What a fucking dickhead.
God, he really knew what to say to get under my skin.
He always had.
“Get out.”
That time, it didn’t come from me.
It came from the man that I was holding onto like my life depended on it.
I whipped my head around and stood, my hands going to Justice’s face.
But his eyes stayed locked on the man in the doorway.
“Get. Out,” he repeated again.
The Judge narrowed his eyes.
“I think…”
That was when it got even better.
“My son asked you to go.” Loki’s deep, scary voice came from behind The Judge.
My father turned to see that Channing and Loki were both standing there looking like pissed off statues.
Channing was clenching and unclenching her hand, looking for all she was worth as if she was about to beat the snot out of my father if he said one more word.
Good. That made two of us.
“I’m going,” my father said. “There’s absolutely no reason to start a fight in the hallway of a hospital over something as insignificant as this.”
With that, he left us alone.
And I started to cry.
Loki and Channing walked in then, both smiling big.
Justice pulled me into his chest and started talking to his parents, but I couldn’t listen.
I was too focused on what was going on in my heart to pay attention at first.
“Baby, you’re killing me.” Justice’s worried words finally penetrated my foggy, couldn’t-stop-crying brain.
I sniffled and leaned up, my eyes puffy and swollen.
“You’re okay,” I whispered huskily.
He winked. “Fine.”
Channing snorted. “Sure you are. That’s why your head is so swollen.”
Justice closed his eyes and smiled.
“I really want a burger.”
Chapter 24
Don’t ask me to adjust my air conditioning. Bring a goddamn blanket.
-Justice to Royal
Justice
Today’s visit with her father was killing two birds with one stone.
Possibly even three.
As I walked into the courthouse with only one destination in mind, I felt…free.
I was officially released to go back to work.
My girl was happy and healthy.
Marcus was no longer in the picture.
And I was about to take out the trash.
I didn’t bother to call ahead and make an appointment; I was fairly sure the motherfucker would refuse to see me.
That was why I’d walked right into St. James’ office, past his secretary, and straight into his open office door.
When I got there, I closed the door with a solid thud.
He looked up with a scowl of annoyance.
“What are you doing here?” The Judge asked, looking at me like he’d rather be hit in the face with a fly swatter than talk to me.
“I’ve come to talk to you about a few things,” I said. “One, I want to buy the welding shop from you. He told me he did when I looked him up. When I found him fishing at the lake at his new home in the middle of nowhere.”
Her father’s eyes narrowed.
“Why?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes. “We know exactly why.”
“I don’t want her working there,” he argued.
I took a seat and stared at her father.
“How’s it going to look when we start having kids, and you’re not in the picture?” I asked honestly. “Your dreams of politics won’t look quite as good when you openly hate your daughter.”
The sad thing was, Judge St. James was good for this city. He was good for the police department and the fire department. He was good for the community.
He just wasn’t good for his daughter.
And I wanted to know why.
“Why do you hate your daughter so much?” I asked. “What’s she ever done to you to warrant your treatment of her?”
The Judge didn’t beat around the bush.
“My daughter is the cause of my wife’s death,” he pointed out.
“Your wife died of a heart condition that wasn’t related to her pregnancy or the birth of Royal,” I countered. “Keep trying.”
“Why would I tell you?” he asked.
I leaned back.
“Because I asked to know,” I said. “Royal’s never asked, has she?”
The Judge grinned. “No, she hasn’t.”
“Why not?” I wondered.
“Because Royal doesn’t want to know.” He shrugged. “And if she never asked, I wasn’t going to bother telling her.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and waited.
“You’re not going to leave if I don’t tell you?” he guessed, looking resigned.
“No,” I said. “I’m not.”
He sighed and leaned back in his own chair, mimicking my posture.
“Royal is the reason that I had to stay here, in this city, and not move up in the world,” he said pointedly. “There’s no good way to say that she ruined my life. I’m just sour that she forced me to clip my wings before I was ready.” He paused. “Every time I look at her, I see the reason I’m not where I want to be.”
That was it.
There was nothing life-changing.
Nothing huge that really impacted his life in the negative.
Just a child that needed her father, and that father having to put his dream on hold.
“I’m marrying your daughter,” I said. “I’m asking her to marry me when I get home.”
The Judge looked intrigued for a moment.
“I looked into you…” he started, but I talked over him.
“When we get married, you’re not invited to the wedding,” I said. “You will still pay for it, though.”
“Oh?” He looked like he found me amusing.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “And you’ll do it happily.”
“Will I?” he asked. “Why?”
I stood up and pulled out an article that I’d found while doing some digging into The Judge’s past.
“I found some interesting reading when I started digging into you,” I said. “Your daughter might like to know some of this.”
