Heart-On: Turf Wars #2 Bella Jewel (books for 10th graders .txt) 📖

He follows not long after with a feral hiss and a groan that makes my legs weak.

God.

I can’t get enough of him. I honestly can’t.

“Fuck, you feel good,” he murmurs, pulling away from me.

We clean up as best we can and he looks at me with those hooded eyes that make my tummy do funny things.

“I’ll see you later, handsome,” I murmur, leaning forward and kissing him again.

“Sooner, yeah?”

Always sooner rather than later.

Always.

He disappears toward the clubhouse and I make sure I’m presentable before walking through the back door of the café. Eve is in the kitchen and one look at me has her rolling her eyes. “You two better not be tarnishing my beautiful brick walls.”

“Oh, they’re tarnished. They’re so tarnished they don’t even know if they’re brick anymore.”

She laughs. “You disgust me, and yet I love it.”

I chuckle. “I better go anyway, I have a job interview.”

“At the hospital?” she claps happily.

“Yep, Daniel gave me an awesome reference so hopefully now I can work out of the actual hospital. That will be pretty awesome.”

“I’m so happy for you.” She smiles. “Seriously. A new house, a new job, and a new man.”

I grin.

She’s right. I’m pretty lucky alright.

Pretty lucky indeed.

“YOU HAVEN’T HEARD FROM your mother?” Dad asks, sitting down at the clubhouse bar with a beer in his hand.

“Nope,” I say, shaking my head as I sip my own beer. “She hasn’t made any contact since we got rid of Devin, which is great because I don’t have the patience to deal with someone like her being in my life. I’m far beyond that rubbish now.”

Dad nods. “She is your mother, though.”

“That’s just a word, Dad,” I point out. “It takes a whole lot more than giving birth to someone to make them a mother.”

“Can’t argue with that,” he agrees.

“Why are you here anyway?” I ask him after coming over to see Adan and finding Dad here.

I catch up with him on a weekly basis, and things are going well. I’m enjoying having him back in my life, even if it’s slow and steady for now.

“Have business with Riggs.”

“I don’t want to know what kind of business, do I?”

He shakes his head.

“Right,” I murmur. “Well, as long as you’re not selling women and children, or kicking puppies, I really don’t care.”

He grunts. “Why the hell would we kick puppies?”

“Um, because it’s mean and that’s what bad people do. It’s how I gauge how bad you really are.”

He snorts. “No puppy kicking. No selling women or children. You’re safe there.”

“What about men? You’re not selling men, are you?”

He chuckles. “No, sweetheart. No men either.”

I nod. “Well, that’s good then. The rest you can do.”

“Glad I’ve got your permission.”

I grin at him.

Hugh walks out of the hall with a face that looks like he wants to murder someone.

“Hey, Hugh,” I say and his eyes swing to me.

“Ramona,” he nods.

“You doing okay?” I ask.

He grabs himself a beer and sits down. “Define okay?”

“I heard what happened with that girl and her baby. Is it true? It’s yours?”

“Just found out it is. DNA came back.”

Oh, shit.

That is something else.

“Didn’t want kids, didn’t want a woman, didn’t want a single fuckin’ thing to do with any of this crap and now I’m stuck with both.”

I blink and glance at Dad, who is looking more concerned for Hugh than anything.

“Do you know her well?” I ask.

Hugh shakes his head. “One-night fuckin’ stand, can you believe it? She’s a fuckin’ teacher, from the richest fuckin’ family in town. Country club type. If they found out about me ...”

“She hasn’t told her family who the father is?” I gasp. “Why?”

“Because she knows they’ll disown her.”

“Then why tell you?” I shake my head in confusion.

“Fucks me. She’s got plenty of money. Said somethin’ about not wantin’ her to grow up without a father.”

It’s a little girl.

“You don’t have to process this right away,” I offer my bad attempt at good advice. “But, isn’t it nice to know you have a daughter?”

“If you knew me, you wouldn’t think so,” he mutters, running his hands down his face in exhaustion.

I don’t know Hugh well enough to judge on that, but I do know that little girls have a way of changing their big tough daddies. Maybe it’ll be good for him.

Maybe.

“If you need to talk about something, let me know,” I offer.

Hugh nods, drinking his beer.

“I’ll tell you something,” Dad pipes up, “havin’ a daughter will be the best thing you’ll do. Don’t sacrifice a second of your time because it’ll be gone in a second.”

Aw.

Dad.

I smile at him.

He winks.

“Noted,” Hugh mutters.

Poor Hugh.

I do feel bad for him. One minute you’re a single man, living the life you want and then suddenly you’re a dad with a woman from a very different world than you.

It would be a big pill to swallow.

I wonder what she’s like?

Is she nice?

I guess we’ll all find out soon.

Very soon indeed.

23

“What’s going on over there?”

Eve glances at me, eyes wide, and shrugs. “I don’t know, but that club has been crazy since the whole Hugh having a baby thing. I have no idea who that is.”

I give her a concerned expression, and the two of us watch as the club members pull a girl out of a large, black truck. She’s only young, possibly even our age. It’s hard to tell from this far what she looks like, but she’s got this dark hair and she’s wearing retro clothes. She’s yelling something at them, but we can’t make out what she’s saying.

Judging by the way they’re handling her, rough and heavy-handed, she’s done something to piss them off.

“I’m going over there,” Eve says when she notices Riggs grab the girl by the arm and begin dragging her inside.

“Wait!”

I rush after her, and the two of us nosily go over to the club, where there is most certainly chaos unfolding. The second we step through the front doors, all we can hear is yelling and orders being thrown around. Eve looks at