by Melinda Minx
“You’re going to keep talking to me like this?” the nurse asks. “Even when Sophie isn’t here?”
“I’ll be here as much as I can,” I say, looking at the nurse, then at Dad.
“Why do I keep feeling sleepy?” Dad asks. “I just woke up…”
“Your body is in recovery mode,” the nurse says. “It’s trying to repair the damage. If you feel sleepy, you need to sleep.”
“Too much sleep…” he mumbles as his eyelids drift shut.
Mason comes in after Dad has been sleeping for a while. “How is he?”
“He’s good,” I say, beaming. “His voice is slurring, and he’s sleepy...but I think he’s going to be fine.”
The nurse has already stepped out, but I can hit a button to call her back in if needed.
“Good,” Mason says. “Mr. Lightner is on his way back to Tuckett Bay.”
I sigh in relief. “Any more crazy surprises for today?”
“I hope not,” Mason says. “That whole Mr. Lightner thing reminds me of this time your dad gave me ‘a talk.’ He scared the shit out of me, to be honest.”
“My dad? He gave you a talk?”
“Of course,” Mason says, eyeing Dad. He starts to talk in a low voice, as if he’s afraid Dad will hear him. “After we’d been seeing each other for a few weeks. One time when I came to pick you up, you still weren’t ready. That’s a teenage boy’s worst nightmare, by the way, having to sit in the living room with his girlfriend’s father. Alone.”
I laugh. “What did you guys talk about?”
“He told me he’d asked around about me. He talked to some other girl’s dad—I don’t even remember which one anymore—who I’d, uh, taken for a ride in my car.”
I stifle laughter, afraid I’ll wake up Dad.
“So he like, went Sherlock Holmes on you?” I ask. “Really?”
I nod. “We’d already done it by then, so I was extra scared.”
I burst out laughing, but cover my mouth and hold it down, looking at Dad. He’s snoring still.
“What did he say?” I ask.
Mason leans into me and does his best “gruff Dad” voice. “Now look here, son, I know you’re a good kid. I’ve asked around, but you can’t treat girls the way you do. Maybe you can treat other girls like that, but not my Sophie!”
I feel my cheeks burning.
“I told him,” Mason says, “that you were different, that I was growing up…”
We look at each other, both realizing he hadn’t quite grown up. Knowing what he was going to do, how our relationship would eventually end.
“He nodded,” Mason says, “and gave me this look that made me think the whole conversation was over. I was waiting for him to change the subject and talk about baseball or something, but instead he pointed to his gun case. The big wooden one with the glass front with the three shotguns standing tall.”
“Oh, God,” I say.
“He said,” Mason continues, “you see those shotguns, son? Well, I don’t actually have any shells for them. They’re just there for show. But if you cross me, if you disrespect my daughter, I will have to go to the gun store and buy some ammunition. You got me?”
I laugh into Mason’s chest, and when I’m done laughing, I look up at him and whisper, “Good thing he didn’t know we did it already.”
“Now I know!” his voice booms across the room.
We both jump.
“Mason! You bastard!” He raises a hand and points right at Mason.
We freeze and stare at him, worried he will pull a Mr. Lightner on Mason. Instead, he just starts to laugh. He laughs deep from his gut, and he laughs until tears stream down his face.
“Oh, man,” he says. “High school kids are dumbasses!”
His voice is still a bit slurred, but when he laughs, it sounds better.
“What do you mean?” Mason asks.
“You flushed the condom down the toilet, son,” he says. “I guess you were used to throwing them out the car window. The toilet was clogged, and I found it!”
My face burns, and I look down. I remember telling him the toilet was clogged before I left for school, thinking nothing of it.
“I knew,” Dad says. “That’s why I gave you that talk!”
“Why didn’t you just say you knew?” I ask.
“I didn’t want either of you to know I knew. It would embarrass you. I had a good feeling about Mason, but after I heard about his reputation, I wanted to make sure he wasn’t like that. If you’d have run away, son—I mean right then—I’d have known you didn’t have any balls. But you stuck around...at least until you didnt.”
“He’s back now,” I say. “He’s going to stay with you while I interview on Saturday.”
Mason nods. I see what looks like intense relief washing over him. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere.”
26
Mason
Six Months Later - Boston
My first big client is some asshole professor who stole work from some other asshole professor. They were collaborating together for years, but when Dr. Winchester realized how big the breakthrough really was, he aggressively cut Dr. Nicola out of the project. I don’t pretend to understand all this shit—Sophie tried to explain to me how what Winchester did was technically above board, just sleazy—but all I know is that Winchester has a lot of cash to burn, and that he’s paying me to protect him.
Dr. Nicola was the first guy in the Nicola family to get a real education. His brothers and cousins are all part of the infamous Nicola family, and Nicola had vowed to make a clean break. And what did playing the rules get him? Some asshole using the rules to fuck him over.
I’ve been watching Dr. Nicola. His clean break isn’t so clean anymore. He’s been meeting with two of his cousins—enforcers in the Boston mafia—fairly regularly. Yesterday I saw them holding a photo of Dr. Winchester.
So now I’ve ordered Winchester on full lock-down.
