Further proof that she was right where she belonged.
As my father ate his cookies, he and Jess chatted about everything, and about nothing. My mother sat in her usual spot at the end of the loveseat with her dog at her side, watching the Kansas Jayhawks play basketball.
When we got up to leave four hours later, my father stood and opened his arms. Jess wasn’t thrilled about having people touch her. It caused her anxiety. It was a ritual in our home to hug, and something Jess would just have to get used to.
With slight reluctance, she hugged my father. I did the same. Then, we both hugged my mother. After gathering the children, we turned toward the door.
“See you next Sunday, sweetheart,” my father said.
Jess looked at me.
“You don’t need that idiot’s approval,” my father said. “You can come without him.”
I gave a nod.
Jess looked at my father and grinned. “We’ll see you next week.”
“I’ll just sit my fat ass right here and wait for you,” he said. “How’s that?”
She smiled. “Okay.”
We opened the front door for Landon and Lily, and then gestured toward the car. As they walked through the door, my father cleared his throat.
“Hey Jess,” he said.
She turned around. “Yes?”
“You should probably call the city manager. Maybe see about filing a lawsuit against the city of Wichita.”
Her eyes went thin. “For what?”
“Building the sidewalks too close to your ass,” he said with a laugh.
She looked at me. “I don’t get it,” she whispered.
“You will,” I said. “Here in a minute or two.”
On the way home, she did.
“I like your dad,” she said. “Your mom, too.”
“I think it’s safe to say they like you, too,” I said.
There were three more people in my life that I needed to accept Jess.
My children.
That acceptance, however, wasn’t going to come easily.
Chapter Thirty-One
My lingering fear of Jessica’s ex resurfacing had vanished. I felt relieved enough to begin writing again. For several days I sat at my computer and stared blankly at the screen. I needed to start a new book and wasn’t certain of who my Hero and heroine might be.
Then, it came to me. I would write a book about a man who was protective. A man who was exposed to a woman that was living under the abusive thumb of her lover. The Hero would meet her and then walk away. She would then develop the courage to leave her ex, no differently than Jessica did.
Two years later, by happenstance, the Hero would meet her again. Her ex would resurface, and the Hero’s friend would step in.
In two weeks the book was complete. The Hero was, at least in my opinion, a facsimile of me. The heroine, in many respects, was Jess.
The Hero was a loner, a boxer, and a biker. He had yet to be beaten in his professional career. I named the book Undefeated. It, too, had ended on a happy for now note, with the intention of writing at least two more books to complete the series.
Days after publishing the book, I knew I’d written something very special. It was difficult to argue. The book was being discussed by readers and reviewers all over the internet. Before the book had been out a week, it hit number one in erotic romance, and remained there for roughly a week.
My father called one afternoon mid-week, out of the blue. I answered the phone, knowing a congratulatory call was his intention.
“Damned good boxing scenes, Son,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“The boxing scenes. They were breathtaking. Hard to believe you wrote those. Did some research, did you?”
“Quite a bit,” I responded. “Read a few books on how to train boxers and skimmed a few about managing them.”
“Well, it shows. That book was one good son-of-a-bitch.”
It then dawned on me that he’d read the book.
“Damn it, Pop. I asked you not to read those books.”
“No, you asked me not to read that Baby Girl shit.”
“It’s not shit.”
“Well, that’s what you asked me not to read. You failed to tell me not to read this one. Amazon recommended it, so I bought it. Glad I did,” he said. “You going to write a follow-up for this book?”
“I’ll see how it goes.”
“Write the next one about Ripton. I’m telling you, they’ll eat it up. He’s funny, he’s protective, and he’s built like a brick shithouse. The women will love him.”
“They might not love him as much as you do.”
“I think you might be surprised.”
“I suppose time will tell,” I responded.
“I’m telling ya, I loved that scene with him and that fucktard Josh. Speaking of that, your buddies didn’t chop that fellas fingers off, did they?”
“I don’t know what happened,” I replied. “They won’t tell me.”
“Probably best,” he said. “Man can’t get in trouble for what he doesn’t know.”
“I suppose.”
“I like that gal,” he said. “A whole hell of a lot. That’s saying something, you know.”
“Who? Kace?” I asked, referencing the heroine in the book.
“No, you dip-shit. Jess.”
“Oh,” I said with a laugh. “Me, too.”
“I’ve got shit to do around here,” he said. “I can’t fuck around and blab with you all day. I’ll see you and your family on Sunday.”
“See you then, Pop.”
“Talk to you soon.”
After I hung up, I realized what he’d said. You and your family. As permanent as my relationship with Jess felt, it didn’t seem that we were a family yet. With her living in one place and me in the other, I felt like I was in high school, dating again.
I’d been single and living alone for damned near a decade, all told. Doing anything differently would be a difficult task for me, but it was something Jess and I needed to discuss, nonetheless.
I planned on doing just that.
Soon.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I developed issues with picking up my mail when I was going through my court proceedings. At the time, it seemed every time I got the mail, there was something bad in it. Another court date, civil action lawsuit, or a six-figure bill from my attorney.
