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Josephine looks at the ground with a tight mouth. I know she’s thinking she would’ve loved to have helped her old man and make her mom happy. She probably feels robbed of the chance.
“I’m sure you did a fine job. I learned how to work from you after all,” she says instead of what she’s feeling.
Her dad sniffs on the other end of the line. Crying perhaps? “It still would have been nice to have you home.”
Josephine lifts her face to the sky, forcing her tears to stay in. I can tell already she’s a lot like her old man. Both of them down-playing their emotions. Both of them stubborn as hell. Neither one brave enough to come out and say they miss the other one.
My crew is getting a little rowdy in the background, and her father catches their laughter. “You at a party or something?” he asks.
“Yes, actually. It’s sort of my—” I stop her from saying engagement party, shaking my head. Breaking the ice tonight is enough. Let’s not drop that bomb on him yet. “It’s a party my friends are throwing,” she settles on.
“Ah. I won’t keep you long. I was wondering if everything was okay. Your mom and sister noticed you unfriended them or something on Facebook,” he says.
“I didn’t unfriend anyone. I deleted my social media accounts,” she corrects.
“Oh. Why? Your mom was pretty upset. She thought maybe whoever this new guy you’re dating was making you isolate yourself or something.”
Oh, hell no!I look down at my pixie and she’s fuming.This is bad, really bad.
“And how would mom know if I’m dating anyone?” she snaps into the phone.
“Well, she saw the comments Jacob was posting, how hurt he was that you weren’t giving him another chance. She felt bad and reached out to him. He told her you’re trapped with some dangerous biker who controls everything you do, and you’re too proud to ask for help. He’s worried about you. And now we’re worried too.”
I swear lighting strikes are going off behind my pixie’s blue eyes. She’s reached her fill and all hell is going to break loose.
“If mom was fucking worried about me, maybe she shouldn’t be reaching out to the ex-asshole who broke my heart in the first fucking place. If she reached out to me, then she’d have a fucking clue Jacob’s a whiny little shit who fucking can’t take the hint and move on. I fucking quit social media to avoid his toxic, stalking behavior. Do you actually want me to be with a man who calls me a ‘whore’ because he’s pissed off I’m in a relationship with someone else? How fucking messed up is that shit?!”
“Jo, I didn’t mean to offend—” he tries to explain himself, but Josephine cuts him off.
“Maybe if mom called me, she’d learn how fucking successful I am with my own design company, or how I landed my first multimillion-dollar project. Maybe if either of you fucking said you were sorry for driving me away, you’d find out I’m doing great and engaged to the man of my dreams who—yes, is a president of a biker club, a retired decorated Navy SEAL, and has his own personal security company, and then you’d fucking understand how I struck gold by landing his sweet ass.
“We didn’t know—” her dad tries again.
“Do me a favor, next time you get the itch to call me, fucking don’t. I’ve got a new family who loves me, would do anything to keep me safe, and doesn’t tell me my dreams are shit. Feel free to adopt Jacob’s sorry ass. I’m out!” she shouts into the phone before hitting the ‘end’ button.
Holy fuck!I’m speechless.
Josephine is trying hard to calm herself down, but it’s clear that it’s going to take more than just counting to ten in her head.
It’s dead silent behind us. I turn to look at my crew. They’re all staring at Josephine with their mouths hanging open. Josephine must sense the silence too, because she turns to face the party. She stares at all of them and they stare back at her.
The air crackles between them as all my men start smiling. Smiling turns to laughing. Laughing turns to clapping. Clapping turns to cheering and whistling. My woman showed everyone she fucking owns the title ofFirst Lady.
Gauge starts applauding. “That was fucking awesome!”
Eagle laughs with disbelief. “Did you say all that shit to your pop?”
Ebony giggles. “And I thought I had daddy issues.”
Punk comes running up and bear hugs Josephine. “I always wanted a sister with a filthy mouth.”
Chase breaks out the Pappy and pours a tumbler, handing it off to Josephine and toasts her. “To the fucking Queen of Bitching. That was epic.”
Everyone is super proud of her, myself included, but Josephine is far from happy. She throws back her drink and smiles politely at everyone, but her heart is in pieces. She puts on a brave face and pretends she’s unaffected by what went down, but there’s no way anyone would react the way she did on the phone if it didn’t affect them.
Her parents may be wrong, but things will never change if Josephine never gives them the time of day. I foresee a road trip in my near future by myself to Los Angeles. She’s going to be one angry hellcat when she finds out, but this is something I can do for her and them. If her family is truly toxic, I’ll back off, but coming from someone who lost all his family, I can say family means everything.
Pulling my woman close to me, I shower her with kisses, but she seems unresponsive. She looks at me with unreadable eyes. “I need to see you out back,” she says before walking to the backyard.