“Look, Mr. Steel,” Winchester says. “I’m paying you to protect me so that I can go about my daily business. I have an important presentation to give today, and being locked inside won’t do.”
“Give me two more days,” I say, “and I’ll get Nicola’s cousins—”
“The lecture is today,” Winchester says, putting on his jacket. “If you try to restrain me, you’re fired.”
Fucking Boston. Ivy League assholes.
“Alright,” I say. “You’re paying me well, Dr. Winchester, but not quite well enough to dive in front of a bullet for you.”
“I know,” he says, straightening his tie. “You’ve got a kid on the way, don’t you? I wouldn’t expect you to take a bullet for me. Just prevent any bullets from being fired in the first place, yes?”
I nod.
Sophie’s not exactly thrilled about this client. And I haven’t even told her that the mafia is involved.
I made it sound more like a pompous professor worried about some amateur attempt at violence. Even that has her worried.
We arrive at the lecture hall, and I stay close by Dr. Winchester. The place is pretty packed, apparently there are a lot of people fucking excited about detecting gravitational waves via quantum foam aberrations in the cosmic microwave background radiation—I’m sure as hell not one of them, though. I only know what a few of those words even mean.
All I gotta do is stop Dr. Nicola’s cousins from shooting Dr. Winchester while he drones on about quarks and bosons.
I definitely won’t take a bullet for him, but if Winchester takes a bullet while under my protection, it might just be the end of my company.
Winchester starts rambling, and the two extra guys I hired on temporary contracts are positioned at both of the back doors. They’re not just guarding the doors, but they’re also watching the crowd from different angles. We’re all wearing earpieces, and at the first sign of something suspicious, we’ll be ready to move.
Winchester starts his lecture. I’ve heard it six times now, which is six t
imes too many.
I watch the crowd, not him. I know what Nicola’s cousins look like, but I don’t expect them to be the ones to do it. They’ll use hired goons. It shouldn’t be too difficult to pick out hired mafia goons in a room full of Ivy League nerds, but as I scan across the room, I realize that it is that hard.
I need something.
I hear Winchester building up to his God awful joke. I’ve googled all the terms in the joke, and I think I sort of get it, but it’s still not funny.
“The Higgs Boson walks into a Catholic church,” Winchester starts, already smiling. “The Priest asks ‘What are you doing here?’ And the Higgs Boson—which can’t smile as it is an elementary particle—says ‘You can’t have mass without me.’”
The room erupts in laughter, even as I roll my eyes.
Then I notice something. There are two men who are not laughing. They look at each other as everyone around them laughs. They don’t get the joke, just like I don’t. They’re bigger men, and they’re here to kill Winchester.
“Two in row six, one balding and the other with an undercut,” I say into the mic.
I consider just pulling Winchester off the stage while my team swarms the two, but I can’t risk a shootout in a crowded lecture hall.
I try to anticipate their plan. The Nicola family may want to send a very public message. Shooting Winchester while he’s on the podium, with everyone watching, would achieve what they want a lot better. But it’s riskier too—and more expensive. Did they pay two guys enough money to almost certainly end up in jail? Or do they want to do this more quietly? If Winchester dies, Nicola will probably get credit back for his work.
From everything I’ve read about Nicola, that’s what he’d prefer. These two assassins will probably go for Winchester after the lecture is over. When everyone is moving around and talking, filing out of the auditorium. Maybe even when Winchester is walking back to his car?
“Keep your eyes open,” I say into the mic. “But don’t spook them.”
I watch and wait. I’ve already decided that if one of the assassins stands up or moves in any way that makes me suspicious, I will dive into Winchester and drag him off stage.
I wait through his entire tedious lecture, and the two assassins stay seated, pretending to be interested with more patience than I myself have.
Winchester takes questions for what feels like hours, and finally the host comes up on stage to say that time is up.
“That went well,” he says to me. “They loved the joke. I put a little extra flair on it.”
I smile and nod.
I decide I’m not going to tell him that two of Nicola’s men are here to kill him. He’d panic. I need to just do my job and take them out. He’s paying me for peace of mind.
Everyone files out of the lecture hall, and my men and I watch intently as the assassins stand up. They split up. One heads for the back entrance, the other for the side door.
“You two on baldie,” I say. “I got the other.”
My men disappear out the back, and I run down toward the side door.
Winchester shouts after me. “What about my protection?”
The side door empties into a hallway, which leads down to a door near the parking garage. I see the door to the garage shutting as I turn the corner.
I race toward it, my hand on my gun.
“Bald guy is milling around the lobby,” one of my men says into the earpiece.
I tear down the hallway, my gun still holstered. This fucker still thinks he’s going to catch Winchester.
I open the door to the garage and do an overly exaggerated sweep, looking left, right, and then forward. “Alright, Dr. Winchester,” I say, facing the empty doorway. “It’s all clear.”
I grab my gun, pull it out of my jacket, and throw it across the floor, pretending I dropped it. It slides across the ground, and I dive toward it, as if I’m a fumbling and incompetent bodyguard.
I hear footsteps moving toward the door. I spin around, my hand on my taser, and I get sight of the guy.
