Autumn Rolls a Seven (Billionaire Baby Club Book 2)

by Jasinda Wilder

  Me: he’s here to pick me up, so I think he’s getting me. But thanks. I feel weird, and I’m worried he’s going to get me to talk about things.

  Zoe: Oh, the horror.

  Me: Have you met me? Openness and vulnerability are bad words.

  Zoe: Which is why you’re still single at almost forty.

  Me: That was mean and uncalled for. Take it back, you bitch.

  Zoe: Which part? Being single, or almost forty?

  Me: I hate you. Just for that, I’m not going to text you later.

  Zoe: I have keys to your house. I’ll hide in your closet and jump out at you when you least expect it and annoy you until you tell me everything.

  Me—as the elevator doors opened to the ground floor: The scary thing here is that I don’t think you’re kidding.

  Zoe: Oh, I’m not. I mean, I wouldn’t hide in your closet, I’d sit on your couch, drink your wine, eat your bonbons, and watch your Netflix.

  Me: Bonbons? Is this Victorian times?

  Zoe: Why are you still texting me, loser? I thought you had a picnic date?

  Me: Why are you so mean to me? I thought you loved me.

  Zoe: *Eyeroll emoji, kissing emoji* you know I love you, silly. But someone in this world has to give you shit so you don’t take yourself so seriously. I’m here to lighten you up, sister.

  Me: I’m enlightened already.

  Zoe: that’s not what I meant, but let’s just go with it.

  Me: I’m going now. Love you.

  Zoe: I double dog dare you to take the tiniest risk with him.

  Me: I am. I’m going out in public without a bra or makeup.

  Zoe: Again, not what I meant.

  I was standing on the walk in front of my building as I finished the conversation with Zoe, tossed my phone into my purse. I spotted Seven right away, sitting in a hunter-green vintage SUV. It only had a windshield, no roll bars or anything. It was rugged looking, masculine, and utterly cool. I approached him from the passenger side, and got in.

  “Hey you,” he said. “Here.” He handed me a travel thermos full of coffee ready for me, cream added in the perfect amount. I sipped some coffee, and then selected a glazed donut. We sat in the parking lot for a few minutes, drinking coffee and eating donuts; we didn’t even talk, a companionable silence between us, as if we’d known each other for years and were just comfortable with each other in silence.

  “This is cool,” I said, polishing off my third donut. “What is it?”

  He finished his fourth or fifth as he pulled his feet inside and twisted the key in the ignition. “It’s a 1976 I-H Scout.”

  “The first time we met, you said you didn’t have a garage full of expensive cars. Yet I still have your Ferrari, which is the most incredible driving experience of my life and I love it and I may not give it back. You have that Venom thing, and now this…”

  He wiggled the shifter in the socket, then shoved it into reverse. “I said I don’t have a garage full of Range Rovers and Lamborghinis. Which is true—I don’t. The Ferrari is pretty expensive, not like the Venom, but it’s still far from cheap. This is vintage, sure, but it’s nothing special, at least not in the world of vintage cars. I got it as is, fully restored, for forty-some grand.”

  “What else do you have?”

  “An old Harley which I…inherited. A vintage Mercedes, a ’57 SLS. And a turd-brown 1997 Dodge Caravan which doesn’t run.”

  I glanced at him in surprise. “A 1997 Dodge Caravan?”

  He didn’t laugh. “It was my mom’s.”

  “And the Harley was your dad’s?”

  He nodded. “Right-o.”

  We drove a ways in silence. “So, when you let me borrow your Ferrari, I assumed you would want it back. But I’ve had it for three days. When I said I may not give it back, I was obviously just kidding.”

  He just shrugged. “That was one of my first major splurges, that Ferrari. It was my daily driver for a few years. I prefer the Venom, now, so the poor girl doesn’t get driven as much as she deserves. I’m honestly in no hurry to get it back.”

  I eyed him sideways. “That’s dangerous. It makes my BMW seem cheap and shitty and I love driving it way too much.”

  He chuckled. “A Ferrari will do that.”

  “For real, though. You should take it back before I get too attached.”

  He just smiled. “We’ll see.”

  I frowned at him. “You’re not giving me your Ferrari.”