His daughter was going to know it anyway. But St. James didn’t need to know that.
The man’s face went utterly blank as he read over the article.
“Selling your sperm got you through college until you met Royal’s mother,” I said. “You sold everything but your body, from what I hear. Plasma, sperm, hell, I’m not even sure you didn’t sell your body. But, the funny thing is, you were poor as a street rat.”
St. James’ jaw clenched to such a degree that I heard it groan.
“Royal was always under the impression that your money was your money, and that you were the one responsible for leaving her that trust fund.” I grinned. “But it wasn’t you, was it? It was her mother. Seeing as you didn’t have two pennies to rub together.”
“You can marry her.” St. James looked disgusted. “And I won’t come to the wedding.”
I stood up and headed to the door.
“If you see us in town, ignore us,” I said. “And my lawyer will be contacting you about the business. It’s my wedding present to Royal.”
With that, I left, already typing away a text message to a buddy of mine that could take care of the paperwork for the business.
It’d put me in a mountain of debt, I was sure, but I wanted it.
For her.
For my soon-to-be wife.
As long as she said yes, that was.
***
“Royal?”
Royal, who was coming out of the dispatch offices, looked up at me with a smile.
Then she hurried in my direction.
“Hey, do you wan
t to go get something to eat?” she asked sweetly. “To celebrate your being released?”
I gave her a look.
She snickered.
“Undoubtedly, I’m guessing we’re going home?” she teased.
Yeah. We were going fucking home.
Five minutes later we arrived at my house—soon to belong to the both of us—and I was shutting off the bike.
Two minutes after that, I had Royal pressed up against the bedroom door with my hands down her pants.
A minute after that, we were both naked, and I was laying her down onto the bed.
Then there was no more talking.
Only fucking.
Lots and lots of fucking.
When we were done, and she was panting breathlessly on the bed, I looked down at her with satisfaction on my face.
“I’ll never let you go that long without sex again,” she teased.
I rolled my eyes.
Royal had been scared when I’d been hurt, and she’d made me stick to the two weeks of mandatory rest that I’d been given by the doctor.
Which. Had. Sucked.
Royally.
I pulled her into my arms and walked her into the bathroom, turning the shower on the moment we arrived.
“Shower with me,” I whispered.
And she did, her smile soft as we both worked quickly to wash each other off.
But when we got out and she tried to cop a feel, I stopped her by going down onto one knee.
At first she thought that I was just helping her dry off.
But then I pulled the ring off of the back of the toilet and held it up for her to see.
“Royal,” I said, making her breath hitch. “I know that we’ve been together for a very short time. I also know that you’re scared.” I paused. “And I know that you love me.”
She started to cry.
“Royal St. James,” I said. “Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife…and dropping that fucking awful last name and becoming a Rector?”
She beamed a beautiful smile.
Then said two words that I would cherish for the rest of my life.
“I will.”
I got my first official ‘I love you’ on our wedding day as the preacher pronounced us husband and wife.
I got my second the day she realized, a year into our relationship, that I wasn’t letting her go—no matter what.
I got my 5737th when she delivered our first-born child.
The 8588th when she delivered our second.
And yes, I kept counting.
Because every ‘I love you’ that came from Royal’s mouth was special.
Every. Single. One of them.
Epilogue
I wish girls who wanted boobs and girls who didn’t want as much boob could do a transfer like we can do with Venmo.
-Text from Royal to Justice
Justice
“Swing me, Daddy!” my son ordered loudly.
I swung him around and around in my arms, putting him down after a shit ton of rotations only to laugh when he tried to take a step and fall straight onto his ass.
“My turn!” came my baby girl’s order.
She was much harder to do, seeing as she was twice the size of my son. She may be older, but she was still my baby girl.
But I managed to make it work.
She wasn’t nearly as gangly as my son, but she still wobbled a bit.
“Your children are wild,” my father said to me, coming to a stop with a beer in his hand and pointing at my kids.
I looked over at him and grinned. “They’re wild because you let them run wild.”
Dad shrugged. “It’s good to be a kid. Great, actually. You won’t raise one of those little pussies that…”
A smacking sound came from my father’s side.
“Don’t finish that sentence,” my mother interjected. “It’s okay for a child not to be wild. They still grow up to be okay.”
Dad nodded his head in Royal’s direction.
Royal who was riding a skateboard down the long length of my parents’ driveway.
She was pretty good at the skateboarding thing now. I’d gotten her one for her birthday that first year we’d met.
When she’d told me that she’d never gotten to do the things that normal kids got to do, I’d felt bad for her and had tried to change that.
Her father was still an asshole.
And had yet to meet either of his grandkids.