In the fluorescent lights of the garage, I can definitely see that it’s him. He’s drawing his gun, but I’ve already fired the taser.
The coils hit him, and he shakes and convulses. His gun goes off, but misses wildly, and then he drops it.
I drop the taser and rush the guy, kicking him in the head a few times until he’s out cold.
I speak into my earpiece, telling one of my guys to bring Winchester in through the garage. He’s still in danger, but once I get this asshole to the cops, he’ll take a plea deal. He’ll bury Nicola, and my asshole client will be safe.
I get Winchester home just in time to head to the hospital for Sophie’s ultrasound.
Hank is there, too, visiting from Tuckett Bay.
“I didn’t miss it, did I?” I ask.
“Nope,” Sophie says, smiling. “We’re waiting for the ultrasound tech to come back. How was work?”
I’m still sore from cuffing that asshole and dragging his dead weight out to the road for the cops to pick him up.
“It was fine,” I say. “Another boring day.”
I really don’t want Sophie worrying about me. I can take care of myself, and her, and our kid.
“How you feeling, Hank?” I ask.
“Good enough to go shooting again,” he says. “You two should come back next weekend. I can make you lasagna.”
I look over toward Sophie.
“I’m kind of buried in this project...but fine, that’s what weekends are for. Taking breaks, right?”
Hank smiles wide. “That’s right! Now I get to nag you about taking care of yourself, Sophie. You can’t work too hard without taking breaks, not with the baby on the way.”
I nod in agreement. “I nag her, too, Hank, don’t worry.”
Sophie sighs. “I already said I’d go, no need to keep nagging me.”
I pull her in and kiss her. We both smile, and I put a hand on her stomach. “You think it’s a boy or a girl?”
Sophie shrugs. “Women say they can tell, but I think that’s just wishful thinking. I read a study on it, and—”
“No one wants to hear about studies,” Hank says. “Guess! Boy or a girl?”
Sophie shrugs. “Girl? Boy? Feels like either to me.”
“Boring,” Hank says. “What do you think, Mason?”
“It will be our kid,” I say, grinning. “That’s what I think, and that’s all that matters to me. Boy or girl.”
“Ah!” Hank grunts. “You guys are boring. I want a boy!”
“Why’s that?” I ask.
“I told you before, Mason. There’s always been a woman in my life, getting on my case. I want a grandson!”
Sophie laughs. “Alright, Dad, I’ll do my best to give you a grandson who won’t get on your case.”
There’s a knock on the door, and the ultrasound technician comes into the room.
She looks at me. “Oh, you’re the husband?”
I nod.
“Lucky lady,” she says, looking over at Sophie. “We ready?”
All three of us nod.
The technician gets the gel tube out.
“Is this going to be freezing cold?” Sophie asks.
“Nope,” the technician says. “It’s pressurized and warmed these days.”
“Ah!” Sophie says, eyes widening as the gel hits her. “That is warm, it feels almost like—”
She puts a hand over her mouth. The technician laughs, and Hank’s face burns red.
“Let’s see what we got here,” the technician says. “I knew I had a girl even before I got an ultrasound. Women just know. What do you think it is?”
Sophie gives me a wide-eyed look, and I stifle laughter.
“Grandpa wants a boy,” Sophie says, avoiding the question.
The technician turns the screen toward us. “I think everyone’s going to be happy then.”
“You didn’t even ask Mason if he wanted a boy or a girl,” Hank says. “How
do you know?”
The technician points to the screen. I lean in, squinting. I can’t make sense of what I’m seeing. There’s too much on the screen, too much for just a baby.
“Twins,” the technician says. “One boy, one girl.”
Hank jumps up and fist pumps, and I fall back against my chair, my mouth gaping wide.
Sophie laughs.
“Twins,” I whisper. “A boy and a girl…”
Sophie grabs my hand, and she looks at me with gleaming lips and glittering eyes. Something washes over me. An intense feeling of well-being, and I realize what it is. I haven’t had a family in over a decade, and now—because of Sophie and Hank—I have a family again. I have a home, and no matter what happens or where we go together, that home will always stay with me.
Also by Melinda Minx
Single Dad’s Bride
I have one month to find a bride or I lose my daughter.
They say a tattoo artist with a dirty mouth can’t be a kickass father.
Bullsh*t. But my lawyer says I need a wholesome bride to convince the judge.
I know just the perfect girl—hell—I think she might even be a virgin.
Only problem? She’s my sister’s best friend, and she hates my guts.
Buy on Amazon or read free on Kindle Unlimited!
Also by Melinda Minx
Jacked: A Secret Baby Romance
Never stand between two brothers.
Especially when one’s a big bad lumberjack, and the other is blackmailing you.
I have to steal a priceless family ring—right off the lumberjack’s finger.
I’ll have to get close. Really close. Close enough to taste him.
I seduce him, I jack the ring, and I get away clean. Almost clean…
About the Author
Melinda Minx lives in Pittsburgh with her loyal Corgi. She writes late into the night with a hot cup of Earl Grey. Like her page on Facebook and join her mailing list to stay up to date on new releases, extended epilogues, and free promotions.