  “No. But lending indefinitely isn’t the same as giving, is it? And it’s not like I’m hurting for sweet rides. Shit, I could go buy another one if I wanted. Not trying to be all like…dolla-dolla bills ya’ll, but it’s true.”

  “Still. It’s a quarter-million-dollar car.”

  He eyed me as we merged onto the freeway. “So? Would it make a difference if it was the minivan? A car’s a car, at the end of the day. And in terms of sentiment, the minivan is worth more to me because what it represents is irreplaceable, whereas the Ferrari is just an expensive supercar, albeit the first one I ever bought.”

  “I’d be less afraid of damaging it if it didn’t cost almost as much as a house.”

  He just waved a hand in dismissal. “It’s a thing. It can be fixed.”

  “You’re awful blasé about it.”

  He just smiled at me. “You like it. It puts a smile on your face. And I’d rather you enjoy driving it than have it sitting in my garage taking up space.”

  “Well, thank you, then, I guess.” I noticed we were heading north. “So, where are we going?”

  He shrugged. “I dunno. North. Out of town, away from things. We’ll find somewhere to stop when we’re ready. Figure a good long drive is a fun way of hanging out.”

  “Meaning talk.”

  He glanced at me, grinning. “Bingo.” He searched me momentarily, before returning his gaze back to the road. “What, you don’t like talking?”

  “I like talking just fine.”

  He smirked. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a shitty liar?”

  “It has been said, yes.” I watched the scenery as it changed from the outskirts of Malibu to the breathtaking beauty of the PCH as it wound its way north.

  “I also have a flawless bullshit detector. Something worth knowing about me.”

  I sighed. “Noted. Well, in this case, I happen to like talking. Just not about me.”

  “Ahh, there it is.” We came up behind a slow-moving car, and he checked traffic both ways, and then pulled around it. “So, why not?”

  I shrugged. “I just don’t.”

  “I mean, we could start light, and go tit for tat. Tell me something about yourself. Anything.”

  I sighed. “I hate clowns.”

  “Well shit, who doesn’t? Like, all clowns? Or the creepy killer ones?”

  “I mean, obviously the creepy killer clowns are evil and I hate them. But all clowns.” I wished I’d picked something else, but this had seemed innocuous enough at first. But then, the origin. “When I was eleven, my mom and her boyfriend of the week took us to this pizza place for my birthday. They had this clown come over and they told him it was my birthday, and he made me stand up and he sang the restaurant-version happy birthday song to me, and squirted me with one of those flower lapel things, and made me a balloon dog, and embarrassed me. He smelled like body odor and liquor and cigarettes, and up close, his makeup was so thick and greasy and was smearing because he was sweating. It was awful. I had nightmares about clowns for weeks, where this creepy clown stared at me and made me sing happy birthday in front of huge crowds and kept trying to…” I shuddered. “So yeah. Clowns.”

  He laughed. “I see you creepy clowns and raise you…dogs.”

  I frowned at him. “You don’t like dogs?”

  He shrugged. “Well, not so much don’t like as am scared of.”

  “You—Seven St. John, three-time heavyweight boxing champion of the world—you are scared of dogs?”

  He faked a glare. “If you’re going
to tease me about it won’t tell you why.”

  I patted his hand. “I’m sorry. I’m not teasing. Just shocked.”

  “You’re going to laugh when I tell you why, though.”

  “You were attacked by one on the way home from school or something, I’m guessing. Nothing funny about that.”

  He snorted. “I wish it was that.” A sigh. “There was a period of time where I didn’t have anyone to live with. Why is a different story for another time, because that’s the heavy shit. But suffice it to say, I was between homes. And I got placed with this old lady. Viola. Like the instrument. She was sweet as sugar, but how the hell she got approved to foster, I don’t fuckin’ know. She was senile as shit. Thank god I was old enough to mostly fend for myself, and had been for quite a while. She’d put her dentures in the microwave, pots of water she’d just boiled in the fridge, shit like that. I looked after her as much as she did me.”

  “And she had a scary dog?”

