Ten Year Grudge

I was having a dream that I was in a phone booth and the phone kept ringing. But even when I picked up the receiver and put it to my ear, it kept ringing. About that time I realized I was dreaming.
I groaned as I rolled over. "Why the hell won't people let me sleep?" I complained as I reached for my phone. "Hello?"
"I do not believe you!"
I blinked, bleary-eyed at the clock. Midnight. Lovely.
"Who the hell is this?"
"Do not you use that language with me!"
Just the broken sentences told me who it was. "What do you want?" I moaned.
"Where is my son?"
"Sleeping I hope. Why?"
"You take him away from me! He was happy here! And you take him away-!"
"Christina I don't have the energy to deal with this right now. Look at a clock and call me back in about six hours. I'll be glad to cuss you out then. M'kay?"
She was still shrieking when I hit the end button, regretting the loss of flip phones and not having the satisfaction of snapping it shut, and put it back on the bed stand. Max was looking at me from the bottom of the bed.
"Go back to sleep," I murmured.
Not three seconds later the phone rang again. I grabbed the phone, glanced at the readout and stumbled out of bed. Max followed my down the hall, into the kitchen and down the stairs into the basement. I flipped on the light.
Delia was curled up next to Ace who was sleeping on the pull out futon. She growled a moment, then realized it was me and wagged her tail.
"?Que pequena chica?" Ace mumbled.
"Talk to your mother," I said, tossing the phone at him.
Ace sat up, bare-chested, hair tousled, eyes glassy. "?Que?" he asked again.
I remembered then that Ace probably wasn't awake enough to understand his second language and tried to recall some of the Spanish I'd learned. "Esta madre. Quiere hablar a esta." Purposely using the more formal tense.
He gave me a funny look, probably trying to decipher my broken Spanish. In answer, I tossed my phone at him.
He blinked and answered it. "What?" Then he took the phone away from his ear and I could hear Christina yelling.
"Calmarse Mama," he said, flopping onto his back. Then he launched into a rapid-fire conversation where the only words I picked up were trabajar-work and my name. Then he hung up.
"What the hell did she want?" I demanded, taking the phone back from him.
"She thought you talked me into living in sin with you."
I blinked, my sleepy brain trying decipher what that meant. When I finally grasped it, I had an urge to laugh, then the anger overtook me.
"Hypocrite," I snarled and turned around to walk back up the stairs.
"Hey watch it. I may not like her much but she's still my mother."
That stopped me. "What do you mean you don't like her much?"
When I turned around he'd thrown the sheet off. At least he didn't sleep naked, but he came pretty damn close. He was wearing short black boxers that barely covered what I had to admit was a pretty impressive package.
I dragged my eyes away from that part of his anatomy as he started to speak.
"It wasn't just your family that was destroyed when our parents got together."
I stared at him. "And what is that suppose to mean?"
"Nada. Don't worry about it. Go back to bed."
"You can't just say something like that and drop it."
"I was left in a single parent household just like you nina. Granted I didn't have two siblings, but did you ever think that maybe you weren't the only one that had it rough?"
I stared at him, hard. That thought had never occurred to me before.
"Explain."
He let out a humorless chuckle. "It's the middle of the night if you haven't noticed. I'm going back to sleep." He laid back down and pulled the sheet up. I felt a little disappointment when it hid that muscled chest. "You can join me if you want," he said over his shoulder.
That brought be back to reality. "Pig," I muttered. "Come on Max."
The dog trotted after me as I walked back up the stairs and made sure I slammed the door.