Not that I was complaining.
I was giving Royal everything out of life that parents usually got the gift of giving.
I’d taken her to the movies. I bought her a skateboard. I bought her a bike. We hiked, hunted, and fished. Hell, if we could do it and get back to work in time the next day, we did it.
Even now, our family was rambunctious and fun, and there was never a dull moment.
“What’s a pussy?”
Before I could say anything to her question, though, she was there.
Luckily, she hadn’t heard our daughter’s question.
Royal came up to me, cheeks flushed, and threw her arms around my neck.
“I’m going to get ready to go eat,” she said. “I have to take a shower, blow dry my hair, and then put some makeup on. Then we can go.”
I grinned and planted my mouth onto hers, tasting the unique taste that was Royal.
“What about clothes?” I asked. “Because those aren’t really optional. And you didn’t mention them.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I’ll make sure to fit that part in, since you mentioned it,” she teased.
I nipped her lip and set her back. “See you in a bit.”
“Daddy!” my girl, Jane, called. “Come look at this big spider!”
***
Royal
My baby girl was just like her daddy. Where I couldn’t stand the sight of bugs—they were gross, what could I say?—she loved to point them out and play with them. Justice, however, could handle just about everything—even spiders.
Leaving my eight-year-old in the capable hands of my husband and his parents, I headed inside.
I was in and out of the shower fast.
Five minutes, max.
Something I’d been doing since the birth of our first child.
Showers and poops were luxuries that I couldn’t afford to take my time on, so that meant that I had mastered the fine art of doing both fast.
After getting dressed in something that would stay on long enough to get my hair dry, I began.
I heard the scream, but since I knew that both my husband and his parents were out there, I wasn’t too concerned.
I looked at my eyes and noticed how tired I looked today, but I didn’t care.
I’d had one hell of a weekend.
We’d gone fishing at the river Saturday with Loki. Then, we’d gone to a donut-eating competition between the Benton Fire Department and the Benton Police Department. FYI—BPD won. Not sure if that was because our youngest son, Bryce, who was four, had kept sneaking donuts to his sister, who was under the table, when everyone wasn’t looking or what. But the boys pretended they didn’t notice it happening. And the police department won.
Our day had ended with a trip to the local park as we tried to teach Bryce how to ride his bike.
I’d, of course, taken my skateboard.
I hadn’t mastered it over the years, but I was fairly good at it now. I could stand on it without falling, and sometimes I could even turn it into the direction that I wanted.
“Mommmmmmmyyyyyyyyy!”
Bryce’s yell chilled me to the bone.
When I turned, it was to find him staring at me with fat tears rolling down his cheeks.
“Mommy!” he cried. “I didn’t mean to! I didn’t mean to!”
I shut the hairdryer off almost as if on auto-pilot, and that was when I could hear Justice bellowing my name.
> I’d heard him call my name like that twice in my life.
Once, when I was in danger when Marcus Gomez had his gun trained on me, and right now.
The first time, that bellow had been terrifying because of how much terror Justice had inputted into the scream. Now, this was almost worse. Because one of my babies was the reason for his yelling.
I dropped the hairdryer like it was a piece of trash and hauled ass past my son.
He was crying as I passed him, repeating over and over that, “He didn’t mean to.”
Ignoring Bryce’s terror and worry, I made it out to the kitchen and came to a dead stop.
That was because my daughter was sitting on the counter, crying her eyes out. Channing was holding her still with her hands on Jane’s hips. Loki had his big hands clenched around my daughter’s upper thigh and her ankle, holding her leg out straight. And on the other side of her leg was Justice, holding bloody paper towels to her leg with a look of sheer panic on his face.
“What happened?” I cried out.
I tried to ignore the blood, but it was impossible.
There was just so much of it.
It was all over…everything.
Even the three people who were holding Jane.
Justice looked over at me grimly and shifted his big body, then moved the paper towel so that I could see what was underneath.
And I nearly fainted.
Straight up hit the floor.
My head went lightheaded and my skin turned cold and clammy all within half a second of seeing the wound.
Because the wound was bad.
Not just bad, but bad, bad.
The cut itself was about four inches long right under her right knee, spanning from about shin to the middle of her calf. And it looked like it’d just burst open, like a can of biscuits. I could see fat, muscle, and what might’ve been bone.
And a whole lot of fucking blood.
“Bryce cut her open with a fuckin’ spear,” he said, sounding pissed.
He was also using his cop voice and wearing his cop face.
The one that was the impenetrable mask.
But his eyes? He couldn’t hide those eyes from me, and I could tell that he most certainly wasn’t in control like he was trying to appear likely for our daughter’s sake.
Make Me Page 19
