looking down at her little boy, ruefully.

"What?" Mike questioned. "What'd he say?"

Beulah just shook her head. "Nothing," she insisted, clearly not wanting to go into it at the moment.

"Okay, well...what say we get up and get out. We got ourselves a holiday to celebrate," the blue eyed bassist announced, not wasting a moment as he sat up, hooked his hands under Bailey's armpits and snatched the boy from his mother's grasp to tackle him to the mattress.

Bailey let out a fit of giggles as Mike went about tickling him mercilessly then pulling up his T-shirt to give him raspberries on his stomach, making fart noises at the same time.

Beulah sat back and watched the two of them get on so well together as she brought her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs; smiling.

As Bailey crawled out from under Mike, he clamored up onto Mike's chest and placed his whole body there, his bare feet dangling over Mike's shoulders and covering the bassist's ears, on purpose, like a pair of headphones. Sticking his little tongue out to the side with a huge, goofy grin in a way Billie Joe, himself, had done so many times in the past, Bailey was such a mirror image of his father that, to Mike, it was almost creepy.

"What happened to us getting up and getting out?" Beulah questioned with an impish smile, causing Mike to turn his head.

He shrugged. "Eh," he muttered. "We got all the time in the world today."

The smile that lingered, not just on his lips but, in his eyes, sent a strange sensation through Beulah as got bit by the playful bug.

"Pile on!" she announced, as she wrapped an arm around Bailey and pinned him and Mike underneath her.

"Whuh-oh!" Mike exclaimed in retaliation as he shook his entire body and threw Bailey and Beulah off him and rolled over so that he was the one pinning them this time.

Letting out a giddy cackle, Beulah grinned like the Cheshire cat as her hand grasped onto Mike's right arm as she looked up at him while Bailey wriggled beside her.

And in an instant, Mike locked eyes with her, and as if Bailey wasn't there at all, Mike leaned down and pressed his lips to Beulah's neck, kissing all the way up to her chin then claiming her lips, not paying attention to how Bailey was now laying on his side, unmoving, and holding his hands to his chin, watching as his mommy kissed his Uncle Mike like a mom and dad should.

And it made Bailey smile.

* * *

A few hours later, the trio was walking around the nearby mall, with Bailey sitting on Mike's shoulders as Beulah kept her purse slung over her shoulder rather protectively.

She had no idea what she was going to do about her apartment. She had spoken to her landlord who was going to fix her door and put new locks on, but it didn't put her at ease, considering how the thieves, whoever they were, were able to get into her apartment with force. Didn't matter if there were locks or not.

And here, all this time, Beulah had thought this new apartment was nicer and in a safer neighborhood.

Maybe she would've been better off living across the hall from drug dealers at her old place.

Lord knows Evelyn would've made sure nothing happened to Bailey and her.

As she looked up at Bailey who had his chin resting on top of Mike's head and his hands wrapped underneath Mike's chin, she noticed some people staring out the corner of her eye, which caused her to turn.

They had just walked past a Hot Topic and a few teens were staring with wide eyes, whispering and trying to point inconspicuously. And when they began to follow as subtly as possible, Beulah couldn't help but lean over to whisper to Mike.

"I think you've been spotted, Mr. Rockstar," she snickered.

"What?" Mike muttered as he turned his head, then followed Beulah's gaze. And that gesture, alone, garnered several disbelieving squeals from the teenagers. "Oh," he added with a sheepish grin. "Yeah, I guess so."

They continued on, eventually finding seats at the food court, getting some Chinese, with the exception of a Burger King Kid's Meal for Bailey. And as they ate and chatted, there were those damn teenagers again, sitting together at a table nearby, flipping open their camera phones and talking animatedly in hushed voices.

Though, it was all too obvious what it was they were yacking about.

Mike.

Duh.

"It seems you have mini paparazzi, Mike."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he responded with a heavy sigh as he lifted up his soft drink and brought the straw to his lips.

After taking a languid sip, he set the plastic cup back down and turned his head toward the teenagers and pushed his chair out. Standing up with those lanky legs of his, Mike walked over to them, much to their apparent surprise. Beulah watched as he leaned over on of the teens, placing his hand on the back of their chairs and smiling pleasantly at them, striking up a brief conversation with them.

And it didn't seem strange to Beulah, watching as he posed for pictures with each teen, as they took turns with their camera phones, and then how he signed some autographs.

Mike chatted a few more minutes, then gave them all a nod and sauntered back over to an awaiting Beulah and Bailey.

"Have fun?" she asked with a laugh.

"All part of the job," he smirked, sitting back down. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "They wanted to know if you were my girlfriend and if Bailey was my son." Lifting a shrimp egg roll up in his hand, he took a bite out of it and looked at Beulah, wondering what her response would be.

"They did, did they?" She blushed a little, which Mike noticed almost immediately, as she dipped her head and let her white, plastic fork push around her lo mien noodles. "And what did you say?" she questioned before bothering to look back up at him.

"That you're a good friend, and I'm treating you and your son to a simple Christmas outing."

Her stare when from bashful to stoic as they held each other's eyes.

"It's more than simple, Mike," she said softly. "It means so much to me and to Bailey, that you have no idea."

Grinning a little devilishly, Mike titled his head. "No. No, I'm pretty sure I have an idea."