Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 70444 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70444 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
I looked up, met June’s eyes, and I felt my whole world tilt on its axis.
I stood, staring, at my family, feeling like a complete and utter fool.
June was there, too, looking at me like I might break at any moment. She was right to be worried. I didn’t even know what to think. Everything was wrong.
“How…how do you know?” I asked. “I don’t remember hearing anything at all, and that’s not something you can easily hide.”
My grandfather grunted in aggravation. “I don’t know how she hid it, to be honest. We own this town. Nothing goes on in it that we don’t know about. And the same holds true for all the surrounding towns. This kid? He looks exactly like you. Like your pop. There’s no way in hell that people didn’t make that connection. Unless people just didn’t see him at all.”
June moved, her feet shifting on the loose gravel in the parking lot. Bringing not just my attention, but everyone’s attention, to her.
She looked like she wanted to say something.
“I don’t think that they’re ever seen together,” she said finally.
My brows rose. “Never seen with her kid? Seems kind of… unmanageable,” I admitted. “Even if they didn’t go out and play at the park that the club frequented, there’s the grocery store. The doctor’s office. Hell, even the damn home improvement store. You just can’t hide from us. Everyone is loyal to the Dixie Wardens. Everyone.”
June bit her lip, looking even more hesitant than before to open her mouth, and I couldn’t blame her. Anger was rolling off of me in waves.
“What?”
“How about you just ask her?”
That, honestly, was the best suggestion I’d heard since I got there. “That’s fucking perfect,” I admitted. “Let’s just go and do that.”
***
My lips were pressed tightly together, and I felt like I was having an out of body experience.
Information was swirling around in my head, and I was counting dates in my head, adding times up to make sure that this was actually possible.
News flash—it was.
“She’s got a nanny,” Pops said. “She literally sees the boy once a week, and I honestly think that’s just so she can pay the nanny. The nanny takes a couple of hours off to do what she needs to do and then comes back around four in the afternoon. Rosie’s gone by five.”
Anger burned in my chest.
I didn’t know what to do or say.
I also didn’t know what to think.
Everything had changed.
Everything.
The boy was two years and four months old. I’d lost two years and four months of his life, and I’d never get it back.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat.
“What do I do?” I finally asked. “Can I just go over there and confront her?”
Pops looked at his watch. “It’s two in the afternoon.”
I didn’t see the relevance, which likely showed on my face.
“Let’s go.” Pops gestured to the cars. “This ain’t gonna solve itself.”
***
June rode with me, though I could tell she didn’t really want to leave her truck. Though, that might be due to the fact that she didn’t want to be stuck in mine with me. My anger was a living, breathing thing, its own entity right here in the cab of my truck with us. I wanted to be headed where we were going about as much as I wanted to shove a needle into my eye, and the closer we got, the angrier I became.
So yeah, I understood June’s unease, but I needed her now. I needed her with me, and I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. She was just going to have to suck it up.
“Do you want to do this alone or with everyone?” she asked quietly.
I looked over at her. “Might as well be with everyone. There is no hiding from this.”
And there wasn’t. Regardless of how much I might want to hide from my problems.
This was one that I couldn’t hide from, and I needed my family there with me more than I needed air to breathe right about now.
A father.
I was someone’s father.
I thought back to that last time that I’d been with Rosie three plus years ago.
“I’ve missed two whole years.”
And that didn’t sit well with me at all. When I’d envisioned having kids, I always imagined that I’d be there for—with—them just like my father had been with me.
What kind of person did it make me that I had no clue that he’d ever been born?
Chapter 23
Change up your swear words. Call someone a piece of dick. Tell them to go asshole themselves.
-Johnny to June
June
Johnny knocked on the door, his face almost red.
I felt horrible for him.
Absolutely, utterly horrible.
If there was one thing in this world that I could save him from, it’d be the heartbreak that I could practically read on his face.
He didn’t want to be here, but only because he didn’t want to admit that he’d screwed up—or at least that’s what he was thinking. He hadn’t screwed up. It wasn’t his fault Rosie was a twat.