  “Quit jumpin’ ahead, woman. You think scary dogs that leave emotional scars, you think the big ones, right? The usual culprits. Rottweiler, pit bull, something like that. No—oh no. Chihuahua. It was all of four pounds, and it hated me. It would look at me and just…tremble, with all the hate and evil of hell itself, as if it was so full of demonic hatred that it just shook with it. It would chase me all over the house, yapping at me, biting my ankles and calves. It would jump up and bite my fingers, corner me and lunge at my junk. It was the most evil fucking thing I’ve ever met in my life. Satan on four legs. If I didn’t close my door all the way at night, it would jump on the bed and sit on my chest and bark at me.” He traced a faint white scar on his left cheek. “Gave me that, one night, at like three in the morning. Woke up to that fucking tiny-ass ball of rat shit biting my fuckin’ face off. To this day, Chihuahuas scare the absolute bejeezus out of me. I’m fine around other kinds of dogs, and the big ones don’t bother me at all. But the little ones? Hell nah. And send Chihuahuas back to hell where they came from.”

  “Wow.” I was attempting to not snicker. “Chihuahuas, huh? Wouldn’t have imagined that.”

  “Told ya.” He jutted his chin at me. “Okay, now you. Something else.”

  I mused, watching seaside slide past Seven’s shoulders. “I’ve never broken a bone.”

  He snorted. “I’ve broken…shit, let’s see…my left wrist, right forearm, left ankle twice, right femur, a couple vertebrae in my back. Cracked my skull open once, very memorably. My hands in various places at various times. Fingers too many times to count, same with toes.”

  I boggled at him. “Holy mother of shit, how are you alive?”

  He just laughed, shrugged nonchalantly. “Breaking my back was the closest I’ve come to dying. That and the skull fracture.”

  “Are those suitable for story time, or are they heavy shit?”

  He sighed. “Eh, I mean, it was pretty gnarly, but not heavy, in the sense of discussing our childhoods. Boxing has always been my sport, but I did play others in high school. Football was the sport besides boxing I was best at, and by that I mean I was the star running back at my school. Set records for rushing yards that still stand today, if I’m not mistaken. Senior year, state playoffs. We were heavily favored to win, and a lot of that rode on me running the ball. I was having a killer fuckin’ game. On track to break my own records for yards rushed in a single game. We were winning by a touchdown and a field goal, it was the third quarter, we were first and goal. Line up, wait for the snap, pass fake, QB hands me the ball. I see a gap, plan was to go through. Blocker missed his block, the gap closed, but it was too late to reroute, and I figured shit, I can go over. So I did. Only, a defender came up at the same time, hit me sideways, another hit me from a different direction, and…bam. Broke my back in two places. Ended my football career, spent way too long in traction, there was doubt if I’d ever walk again, yada yada yada. I said fuck that noise, I’m out. Shocked the shit out of the physical therapist by going from traction to breaking my own hundred-yard dash record in a matter of months.”

  “Damn.”

  He just rolled that careless shoulder again. “I was determined. And it was one of those literal lucky breaks, I guess. I dunno. Mind over matter, maybe? Point is, I got back on my feet and that was the impetus to put all my efforts into boxing.”

  “And the skull fracture?”

  “Got jumped in Moscow. My own dumbass fault. I was drunk in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He rubbed his scalp at the back of his head, I assumed where the break had happened. “I’m a hard-ass motherfucker, and even drunk as a skunk I gave ’em hell, but there were seven or eight of ’em, and I ain’t Bruce Lee. They eventually managed to knock me backward onto the sidewalk, which is how my skull got broke, and then for good measure they kicked in a few of my ribs.” He chuckled. “My manager was pissed the hell off at me, I’ll tell ya. Put me out of commission for weeks, had to reschedule half a dozen fights so I could get my shit back in fighting shape. It was a mess.”

  I was flabbergasted at the amount of physical pain and punishment the man beside me had endured. “You’ve been through so much.”

  He just smiled at me. “I guess. You do what you gotta do, though.” A jut of his chin at me. “Your turn. Somethin’ juicy.”

  I laughed. “Juicy, hmm?” I had to think about that one for a while. Most of my interesting stories were also my heavy ones. “I don’t know. I don’t really have any juicy stories.”

  He mimicked the sound of a wrong-answer buzzer. “Bzzzzzzt. Bullshit. You got plenty, you just don’t like talking about yourself. Which I get. But hey, I told you about my ex, right? Come on, Autumn. Hit me with something. Whaddya got?” His smile was warm, interested, compassionate, humorous—so many emotions expressed in a simple smile.

