“The guys still alive?”
“Mine or yours?” she asks.
I laugh.
She smiles. “They’re fine.”
“Good. Bad timing. She didn’t mean to eat those things.”
“You partake?” she asks.
“Not this trip,” I tell her honestly. “Not gonna say I never have, but it’s been awhile.”
“About four years?” she asks.
“Would make me more likeable to say yes, but no.”
“I don’t think you’re unlikable, but my husband, well, he heard you tell who we weren’t sure was Bella or not at the moment that she was done for the night. Then, well, you know the rest of the conversation. That led him to believe there was something fishy going on. He didn’t see the man with the cute little girl, so I’ll apologize for him.”
I hold the bucket under the ice maker and push it against the release. When it’s filled up, I turn toward her.
“But if I were you, I’d be real with him.”
I swallow hard. “About what?”
She shakes her head. “Anything and everything. He’ll flip shit, then he’ll chill.”
“He’ll flip shit on a grown man?”
“Um, hello, but was that you against the wall?” She laughs.
I nod. “True, but he thought I was going to hurt Bella, so I get it. The thing is, I never will.”
She’ll be the one to fuck me up, I think.
“Why would she fuck you up?”
“There are times, like just then, I think shit and don’t mean to say it. Could you do me a favor and forget I said that?”
She shakes her head.
“I didn’t think so.”
“Spill it.”
I lean against the wall next to the door. “She’s special, beautiful, real, says whatever she wants, kind to men like me and all the others. She’s not been really hard to fall for. The problem is, my life’s complicated right now. When I met her, I said see you in six to nine months. Then she shows up.”
“Wait. You already knew her?”
I nod.
“From school?”
I shake my head.
“Well, how?”
“Same way I know you’re love.”
She covers her mouth and looks pretty fucking horrified. “Oh God, please forgive me for this but, if her dad finds out, he’s gonna hurt you.”
I shrug. “Wouldn’t ask you to lie to your husband. I will ask you to do what’s best for Bella. I certainly plan to.”
The door opens, and the guys all walk out.
“You sure you don’t want to go—”
“Grimm, dude, have fun.” I half-laugh.
I hold the door for Carly. “After you.”
When we walk in, Bella is sitting up and leaning against the uncle with the least attitude. Xavier, I think.
I set the ice down, and she looks up. A goofy-ass grin spreads across her face.
“Still not feeling straight?”
“Look around, Tags. Right now, I’m wishing I had more of those gummies.”
She’s serious as shit. She’s also acting like they aren’t even here.
Xavier laughs. “Me, too, Little Bell.”
“Xavier,” his wife scolds him.
“Irish, we have a teenage boy; been straight for way too many years. We’re in Vegas, Momma Joe has the kids; let’s eat some fucking gummies.”
Bella laughs, and Jase growls.
“Daddy …” she sighs, “you do know that I am a twenty-three-year-old woman, right?”
“You do know that I’m your father, right?”
“Oh yes, and so does every boy I dated in college. Hell, your picture was sent from one asshole to the next with a warning.”
“Good,” he huffs.
“Not gonna say I disagree. None were worth a damn anyway.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he snaps.
And I find myself siding with her father.
She peeks up at me, bloodshot eyes through thick lashes, and shakes her head.
“Bella, I asked you a question,” he demands.
“Then you’ll get an answer you won’t like, but you’ll get it. Then I’m gonna go to sleep, because I ate some gummies that I didn’t know were …” She looks at me and smiles. “What did you call them?”
I narrow my eyes. “Canna-bears.”
“This asshole give them to you?”
She whips her head around and scowls at him. “This asshole …” She looks back at me and cringes. “Sorry.”
“It’s all good.” I nod.
She turns back to him. “He didn’t, and neither did the others. I saw candy in a fridge after I sat at that desk and edited a film that I’ll never be able to use because his wife hates me.”
Xavier breathes out, “Fuuuuck.” And four women stand in front of me.
“The hell are you all doing?” Jase asks.
Fucker looks crazy, like seriously crazy. Like he’s the bull, and I’m the asshole with the red flag kind of crazy.
“They know how you are. They’re protecting the man who I am falling in love with—”
“You’re what?”
I do him a solid and keep my face unreadable, when inside, my heart is doing all kinds of shit. It’s a fucking party in there. A big fucking party. Looking around, I realize it’s the equivalent to someone finding out they won the lottery at a funeral of someone they don’t know but are attending to support a friend.
She looks at me. “Have I said that yet tonight?”
“Not tonight. Not in the past month. Not at all actually.”
Carly whips around and looks horrified.
I look at Jase as he looks between us, back and forth, back and forth, like a pendulum swinging as a countdown commences, before the bomb goes off.
“She doesn’t know about us,” Bella says.
This poor man is getting it from all sides.
“It’s a long story.”
“Can you tell it in the next ten seconds? Because you got about that long before I lose my shit all over you.”
I force a smile. “I’m doing this for her, not you.”
“You don’t have to.” Isabella starts to stand up then falls on her ass.
“Pretty sure I’ll do a better job than you right now.”
I look at Jase. “She needs me to explain myself, because you need answers. You need answers because you love her. That’s the only reason I’m putting my ass on the line, and when I say I’m putting my ass on the line, it should come with the realization that I know what you went through to get Isabella back in your life. I don’t want to be in the same boat ever. You may not respect me, but it’s not you I’m truly concerned with.”
He doesn’t like that much. He loves his daughter, he’ll adjust.
“Left home when I was sixteen. Wasn’t a good home. Got arrested for some stupid shit, went to juvy, and met some new friends. Got out and didn’t go home again. They never looked, still don’t look, and I don’t care. Joined a gang, had a threesome, got the girl pregnant. Yes, I know she’s mine. Before she found out she was knocked up, she and the other guy—”