As a result, I rarely picked up my mail.
The arrangement in the building regarding mail was fairly simple. On the first floor, beside the exit, there was a mail room. Each tenant was provided a locked box, and the number on the box corresponded with their respective house number.
The boxes were large in comparison to the Post Office’s PO boxes. They were able to hold small packages and a considerable amount of mail, or a medium sized box. The large size allowed me to leave my mail unattended for months at a time, which worked well with my writing schedule and my mental mail disorder.
Typically, I’d open the box, pick up the four-inch high stack of envelopes, flip through them, and pick out the important objects. What remained would then be discarded.
I looked at it this way: if anyone wanted to say something to me they could do it in person.
My bills were paid online. Neither my family nor the fellas sent me letters. Therefore, I really didn’t need anything the mail had to offer me.
I found the first three and a half years that I’d refrained from day-to-day mail recovery to be extremely rewarding. Then, I had a run-in with the mailman. A head-on collision was more like it.
Early in my writing career, I was being paid by Amazon in the form of a check. I didn’t have a bank account at the time. The only way I could be paid was by receiving a paper check.
In hope of finding my first check, I went to the mailbox. Upon opening it, I found an official document that was dated roughly two months prior. It advised me that the box was too full to accept any additional mail, and that the contents
of my box had been taken to the post office.
My mail delivery service had then been placed on hold.
As fate would have it, the mailman was delivering mail at the time. I read the note, and then looked at the mailman. “You took my mail to the post office?”
“Excuse me?” he asked over his shoulder.
“My mail.” I raised the cute little card he left me. “You left this card in the box.”
“Oh. Yeah. Three sixteen. The box was full. When I can’t stuff another piece of mail inside the box, I’m required to return it to the post office. Then the box is then declared vacant.”
“You’re telling me you couldn’t stuff another piece of mail in this box?” I asked, my tone rising right along with my level of anger. “Not another envelope, or anything?”
He turned back to his little bucket of mail and began sorting. “It was full.”
“I’m not done talking to you,” I said. “I’m expecting a paycheck. I need to get my mail.”
“You’ll have to call the postmaster,” he said over his shoulder. “They’ll pull your mail, and then you can go pick it up.”
At the time, I didn’t have a car. Going to the post office would have meant taking a four-mile hike. It wasn’t something I was interested in doing any more times than I had to.
“Don’t take my mail out of this box again,” I said. “I know good and goddamned well you could have stuffed another envelope in there. Hell, you could put a Jack Russel terrier in there. Or, a fucking duck. It wasn’t full.”
He peered over his shoulder. His mouth was twisted into an ornery smirk. “It was full.”
“Bullshit,” I growled. “If you do it again, I’ll bust you in the lip.”
He stood from his crouched position and straightened his posture. “If you strike me, you’ll be charged with a federal offense.”
Dressed in a pair of jeans, a wife beater, and a pair of lace-up leather boots, I flexed my tattooed biceps and shot him a glare. “Do I look like I’m afraid of doing a federal prison sentence? It wouldn’t be my first,” I seethed. “Don’t fuck with my mail again.”
I stomped to my loft. After calling the postmaster, I scheduled the pickup of my mail. Teddy took me to get it. When we returned, I sifted through the mounds of envelopes and found the paycheck. Then, I discarded the rest.
After obtaining a bank account, I made it a point to pick up my mail every other month. I also made sure to pick it up at exactly ten am, when the mailman was delivering the mail. It allowed me to mean mug him while he filled the boxes.
It didn’t make him feel very comfortable, but it gave me tremendous satisfaction.
A few months later, I opened the box to find another card. The rule abiding mailman was unloading mail from his fancy little mail bucket at the time. I looked at the card. The hand-written date was the very date I held it in my hand.
I looked in his little plastic bucket. A wad of mail bound by rubber bands looked back at me.
I shot him a glare. “Give me my fucking mail.”
“The box was full again,” he said flatly.
“Give me my goddamned mail.”
His tone changed to one of authority. “You’ll need to call the postmaster—”
I really didn’t need the mail. There was nothing in it I wanted, I simply didn’t want him to have the satisfaction of taking it.
“Give me the mail, or I’ll put hands on you,” I said through my teeth. “That, my friend, is a promise.”
“You’ll be charged with—”
“I don’t give a shit. You’ve got a decision to make,” I warned. “Either give me the mail, or I’ll whip your mailman ass all the way to your truck.”
He blinked a few times but didn’t say a word.
“What’ll it be?” I asked.
After a few seconds, he gave me the bound stack of mail. With my eyes fixed on him, and without looking at the mail, I dropped it into the trash can.
“That’s what I think of your mail,” I said.
I laughed to myself all the way back to my loft.
Two months later, I got a notice in the mail that my driver’s license had been suspended due to not paying a traffic ticket. A notice was received to return to court and resolve the issue, but I didn’t get it. Apparently, it was in what I’d thrown in the trash during my fit of mailman-fueled rage.