  God, he was complicated.

  And convincing.

  “Okay, I’ve got something.” I sighed, summoning the oomph to actually let this one out in the open. “I don’t have a high school diploma, I have a GED. My younger sister got right into the college we both went to, but I had to go to community college and then transfer.”

  “And?”

  I sighed, blowing a raspberry of aggravation. “It’s heavy.”

  “I’ll lighten it up afterward. I’ve got some funny stories I ain’t told you yet.”

  “My mom was, and still is, a fuckup. Has been her whole life. She just can’t make a good, healthy, responsible decision to save her life, and I mean that very fucking literally. I wish I could just blame it all on the evil disease of addiction, but even when she’s sober she makes dumb decisions.”

  “Oof,” he said. “That’s rough.”

  “Yeah. Being the child but basically raising your own mother, yeah that’s rough.” I groaned, knowing now that I’d started down this road, it’d all come out one way or another. “So, end of junior year, she was doing okay. She’d been through rehab, for the, like, fifth time. Keep in mind Zoe and I’d both worked two jobs since we were both old enough to get jobs to pay for her rehab, and to make sure we could feed ourselves. She was home, she was sober, she was even working a job, and wonder of wonders, it was a job that let her keep her clothes on. Not all of the jobs Mom had were so cushy. She was doing great. I was hopeful.”

  “Oh, shit. That’s never good.”

  I actually laughed at that. “Clearly, you understand.” I stuck my hand out the window and tilted it up and down in the airflow. “Zoe and I had a group of friends, and they’d been talking about spring break in Cancun. And I was thinking, ohmygod, maybe I can go. Mom was working so I’d been saving money up for months. I had a few grand, the car was holding together, I wasn’t paying for rehab—maybe Zoe and I could pool our money and go with the group. First vacation, ever. Hell yeah, right?”

  “Nope.”

  I snorted. “Nope indeed. Very literally the day, the actual day Zoe and I had told our friends we were going to go with them, I’m at work, and our neighbor comes in. Keep in mind, this dude, our n
eighbor, he was a real shitbag. If Mom was using, he’d get her to sleep with him in exchange for cash for drugs. If she wasn’t using, he’d leave well enough alone, but Mom knew if she was really hard up for cash to buy drugs, she could fuck Ed for the money to buy a bag of crack or pills or whatever she was on at the time.”

  He blinked at me. “Goddamn.”

  “Oh, just you wait. You wanted juicy? I’ve got juicy for you. Ed comes in. I’m an ice cream scooper at a little local ice cream shop. I’m scooping cherry chocolate. I remember clear as day. A little ginger kid, maybe twelve years old, cute as a button. Cherry chocolate, two scoops, waffle cone. He was staring at me, like open-mouthed, not blinking, probably the first time he’d ever noticed a girl as a girl, you know? Ed comes in, and he’s leering at me. I’m like, ‘what do you want, Ed?’ The entire conversation, he addressed everything he said directly to my tits. I’m not even seventeen yet, keep in mind, and I had even less to stare at than I do now, but he managed it. ‘Your mom,’ he said. ‘You might wanna go check on her. I think she’s using again.’” I swallowed hard. “I was like, did you give her money again, Ed?’ He claimed he hadn’t, but that he saw her acting pretty weird in the kitchen, and maybe I should go check on her.”

  “Creepy.”

  “I mean, if he was worried about her, why not call 911? Why come all the way into town to tell me, a kid, at work?” I shrugged. “To this day, I still can’t figure that out. Maybe he was on the way into town anyway, and figured he’d at least stop by and let me know Mom was fucked-up. Best theory I’ve ever been able to come up with.”

  “So you go check on her,” he prompted.

  I nodded. “Had to beg my boss to let me go. I get home, she was unconscious on the kitchen floor, in a pool of blood and vomit. Turned out, she was using again, and she had previously undiagnosed cancer. So the whole last third of junior year, that whole summer, and all of senior year, I was taking Mom to chemo, babysitting her so she didn’t shoot up or take pills or smoke crack while getting chemo. I made Zoe keep working and going to school, because I figured one of us should be able to have something like a normal life and it might as well be her, she’s smarter than me anyway. I didn’t attend a single day of school my entire senior year. Got my GED the following summer while Mom recovered.”