I’d received the ticket while Teddy and I were in a movie together. I took exception to the infraction. Technically, I wasn’t parked in a parking stall. I was parked along a path – a sidewalk, if you will – that would have been used by a wheelchair bound patron for egress from the building.
Parking on a sidewalk was a fifty dollar fine. Parking in a handicap stall was a one hundred and fifty dollar fine. In court, I demanded the ticket be changed to the former; parking on the sidewalk.
The court refused to change it.
So, I refused to pay it.
Now, a year later, I got another reminder that I didn’t have a driver’s license. It went on to say if the issue wasn’t resolved within one hundred and eighty days that they would issue a warrant for my arrest.
I stomped to my loft and threw open the door. Teddy was standing at my kitchen island with a bowl of cereal in his hand.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Fucking cock suckers,” I fumed, tossing the notice on the counter.
He swallowed what he was chewing. “Who?”
“Cops. Court. All of them.”
It seemed he lacked interest. He took another bite. Slowly, he chewed it. After swallowing, he drank the milk from the bowl before acknowledging that I’d so much as spoken.
“What about ‘em?” he asked, deadpan.
I waved my hand toward the letter. “They suspended my license.”
He put the bowl in the sink, and then turned around. “Again?”
“No, not again. Same deal. Just sent me a reminder. Said I’ve got six months to get it resolved or they’re going to arrest me.”
“Better pay it,” he said.
“I’ll never pay that ticket. I’ll burn in hell first. I wasn’t parked in a handicapped stall. I was on the same fucking sidewalk you were.”
He picked the cereal from his teeth with his fingernails. “I paid mine.”
“You’re a pacifist,” I said. “I’m not.”
He picked up the gallon of milk and took a drink from the carton. When he lowered it, he grinned. “Pacifist with a driver’s license.”
“How many times have I told you not to drink from the carton?”
He looked at the milk, and then at me. He shrugged. “I don’t know. Hundred, maybe. I forget where I am.”
Teddy was like Kramer on Seinfeld. He, Chico, and Jess all had a key to my loft. He used his as if the residence was his own, coming in at any time of the day or night without so much as a knock. I’d often come out of my bathroom to find him standing in the kitchen eating something. I’d even got out of bed in the morning only to find him in my bathroom taking a shit.
“Dump it out, drink it, or put a big ‘X’ on it,” I said. “I don’t want to be drinking after your nasty bearded ass.”
He lifted the carton and took another swig.
Personally, I detested milk. The only reason I had it was for cereal. Drinking it was impossible. Teddy, on the other hand, carried a carton of it in his truck and would drink it at room temperature.
The front door opened, and Jess walked in. “Hey, Teddy.”
He grinned and set down the milk. “Jess!”
He wiped the milk from his beard. Then, he walked around the edge of the island and hugged her. “Scott’s going back to jail.”
She alternated glances between the two of us. “He better not be.”
“He is,” Teddy said. “In six months.”
She shot me a glare. “What’d you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Didn’t pay his ticket,” Teddy said.
“What ticket?” she asked.
Teddy picked up the carton of milk and took a drink. “Parking ticket.”
“They won’t take you to jail for not paying a parking ticket,” Jess said.
“When he got mad and stomped out of court, there were a couple of others he was supposed to pay. He didn’t pay any of ‘em,” Teddy said. “He ripped them up and made it rain. Now he says it’s a matter of principle.”
“Fuck you, Teddy.”
Jess looked at me. “What’s going on?”
I shrugged dismissively. “Didn’t pay a ticket. Got my license suspended. Got six months to pay it. If not, they issue a warrant.”
She cocked her hip. “You don’t have a license?”
“I’ve got one in my money clip. But, technically, no.”
She lowered her chin and gave me the angry wife side-eyed glare. “Since when?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know.”
“Year,” Teddy said. “Maybe more.”
“You haven’t had a license for a year?” she shrieked.
“Probably not.”
“You’re not driving your car anymore,” she said. “Until it’s resolved.”
Upon hearing her command, Teddy’s eyes went wide.
I glared at her. “Excuse me?”
Teddy eyes shot to Jess. He took another quick swig of milk.
Jess cleared her throat and then raised her index finger. “If you want to continue to see me, I suggest you consider refraining from driving your car. How’s that?”
“Seriously?” I asked.
“It’s ridiculous,” she said, her tone laced with frustration. “I’m not walking home because you get arrested and your car gets impounded. What if the kids are with us?”
“Fine,” I said. “You can be my chauffeur.”
“I’ll do it for six months, and that’s it. Then, you’re on your own.”
With the milk in hand, Teddy looked at her and whistled through his teeth.
I shot him a look. “What was that for?”
“God gave her a set of nuts that were so big he had to put ‘em on her chest.”
Teddy was right. Jess had a set of balls. I laughed to myself at the courage she’d developed but didn’t show it outwardly. Seeing her growth, however, was rewarding.
LOVER COME BACK_An Unbelievable But True Love Story Page 14